Nancy Drew: Alibi in Ashes Walkthrough

Nancy Drew: Alibi in Ashes is the twenty-fifth game in Her Interactive’s series, and the anniversary twist is that Nancy spends most of it in a River Heights jail cell, accused of burning down the old town hall, while Bess, George and Ned do the legwork. This walkthrough covers the Junior Detective game in full, both Easter eggs and every award, with the Senior Detective solutions at the end.

How the game plays

• Read What Every Detective Should Know and the case file on the desk; note the name of Nancy’s team. Click the note on the desk to start.
• The inventory is unchanged; directions are from the player’s viewpoint unless stated. Saves live in Documents\Alibi in Ashes. Played on Junior Detective; Senior solutions at the end.
• Four playable characters. Any friend can take a task unless it needs an item only one of them holds (a key, the test tube). Hand over by phoning Nancy, who then asks a friend to take the case. Information is shared, items are not; items pass through the lost-and-found box by the police station door. Bess talks best to Toni and Brenda, Ned to Deirdre and her friends, George to Alexei.

Awards

• Sound Engineer: listen to every interrogation recording to the end.
• Sweet Tooth: eat plenty from the striped box at the station and the cabinet in Nancy’s room.
• Cartographer: visit every active map location with any character.
• Gourmet: try every ice cream on the board at the Scoop.
• Easter Egg: find the eggs.
• Telephone Operator: in jail, first dial 911.
• Arson Expert: find every accelerant in the game.
• Prosecutor: talk to Toni about the lawsuit over the town hall land.
• Number Fan: get a character’s name to the top of the Number Frenzy leaderboard.
• Cryptographer: finish the café arcade game at least ten times.
• Team Player: play every friend at least once.
• Expert: answer the closing quiz correctly.

Nancy: the fire

Outside the old storeroom, note the old memorial on the right, open the door, and it slams behind you. A sound: left of the old door, a block of ice on the thermostat box melts onto bare wires and the room catches fire. Read the evacuation plan right of the locked door and remember the route. The only way out is the open transom, high up: build a ladder from what is lying about, left button to take, right to rotate. Click the transom. In the smoky corridor follow the plan: forward twice to a door; right into the corridor; forward three times to a door; at the fork, right; two steps forward; right; at the fork, left along the curved arrow; forward twice to the end; the grey door. Film.

In the cell, lift the receiver and dial 911 (for the award). Click the note with Carson Drew’s number and leave a message; your friends’ numbers appear on the note. To hand a task to a friend, phone them and say “take the case”. Call Bess: ask her to find the note that sent you to the old town hall and to mind the house (George will). Hand over.

Bess: the note

Turn to the map and click the Old Town Hall. Walk forward and pick up the note from the ground. Do not cross the police tape or Bess is arrested. Map to the police station; right of the doors, open the lost-and-found box and put the note in. Phone Nancy and hand over.

Nancy: the key

The cell door opens and you are in the station room. Listen at Sheriff McGinnis’s door: an officer lost the evidence-locker keys at the Pancake Paradise. Without this you will not learn where the key is. Phone George from the cell and ask her to find it.

George: the antique shop

From Nancy’s house, map to Pancake Paradise: Officer Ryan has gone to Mabel Rose. Go to the Scoop first: Deirdre at a table is hostile; Bess at the next table wants Deirdre distracted so she can look in her handbag, not yet. Mabel Rose, then the antique shop: talk to Alexei Markovic; Detective Ryan brought him a puzzle he cannot solve. Zoom on the old chest in the left corner and pick up the alarm keys from the floor beside it. Read the wall clippings about the time capsule. At the new-arrivals shelf, the puzzle has a key at its bottom: press pins 1, 2, 3, or any solution pressing every other pin. Take the key. Take the empty test tube from the table and click the Number Frenzy box: press 1 to 41 in order without mistakes, faster than the top time. Trick: play through three times ignoring the clock; the fourth time the clock stops at the record and you can finish at leisure. The box’s secret compartment holds the key to Alexei’s chest.

Easter egg one

Press Start again and click the primes in order: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41. Take the first egg.

Outside, read the Crime Herald headline in the newspaper machine and the note on the right. Map to the police, put the alarm keys and the key to locker 205 in the box, phone Nancy, hand over.

Nancy, then Ned: the Scoop

Nancy phones Ned. As Ned, map to the Scoop, talk to Deirdre about everything, then Bess. Inside, note the big town map right of the door (not interactive, but useful). Talk to the server and order an ice cream; nothing costs anything, so order every flavour for the award. Drive to the antique shop and question Alexei, leaving the alarm keys for last. At the police station phone Nancy; she will ask her father. Hand over.

Nancy: the evidence locker

From the box take the alarm keys and the key to locker 205. On the computer desk, read the book on arson investigation; the computer needs a password. On the next desk right, Hannah’s striped box of treats and her letter: eat. On another desk, an audio player with no memory card. The evidence board holds only evidence against Nancy. Open the top right locker door with the key: from the top drawer, the memory card of witness interviews, a password clue and the Security Master manual for the middle drawer; from the bottom drawer, your phone, house keys and lockpicks. The middle drawer’s graphic lock: press the side buttons of the lock ports so every status bar lights; a port’s indicator shows the count of diodes of its colour lit; neighbouring ports share a connection and may not use the same colours, green for allowed, red for not; all connection indicators must be green. Read the police reports: petrol was present, and the town hall alarm was switched off shortly before the fire. Enter the computer password from the clue; nothing useful yet. Put the card in the player, select each suspect and play every recording to the end. Look at the chromatograph in the forensics lab. Phone Carson Drew about Alexei. Phone George (she holds the tube) and ask for a sample of the scorched plaster.

George: the sample

Map to the old town hall; go to the side wall, take the surviving boards right of the window, lean them against the opening, climb in. Look where the famous nugget stood, at the damaged fire alarm left of the door, then forward to the thermostat wall, the likely origin: use the tube on it. Out through the window, to the station, tube into the box, phone Nancy about the alarm, hand over.

Nancy, then Ned: Deirdre’s prints

Phone your father for help; take the tube from the box and leave your house keys in it. Phone Ned about Deirdre. As Ned, take the keys from the box, map to the Scoop, question Deirdre about everything and receive the note she found. Ask Bess to draw Toni out. At Nancy’s house: forward and left through the arched door, the newspaper on the coffee table says the Scoop only opened at 2:45; upstairs, the photo of Bess and George on the left shelf and the clipping about the exposed fake-artefacts exhibition, which you must read or the game dead-ends later. In Nancy’s room, the photo on the dresser, the arson book on the cabinet; open the cabinet with the keys for the fingerprint kit and chocolates; the matchbox from the top shelf; the lockpick code book in the desk’s bottom drawer. Phone Nancy: you can lift Deirdre’s prints from the note, and she frees up her desk. Click the note in the inventory: brush (1) into the black powder (2), brush the note (3), tear off tape (4), press it on (5), take the print. Look in the souvenir cabinet. To the station, print and note into the box, hand over.

Nancy: the chromatograph

Take the note and print. Phone your father: the alarm was disabled at 2:17 on the day. Click the print scanner left of the monitor, apply the tape, run Fingerprint Comparison, Load, Search: no match. In the lab, tube into the chromatograph’s lid socket, touch the screen, take the chart from the printer. Phone Ned and ask for Deirdre’s own print. As Ned, phone Bess and George, then at the Scoop talk to Deirdre about everything, taking her friends’ numbers and asking her out last. While she is gone, click her glass and lift the print. Phone Jessica and Holly: Jessica confirms Deirdre’s alibi, Holly says she turned up hours late. Hand over.

Bess: Toni and the arcade

Nancy phones Carson to send the chromatogram reference to the house (the letter only appears on the mantel once he says so), then Bess. In the Scoop talk to Toni Scallari about everything, eat ice cream, and play the arcade game: swap letters vertically to decode sentences, as in The Captive Curse; sentences are random. Hand over to Nancy, who phones George.

George: Alexei’s chest

At the antique shop, turn and enter the TV van: talk to reporter Brenda Carlton twice, about everything; she was on air when the fire started. Read the Crime Herald about the historical society lecture being moved. Inside, question Alexei, the present last; when he leaves his chair, open the chest with the key from Number Frenzy: an empty ether bottle (an accelerant), a clipping about the young detective Alexei Markovic, and his diary, read fast. Ask Brenda about Alexei. At Nancy’s house take the second fingerprint kit from the cabinet. Back at the shop, question Alexei, the present last, and while he fetches it dust the telescope: no prints. Dust the flask beside it for Alexei’s print. To the station, tell Nancy, hand over.

Nancy, then Bess: the storeroom

Phone your father about Alexei, then Bess. As Bess, question Toni until a lorry horn sounds; she goes to take delivery. Behind the counter, slide the panel under it: a snowflake ice tray; photos of the old town hall on the floor; a key on the bottom shelf. Unlock the storeroom: a bottle of toluene on the left shelf, another accelerant; the filing cabinet needs picks. Fetch your kit from Nancy’s cabinet, phone Nancy, who asks you to collect the picks. Nancy takes Alexei’s print from the box, leaves the lockpicks, phones Bess. Bess questions Toni again: Brenda hates Nancy for exposing the fake artefacts; ask about the ice tray and everything else, then ask for an ice cream and lift Toni’s print from the cup. At the station, take the picks, leave Toni’s print and the photos. Back at the Scoop, start the arcade game and at the lorry horn go straight to the storeroom. Picks on the cabinet: the clues in Nancy’s desk, with the vowels filled in, read “filing cabinet: every second”, so press the coloured picks by colour every other one starting with red, arranged by colour at the corners: red, yellow, blue, green, green, green, blue, red, yellow, red, blue. Read Toni’s notes on Nancy and her application to build on the town hall land. Finish the arcade game, gossip with George, phone Nancy, hand over.

Ned, Nancy, Bess: the last prints

Nancy calls her father, then Ned. Ned talks to Toni, plays a round, tries Alexei and is thrown out, talks to Brenda, leaves Deirdre’s print in the box, hands over. Nancy takes Deirdre’s and Toni’s prints and the photos, phones Bess. Bess questions Deirdre, then goes to the TV van without entering the shop (a valuable vase is at risk): talk to Brenda, take her card, phone her, answer the voicemail yes, go in: click the microphone, dust and tape Brenda’s print. Open her make-up chest: nail polish remover in the right pocket, another accelerant.

Easter egg two

Open and close Brenda’s chest three times for the second egg.

Print into the box, hand over. Nancy takes it: every suspect’s print. Scan them all, Fingerprint Comparison, Search: four similar; Compare, drag the original print from Deirdre’s note onto each; Brenda Carlton matches. Phone George: at the Drew house take the letter from Carson’s office off the mantel, box, hand over. Nancy compares the chart with the ten reference peaks: the peak at 45 means isopropyl alcohol, not petrol. Phone Ned to distract Deirdre again; he asks her out and the case passes through Nancy to Bess, who reads Deirdre’s notes on the table and finds a parking ticket; box it. Nancy runs Ticket Lookup with 94627541: Deirdre was at the old town hall when the alarm was cut. If evidence seems short, check every character’s inventory for something not boxed. Open the Suspects board and sort the evidence by suspect. Press the red button under the intercom: the sheriff lets you out.

Nancy: free

Question Alexei, then Brenda; take her card, phone her, answer yes, go into the van: a key hangs top right; read the new interview schedule; a bottle of isopropyl alcohol behind the microphone. Open the metal box on the right with the key: a letter on what your fake-artefacts case cost Brenda. At the monitors, Bess is interviewed while Deirdre hovers by the burnt building. Play, then adjust the tracks with the sliders to bring up the background: top, K1 25, K2 76, K3 88, K4 50, K5 100; bottom, Me 89, Bess minus 100, Car 17, Birds 83, Noise minus 90; numbers turn green when right. Play again: Deirdre is hunting for something lost. At the Scoop talk to Bess and Deirdre, then Toni: tunnels under the town. Phone your father: Toni holds a controlling stake in a construction firm. Ask Toni the rest. Play the arcade until the horn, check the filing cabinet, go home and talk to George. At the old town hall, find Brenda’s ID among the charred boards by the window. Question Alexei, who confirms the tunnels and hints at a clue in his shop: the book Dust and Dirt on the shelf (active only after his hint) holds two clue sheets. Group the figures into triangles, turn the first clockwise and the second anticlockwise: the sixth is the rightmost sequence, B. The tunnel entrance must be near the shop. Brenda in the van does not deny it and threatens; hurry home. George needs a battery: top left drawer of Nancy’s desk. A stone comes through the window; read it. Give George the battery and join every contact on her jammer’s circuit by rotating the pieces. Take the Stop Signal device; at the shop, lure Brenda out with a fake call, enter the van, open the antenna panel on the right, fit the jammer, and join like-coloured contacts without crossing wires. Close the panel and a rusty key drops, numbered. Lift the hatch by the door: the tunnels. Down, turn, left along the curved arrow to the end, up the ladder, lift the hatch: the burnt town hall. Back down, six steps forward, right to the door with the key’s number, unlock. Take the screwdriver from the boxes, note the empty isopropyl bottles, read the arson plan on the table, examine the bag on the chair, try to take it: film, and a timed escape to stop Brenda airing the tape.

The maze

The door is locked; push the boxes right of the table aside, take the door off its hinges with the screwdriver. Follow the door symbols by the rules on the sheet from Alexei’s book. Four doors, no square spiral: the rectangle on the left. Two doors: the nearest, half-oval. Four doors, spiral next to rectangle: the broken rectangle. Dead end, right, two doors: the oval. Two doors: the square spiral. Three doors, spiral not by rectangle: the broken rectangle. Three doors, one a square: not oval or broken rectangle, so the square. Two doors: the spiral. Two doors: the half-oval. Dead end, right, two doors: the half-oval. Four doors, one a spiral: the spiral. Dead end, left, two doors: the square. Four doors, three half-ovals: the middle one. Two doors, right: the square. The last door: the oval. Up two ladders. Take the medallion from the last step, open the hatch: the police station. Save before the quiz. The receipt shows what the ice cream cost after all. With every award, Brenda’s reports play after the credits.

Senior Detective solutions

• Key puzzle: press pins 1, 2, 5, 6.
• Computer password: from the clue, as on Junior.
• Jammer circuit: rotate the moving parts to join every contact.
• Antenna panel: connections must not cross.