Friday, March 30, 2007
When I woke up this morning, an envelope had
been shoved under my door.
The return address was a printed label that said:
HAND DELIVER
And it had my Brooklyn home address.
I opened the envelope. Inside, another photograph:
And a note (not laser printed; it looked like it was from a typewriter, maybe a Smith-Corona, ca. 1962)
Ms. Hansen-Young -
My name is Tucker. I am a faithful blog reader. I saw LeDuck, and felt a strong kinship with Claude Duluc, Detective. You crafted his character so well that I thought you must have an affinity for detectives and mysteries. I read your bio, and see you're a member of Mystery Writers of America. I'd like to hire you to solve this mystery.
I've been in Shanghai on business for six weeks. I returned Sunday to find that someone had not only stripped my apartment bare, but had gutted all the appliances, everything, including kitchen tiles. The only thing left behind was the photograph of beets and drooling grapes that I left under your door two days ago (I admit, to intrigue you).
I want you to find out who did this, and why. When I know who they are, I will decide either to go to the police or take corrective action on my own.
I sympathize with you re your broken leg - several years ago, in Rio, I narrowly missed being hit by a train - but in the jump, I landed wrong - fractured my leg. It's no fun. But I think you can start with Google, at home.
Report on progress in your blog. I'll communicate by posting private comments back. If the details are such that they should not be made public, create a private password protected blog and we'll use that. Oh, and I'm enclosing the first payment."
In the envelope, 20 crisp new $100 bills. Were these real? Was this a hoax? I admit, I was intrigued. Very, very intrigued. On the other hand, there are a lot of nuts out there. They email me all the time. This could be one of them. But why go to all this trouble? Why put cash under my door? Was this a set-up? How the hell can I figure out who stripped his apartment if I didn't even know what the address of the apartment was?
I don't know. Tucker, these are some of my thoughts. I really have to think about this, and I think I really need to insist on the address of your apartment - or some other kind of ID. I await your comments.
The return address was a printed label that said:
HAND DELIVER
And it had my Brooklyn home address.
I opened the envelope. Inside, another photograph:
And a note (not laser printed; it looked like it was from a typewriter, maybe a Smith-Corona, ca. 1962)
Ms. Hansen-Young -
My name is Tucker. I am a faithful blog reader. I saw LeDuck, and felt a strong kinship with Claude Duluc, Detective. You crafted his character so well that I thought you must have an affinity for detectives and mysteries. I read your bio, and see you're a member of Mystery Writers of America. I'd like to hire you to solve this mystery.
I've been in Shanghai on business for six weeks. I returned Sunday to find that someone had not only stripped my apartment bare, but had gutted all the appliances, everything, including kitchen tiles. The only thing left behind was the photograph of beets and drooling grapes that I left under your door two days ago (I admit, to intrigue you).
I want you to find out who did this, and why. When I know who they are, I will decide either to go to the police or take corrective action on my own.
I sympathize with you re your broken leg - several years ago, in Rio, I narrowly missed being hit by a train - but in the jump, I landed wrong - fractured my leg. It's no fun. But I think you can start with Google, at home.
Report on progress in your blog. I'll communicate by posting private comments back. If the details are such that they should not be made public, create a private password protected blog and we'll use that. Oh, and I'm enclosing the first payment."
In the envelope, 20 crisp new $100 bills. Were these real? Was this a hoax? I admit, I was intrigued. Very, very intrigued. On the other hand, there are a lot of nuts out there. They email me all the time. This could be one of them. But why go to all this trouble? Why put cash under my door? Was this a set-up? How the hell can I figure out who stripped his apartment if I didn't even know what the address of the apartment was?
I don't know. Tucker, these are some of my thoughts. I really have to think about this, and I think I really need to insist on the address of your apartment - or some other kind of ID. I await your comments.
