Last week we made some brownies for a going away party we attended.  There were four little bites left which were going to be dessert for the girls the next night.

Here’s what I know.  There were four brownie bites on the plate AFTER Allen left for work in the morning, thereby giving him an alibi.  I glanced at the plate while I was making dinner and there were only two bites left.  Huh?  I grilled Kate first because I’d caught her in a lie earlier in the day and I was sensing a pattern.  Even though I am a practiced interrogater I couldn’t get her to crack.

We ate dinner outside and Allen and I lingered with Jill over the end of the meal.  Kate took off into the house immediately and Ellie went into the house to empty the dishwasher.  When Allen and I finally made it into the house there was only ONE brownie bite left. I grilled Ellie AND Kate and nothing.  Somebody was lying.

Okay, we had a real mystery on our hands and nobody was fessing up.  Allen and I decided that the girls need to have a pow wow.  We told them that they needed to talk amongst themselves and figure out who done it.  We told them that the perpatrator needed to apologize to the other two (since they didn’t get to eat brownies that night) and write their name on a piece of paper and slip it to us. (As in ‘Has the jury reached a verdict?’)

In return we were offering amnesty to the criminal.  We would not yell, or even say anything to the culprit.  The point behind this whole operation was that we wanted the true victims to receive an apology, we wanted the perp to fess up in a ‘safe’ environment getting it off their chest, and darn it, we wanted to know who was such a good liar.

Ten minutes later Ellie appeared with a note in her hand and an apology in her heart. (Although, only admitting to the last theft.)

We are thinking about referring the case on to Magnum PI as we still don’t know who took the first two bites.