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Amber settled forsending the message as it was. She hoped that it would be enough for Joseph,but even as she sent it, her mind was already back on the case, already back onthe puzzles that the killer was sending and the kind of person who would designsuch a method of killing.
She wantedanswers, but she and Simon weren’t going to be able to get those until theyreached Westford.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Are you sure you’reprepared for all of this?” Simon asked.
Amber noddedtoward her laptop. “I’m doing my best to get on top of it all.”
Amber wanted to beready when she and Simon hit the ground. When she wasn’t sleeping, she used theflight over to try to get some sense of where they were heading and what wasgoing on here.
“Tell me aboutthis town we’re going to, then,” Simon said.
Amber was happy tooblige. “Westford, Oregon. It’s a town of around twenty thousand people, wherea lot of the economy seems to be centered on just a few major businesses. Oneof those old company towns.”
“In this case, theWestford-Myer Motor Company?”
Amber nodded. “TheWestford-Myer Motor Company was the biggest employer in town for years.”
“Was?”
“There have beensome problems with the business recently, but it still seems to be one of thebiggest businesses in town.”
Westford was aplace where it was easy to imagine that everyone knew everyone, making it allthe more disturbing that there was a killer among them.
With her initialresearch on the town done, Amber also found herself looking into the puzzlegame of hangman, trying to work out what it was about it that would make akiller choose to use it as a part of his crimes, rather than some other puzzle.
That intriguedher, because it seemed like such a simple game. Amber was aware that there werepeople who would obsess over any game, no matter how simple or straightforward.There were communities out there for everything from tic-tac-toe to word searches.Yet Amber still found it hard to believe that the most serious puzzlers would choosethose simple games instead of some other, more complex puzzle to baffle peoplewith.
The origins ofhangman were unclear; as with so many puzzles and games, there was a chancethat it had been around for much longer than any of the records around it. Theearliest reference to something like it that Amber could find was from 1894,but the imagery of the hanged man didn’t seem to have been added until later,being described in 1902.
Beyond that, therewasn’t enough that was specific about the game’s history to suggest that therewas anything there that the killer might have picked up on. There wasn’tanything that made it particularly historically important or particularlysuitable for this.
What was it then?Amber tried to consider the psychological aspects of it. Perhaps it was thethrill of the game and the idea of outsmarting the cops that was appealing tothe killer. Or maybe it was the power dynamic, where the killer was the one incontrol and the victim was at their mercy. Maybe the choice of game was onlysignificant because it connected to the method of death.
Whatever thereason for choosing the type of puzzle, Amber knew that she would have to be onher A game when it came to this case. She started to look into optimal hangmanstrategies. She discarded strategies for the standard two-player versions,because those seemed to focus on her getting to set half the problems, whichwasn’t the case here. Instead, she started looking at an optimal letter choiceanalysis, which argued that the letter choices for the game weren’t necessarilythe same patterns used in code breaking.
She needed to makesure that she was ready for whatever might happen in Westford.
Simon nudged her. “We’realmost there.”
Amber looked outthe window of the plane. She could see what was presumably Westford below now,as it started to get light.
The sight waseerie, as there seemed to be a stillness that pervaded the landscape. It wasalmost as if the town had been put on hold, frozen in time as it waited for thekiller to be caught. Amber shuddered at the thought.
Their plane landedwithout any complications, and Simon and Amber made their way to the rental carthat had been arranged for them. Simon drove them over to the local PD, both ofthem wanting to get started on the case as soon as they could, since they’dboth slept and eaten on the plane. Amber’s mind was racing with variousscenarios that could play out as they investigated, each one worse than thelast.
The Westford PD buildingstood close to the heart of the town. It was a two-story building made of whitebricks and gray stone, which looked as though it had been there practicallyforever. There was a cluster of patrol cars parked outside. This early, theredidn’t appear to be any journalists waiting to grab the latest on the murder ofEmily Chen, but Amber imagined that they would be along in force soon enough.In a town like this, a serial killer would be the biggest news story around fordays, if not weeks, to come.
Amber brieflythought about Joseph. A part of her wished that he were here with her,following the case as a reporter, even as she worked it as an agent. If he werehere as a reporter, though, would he be asking for answers about the case? Thenthere was the argument that they’d almost had just before Amber left. Maybe itwas better for him to stay away from this case, chasing stories back in DCinstead.
Amber approachedthe door to the police department. The cold grip of the handle and the push ofthe button to unlock the door seemed to lend a seriousness to the workingenvironment ahead. Or maybe it was just that Amber knew that they were about tobe plunged into the middle of a murder investigation.
She stepped intothe police department. The scent of coffee mixed with disinfectant waftedthrough the air as the sound of phones ringing filled the room. Officers movedabout, some sitting at their desks, others pacing the floor, a few huddledtogether in conversation.
Simon led the waytoward the front desk, where a woman with short blonde hair looked up at them.
“Hi, we’re herefrom the FBI,” Simon said, flashing his badge. “I’m Agent Simon Phelps and thisis Agent Amber Young. We’re here to assist with the recent murders. DetectiveAngelique should be expecting us.”
