Case 026

Case 026: Sparky

Celest St. Claire's Notes

Hey,

I really appreciate your help with trying to find this psycho stalker!

As I mentioned in my note, I’m sure that my conclusions will match Sullivan’s. That being the case, if you’ve already asked him about these clues, you probably won’t learn anything new here.

If you do choose to use this site, you’ll still need to email Sullivan about the Location where I’m supposed to meet Sparky. You’ll also need to email him the case’s Solution once you’ve figured out where Sparky’s hideout is.

If you haven’t emailed Sullivan yet, you can visit SleuthKings.com/Case-026 to send him your first email. When you want to address either of the issues above, just include the appropriate underlined word from above in the body of your email.

If you want to see my thoughts on any of the clues in your case file, just click the corresponding button below.

I just noticed something – Sparky uses the term “third wheel” a couple of times in the message. It makes enough sense in the context, but I have the feeling there’s actually something more to it. I think it’s giving us a hint about which letters or symbols we need to look at.

Don’t worry – it looks like I was right: Sparky’s mention of the “third wheel” was telling us to look at every third letter or symbol. When you do, the letters spell “Password is smiles.”

The password has to be for the website that Sullivan and I found earlier: www.StorageFiles.net/Sparky. If you use “smiles” (all lowercase) for the password, it should unlock whatever information Sparky wanted to keep hidden on the site.

After you’ve had a chance to read through the website, you’ll probably want to move on to the next clue. I have the feeling that we’ll need to work through everything Sparky has left for me if we want to get through this nightmare.

Sparky had better hope that Sullivan finds them first. If I do, they’re going to be in for a world of pain!

Remember, when you’ve figured out where I’m supposed to meet Sparky, you’ll want to let Sullivan know. If you haven’t already, you can email him from www.SleuthKings.com/Case-026 to start the case. When you want to tell him the meeting place, just be sure to include the word Location in the body of your email so he knows what you’re talking about.

Sparky’s message here is really creepy, isn’t it? “I always keep my eyes on the bat. So should you.” Considering they’ve put multiple people in the hospital, this is really in poor taste.

Even so, I think there’s more to the message than it seems, at first. Each section of words and pictures has a bat near it, right? What if we need to rotate the zipper pull so that Sparky’s eyes are staring at the bat in each section? If that actually works, each section should decode differently than the others.

Sparky’s eyes are looking up on the zipper pull, right? If you position the zipper pull so that the eyes point toward the bat in the section that you want to decode, the symbols and words tell us which 3-letter word to look at on the zipper pull. The color of the symbol or word tells us which letter in the applicable word to use in the message.

When you finish decoding everything, the message says:

“No interruptions. Our spot is silent from nine till noon.”

I think this person is trying to be menacing, but this is really just vague, isn’t it? If you want somebody to meet you, don’t give them such a large timespan. Etiquette aside, this is giving us a hint about where Sparky wants to meet me. For now, I’d recommend writing the message down and moving on to the next clue to see what else you can learn.

This has been surprisingly tough to crack, but I finally made sense out of one of the words:

We’ve still got a long way to go but, hopefully, this will help you decode a few more letters. Even after you’ve decoded the message, I have the feeling that there might be more to Sparky’s actual message. If this is giving us instructions, be sure to follow them so that you can find whatever it is you’re really supposed to learn here.

I finally managed to decode all of the faces. Here’s what they say:

It’s like I thought – this is just giving us instructions about how to find Sparky’s real message. If they’re trying to scare me, they’ve got another thing coming. When we meet, I’ll show Sparky the real meaning of fear!

Sorry – this person has just really gotten under my skin. Back to the task at hand – I think the “random lines” mentioned in the message are the handwritten letters on the front of the wanted poster. Take a look at them to see if you can find Sparky’s real message.

When you rearrange each of the lines on the front of the wanted poster so that the first letters spell “Sparky,” the rest of the message looks like this:

Once you’ve got that, the trick is to read each line from the top down. When you do, the message says:

“Leave your car in the parking lot. You will not want to drive away.”

I hate to admit it, but I think Sparky might be right – I’m not going to want to drive away. Instead, I’m going to want to drive over them. A few times. (Hey, if a psycho with a baseball bat asked to meet you somewhere, I think you’d feel the same!)

Even though this message seems practically meaningless, it’s not. If nothing else, now we know that the place Sparky wants to meet me has a parking lot. That’s progress. For now, I’d recommend writing that down and checking out the next clue.

It’s not much but, so far, I’ve noticed that there are two words missing from the quote in the letter. I’m not sure what to make of that yet, but I’m sure it’s important.

The missing words are “hue” and “man,” right? If you use the letters below Sparky’s creepy message to spell out the words, they create this message:

“Hospital under eight miles away now.”

That must mean that the hospital is less than eight miles from wherever I’m supposed to meet Sparky. That should actually help narrow down our possibilities quite a bit.

Of course, if you need any help narrowing down the location after you’ve solved Clues 1-4, you can also let Sullivan know that you’re working on figuring out the location and ask him for help once he gets back to you.

In the meantime, Sully and I will keep working together to see if we can crack the location, too. I know that he’s worried about sending me to Sparky’s meeting place on my own, but I’ll be fine. Frankly, it’s Sparky he should be worried about. I’m not going to let whoever’s inside of that mascot costume off easily. They broke into my house, threatened Sully and me, and now they’re playing games with us. They’re going to pay if I have anything to say about it!