“Captain,” the detective said, “we know that women are not often grab and go thieves.”
“In the past, that was true, but in the present time, I’d believe anything. How do you explain what Mrs. Johnson saw? What about the shoe in the gutter?”
Across town, Gracie was making her way home on the side streets and alleyways. She had taken off the hat and wig she had worn and ditched them. It had been slow going. She was walking with just one shoe.
“There is another mystery,” the Captain commented. “I find it really coincidental that the thief grabbed Mrs. Johnson’s purse. No one could have believed she would have $10,000 U.S. dollars in cash in that handbag.”
“Hmm…why didn’t the thief pick a rich-looking woman?” asked the detective.
Gracie was finally home. There it was, all $10,000 of it. She thought back at the conversation she had overheard between her boss and a friend. The friend had a debt to pay, and she was musing on when and where she had to go to get the money.
Little Eddie ran into the room and Gracie bent to hug him.
“Mommy,” he said, “where’s your other shoe?”
“Don’t worry, Eddie. We can afford to buy shoes now.”
The Captain started looking at the pictures a bystander had taken of the robbery. The face of the thief was clear and familiar to him. Even though the hair was different, that was Gracie’s face. Gracie, his housekeeper.
Thank you to Ayr/Gray for hosting the #unicornchallenge!
The Write Scribe 
A crime story that highlights the shame of our modern society, Rosemary.
What’s right and what’s wrong in a society where honest people struggle to make ends meet?
And yet actions have consequences – what will happen to Mrs Johnson if she can’t pay her debt?
And can Grace even allow herself to think of that?
A thought-provoking story.
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Thank you, Jenne!
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Oh, dear. Gracie’s got some explaining to do! Caught on film.
Nicely plotted and played out, RM. I enjoyed your crime story.
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Thank you, Nancy. Not my usual genre although I think of more and more of them these days!
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How can you not, when the tabloids are full of crimes, both true and false? I hate the newspapers …. only good for lining birdcages!
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We don’t even get a hometown newspaper now. We get our news from the city near us and they don’t have a printed paper. You have to subscribe online! I read most of my news online and there isn’t much good news, is there? So I’m drawn to crime stories!
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Same here. IMO, you can’t go wrong with a great PBS or BBC series. There is nothing worth viewing on American TV except Jeopardy and repeats of Seinfeld.
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You’re right, Nancy. I like very little on U.S. television. We do the streaming thing, so that gives us a few more options. I seldom even watch TV unless we are having a weather event. I do watch something on PBS or the BBC from time to time. Also, if you stream, you have access to a number of decent TV series on one streaming channel or another. But they are few and far between.
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Unless it’s something that grabs me, TV puts me to sleep so I rarely watch. I’d rather listen to music or a baseball game on the radio. Besides, who has time with all this storytelling and music blogging? I’m taking a summer break from music posts to concentrate on my stories and learn some new forms of poetry. This old dog ain’t dead yet!
Enjoy a lovely weekend, RM. It’s gorgeous here in NY.
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Ditto for me. Not dead yet. Lol. We are basketball freaks because I graduated twice from the University of Kentucky! So that’s what we do in the winter. It’s also nice here this weekend. 70ish and sun. You, too, have a great weekend.
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if only she had worn sunglasses or a phony nose or both!
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Oh no. I can’t help but feel sorry for Gracie. She really didn’t plan this well, despite her disguise efforts. Nice twist at the end.
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Looks like Little Eddie will be going barefoot for a few years yet!
Neat story, Rosemary
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Drat! This is me!
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Thank you!
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It is?!
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