Who takes cookies to a crime scene, anyway?

Today was one of those days.

After working in the feature side of the house of the newspaper for 13 years, some restructuring has shifted all of our jobs around. As a result, I'm back to covering hard news. Today was one of those days when I had to do my least favorite thing -- go to a crime scene and pry information out of the police. I'd never met the Kentucky State Police spokesman Dean Patterson until today, so I figured I'd try the sweetness approach. I bought two bags of cookies and brownies from our in-office United Way bake sale for 50 cents a bag and took them with me to the crime scene.

After I finished talking to Patterson and was chit-chatting at the barricade, I pulled out the bags of cookies and offered them to him. Murray Ledger & Times reporter Tom Berry immediately pulled out his camera to document a bribe. OK, so it wasn't really a bribe, but I thought it would be nice to start out on the right foot with the investigators. After all, I would spend my entire day watching them work.

A few hours later, as we talked with another investigator, we told him about the cookies and found out that Dean hadn't shared them yet. The guys all seemed pleased to have some home-baked treats.

I guess it's true about winning friends with chocolate.