Mystery #35: Abby and the Notorious Neighbor
aka the BSC Presents: Rear Window
Abby definitely has a few screws loose but she’s my kind of gal. She’s home sick with bronchitis and watches a show called Mystery Trackers (which is basically America’s Most Wanted). She thinks she recognizes one of the featured criminals, an embezzler from Des Moines, Iowa named Arthur Maguire. She can’t quite place him until she gets bored enough to start spying on her neighbors, and then she realizes it’s her backyard neighbor Mr. Finch who’s the spitting image of Arthur Maguire.
Despite everyone originally writing her off as fevered and crazy, Abby eventually gets Kristy on board. This comes after Abby has called the Mystery Trackers hotline and talked to an excited intern who sends her a copy of the episode on video. Kristy and Abby then kick their spying into high gear. They notice kids’ drawings on his fridge, even though Mr. Finch doesn’t live with any kids. And Abby sees Mr. Finch burning papers and photos in his kitchen sink. That is super sus.
Then one day they cook up a scheme in which they call Mr. Finch and get him out of the house. Abby is the lookout and Kristy sneaks over to peek through Mr. Finch’s kitchen window — where she sees the kids’ signatures on the fridge art matches the names of the criminal’s kids — and goes through his trash, where she finds a partially burned photo of the criminal’s wife (recognizable from the Mystery Trackers episode). Now that Abby has something concrete, Sergeant Johnson of the Stoneybrook Police and the producers of Mystery Trackers are fully on her side.
Abby and the BSC watch from her bedroom window as Mystery Trackers films the Stoneybrook Police arrest Otto Finch aka Arthur Maguire. And not only that — Abby gets sent a check of reward money from the show! I am telling you, Stoneybrook is the PLACE. TO. BE.
