Topic: CTI: Crime Team Investigation

[Cassiebsg]

Uhm, maybe stupid, but have we checked her book store in Charlesburg?

[Ian Aloser]

Of course, we searched her house but not the book store!
How I understand from our Chief‘s words, she is actually trying
to lure us, so let us send Officer Leland to POTENTIAL SOLUTION CHARLESBURG
EDIT:

Oh you think you've spoiled my climax? All good plans contain a failsafe so they will be successful! Once I get out of here, I'll put a stop to the destruction of the master's work, believe it! Kidnapping and murder are just the start, there is so much to take care of! Just watch me!

I thought that the "failsafe so they will be successful" might have something to do with a perspective, and this led me tp PROSPECT PLACE, but let us first see if we can find something in Charlesburg, especially in the book store

[JackPutter]

Officer Leland checks out Annie McGee's bookstore in Charlesburg and finds that most of the store appears to be your average, run-of-the-mill bookstore. There are sections for bestsellers, non-fiction, second-hand books... things don't get interesting until he checks the basement. There he finds Annie's hideout. It is full of scrawled plans, a cork board with pictures and notes pinned to it, circuits and leftover chemicals from the bomb manufacturing process, unlicensed firearms... It leaves no doubt that Annie McGee is behind the attacks. What concerns Officer Leland the most though, is the fresh sheets of paper that lie in the printer's tray, the ink still wet. Someone was printing something out not long ago - he must have just missed her! Examining what's left in the printer's tray, Leland finds nothing useful, only these sheets...

https://imgur.com/a/zc9skz7

Spoiler: ShowHide

Apologies for the brevity of this update, didn't want to leave you good folks hanging but also didn't have much time to get in-depth.

[Cassiebsg]

Uhm, the "end is the beginning"... maybe she means where this case started? Or maybe that's the red herring, and the real location is hidden in the way the text is laid out...  Or maybe there's more it, and there's a hidden message in the text.

[Ian Aloser]

Cassiebsg, I believe you are right with going back to the beginning of the case.
And it began with a phone number which might be hidden here as well.
When you look at the numbered paragraphs you notice that they have a different number of lines,
where 4 would represent a Zero.
That would make 3 4 8 0 11 5 6, doesn't look like a phone number to me, though,
because from how I understood it, it would have to start with 555 for the area
Pretty clueless at the moment, I don't see any pattern there
EDIT: Wait, the first 3 numbers make 15=3x5=555
Hmmm, i think Officer Heltenjon should have a look at this,
he elegantly solved the puzzle in the beginning , I would
still sit on that today
And IF it’s a phone number we should find out to whom it belongs and
NOT call it because it might trigger a bomb
EDIT: The number in the beginning was 555-1408, checksum 28
The checksum from the last message is also 28
Did we ever check whose phonenumber the 555-1408 is?
I don’t think we did
So I am pretty sure that she wants us to call 555-1408 again
EDIT: Why did we NEVER try to find out whom that number belongs to, or did we?
EDIT: POTENTIAL SOLUTION: Try to find out whose phone number that is

[mkennedy]

What about Sallynoggin Heights? Is that still being considered for investigation?

[Ian Aloser]

Sallynoggin Heights revealed nothing
Was sure it would be a hit....
( see previous page )

[heltenjon]

Thanks, Ian, for those kind words, but I fail to see a distinctive pattern in the message. It looks like a homage to the novel Jack wrote in The Shining, repeating the same sentence over and over. I can't remember if he skipped bullet point 4 as well, but that omission is the only thing that stands out right now.

The end is the beginning is the end (etc.) could be an allusion to a book SK has written that ends in that style, which I won't name here for spoiler reasons. OR it may mean we ought to search the first location again, which was between Armstrong and Aldrin Walk.

But this message is not a new riddle, but rather a hint to how we should interpret the last phone conversation, if I understand this correctly. We can solve this from the phone message alone, but maybe not from this hint alone. So...was Aldrin Armstrong's failsafe?

[mkennedy]

Looks like I should read these threads more carefully....

[Ian Aloser]

Did we ever check whose phonenumber the 555-1408 is?
I don’t think we did
So I am pretty sure that she wants us to call 555-1408 again
EDIT: Why did we NEVER try to find out whom that number belongs to, or did we?
EDIT: POTENTIAL SOLUTION: Try to find out whose phone number that is

Me stupid !!
We DID try to trace the phonecall from the beginning, i completely overlooked it, sorry for the confusion !
Anyway, I am quite sure that she wants us to call that number again.
I see no other clue in the last call she made, so let's give it a try, so POTENTIAL SOLUTION
Let us call 555-1408

[JackPutter]

The chief tries calling 555-1408 but there is no connection. He gets the tech team to use every tool at their disposal but they find no active phone at the other end of that number. The connection must have been scrubbed after the last call.

[Ian Aloser]

Oooof,
my resources have been exhausted.............
Assuming that the papers we found DO include a hint in form of a phone number,
the only remaining numbers I could make up from  3 4 8 0 11 5 6 would be
555-6511
555-6520
555-6510
It should be no problem to find out if any of these belong to someone in the surroundings
On the other hand, we still may have overlooked a clue in the last phone call, but as I said,
I used up all my imagination......
But just to make sure: Could we please advise the tech team to check possible owners of the a.m. numbers?
REMEMBER: The big finale is still to come !

[heltenjon]

I think we have averted the big finale and are now trying to keep our perp(s) from escaping. But I may be wrong.

Can we (potential solution please retrace our steps and check if the original sites at and between Armstrong Walk and Aldrin Walk have been disturbed?

Chief, I think we ought to send reinforcements to officer Leland...perhaps the fire department or some retired cops in the area could help out somehow?

[JackPutter]

Officer Leyland checks out the original crime scenes around Armstrong Walk and Aldrin Walk but finds nothing that points to the killer's whereabouts, just a sinister reminder of the crimes in the form of a large crater...

The chief finishes off his bottle of whiskey and tosses it into the recycling bin. Reaching under his desk, he pulls out a fresh bottle and cracks it open. "Going back to the first clues and crimes doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. I'm starting the think this 'beginning is the end' claptrap has nothing to do with the early crimes, maybe it's just referencing that last phone call..."

[Laura Hunt]

Here's the map again, because I had to go back like 5 pages to find it:

Spoiler: ShowHide

And the last call:

Oh you think you've spoiled my climax? All good plans contain a failsafe so they will be successful! Once I get out of here, I'll put a stop to the destruction of the master's work, believe it! Kidnapping and murder are just the start, there is so much to take care of! Just watch me!

[Ian Aloser]

My God, I feel so dumb :-(
If it's in the last phone call, the only thing I see is HOME,
made up from the first (OH) and the last (ME) word of the phone call.
But we did check her home after she made the phone call, so I don't expect anything there.....
EDIT: Maybe the beginning refers to the place she was born.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION
Can we search her parents home ?
EDIT : And if nothing is found there, we should search her home once again VERY thoroughly from the cellar to the attic.
It might be that PLANS is meant in an architectural sense, meaning that there is a hidden room in her house.

P.S.: How much whiskey can our chief take ?