the great american apple caper

It went down on the evening of thursday, May 17, sometime between 5:02 and 5:07pm, authorities claim. Two defendants were in the kitchen with mama as she was trying to separate a) mail she should attend to at some point, although further procrastination would probably be ok, from b) bills which needed immediate attention, from c) bills which didn't need immediate attention, from d) stuff which was even less worthy of the dead trees it was printed on than the junk in the first three groups. The defendants asked for a snack but since it was already nearly dinner time, they were refused and they went on their merry mischievous way.

A couple of minutes later mama walked down the hall to drop off some clean laundry in her room and noticed a veeeeeeeeeery unmistakable crunching sound coming from the adjacent defendants' room. Mama then found the following crime in progress:

As experienced as these same defendants have been in various illegal activities in and around this same residence, their discovery apparently caught them off guard and defendant K decided that honesty might mitigate the inevitable consequences. "We're eating apples!" she admitted gleefully.

Indeed.

After confiscating and cataloging the damage as evidence, she went back to the kitchen to inspect the location of the theft. The apples had been on an extra-high counter, completely out of reach for any of the shorter people in the home from the kitchen side of the counter, and only capable of being taken from the family room side of the counter with the help of a lift of some kind. They must have used the office chair, she thought, but the chair was in it's normal location, a good three feet from the counter in question.

The other puzzling fact was that mama had just been in the kitchen around the time they must have been taken. How did this crime duo pull this latest caper together? Had they used the chair but knew to return it to the desk? Had one defendant boosted the other up to reach the apples? Had they climbed the small bookshelf there? None of these skills have been witnessed before, so they all seemed equally unlikely. Defendant A had asked for a snack a minute or two later than defendant K. Was this a distraction technique?

Erin, known to assist the defendants in their mischief in the past, for all the world seemed as surprised as mama did about these particular events and was not observed anywhere near the kitchen prior to the theft. She is not being considered an accessory to this as of press time.

I'm afraid that full discovery of this operation won't be forthcoming. The defendants are known to be resistant to probing questions. They're expert at pretending they have a mere 2-year old's vocabulary. They distract interrogators with puppy dog eyes, silly faces, cute smiles, and hugs and kisses. Unfortunately some crime cases go cold, and I think this is one of them.