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Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny
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Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny
A Game Guide
by Peter Olafson
Version: This is version 1.0. It’s based on the US edition of the game.
Contact: Lingering questions? Mistakes? Something unclear? You can write to me at peternolafson @ yahoo.com.
Copyright: This document is copyright 2010-11 by Peter Olafson. You may not post it, distribute it, edit it, excerpt it (except for “fair use” purposes in news coverage), sell it or publish it in any fashion without my prior written consent. At this time, the only site with permission to post the walkthrough is JustAdventure.com.
October 19
Nicole’s Apartment
FBI agent Nicole Bonnet is home on stay-cation when she takes delivery of a parcel. No sooner has the delivery cut-scene ended — the parcel deposited on the desk to the right of the TV — than the phone rings. It’s a rather zombie-like Ruth from the office alerting Nicole that an attempt was made to deliver to the office as well and that she should approach any box with caution.
In other words, no just tearing the wrapper off as though it was Christmas morning. You’ll have to use the letter opener (out in the hall, on the table beside the roses) or the nail file (on the bed upstairs). Pick the box up first and then, in inventory, drag the box-opener of choice onto it.
Within, a plain gray metal box and a page from a NY News profile of Nicole, with the words “Nicole Bonnet” and “serial killer” circled in red.
Odds & ends: You’ll keep the wrapping paper. You don’t have to look at it to complete this sequence, but, if you do, you’ll find on the inside a rectangle within a rectangle, followed by an exclamation point. Not the last time today that you’ll see this emblem.
Naturally, the box is locked. Right-click on the lock to learn the key is not included. Nicole suggests a lockpick. But the nail file from the bed will do as well.
Inside, you’ll find two odd items. (You’ll have to rotate the box first to see them clearly.) Click on them for two quick shots of a passing train. Nicole concludes that a dramatic event must be connected with the items. (Has Nicole suddenly sprouted psychic powers?)
The items themselves are of the most mundane sort: a rusty bolt and an oblong bulb. When you pick up each item, Nicole observes that there’s writing on each. You won’t be able to make it out without a little help.
Happily, a little help is nearby. A magnifying glass can be found upstairs atop the dresser catty-corner to the bed. Use this on the base of the bulb to find a stenciled “CXDET 110.”
You’ll need a little more help with the bolt. Rust has obscured the type and you’ll need to remove it to make out all the letters. And, no, Nicole does not keep rust remover around. But there is that little box of “Alkazetzer” on the bed — Alka-Seltzer ™ apparently has rust-removing properties — and a glass of water on the left side of the counter separating the kitchen from the living room.
Left-click on the package to liberate two tablets. Drop ‘em in the glass, followed by the bolt. The water turns rust-colored almost instantly. Left-click on the glass to get back the rust-free bolt and inspect the inscription under the magnifying glass again to reveal “ABF B412.” Once you’ve examined both under the magnifying glass, Nicole suggests an FBI technician named Wang might be able to help.
Get over to the desk and pick the phone in the upper left corner. Nicole automatically calls the tech. When Wang completes his oddly unenthusiastic come-ons, Nicole provides such details as she has on bulb and bolt … and gives you a little task to fill the time. She needs note paper and a felt-tip pen to jot down the information she expects to receive back from Wang.
The paper part is easy. There’s a pad of green post-its on the desk next to Nicole’s diary. And the pen’s just across the room — on the right side of the drafting table to the right of the door to the front hall.
Wait a few seconds and Wang rings back. He reports the bolt was produced by a firm that laid railroad tracks in New York before World War II. He’ll steer Nicole to locations in Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.
The bulb is more modern — designed for a movie projector manufactured in the 1960s and formerly used in theaters in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. (So the two items have Queens in common.)
When the calls ends, you’ll find each of the locations on its own post-it and Nicole now looking for a New York City map. The map’s in a drawer … and the drawer’s not in a desk or a dresser but a chair — the left side of the chair at the desk. When you open the drawer, you’ll get the map automatically. You can’t open it on this cluttered surface, but try the largely empty table where you earlier found the felt-tipped pen. (Actually, you can find and open the map at any stage in the apartment segment.)
Now you just have to drag each of the addresses you collected from Wang to the appropriate borough. This shouldn’t be an issue even if you’re unfamiliar with the Big Apple. Four of the five boroughs are plainly labeled and though Staten Island isn’t, it can be readily identified from the “Staten Island Expy” marked on the map. It’s just southwest of Brooklyn across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
When all six notes are in place, Nicole sees that the rail-line address and theater address in Queens are adjacent to each other on Blake Avenue. The sender seems to be pointing Nicole here. Leave the apartment to send Nicole to Queens.
Extra task: You can perform an unadvertised household chore: Feed Hoover, Nicole’s gray alleycat. The food is on the lower portion of the drill out in the hall and the dish upstairs to the right of the bed.
Gentle Bob Bar
You’re not getting into the theater through the front or right side doors. They’re locked up tight. Maybe via the bar to the left? Enter the ladies restroom at the right rear, zoom in on the dirty window in the right wall and click on the latch halfway up the right side. The window opens onto the theater’s rear yard — but it’s barred, with a rusty padlock semi-visible at the right.
Is there a key? Yes. Can you get it without going through some roundabout routine? No. You have to wait out the other patrons to talk freely with the particular patron you want and collect everything you’ll need, and that’ll take a while.
Return to the bar proper and talk to the bartender. Nicole orders a drink and then fends off the advances of a yappy journalist waiting for a blind date. When the woman talking to him excuses herself, follow her to the restroom and talk to her.
She’ll return to the bar. When you return you’ll find the journalist and the two bikers at the front left table have made themselves scarce.
This is important for two reasons. 1) Patti is now less distracted and can talk to Nicole freely. 2) Nicole can now poke around in two new locations on previously-explored screens: the bikers’ table (where you can take an empty oil bottle) and the now-empty space at the curb outside (a screwdriver).
Chat with Patti again. It seems she’s waiting for a train — the platform’s across the side street to the right of the theater — and has lost the batteries for her MP3 player.
You have to run out and find them. Stands to reason they’re between the bar and the station platform to the right of the theater. (You may even have found them already.) If not, leave the bar and head right to the closeup view of the theater entrance. In the lower left corner, you’ll find the package just right of a short curved pipe at sidewalk level. Return to Patti and talk about “batteries” to turn these over and Nicole’s in this lady’s good graces.
The talk turns from the uselessness of men like the journalist to Patti’s job. She works part-time as a caregiver for an older man who once worked as projectionist at the theater next door. She’ll tell Nicole a story about this gentleman, a key found in the theater’s backyard, a bet the man made about getting into the bar to steal whiskey and a hiding-place in the bar’s footrest.
Have a look at the footrest, pull off the cap at the near end and feel around inside. There’s something there, all right, but Nicole will need a tool of some sort to extract it.
And there’s a tool right here. Back out of the closeup, look at the corner of the bar and take the fork. That gives you the means to reach into the footrest, but not to pull out whatever’s in there. However, something sticky appended to the fork would work and, indeed, there’s something sticky on the underside of the bar just to the right of Patti. Nicole won’t touch it with her bare hands so spear the wad of gum here with the fork and then use the fork + gum on the hole at the end of the footrest to produce a small key. Left-click on the fork to separate out the key. (The fork can be claimed at any time and the gum after the journalist has given up, but the footrest cap won’t come off until you’ve heard about it from Patti.)
You may already have guessed that the key won’t immediately turn in the padlock, but you have to try anyway to set up the remedy: lubricating the lock. As mentioned, an empty oil bottle can be found on the left side of the bikers’ table. The bartender can supply a refill. Ask him about “bar” and “oil,” then pour oil on the key, use the oiled key on the padlock and push the grate open.
Oh, one more thing: Before you leave the restroom, take the paper towels over by the sink and the cleaning fluid below the window. No, you don’t need either just yet, but you will shortly, and they’ll become harder to acquire once you’re inside the theater.
Goofs: Initially, three motorcycles are parked outside the bar, but just two bikers are parked at the table at the left front. Where’s the third? Evidently in the men’s room at the left rear. (“Oh no, I shouldn’t interrupt the gentlemen,” says Nicole should you try to enter.) However, you’ll get the same response if you try the door after all three bikes vanish from the street and the both bikers from the table.
Emperor Theater
Climb the stairs to find the door at the top locked and handle-less.
Don’t think handle. Think foothold. The window above the door is open and a makeshift step inserted into the handle hole would give Nina a leg-up toward the opening.
What might fit in that hole? Well, remember how you were able to take the oil bottle on the bikers’ table after they left? The motorcycles out front are gone, too, and that allows you to claim the screwdriver that earlier was obscured by the middle bike’s front wheel. Insert this where the door handle should be.
By itself, that won’t get you through the window. You need something to prop the window open. So when you enter the theater’s back yard, the first thing to do is head left and take the rod on the ground to the right of the bathroom window.
(Also, in the interest of convenience, grab the bricks and the middle of the three buckets just left of the rod. You can come back and collect these later if you like — but, as mentioned, once you enter the theater, getting out again can prove slightly tricky.)
Use the rod on the window and then climb through.
It stands to reason there’s another message for Nicole here. You’ll find it in the projection booth around the corner. Move to the left rear corner and then zoom in on the table in front of you. Take the film can marked with Nicole’s name and left-lick on it in inventory to remove a reel of film.
Now to play it. That’s a rather complicated affair.
First, you’ll need to wind the film onto a second reel — this small one won’t play in the projectors — and an large empty one can be found right in front of you. Take it and zoom in on the rewinding machine on the table. Place the empty reel on the right spindle and Nicole’s film on the left. Now you just have to turn the crank to transfer the film. Zoom in again on the crank.
Alas, the handle is missing. This wouldn’t thwart most of us — we’d just grab the handle-less end of the crank and turn it anyway — but Nicole seems to have torque issues, so we’re off to find a substitute handle.
You won’t have to go far: It’s the stubby screwdriver on the table in the foreground just outside the booth door. Insert this where the rewind handle goes and activate it to transfer the film onto the right-hand reel. Then take the right reel.
Next we’ll set up a projector. In the process, you’re going to run into a whole series of problems. You’ll save yourself some disappointment and running about if you first take care of the three that can be tackled in advance. (One can’t.)
– The power to the projectors is off. It’s easy to restore. In the full room views, you’ll see an “amplifier” high on the left or far wall. Zoom in on it and activate with a left-click the left of the two small switches just below and to the right of the “monitor” knob at the left. The gizmo lights up and Nicole presumes that it’s working. (It is.)
– Pull back the sliding panel that covers the aperture through which the projector beams the film. You’ll find that the glass behind it is filthy. If you already have the paper towels and “Mr. Cleaner” spray from the bar restroom, you’re good. Just use the spray on the towels and then the towels on the glass.
If you left these items behind in the Gentle Bob restroom, you’ll have to go back and get them. En route, you’ll develop a couple of extra problems.
When Nicole retreats toward the door back to the theater’s rear lot, the floor just inside the door collapses at her feet. Happily, there’s a cast-off door leaning against the right wall. Simply left-click on it to tip it over to bridge the gap.
Without a leg-up on this side of the door — no screwdriver in the handle hole — Nicole can’t back climb through the window above the door. You’ll have to unlock the door instead.
The key’s easy to find. It’s hanging just right of the door to the projection booth. Use this on the door twice to unlock it and then make your way down the stairs and into the bar’s rest room.
– Curtains cover the movie screen. You’ll have to find a way to part them.
Leave the booth and descend the stairs to the auditorium. You want the lighted doorway in the upper right corner.
The curtain controls are on the left wall of this small storage room. Zoom in on them. The automatic controls don’t work and the manual ones below seem to be missing a couple of parts.
Mercifully, the important part is here — the cast-iron flywheel against the far wall — and you can cobble together a replacement for the missing ratchet that must once have adorned the steel peg to the right.
The wheel goes on the “revolving mechanism” at the left. Then left-click on the handle at the bottom of the wheel and hold down the mouse button as you rotate the wheel. After the fifth rotation, the wheel will catch and you’ll have a brief opportunity to anchor it in place. Put the bricks from the theater’s back yard into the bucket and use the bucket on the handle. The curtains part!
(If you left the bricks and bucket in the theater’s back yard, follow the instructions in the section about cleaning the embrasure in the projection booth to reach the theater’s side lot.)
– The projector lamp is missing a bulb.
You have a bulb. In the profile view of the projector, zoom in on the left side, open the projector cover (using the red-and-white handle) and place the bulb you received in the mail into the “bulb” space” at the left.
– Set up the film.
Nicole’s film goes in the upper of the two “reel spaces” to the right. The lower one requires an empty reel to receive the film — which you may not have.
Leave the booth. Out in the hall, you’ll see a stack of empty reels in the near left corner — most of them warped. Take the intact one on top and place it in the lower “reel space.”
Return to the profile view of the projector and click on the power switch. (This is suspended by a cable from the projector lamp.)
– Ulp! The projector runs for about a second before the bulb burns out.
Simply cannibalize the slightly more bulbous bulb from the far projector.
(Note that you can’t anticipate this problem and swap out the bulbs in advance. If you do, the bulbous bulb burns out instead and you’ll have to replace it with the one you received in the mail.)
Save your game, then hit the power button again and the movie plays.
Watch carefully. You’ll be treated to a range of scenes from the first two Art of Murder games (some now labeled “FBI archive,” which raises the question of how they wound up in third-party hands); footage of Nicole as media darling; what appears to be surveillance footage; a brief shot of a theater seating plan (with the rectangles emblem from the inner surface of the wrapping paper for the metal box); and two of just the rectangles emblem, now filled in with a “V” and a “d.”
The emblem clearly links the “Vd” with a seating plan. Coordinates for a particular seat? Yup: Fifth row, fourth seat from the left.
You don’t have to first inspect the actual seating plan (in the darkness to the right of the locked side exit from the auditorium) to find the seat. But you’re not going to locate seat or plan without a light source. That’d be the flashlight atop the stack of reels on the right side of the lighted storage room to the right of the screen.
Move to the front of the auditorium and you will be able to tick off the rows and seats with little difficulty. Select the appropriate seat and Nicole will pivot the chair bottom to expose a piece of metal — collected automatically. Right-click on this in inventory and rotate it slightly counter-clockwise and you’ll see a train ticket has been attached. Left-click on this to remove it and you’ll see it’s for the train due at the Blake Avenue station at 7 p.m.
Time to leave. The side exit is apparently locked (“blocked”) but you can force it using the piece of metal.
Alternate route: You can also try to get out of the theater the way you came in, but you’ll have to repair the collapsed floor and find the key — as in the return-for-supplies scenario described above — and then you’ll find the bars on the bathroom window locked in place again.
Railroad Station
When Nicole leaves the theater, a cut-scene kicks in. A car is stalled on the train tracks, and the 7 p.m. train is in-bound. (And given that it’s supposed to stop at the station, going pretty damn fast, too.) We’re reminded by an overhead shot that this is the same cut-scene Nicole saw when she touched the contents of the box. The luckless driver tries to get out at the last moment, but is unsuccessful.
“This man didn’t have a chance,” says Nicole. “But how could this happen?”
Good question. People do get stuck at railway crossings by accident and even design. But it’s a late-model car and not likely to stall. And why didn’t the driver just abandon his vehicle?
Nicole automatically removes to the left end of the train platform. Note the presence of the technician Wang and his toolbox.
You can talk to Williams — the black cop with the Irish accent who’s holding back the onlookers. Via “Accident,” he’ll give you the impression there’s thought to have been a malfunction with the barrier. It was serviced just a month ago by someone named Masters.
All this detail is a red herring. It’s really designed to prompt you to inspect the barrier itself. Move right twice and then down and right to reach the crossing. Zoom in on the gap between the crossing bars and you’ll find a playing card (a Jack of Hearts) inserted behind one of the blinking lights. Right-click on it and Nicole suggests a photo. Return to Wang and talk to him about “Accident,” “Traces” and “Evidence” and you’ll be able to take the camera and evidence bags from his toolkit. Use the camera on the card and then bag it. Here Nicole suggests a return to the theater to “secure the traces.”
Now, you’re not quite done out at the barrier — the locked box and the manhole to the left are related hotspots — but you can wrap up your business in the theater now or later. Here’s what remains to be done.
The barrier: Zoom in on the switch box and you’ll see a rectangle-within-a-rectangle symbol from the wrapping paper and theater seating plan on top at the left.
Clearly, Nicole needs to get inside the box, but she has nothing resembling a key. But you look at the keyhole, you’ll get a sense of what might be required to open the box: a “tubular” or “barrel” key. And you can find a tube: A copper one rests atop the trash can at the right end of the station platform. It doesn’t fit the lock in its current state, but if you examine the tube in inventory, Nicole notes that copper is “quite easily bent.”
And, as it happens, the pipe does fit directly into the hole at the center of the adjacent manhole. You just need something with which to bash it to change the shape of the inserted end. (Yes, miraculously, the manhole-cover hole is of the exact size and configuration as the keyhole.)
You’re fresh out of bashing material. But the accident seems to have kicked up a piece of the platform. At the left end of the station, you’ll find a concrete block under the section of police tape nearest the wrecked car. Grab it, hustle back to the manhole, whomp the pipe and grab the pipe again. Use the re-formed pipe on the keyhole and then activate the pipe twice to open the compartment door.
Inside, a news clipping about a month-old murder. (This appears to be the one involving the body found in the intro.) Snap photos of the symbol on top of the box and the article itself and bag the article. Nicole here suggests you turn in your evidence to Wang. (You won’t be able to do so until you complete the theater sequence as well.)
Odds & ends: An article on the back — “Physicists Thrill to Finding of Superconductor” — appears to be a real article that appeared in the New York Times on 2/24/01.
The theater: Use the side entrance. (The Gentle Bob bar is now closed.) There are three “traces” within: the bulb Nicole received in the parcel, the film (now in the lower “reel space”) and a photo of the theater’s seat plan with its rectangle-within-a-rectangle. Snap it and get out. (Once you’ve completed your business here, Nicole says, “Done!”)
Return the camera and evidence bags to Wang’s toolkit, talk to Wang about “Return” and you’ll now get an “Evidence” topic that allows Nicole to turn over everything but the flashlight and burned-out bulb. Just talk to Patti (who’s watching the action from a position behind the police tape) about “Accident” and “Getting back home” and you’ll call it quits for the day.
October 20
FBI Field Office
You’ll start off in the building where Nicole was based in FBI Confidential. Back then, it was a work-in-progress. Now the renovations are complete, a variety of new operations have been included … and some things you’ll recall from the first Art of Murder game are now in slightly different locations.
You’ll start off in the lab. Talk to Wang. You’ll get four salient bits of data from him.
1) He agrees the train death is a murder. He’s discovered the car didn’t stall by accident. A chip with a radio receiver was placed in the car’s power circuit and the engine was turned off and the doors locked remotely.
2) An expert Wang believes to have been referred to him by Nicole concurs in these conclusions.
(Hold it. What expert?)
3) He also turns over a blood-spattered sheet of paper retrieved from the car. It reads, “Holland Street 7 p.m.” — Holland being a street near the railroad crossing. Presumably this reflects how the killer lured the victim into the area. (However, this item doesn’t require further analysis and Nicole never does anything with it. It can be removed from the evidence bag using the gloves in a box on the counter to the left of Wang, but can’t be used with the scanner.)
4) Finally, Wang hasn’t had time to look at the playing card Nicole retrieved from the crossing barrier, but is willing to allow Nicole to handle this task herself using the scanner over to the left in tandem with the computer in Nicole’s own office.
You can start this process now. Zoom in on the counter just left of the area where Wang’s working and take the bagged playing card at the left and a pair of rubber gloves from the left of the two boxes to the right.
Now for the scanner. It’s just to the left of the tall server rack. Zoom in on it and open it by left-clicking on the top. Right-click on the card in inventory and then use the gloves on the bagged item to remove it from the evidence bag. (Or you can simply use the gloves twice on the bagged card.) Place the card inside the scanner, close the top and press the rectangular button at the front. When the scan is complete, open the top again,.right-click on the card to flip it over and run another scan. The results are stored on the FBI’s mainframe for later analysis. (We’ll get to that in a moment.)
Retrieve the card and re-bag it. Replace the bagged card on the counter where you found it (in the close-up view), close the scanner and leave the lab.
Outside, you’ll find the expert — one Jason Emmerick. Nicole talks to him automatically. He doesn’t say anything appreciably different than what you’ve already learned from Wang — though he does include a forward-looking reference to a “seaside retreat” — and Nicole neglects to ask how he came to contact Wang in the first place or even for ID. (I’d be a bit wary about an unsolicited expert turning up out of nowhere.) He asks for Nicole’s business card and she automatically heads off to her office to retrieve one.
Look at Nicole’s desk and take the calling cards to the right of the phone. Nicole observes that cards for partner Nick Romsky (a peripheral presence in the first two Art of Murder games) are on top. Look at them in inventory to see that in fact they’re all Nick’s. Nick’s here. Talk to him about “Packing up,” “Explanation,” “Calling card” and “Calling card box” to learn he’s quitting the Bureau to become a private investigator — sounds as though he’s been pushed — and to swap Nick’s cards for Nicole’s.
Out in the hall, you’ll find Emmerick has vanished. But just drop down the stairs and you’ll find him beside the pillar to the right of Reception. Talk to him about “Calling card” to turn one over and elicit additional come-ons before he makes himself scarce.
Odds & ends: You can explore the neighborhood in a minor way. Leave the building and go down and right to reach Nicole’s car and a distant view of heavy traffic on a cross-street.
You have one loose thread still hanging: You need to look at your scans of the playing card. Wang asked you to do so on Nicole’s PC — and you already know from the first zoomed-in view of Nicole’s desk that someone’s had a go at that system. It’s been dismantled. Examine it with a right-click and Nicole says, “Was the IT bored? I’ve got to ask him.”
Don’t bother. Though you can collect a range of insights (starting with Nick — until Nicole hands off the calling card) about what happened to the computer, the computer stays broken and the IT offices (in the upper right corner downstairs) remain inaccessible for the rest of the game.
However, you can now beg Wang to use the lab terminal. He agrees, but also extracts a favor. In exchange, Nicole is to pose as Wang at the office’s shooting range so the tech can be recertified with his weapon. (He’ll automatically supply his ID card for this purpose.)
Drop down the stairs again and head to the upper right corner of the hall. The shooting range is the rightmost door in the upper wall. Use Wang’s ID on the card reader to the right of the door and then enter.
At the central firing station, pick up the pistol and fire at the target until Nicole says “This should be enough for Wang.” It’s too easy. All you have to do is hit the piece of paper containing the target — not the bullseye, hell, not even the actual target area — 10 times. (If you need to change targets, throw the switch at the left to recover the old target, left-click on the fresh targets on the counter and throw the switch again to restore the target to its position at the end of the range. If more ammo, just left-click on the cartridges to the right.)
Then return to the lab and talk to Wang about “Shooting range” to return his ID.
Now you’re free to use the terminal to the right of the servers. Log in with a left-click, press the “enter” key and you’ll find yourself peering at a largely empty screen with images of the two sides of the playing card in the upper left corner. Drag both images into the wide bar at the top of the screen. Then the select the “?” icon at the upper right to run an analysis of both sides. This will come up with four selectable regions on the “reverse” (back) side of the card and five on the “obverse” (face) side.
Now you have to select a subset of these nine regions to compare to the database. This is actually three questions: How many, which ones … and why?
Trial and error will reveal that four is too many — Nicole’s just not patient enough to wait for such searches to complete — and two is too few. (This produces far too many responses to prove useful.)
So three then. But which three of the nine available regions should you select?
Most of it can be figured out logically. For starters, given the preponderance of regions on the “obverse” side, we can safely assume we’ll need to highlight two regions there and one on the “reverse” side.
And the key to selecting them? Right-click on any region and Nicole mentions that a selected area must be “characteristic.” In other words, you don’t want to waste a slot on areas that are graphically undistinctive or unrepresentative.
Hence, on the “reverse” side, you’ll want to exclude the two regions (at the lower right and upper left) that display in whole or significant part the webwork that makes up much of the image. That leaves two regions, with the more distinctive of the two being the left edge of the central circle — incorporating as it does portions of three different graphical motifs.
On the “obverse” side, ignore the two lower regions that display browning. That leaves the three upper regions. And here you’ll run into a problem: They may all seem equally distinctive. How do you pick out two? xxx
Break it down. The “J” in the upper left corner is an easy choice for the first and, of the remaining two. it’s easy to fasten onto the Jack’s distinctive face rather than its more obscure right hand.
So, to sum up, the correct regions are the central one on the “reverse” side and the top two on the “obverse.” With these three regions highlighted, run a search by clicking on the magnifying glass symbol in the upper right corner. You’ll come up with five matches to other killings at which cards from the same deck were used — the fourth being the one in the intro and the fifth the Blake Avenue murder.
Nicole now suggests running this by her boss. Leave the lab and use the door in the near right corner. Talk to secretary Ruth about “Vacation” and “Boss,” enter the office to the right and talk to the boss (who’s still not allowed to have a name). This chat goes on for quite a while. You’ll learn here that the killer will be nicknamed The Card Man, that your new partner is Richard Parry, who’s worked on some of these murders, and that you shouldn’t leave the building just yet. A parcel has been found outside.
Descend the stairs and step through the main door to set off a cut-scene: the parcel (addressed to Nicole) being collected by a robot and deposited in a steel tank in the sapper unit.
Nicole automatically removes to the sapper room — located downstairs to the left of the soda machine. Talk to the sapper here to learn the wrapping has been sent up to the lab for analysis and that the metal box in the tank has a four-digit combination lock.
There must be some kind of hint to the combination on the wrapper — this killer likes to lead you by the nose — so your first stop should be the lab. Talk to Wang and he’ll turn the paper over with a reference to “some scrawls.”
I’ll say. Right-click on the wrapper in inventory to find the paper evenly coated with numbers, letters and doodles. Nicole suggests making a copy. Use the gloves on the wrapper to remove it from the evidence bag and then use the paper on the copier in the left rear corner of Ruth’s office.
You’ll find the copy in your inventory. Right-click on it and Nicole suggests folding it to read the killer’s message. (The original’s fold lines have already been duplicated on your copy.)
You’ll feel inclined to combine the red doodles to the far left and far right, and you can — but this’ll only get you half the combination. The full combo can be produced only by flipping over to the other side of the sheet. (Click on the up arrow on the paper’s upper edge or the down arrow on the lower edge.) The notation “53G” should now appear upright on the left side of the paper.
Now left-click on:
– the leftward arrow on the right side of the rightmost vertical fold,
– the upward arrow on the lower side of the lower horizontal fold
– the rightward arrow on the left side of the left vertical fold
And there it is: 6 8 Q and a heart symbol!
Go talk to the sapper. Nicole interprets those last two symbols as the Queen of Hearts and the sapper can help her assign this a numeric value. In Blackjack, all face cards are worth 10 points — but that would rob the Queen of any special significance, so it must be 12. Hence, the combination is “6-8-1-2.”
Use the computer’s joystick to control the robotic arm in the chamber. It can be a little tricky. Just move the joystick in baby steps to the right to bring it over each of the four dials, then press the left button to close the pincers and then move the joystick up or down to adjust the number. (The right button brings the arm back to its starting position.) When you’re done, talk to the sapper about “Success” and you’ll be able to enter the chamber and, with gloves, claim a token and a turnpike ticket. Just bag whichever one you pick up first and use the gloves to hold the second. You’ll be able to grab a second bag when you return to the lab.
Back in the lab, grab a second evidence bag from Wang’s counter and then scan both token and ticket. (Either side of the coin and the front side of the ticket will do here.)
The single region on the token is automatically selected, but what about the toll ticket? Each of the nine exits displayed is a selectable area. Can you draw a logical inference about which to select?
Nuh-uh. Examination of the token reveals it’s used in the entertainment industry and the picture on one side certainly looks like an entrance to an amusement park. But there’s no suggestion on the ticket of the presence of such a park at any exit nor reference material (i.e. the map at Nicole’s place) that could help you out.
This is pure trial and error. The errors come to an end when you select Exit 15 and run a search. You’ll come up with a map that shows an amusement park at that exit on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Nicole here prompts you to talk to Wang. The upshot: Nicole favors an immediate raid on the park.
When you’re done, new partner Parry puts in an appearance. You’ll talk to this young Harvey Keitel automatically. Parry urges evaluation and discussion. What if Nicole’s selected the wrong location?
Nicole is not at her most diplomatic. Unreasonably, she challenges Parry to produce an alternate destination for the SWAT unit and insists the murder could be proceeding even now without her presence as spectator.
Next thing you know, you’re outside Luna Park.
Luna Park
Enter the park through the clown’s mouth. You’ll find yourself at the end of a midway … and perhaps feeling a little lost.
The only clear lead here is the left of the two binocular kiosks at the entrance to an alley to the right. This has been pre-sighted on the shooting gallery on the left side of the midway.