Did they have to buy something to use the method of detour? **No (but see below, 'cause I think it’s time for another hint).
At this point, the puzzle has basically been distilled to its lateral-thinking core, namely, how taking a detour made their commute faster. The fact that they thought it would be a good idea to buy a paper at a newsstand and get a receipt is more in the nature of an additional clue, rather than an essential element of what they were doing. They did, however, believe – accurately or not – that it would be advisable if they were going to use this method of detour.**
Did they drive somewhere they were not supposed to be driving? Yes.
Did it need to be that specific newstand, or any other newstand in, say, a one-mile radius would have sufficed? I believe there was more than one newsstand that would have worked, but any other newsstand within a one-mile radius would not.
Was there a reason the car couldn’t just park? Yes.
Was the driving around in circles
[ul]
[li]on a race track[/li][li]in a roundabout/traffic circle[/li][li]on public streets[/li][li]on private land[/li][/ul]
In some hard to reach geographical location (as in, a small island?) No.
Inside an enclosed space of some sort (a train station, an airport?) Yes! Airport.
At this point, this is about 90% solved – the only remaining question is “how, exactly, did making a detour to an airport in the opposite direction from the school enable them to shorten their total transit time?”
Like the highway to Dulles airport? And they dropped someone off at the terminal to buy the paper, but couldn’t park in the loading zone, so they drove in a circle looping around the airport?
Specifically: taking the airport access road enabled them to zip past the rush-hour commuter traffic, saving them a considerable amount of time. There were two problems, though: the only way to get on the road going away from the airport was to first go to the airport; and the police were watching for people who tried to use the access road without having actual business at the airport, and simply turning around without making a stop would have been a good way to get a ticket. Therefore, they hit on the idea of dropping someone off on the ticketing / check-in level of the airport, looping around, and picking him up again on the arrivals level, where it wouldn’t be obvious that the same person had just been dropped off. Meanwhile, he had just enough time to stop buy the newsstand and pick up a paper and receipt, just in case they were stopped and needed to prove that they really HAD been to the airport that morning.
Kris buys a bus ticket, loads his suitcase into the luggage compartment, rides the bus to his location, and gets off. When he gets off the bus, the police are waiting for him. Why?