Ghosts Like Hot Dogs?!

Welcome readers!

As I am sure all of you know a mysterious string of food stall robberies has occurred in our otherwise uneventful town. It has been all over the news and every crime blogger or mystery solver worth their name has fiercely discussed these cases and their connections on this forum. As so many of you have asked for, here I am, @DetectiveMushroom89, to give you my two cents on this conundrum.

Let us start at the beginning with the first incident. Two months ago a hot dog stall, our beloved Hank’s Hot Dogs, on Main Street reported a theft of 15 packs of hot dogs, and not the small 8-pack hot dogs you would normally buy, but the bulk pack with 24 hot dogs each, meaning over 300 sausages were stolen. This was during the day at noon and the streets were bustling with people. Easy for a hungry and desperate soul to seize the opportunity and sneak behind the vendor and take one of their boxes with yummy food. Nothing strange with that. Except that the boxes were behind a metal hatch right beside the vendor, who reportedly never left their stall the entire time the crime was being committed. One moment he had hot dogs, the other, completely gone as if taken by a ghost.

If that was not enough, not a single box was actually taken, only the hot dog packages. So, in the clearest of days with a bunch of potential witnesses someone snuck behind the stall, opened the hatch mere inches from the vendor and then ran away with 15 packages of sausage stuffed up their sleeve. Yeah, not strange at all. Oh, and no one actually saw them do this. Sure if we were talking about 2 or maybe even 5 packages I might believe that they had hidden the hot dogs in their clothing and then casually walked away. But 15? Impossible; even if all of them fit under their clothing the criminal would have looked like the Michelin man. Which would have drawn the attention of at least one bystander, but, as police have already established, no one was seen with that amount of sausage that day.

Two days later the taco stand Taco’n’Go across the street, a fierce competitor of Hank’s Hot Dogs, reported a similar crime. Allegedly someone had stolen all their taco shells, right before the evening rush of taco eaters. As every taco lover would agree, this is a devastating loss. Because without a crunchy delicious shell, is it even a taco? As a result no tacos were eaten that evening and the vendor lost not only money but also disappointed regulars. Some sources claim these regulars could be seen eating Hank’s Hot Dogs and Taco Tina, the vendor behind Taco’n’Go, said in a tweet “It is so sad to see that some have forgotten how we vendors stick together”. Clearly aiming across the street, perhaps she was not alone in her suspicions because the next day Hank’s Hot Dogs were nowhere to be seen and have not been since.

Police revealed later that evening that the local authorities had taken a suspect into custody and had linked the taco case to that of the hot dogs. They put together a special task force, quickly nicknamed the Sausage Squad by locals, to further investigate. They found nothing. No witnesses, fingerprints or other clues as to who the thief is. Only a trail of crumbs, seemingly, the food had vanished into thin air. Or perhaps taken by the same ghost thief as the hot dogs were.

The trend of food stand targeted robberies continued. For two months food stalls, stands and kiosks all over Main Street and intersecting streets have been stolen from. As of yesterday, when the criminal struck a lemonade stand run by a little girl, we have had a total of 56 robberies. All of which have no witnesses, no trace of the thief and no reasonable method as to how it all happened, at least not according to police. The gossip of the town, however, has been that one of the vendors is after the others. If you look at the current state of Main street you would agree. The vendors of Main Street have turned against each other, it all started after the taco heist. They believe one of them is tired of the competition and thus commits these crimes as a warning, sell elsewhere or you have nothing to sell at all. Leaving Main Street in a cold climate, despite the summer heat.

This theory of a treacherous vendor seemed a likely truth, a fellow vendor would know the mind of the victims, when they take breaks and for how long. The prime suspect was none other than the first victim, Hank the Hot Dog Guy, the motive being that he has been working Main Street the longest and perhaps is bitter about the newer competition. After years of bottling this anger up he just could not take it anymore and robbed his own stall to appear innocent, then took out the others. At first, the police denied this. But after much speculation in the media they revealed having suspected him after the taco heist and had taken him into custody a few days ago.

Yet, after many interrogations he was removed from the suspect list. Why was never revealed to the public but perhaps Hank the Hot Dog Guy gave them a new lead to follow, because 3 hours later officers were swarming Main Street detaining homeless people. Apparently they had been seen eating the stolen goods, caught red handed with sausage grease on their fingers. We have yet to be informed of what the police have learned from this but trust that this detective is keeping an eye and an ear out for the truth.

This leaves us with no definite answer as to who the sausage thief is. What kind of person is capable of stealing from this many vendors without being seen and without leaving a trail? Who is responsible for depriving our city of yummy cheap food? Other sleuths on here have tried, and failed, to connect the locations of the crimes to sewer maps. Speculating about how the criminal strikes from below, never even entering the light of day. But, many of the food stalls have no nearby manhole covers and unless the criminal is a moleman eating dirt and popping up through the concrete this theory is rather unlikely. And my answer? None, as it seems now, our criminal is a ghost. A ghost with a love for hot dogs and a heart for the homeless.

Stay vigilant until next time,

DetectiveMushroom89

The girl shuts her laptop and leans her head back as she searches the ceiling for answers to what she has just read. She had read many theories on this forum but this one feels the closest to the truth. She quickly rejects the idea of a stealing ghost but she does recall seeing arrested homeless people on the news, and the reporters sounded very sure of their guilt. Referencing the pictures of them as if they were holding a smoking gun and not hot dogs. No way did the homeless do all this, she insists, but another thought creeps into her mind. If I were homeless long enough would I not grow that desperate? Her nose wrinkles at the thought of such a fate. No, the homeless are simply looking for a better life, they would not do something so cruel. A hopeful smile settles on her face when her thoughts turn to a different perspective. Maybe, she hopes, there is someone out there who sees those struggling, who is brave enough to do something about it. Someone who knows the imbalance we live in and vows to fix it. A culinary robin hood, who takes sausages from those who have many and then silences the rumbling of empty stomachs. She dreams of such a scenario until a rattle outside brings her back and she rises to close the open window.

What she does not look down to see is a little dog, who softly settles back to sleep on its throne of hot dog packs, nacho bags and chewed out lemons. With greasy paws and ketchup stains, the little dog dreams of the next courageous heist.