Everyone in the surrounding area knew that Dirk Simmons liked to take a walk through his fields about dusk each evening. Last night, he did not return to his home after his stroll. This morning a neighbor spotted his lifeless body in the middle of one of his fields.
What killed him?
Obvious case of Death by Crop Circle!
Or, it could be that the possessive pronoun/adjective "his" refers to the fact that Dirk's body was spotted in one of "his" (read his neighbor's) fields where perhaps the neighbor used intrusion deterrent mechanisms, even as simple as a shotgun to shoot intruders.
Then it was an irate husband.
If Dirk didn't return to "his" home after his stroll last night, might he have returned to someone else's home, with the obvious tragic result?
As was his normal custom, Dirk went for a walk across one of the fields that was the owner of. Evidence would indicate that Dirk had walked undisturbed to a point roughly in the center of the field - where he was killed.
Then this must be a "field", in the sense of "landing field" whereby poor Dirk was in the wrong place at the wrong time when an aircraft smacked him upon landing.
The field in question was in fact a hay field. And the airplane didn't land in the field.
But…
Poor old Dirk did die of blunt force trauma to the back of the head caused by coming into contact with the landing gear of a Piper J3 cub.
You see… Dirk was a wealthy old man whose only heirs were his niece (Nancy) and Nephew (Todd). Nancy had recently become engaged to Stan Bafford. It seems that there were hard feelings between Dirk and Stan's father over a land deal that they were both involved in 20 years ago. Dirk had informed everyone who would listen that he would cut Nancy out of his will if she went through with marrying Stan. Todd was great friends with Stan and cared for his sister dearly. He also had no love lost on his miserly uncle.
Todd was a pilot and was well aware of his uncles evening stroll. This led to a cunning, yet evil plan. He took his plane up at the appropriate time and waited until he saw his uncle enter the field. He cut the engine on the plane and glided relatively silently down behind his unsuspecting uncle. Swooping down he struck the back of Dirk's head with a landing strut, turned on the magnetos causing the windmilling engine to fire to life, applied full throttle and climbed out of the field and returned the plane to the hanger.
Authorities were baffled at first, due to the only signs in the field being made by Dirk. No other footprints or tire tracks. However, an investigator (much like Doug) finally decided that an airplane was the only reasonable weapon he could think of. With Todd owning a plane, his was obviously inspected. Todd had, of course, done his best to clean the strut and claimed the slight damage on the member had been caused by "clipping" the top of a tree when making a "back-country" landing. As is so often the case in a "perfect" crime… Todd missed cleaning a small drop of blood and a hair that was found on the inside of a cowling. When confronted with this damning evidence… Todd confessed all.
Though I was never aware of the land dispute between between Stan and Dirk, I was always suspicious of that Rascal, Todd, even though I didn't know he existed either.
Since I am digitally impaired (and can't do arithmetic either), and since it is still too cold here in Northern California to take off my socks for benefit of extra counting…. I have avoided the previous weekly high tech mathematical challenges.
But "word play" ? Hey, I have a reputation of glib that I gotta live up to.
Very impressive Doug. I'm just pouting that I wasted time coming up with the story and scenario when you solved it without "gleaning" any of the the clues or facts about the case. I had thought it would have taken many more guesses.
Grrrrrrrr tomk you never said he was murdered, just what killed him.. was going to say his bull next.. 