**an assignment for my writing class once**

"Should we go get some coffee?" I asked my friend and detective partner, Mackenzie Anderson.

"Why not?" she replied. We stepped outside into the warm Californian air and set off across the bridge over the highway.

That's when I noticed something peculiar. There was a large, black leather purse sitting on the walkway next to a carefully folded coat. I pointed this out to Mackenzie and we both bent down to examine it.

Also black, the coat was made of heavy material. The torn lining appeared to be mended in several places and the fur collar and cuffs were worn. We looked inside the purse for clues, but there was no credit card, driver's license or any other links to whose purse it might be. As far as money went, there was a silver dollar and some change. We also found a ticket stub from Greyhound Bus Lines, a small packet of tissues, a can opener, a pocket knife, a deck of cards and an unopened package of crackers.

"Should we take this back?" I asked Mackenzie. She held up a finger, signaling for me to wait. After examining the purse for a few seconds, she pulled out the package of crackers, opened it, and took a small bite off of one.

"Stale," she muttered. "Yes, I think we can bring these back. They've been here for a while." We gathered the things and returned home, coffee forgotten. I observed the items more and Mackenzie checked for finger prints. Unfortunately, the wind and the rain had cleared them all away, so we couldn't come to any conclusions.

Later that day, though we were distracted by a phone call. A woman named Leah Miller wished to set up and appointment with us. We told her to come as soon as she could, so we put away the coat and the purse for now.

"Good afternoon," Mackenzie welcomed our guest. "Please come in." We showed her to the living room and began our discussion.

"So, tell me," Mackenzie began. "What is it that you want our assistance for?"

"Lately my sister, Christa Miller, has been behaving strangely," Leah explained. "She has refused to come visit me multiple times, when usually she would jump for any excuse to leave her Wisconsin home and come visit me in warm and sunny California. She has also quit her job. Quit, I tell you, she wasn't fired. She loved her job. And she needed the money, too. Which leads me to the next point: she has been sending me extremely expensive gifts, almost as if to make up for her not visiting. I don't see where she can find the money."

"Can you tell us about your sister before this change?" Mackenzie requested.

"Like what?"

"Her personality, what her job was, things like that," Mackenzie clarified.

"Well, she was a nice person if nothing else. She always sent me gifts, though nothing like what she is sending me now. She was never one to save money, and so she didn't usually have a lot on hand. But her job was working at the local US Bank."

"Would she be the type of person who would... I'm not trying to insult her or anything... but would she be the type of person who might rob a bank?"

"Oh, um, well..." I could see from her face that Leah was slightly insulted by this question, but still she had to admit that there was at least a small possibility that Mackenzie was right. "I guess... maybe. But probably not."

"Ok. When did this change happen, roughly, do you know?"

"I can't be positive, but I first noticed when I e-mailed her and asked her to come and visit in late October. Rather than accepting my invitation, she replied with a letter telling me she was sorry, but she could not come, along with a diamond necklace. She has been doing similar things ever since."

"I'll be right back," Mackenzie muttered. She got up and hurried into the other room. When she came back she was carrying the coat and purse from the earlier that day. "I doubt I'm right, but a few of the clues add up correctly." Looking at Leah she said, "By some stroke of luck, could these possibly be your sister's?" Leah took them and looked over them. Her eyes widened.

"They are!" she exclaimed, shocked. "I recognize them from last time she visited."

"When was that?" Mackenzie pushed, intrigued.

"Last August. But how did you know?" Leah still seemed stunned by the fact that we had her sister's things.

"Quite honestly, I didn't. But a few of the clues made sense. She had a bus ticket, so if she didn't want to drive she could take a bus to your home. She'd have the crackers and the deck of cards to endure the long ride. The coat was too heavy to ever be needed in California. It was mended in several places, which leads to me believing that the owner was not extremely wealthy. You said that your sister was not rich. Again, there was no sure proof that it was hers, but I had to ask."

"Where did you find them?" Leah was full of questions. I could see this was bothering Mackenzie, having to answer so many questions instead asking them.

"We found them on the bridge over the highway. Now, can we please get back to the point? Tell me about your sister's last visit, please."

"Yes, sorry. Well, she came to visit last August, as I said earlier. She was acting perfectly normal then. We went shopping, had dinner out at a restaurant, and spent an afternoon at the beach. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Do you have any idea how long the purse and coat have been sitting there?" I asked Mackenzie.

"Well... I can assume that they would be in worse condition than they are if they had been sitting there since August," She replied. "Being December now, it seems more like they would have been sitting here since her change in September. You're sure she has not come here since August?"

"Well, not to visit me at least." Leah answered, shrugging.

"Hmm. Would you mind coming to visit again tomorrow afternoon? Perhaps at three o'clock? I need a little time to think this over," Mackenzie requested thoughtfully.

"That would work. Do you have any ideas?" She added, suddenly intrigued.

"Not really. But after I spend some time thinking... Well, I'll tell you any leads I may have tomorrow."

"'Bye!" Leah called as she walked out the door.

"'Bye," Mackenzie answered. "Thank you for coming to us with your case."

After Leah had left, Mackenzie got out a piece of blank paper and a pen and sat down at the kitchen table. This was her way of dealing with mysteries: she would simply write down anything to do with the case, any clues or leads she had, and the people, places and dates of the mystery. This helped her to see any connections between clues. She would go off into her own world, one that I was not part of. If she figured anything out, she wouldn't even tell me, she would wait until her research was complete. Sometimes this bothered me, because it made me feel totally useless. She wouldn't let me help her even if I really wanted to. I wasn't much of a sidekick when it came to this part of solving a mystery.

Her next step was to look over newspaper articles and happenings on the dates around the mystery, or things to do with subjects of the case. This time she would probably look up important events that had happened in late to middle October, any news on U.S. Banks, and any jewelry store crimes (there was always a possibility that she had stolen the diamond necklace and other expensive gifts).

After about three hours, Mackenzie came out of her trance and began to tell me her findings. "This is an interesting case," she began. "Leah described no real crime, just a change in behavior. But I believe that there may have been a crime that Leah did not know about. I will need to collect a few more facts to prove this correct, but let me describe it to you. Sit down; this may be a long story." We got comfortable on our chairs in the living room as she began to explain.

"From simply looking at all of the clues written down, I had no ideas. The research of current events is what gave me this lead. So, a big crime in the middle of October was the robbing of a bank. A U.S. Bank, right here in L.A."

"So you do think Christa robbed the bank?"

"I think she was part of the gang that robbed the bank. Leah didn't seem to think that it was really in her character to commit a robbery, so perhaps she was in this gang and they forced her to help. She was probably very unwilling about it. It makes sense, really. I bet they bribed her with a large sum of money for the facts and to keep quiet. According to Leah, she wasn't rich and so she could probably use that money. She would be able to send the expensive gifts to her sister, and I suppose she would be afraid to come near the site of the robbing."

"And she quit her job so as to make it harder for anyone to suspect her. Plus she wouldn't need the money," I added. "But how do you know that there was a gang who robbed the bank?"

"They suspect that a gang robbed it from certain clues. But they don't have any idea just who is part of the gang, which is quite a large problem."

"So we need to talk to Christa, don't we?" I concluded. Mackenzie confirmed my suspicion.

So we called Leah to tell her our leads. She didn't believe that Christa would help a bank robbery, but once we told her all of the evidence, she agreed that under pressure Christa may have given in. Mackenzie and I got Christa's address from Leah and we made plans to fly to Wisconsin the next day.

Our plane ride was nothing out of the ordinary. Mackenzie and I discussed what questions we would ask Christa and what the best way would be to get her to tell the truth. We decided that we would bend the truth and say that we were investigating all U.S. Bank workers on whether or not they had seen any suspicious customers or if they knew anything about the robbery. Christa could get mad if we tell her that her sister came to us, so we chose not to mention Leah in all of this.

When we finally arrived in the Milwaukee airport we took a taxi to Christa's apartment. I checked the address once more and we came to a halt in front of Christa's door. We knocked.

"Hello?" a slightly nervous-looking woman greeted us.

"Are you Christa Miller?" Mackenzie asked.

"Yes... who are you?"

"I am Mackenzie Anderson, and this is my partner Alice Henry. We are sleuths and we have been assigned the task of investigating all U.S. Bank workers about the robbery in October. Could we come in?" At the words "robbery in October" Christa's eyes widened anxiously.

"Well, um, yes, I guess so," she muttered and she led us into the apartment. The interior was rather small, cluttered with many different objects. There did seem to be quite a few expensive objects, such as jewelry, decorations and electronic devices. "Come sit down." She sat down on a battered chair and motioned for us to follow suit.

"So, tell us what you know about this robbery," Mackenzie demanded, wasting no time.

"It happened in California. A gang did it."

"Anything besides the obvious?" She shook her head. "Then we will have to investigate. I'm very sorry about this." Mackenzie stood and I followed. She walked into the kitchen, where after a while of searching she found nothing. There wasn't anything in the small living room where we had just left or in her bedroom. Next to check was a small office.

Mackenzie turned on the computer and sat down. When it was ready she examined all of Christa's documents but apparently found nothing out of the ordinary. Next she opened Christa's email program. I couldn't see what Mackenzie was reading, she was going so fast. This was what really annoyed me, when she wouldn't tell me anything she was up to. Although she was not at home using her normal detective methods, Mackenzie had gone off into one of her trances. She dialed Leah's number and talked very quickly to her.

"Hey Leah, I've got some questions for you. You said that Christa hasn't visited since August? Strange. Hmm. Yeah, I'm at her place now. Did you email her on October 10th about her coming over? You didn't? Huh. Okay, well that's it, talk to you later." I just realized that Christa had been there standing anxiously, watching us the whole time. Mackenzie didn't seem to care, or maybe she didn't even notice.

But now her attention was turned to Christa. "You lied," Mackenzie accused simply. "You knew about the robbery, you took part in it. And I'm not looking for alibi."

Suddenly Christa snapped. "They made me!" she burst into tears. "I had no choice!" I realized now that Mackenzie had discovered something very important in Christa's emails that she had not told me about.

"What's going on here?" I shouted over Christa's sobs.

"Christa did not rob the bank. That was a red herring. Here's my deduction, which I believe is correct: Christa gave all the necessary information to the gang who robbed the bank. The gang hacked into Leah's email account and asked Christa to come and meet Leah in California. When Christa told her flight arrival time and other details like that through email, the gang came and kidnapped Christa before she could even talk to Leah. Then Christa gave them the information and the robbery took place. They left her purse and coat on the bridge incase she had any hidden weapons. Any evidence of her identification was removed so that no one came looking for her. They took all of her money from the purse before they left. I suppose they gave you some of the money back though, as a bribe, Christa?"

"Yes, they gave me money to keep quiet. But they threatened to kill me if I didn't give them the information. What could I do?"

"I believe that you can avoid any problems with the law if you return the money and assist us in locating the gang. Can you do that?"

"Yes, certainly!" Christa exclaimed, looking very relieved at that suggestion. "Thank you so much. But I have one question. How did you figure this all out?"

"Well, it starts with a witness: your sister, Leah. She came to me and told me of the strange behaviors that you seemed to have developed recently. She also gave us some basic information about you. We found your coat and purse on the side of a bridge from when you came in October. I did some research and found a U.S. Bank robbery that had happened around the time of your change, and the facts fit. At first we thought that you had been part of a gang, but perhaps not interested in something as serious as robbing a bank. That was wrong, but we had the other facts right: the gang had bribed you with money, you used that money to buy gifts for your sister to cover up for your not wanting to go back to the crime scene, you had quit your job for fear of being suspected, etc. We decided we had to come here to get more evidence."

Mackenzie explained about how we were lying when we said we were appointed the task of interrogating all U.S. Bank workers, and luckily Christa wasn't mad. She told Christa (and me, for this was new information to me, too) about the clues she had found in her emails. Mackenzie had spotted an email from October 10th asking Christa to go and visit Leah. Christa had replied back that she would come. When Mackenzie had called Leah, though, she reported that Christa hadn't visited her since August. Using her wacky detective skills, Mackenzie had somehow been able to figure out that the gang had hacked into Leah's email to get Christa to California. It was beyond me how my partner could figure things out so quickly.

In the end, things worked out fine. Combining Christa's knowledge and Mackenzie's detective skills, they managed to find the gang after a week of searching. The gang was arrested and Christa was safe out of jail (although she did have to give up the money). As for me and Mackenzie, once this was all over and done with, we sat back, relaxed and waited for another mystery to come our way.