Who Killed Wellington?

            Who would kill a dog with a garden fork in the late, dark hours of the night? It is up to 15-year-old autistic Christopher to determine who is the killer, and solve this unusual mystery. Little does Christopher know that his father Mr. Boone is the one who has committed the killing of the dog, Wellington.

            Mr. Boone is very frustrated from the topic of Wellington through out the book. Many times in the book, Mr. Boone indicates and tells Christopher to not get involved with solving the murder of the dog, and tells him to quit investigating. One example where this is shown is when Mr. Boone tells Christopher "Just try and keep your nose out of other people's business." This was on page 14. Here you can see that Mr. Boone does not want Christopher investigating, which really hints to him trying to hide something. You can see Mr. Boone is trying to get Christopher to stay away from the topic of the dead dog. In this book there is a reference made to the book ‘The Hound of Baskervilles,’ which makes a connection between the two books. This book is also a mystery book involving Sherlock Holmes, and the readers are given clues from the book. On page 47, clue #2 connects to the book completely; Stapleton tells Watson to stay out of the Grimpen Mire for his own safety, but he is actually hiding something in the Grimpen Mire and does not want anyone to find it. Mr. Boone constantly tells Chris to stay out of others business and detective work because he does not want Chris to figure out that he is the killer of the dog. Another huge example and the most obvious is the entire car ride home from the police station. On page 14 Chris talks about people being punished for murdering someone, and Mr. Boone’s response to this is “it’s a bloody dog, Christopher, a bloody dog.” You can tell here that Mr. Boone does not care about the dog, because he refers to Wellington as a bloody dog. Chris then states, “I think dogs are important, too.” Mr. Boone does not care to listen to Chris and replies saying “Leave it.” The biggest hint is when Chris comments and says, “I wonder if the police will find out who killed him and punish the person.” Right after this part it is told that Mr. Boone banged the steering wheel with his fist and shouted “I said leave it, for God’s sake.” Here you can see the anger with the subject, he is frustrated by it. You can see the annoyance in his tone, when talking about the dog.

    You may wonder, why would Mr. Boone kill the dog, and what reason would he have? Chris states on page 32 that he believes that it is Mr. Shears who has killed the dog because Mrs. Shears and Mr. Shears split up a couple years ago. Chris thinks that the crime was committed for revenge or to make someone upset and so he believes that Mr. Shears killed the dog for revenge of their splitting up. Chris states that the crime is usually done by someone known and committed to make someone upset or hurt. It could be Mr. Shears because he was with Mrs. Shears and he might have still had access to tools. There is a red herring in this book and it also relates to the Hound of Baskerville because on page 47 in the second clue it states, “Selden, the Netting Hill murderer. This is a man who has escaped from a prison nearby and is being hunted down on the moors, which makes you think that he has something to do with the story, because he is a criminal, but he hasn't anything to do with the story at all.” This makes it a red herring because it pushes away the fact the Mr. Boone killed Wellington and tries to prove the Mr. Shears did. There is a similarity, which is the act of doing something bad, like the man escaping jail and him being a criminal makes it look like he did the crime, and Mr. Shears leaving Mrs. Shears shows a bitter side to the relationship and makes it looks like Mr. Shears would want to do something to hurt Mrs. Shears. Now this distracts us from the fact that Mr. Boone is the killer because Chris thinks its Mr. Shears. In the book they are now trying to solve why and how Mr. Shears killed this dog, and focus on Mr. Shears.

            Now, one may think why would Mr. Boone kill a dog? What reason would he have? As you read the book, you will figure out that Mr. Shears and Mrs. Boone had an affair told by Mrs. Alexander; an old lady that lives in the neighborhood. They both cheated on their partners and left them 2 years ago. This changes the fact that Mr. Shears would kill the dog and points toward Mr. Boone to be the murderer. Mr. Boone has a valid motive to kill because his wife and friends husband cheated on each other. Mr. Boone would want to kill the dog because it was close to Mr. Shears and he would want to hurt him. This also proves that someone known commits the murder because Mr. Boone knew Mr. and Mrs. Shears very well, and they were all good friends. Mr. Boone is shown to drink in the book and come home late because of his job as a plumber and dealing with boiling systems. The murder happened at 12:07 am, which is quite late, but it is very likely that Mr. Boone would be awake. Chris did not know where Mr. Boone was because he was in his room almost the entire night and he is not too aware of his surroundings all the time. Mr. Boone also has a fast temper and easily gets frustrated/irritated. Now if Mr. Boone had been drinking and there was a dog barking very loudly outside, he could easily get annoyed and go and kill the dog without realizing that he has killed it. The dog was killed with a garden fork, which belonged to Mrs. Shears. How would Mr. Boone get the garden fork? It is shown that Mr. Boone and Mrs. Shears are quite good friends because she would make dinner and stay over sometimes; this clearly proves that she was a sweet lady and liked to help people. Mrs. Shears wouldn’t mind lending a garden tool if Mr. Boone asked and wouldn’t hesitate to give it to a good friend.

            The dog Wellington was murdered by no other than Chris’s father, Mr. Boone. Chris may not suspect Mr. Boone, but it is clear that he is the killer. Mr. Boone may have been frustrated and upset, which resulted in killing the dog.

**Thank you to spark notes for having a summary of The Hound of Baskerville because the connections and clues made a lot more sense and showed how they connected to the book more!!