Incriminate-Ted WIP1

 So, for my first '....-Ted' painting of the year I couldn't resist choosing a very topical theme here in Canada. Congratulations Tony and Sue for guessing the sticky clue I gave you a couple weeks ago.

Canada is well known for its maple syrup production but last year it made headline news across the world! According to news paper articles, on the morning of July 30, 2012, an accountant named Michel Gauvreau arrived at the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve to audit the maple syrup inventory. Inside, baby-blue barrels of maple syrup were stacked six high in rows hundreds deep. Full, each barrel weighs about 620 pounds. With grade A syrup trading at about $32 per gallon, that adds up to $1,800 a barrel, approximately 13 times the price of crude oil! There were around 16,000 barrels in the warehouse, about one-tenth of Québec’s annual production. The gap between the rows was barely wide enough to walk through, and the rubber soles of Gauvreau’s steel-tip boots stuck to the sugar-coated concrete floor.

 The accountant scaled a row of barrels and was nearing the top of the stack when one of them rocked with his weight. He nearly fell. Regaining his balance, he rattled the barrel: It was light because it was empty. He soon found others that were empty. After notifying the Federation’s leaders and returning with them to examine the stockpile, they unscrewed the cap on a full barrel. The liquid inside was not goopy, brown,  it was thin, clear, and odorless. It was water! Sixty percent, or 6 million pounds of syrup, had vanished, worth about $18 million wholesale!

But who would have been able to syphon off so much of the maple syrup so skillfully and without detection? I have my suspicions. What do you all think?  :)

I have completed the background to my theory and am now working on the jar my '-Ted' has stored some of the maple syrup in. Whether he really is the thief or not I don't know but from the evidence already clearly visible he certainly seems to be Incriminate-Ted. More sticky evidence to follow as I complete this painting!

Ona