"I have no idea what to do. This is so perplexing I think that we might have to declare it unsolved," stressed Private Practice Detective Cindy Mythels.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary," replied her partner, Detective Ryan Travley. "We've got the brains to figure this case out. We're just not thinking outside the box."

The case in question was that of the mysterious and yet unsolved murder of Ms. Katarina von Quatrain. One sultry summer night, Katarina had been walking back from a bonfire held by one of her best friends, Lynda Folksnap, by the small community park, only about a stone's throw from their small lake. According to Ms. Folksnap, Katarina had left the party early. The two reasons given were that she and Katarina had just had a bit of an argument, and Katarina said she was tired, that she wanted to go to bed. Sometime between ten forty-five and eleven thirty-five that night, Katarina was murdered. Her body was found on the ground, equidistant from the both the party and her house. There appears to be no outward sign of abuse, struggle, or gunshots. Her death is a mystery.

Katarina's parents are fuming that anything like this could happen. Mr. Quatrain, Katarina's father, is quite an influential man, and demanded that security measures be taken that this may never happen again. Since the murder, a funeral has taken place and Katarina buried, but not before thorough autopsies and toxicology tests were taken to shed any light at all on the cause of death. The only information that these tests yielded, albeit important, was not enough to pin a criminal. However, the toxicology and autopsy both showed that Katarina had been poisoned.

After interviewing more guests of Ms. Folksnap's party, it also became apparent that Katarina had also on that night had a bad parting-of-the-ways with her now former boyfriend, Jake Palk. When interviewing Ms. Folksnap, she stated that Katarina and Jake had been 'going through quite a rough patch recently' and that she could see that their relationship was 'definitely going downhill.' Jake had been acting 'really, like, hostile' towards both Ms. Folksnap and Katarina's family. This provided a prime suspect.

"It's been two weeks. We have got to figure this out," Detective Mythels intoned with her eyes closed, thinking hard. "There has to be someone…even if we can't prove that this Jake kid did it, I'm pretty sure it was him. You know how these inner city kids are."

"Cindy. Get a hold of yourself- you can't think like that! These aren't even inner city kids; they live in the suburbs. If we can't prove that Jake Palk poisoned his ex-girlfriend, then we can't accuse him of it. Remember: you have solved three hundred and twenty-six mysteries. You have the IQ of a genius. Use those super-charged deductive reasoning skills and…" Just then, the office phone rang.

"Mythels and Travley Private Eye and Detective Services, Cindy speaking," said Cindy in a bored voice; she answered the phone a million times a day, always the same way.

"Hey Cindy. It's Rick from the police department. We've got a very important update on that case you've been killing yourself over." Cindy must have looked surprised, because immediately Ryan started mouthing, "What?! What?!" to her, until he had the bright idea to pick up the other phone and listen in.

"Jake Palk, the murdered girl's ex, had been found dead and poisoned in his room, last night at eleven-thirty. Same poison as Katarina. Both dead."

Cindy, the super genius, and Ryan, the super sleuth, both stood motionless with their mouths open like codfish. "This is so Romeo and Juliet," uttered Cindy, stunned.

"This has to be the oddest case I have ever encountered," declared Ryan, equally stunned. "We have to get investigating. I have a hunch."

"It was nice talking to you guys…I guess," said Rick the policeman uneasily. "See you later." He hung up, leaving Cindy and Ryan both standing stock still, with their mouths open, still with phones pressed up against their ears like they might be able to hear the answers to all their questions in the dial tone.

Two minutes later, after thinking hard, if was almost as if they were the same person. Both Cindy and Ryan hung up the phone, bolted across the room to the door, and fought each other for the right to type.
After typing up everything they knew, they wrote up their half-page conclusion explaining exactly what happened on that sultry summer night three weeks ago.

The conclusion read: "We, Cindy Mythels and Ryan Travley have found in our investigation of the mysterious murder of Katarina von Quatrain, and linked murder of Jake Palk, that neither Mr. Palk, Ms. Folksnap, nor Ms. Von Quatrain to be guilty of murder; stating that all three are innocent. What really happened on the night of June 24 is a mystery, but we believe that the following events are true, close to true, or a representation of the truth:
1. Katarina von Quatrain and Jake Palk never 'broke up' they were still a couple when the murder occurred.
2. Ms. Von Quatrain and Mr. Palk had had multiple problems getting their families to understand their partner of choice, and both families were opposed to their child's partner. This tore the families apart, making Katarina and Jake desperate to be together and finding solace only in each other.
3. On the night of the party, Katarina had a fight or falling out of sorts with a member of her family; the subject being Jake, or something to do with Jake.
4. Katarina went to Ms. Folksnap's party, where she also had a fight with Jake, in which it seemed that they were no longer a couple. This explains Ms. Folksnap's logic.
5. Katarina, being torn apart by her continued love for Jake and wanting to please her demanding family, took the acquired poison and had a quick and painless death.
6. Jake, after learning of his girlfriend's death, was so consumed by depression and anger that he too acquired poison and killed himself.
We, Cindy Mythels and Ryan Travley, find these to be true, close to the truth, or resembling the truth of what happened on Friday, June 24, regarding the mysterious murder, now known suicide, of Ms. Katarina von Quatrain and the linked murder, now known suicide, of Mr. Jake Palk."

Cindy and Ryan turned in this report. It was published in the local newspaper under the title of, "A Local Romeo and Juliet Murder Mystery Solved." Their detective agency had never seen something so interesting- a real-life Shakespeare tragedy came to life in Katarina and Jake.

"I suppose there is something to be said for true love after all, wouldn't you say, Ryan?" asked Cindy off-handedly.

"Absolutely," he said, as he blushed ferociously and drew a small, lonely heart around Cindy's name in his detecting notebook.