list of the mailings. Taking it back with me, I glanced at the board and saw that my husband had pinned them up randomly. I arranged the four entries in the order they were received until I had a good idea of how the mailings should be organized. Taking out my cell phone, I snapped a quick picture so I’d have a reference to carry with me, and then I turned the codes over and snapped a photo of the fronts. The two crime scene images were disturbing, but if I was going to help with the case, I had to steel myself for what I might see. Once I had the front pages in my phone, I turned the copies back over, and started recording the number sequences on a notepad. There were four sequences so far, two matching crime scene photos and two notes, including the latest entry.
3A, 5A, 2E, 4A, 1E, 4O.
I stared at it for what felt like an hour, hoping for some kind of breakthrough.
Nothing. If the forty meant anything, I’d have to figure it out later. For now, I had to focus on just the letter- number combinations.
Did the repeating pattern mean anything? A A E A E. Did that mean the next letter would be an E? Would it match the pattern? Even if it did, I still didn’t know what that might mean.
Okay, forget about the letters. How about the numbers?
3, 5, 2, 4, 1.
3, 5, 2, 4, represented a pattern, especially if the next entry was a 3. It was something to consider, but I couldn’t do anything with it yet. They added up to 15, and when they were added together, it made 6. Again, so what? 3 times 5 divided by 2 multiplied by 4 divided by 1 totaled 30, which added up to 3. Even though it was true, what could it mean?
I didn’t see any significance to any of the sequences I’d come up with so far. What else could they represent? How about if I took the letters and numbers and charted them on an x-y axis? Would that yield me anything? I took out a pad of paper from my purse and drew a rough graph, with numbers going vertically and letters horizontally.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
There was a pattern there only if the next note was 6A or 6E. That would create a stair-step segment, but so what? So far, I had a 1E, 2E, 3A, 4A, and 5A. Why had 5E been skipped? Was there a missing note, one that the police misfiled or accidentally threw away before anyone realized the significance of it?
I had another thought, and redrew my grid, this time substituting numbers in the order of the notes received where the stars now stood.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
No, that didn’t make any sense, either. Had something been missed, perhaps a vital clue to the whole thing?
I finally gave up. If there was a pattern of any significance there, I couldn’t see it. Most likely I didn’t have enough information to solve the puzzle yet. Given time, and enough entries, I should have more of a chance to see what the killer was trying to tell us. Or was there any hidden message there at all? Was it a prank, a ruse to make the police work harder than they should on nothing more than a nonsensical set of letters and numbers that in reality meant nothing? No, I couldn’t believe that. Each entry had been painstakingly drawn, as if the murderer was proud of what the segments represented.
There was a message there.
I just hadn’t figured it out yet.
I looked up from my pad to find my husband staring at me, a broad smile on his face.
“What’s so funny?” Steve was far enough away and so focused on his work that he probably couldn’t hear us, but I kept my voice low just in case. I knew how it was to be interrupted in the middle of a thought, and I didn’t want to do anything to disturb the investigation.
Zach matched my soft tone. “You look so intense when you’re working. It’s just like you’re creating a puzzle.”
“I wish that’s what it was. There’s a logic to my puzzles, but this is all just a jumble.”
“Well, you gave it your best shot,” he said. “Thanks for trying.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not giving up that easily. I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I need more information.”
“We may not get it,” Zach said. “Do you have anything so far?”
I looked at my sheets, and kept coming back to 5E. “I think there’s a chance that the police missed a note.”
“What do you mean?” The smile was suddenly gone from my husband’s face.
I showed him what I’d done, and he caught the missing 5E faster than I had, but to my credit, I’d laid it out for him. “There should be a 5E, but how do we know that’s not what the next note will have on it?”
“If that’s true, we’ll just have to wait until another one arrives. But what would it hurt to go through the stack of letters no one’s had a chance to really dig into yet? Couldn’t there be something there that was missed the first time around?”
Zach frowned, and then he called Steve over to us. It took him two tries to get the man’s attention, and I smiled when I realized I’d been right about his sharp focus. “I need you to go down to records and search through everything we’ve gotten since the first murder. Then again, go back a week before that, in case there’s something there.”
“Absolutely. What exactly is it that I’m looking for?”
Zach pointed to the wall. “Hunt for anything that looks like it came from the killer. Study these for a few minutes before you go.”
“I don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve already stared at them for hours.”
After Steve was gone, I said, “It’s a long shot, and he’s probably not going to be able to come up with
