The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire

list of books in hand, “while I check on the availability of these books, why don’t you look at the periodicals? Some shorter but more current information might be available there.”
    Obediently, Trixie went to the shelf where the volumes of The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature were kept. Mart had said he wanted current information from the magazines, so she ignored the fat, hard-bound volumes from earlier years and looked in the paper-bound volumes that represented recent months. She looked under Sales, Selling, and, directed by those two categories, under Marketing as well. Altogether there were five or six promising-sounding articles. Dutifully, she wrote the name of the magazine, its date, the volume, and the page of the article on the preprinted request slips. She brought the slips to the librarian and was told she’d have to wait a few minutes for the magazines.
    Trixie stood impatiently in front of the desk. Feeling that it was rude to be so obviously impatient, she wandered back to the reference table and sat down. She dragged out one of the green volumes of the Readers’ Guide and leafed through it idly. Doing research isn’t really that hard, she thought. Not if the topic is interesting. I guess I can see how Jane Dix-Strauss came up with information on arson so quickly. As she thought that, she turned to the front of the volume and looked up Arson. A month before she might have been surprised at the number of articles under the heading. Now she knew only too well how common a crime it was. Somehow, though, one article caught her eye.
    “‘Anatomy of Arson, by Jane Dix-Strauss,’” Trixie read aloud. “Well, I’ll be!” The magazine in which the article had been published was a well-known one. There was no doubt that the library would have it. Trixie scribbled out another request slip and hurried up to the librarian with it.
    When the magazine came, Trixie hurried off with it, barely remembering in time to come back and get the stack of magazines with salesmanship articles that she’d originally requested. She found a secluded table and turned to the article the new Sun reporter had written two years before.
    It didn’t take Trixie long to feel as though she had read the article before. All of the facts and figures were included in Jane Dix-Strauss’s coverage of the Memorial Day fire.
    Even more exciting to Trixie, the article contained many quotes from interviews Jane Dix-Strauss had conducted with arsonists. Some were in jail, serving time for the fires they had set. Remarkably, other arsonists were confidential sources who admitted they had set fires but had never been caught!
    Trixie gathered up her stack of magazines again and went off to find Mart. He had a huge stack of books on selling on a table in front of him, and he was hurriedly going through them, trying to winnow their number into something he could manage on a bicycle.
    “Mart, look at this!” Trixie said, shoving the magazine in front of his nose.
    Mart read in silence for a moment. “Hmm,” he said, finally. “Very interesting. You have, as usual, been involved in sleuthing. I’d say you’ve done an excellent job of unraveling the mystery of how Jane Dix-Strauss was able to publish so many facts on arson so quickly.”
    “You’re missing the whole point, Mart,” Trixie hissed. “I don’t think this article solves any mysteries. I think it creates some. Look — Jane Dix-Strauss wrote this article that was published in a big national magazine two years ago. Now she comes to work at the dinky little Sleepyside Sun. Why the comedown? Then, even though there’s never been a case of arson in town, weeks after she comes to work here, there is one! Do you think that’s just coincidence?”
    “I certainly do,” Mart said. “What did you find on the more salubrious subject of selling?”
    Trixie slapped the other magazines down on the table in front of Mart. “Do you have any change?” she asked. “I want to make a copy of this article.” Distractedly, his mind already on the magazine articles on selling, Mart dug a handful of change out of his pocket and handed it to his sister. When she returned with the photocopied article, he had returned most of the books and all of the magazines. What remained he was stuffing into his backpack. “I have selected sufficient data with which to make my start. Shall we proceed homeward?” he said.
    “Absolutely,” Trixie agreed, eager to show her article to the