The End of the Pier
- A case in 10 chapters
- Free to play
- Large print
- Read in order
How the case begins
Merriman's Pier has closed its season the same way since before the war: a last ride on the carousel at half price, rockets over the water at nine, and Douglas Merriman standing at the gate shaking hands like a mayor. This year the handshakes were a performance. The pier is drowning in debts Douglas kept off the books, a buyer from inland has been walking the boards with a surveyor, and half the leaseholders have not been paid their summer percentage. At midnight, with the crowds gone and the lights going out arcade by arcade, Sal Petrocelli looks down from the carousel housing and sees a shape in the water beneath the boarded-off end, where the old diving platform has stood padlocked for nine years. It is Douglas, and he did not fall. The safety rope that has crossed the platform stairs since 1948 lies on the planks in two pieces, and the cut is clean. Six people stayed late on the pier tonight. By morning, everyone in town will know that one of them cut it.
Each chapter is a short scene and a puzzle, and every puzzle leaves you one clue. Keep all nine. The finale needs them.
- 1Closing Night
- 2The Boarded-Off End
- 3The Signature
- 4What Vera Knew
- 5The Nine O'Clock Sky
- 6Low Water
- 7The Man From Inland
- 8The Ticket Booth
- 9The Last Ride
- 10The Pier at Low Waterbring your clues
The people of the case
- Douglas Merriman. The pier's owner, second generation. Charming at the gate, evasive in the office, and lately very private about the books.
- Roy Calder. Douglas's partner since 1946. Built half the rides with his own hands and owns half the pier, or believed he did.
- June Merriman. Douglas's daughter. Runs the ticket booth, banks the take, and has covered the gap between her father's promises and his arithmetic for two summers.
- Sal Petrocelli. The carousel man, thirty years turning the same horses. Closes every season with the same last ride and has never once missed it.
- Vera Doyle. The fortune-teller at the pier's midpoint. Reads palms for a nickel and, once a week, reads the pier's ledger for Douglas, because she was a bookkeeper before she was a mystic.
- Wallace Kemp. The buyer from inland. Wants the pier gone and a parking lot in its place, and has a briefcase full of patience.
Prefer pen and paper?
The whole case as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger to fill in, and the ending sealed on the last page.