When farmer Murdoch McCook threw his third wife, Delores, into the hay baler, she came out inside a bale more perfectly than Murdoch could ever have hoped. She was seamlessly encased in the hay bale with only a few strands of her dark hair from the top of her head poking out. Murdoch cut the hair off with an old pair of twine scissors.
He then placed the hay bale containing his third wife at the very bottom of the hay barn, and then stacked all the other hay bales over and around it. He wouldn’t see that bale again until the end of the cold season when all the hay had been fed to the cattle throughout the winter.
It was a perfect murder. No detective was going to think of moving a thousand hay bales to discover a body. And even when the hay bale in question was exposed, there was nothing to say his third wife was inside. Apart from the smell. But by the end of winter the smell would have dissipated. And at the height of the stink, the covering bales would mute the stench.
At last farmer Murdoch McCook was free to invite the lovely Claire Louise into his life. And indeed he did. She moved in with farmer Murdoch and began life on the farm.
How quickly time passes. It was soon hay making season again. Farmer Murdoch arranged a space in the barn for a new bale to sit next to the remaining three.
Weave a Web 
In fact he was a cereal killer…
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Ha! Ha! Ha! Very clever!
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And a very imaginative cereal killer!
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Let’s hope he doesn’t get out on bale.
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Doesn’t anyone miss these poor women? 😩
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Presumably not!
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what happen with the body???
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You’ll have to ask the farmer!
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ha..ha..
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Normally, this is true – but unfortunately for Murdoch McCook, it was close to the end of the fiscal year for the county and the sheriff, as every other sheriff, knows, you either use or lose your budgetary dollars.
They tore apart his barn and hired cadaver dogs to sniff out the remains. Mrs McCook IV will have to wait 30 to life for her ring (and bale).
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Aha – this story is clearly not set in almost Iowa. In fact, apart from the hay-making and the barn, I suspect it could be set in almost downtown NY!
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A really clever way to dispose of a body, but the smell would give it away. Better to let the bale sit in a distant field to rot and let the critters do their work. Those dang dogs have great noses! I might have bailed on this story.
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You have a nose to sniff out murderous activity. The occasion spray of air-freshener to nullify the smell of a “dead sheep” wouldn’t get my murderer past chapter one!!
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The story has a classic Goodman opening. The faithful admirer in me noticed ‘third’ in the very first sentence and a deep smile settled on my lips never to leave till lovely Claire Louise changed the number on the dial.
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Ho! Ho! Ho! You know how to sniff out a dead body!! I almost left out “third” – in fact in retrospect – given your ability of suspicion – I should have.
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Yikes!
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When caught I hope he’s not let out on bale.
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Maybe he could mccook up an escape plan
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Hay – there’s a limit to puns and bales..!
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