“Then the last two letters of the theme clue are t and y. What about collinearity?” Sam asked.
“It fits, Sam. You did it!” Ward proclaimed triumphantly.
“Sam, that was an amazing display of crossword solving technique,” Morgan added.
“Yes, Mr. Sonn,” Lentz echoed. “Most impressive.” Lentz had no choice but to pay Sam homage, albeit grudgingly.
“Mr. Lentz,” Morgan said, “I’m sure that with the theme clues in hand, you can easily solve the remainder of this puzzle.”
“I shall give it my best effort, Captain,” Lentz replied.
“Then why don’t you go into Tim’s office across the hall.” Morgan looked over at Detective Ward indicating that he should set Lentz up in his office. “It’s quiet there and you won’t be disturbed. Tim, I want you to come back in here after you make Mr. Lentz comfortable. There are some important aspects of this case that we need to discuss with Mr. Sonn.”
Detective Ward guided Lentz into his office located across the hall.
“Even if Lentz completes the puzzle,” Morgan said once they had left, “it by no means guarantees that we can identify the intended victim. In the other puzzles, the clues only made sense in retrospect. And there were only a few clues that were relevant. How do we know which ones to follow up on?”
“That’s a good question and I don’t have the answer. But I am certain of one fact: our killer is a high-powered intellect because of the ingenuity he has demonstrated in constructing these puzzles,” Sam said.
“That really doesn’t give us much to go on, Sam.”
“To the contrary, Captain, it narrows down our list of suspects considerably.”
“Sam, I respectfully beg to differ with you; my mother does the Sunday puzzle, and usually solves it. She’s very bright, but she never got past the tenth grade.”
“Yes, Captain, but she doesn’t construct them. The small community of puzzle composers is one that is almost exclusively limited to intellectuals. There was actually a study done at Princeton University, regarding the prototype crossword composer. Though the composers of fifteen by fifteen grids are generally college graduates, the composers of twenty-one by twenty-one grids have all had some graduate training and nearly forty percent hold Master’s degrees or Doctorates.”
“That does narrow down the field somewhat, Sam,” Morgan admitted. “We also believe that the killer is trying to deliver a message.”
“Perhaps reviewing the list of victims would be of some help,” Sam suggested.
By this time Detective Ward returned and took his place alongside Sam.
“Good idea, Sam. Tim, why don’t you take us through the list of victims,” Morgan suggested.
“Sure, Captain,” Ward replied. “The first victim was Everton LeBraun, Chief Information Officer at Gainsworthy Construction. In the eighties, he had gained notoriety as the spokesperson for Hardaway Tool and Die, the company responsible for dumping toxic waste up in Clifford, Mass.”
“How was he killed?” Sam asked.
“He was hunting deer and was shot through the heart with an arrow. At first it appeared to be an accident, but the autopsy showed traces of cyanide—the arrowhead had been poisoned. It was no accident; deer hunters never poison their arrows,” Ward said smiling, “it ruins the meat.”
“What were the specific clues in the puzzle that tied into LeBraun?” Sam asked.
“They were real obscure, Sam,” Ward replied. “Since LeBraun was the first victim, we didn’t scrutinize the puzzle as carefully as subsequent puzzles. But, even if we had, I doubt we would have been able to make the association with LeBraun.”
“But what were the actual clues in the puzzle pointing to LeBraun as the next victim?” Sam reiterated.
“Well, as I recall, going across was hard, and crisscrossing with the a was away. That’s pretty obscure, don’t you think so Sam?” Captain Morgan piped in.
“I must admit that’s a stretch, Captain. There’s no way I would have put it together. And besides, that only gives you the name of the company, not the victim.”
“The key to unlocking the identity of the victim was another clue word positioned directly above the Hardaway crisscross,” Ward said. “That was CIO.”
“Let me draw the pattern for you, Sam, so that you can more easily visualize it,” Morgan said.
“I see,” Sam said. “He was killed by an arrow, very clever. But, what about the clues as to the time and place of the murder?”
“This was a little less obscure, Sam. Let me write it down for you.” Morgan drew another crisscross.
“Yeah, that’s not a difficult pattern to recognize. But it doesn’t precisely specify where or when,” Sam commented.
“Sam, it might have been enough had we been able to solve the puzzle in time,” Morgan said.
“And what were some of the theme clues?” Sam asked.
“Don’t drink the water was one that comes to mind. I believe they were all warnings of an environmental nature,” Ward responded.
“Okay, I get the idea. You guys couldn’t solve this puzzle?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, the killer mailed in the solution after LeBraun was dead and buried,” Morgan admitted. “We probably could have solved this puzzle. But it was the first one and we didn’t take the threat all that seriously.”
“What’s the story on the second victim?” Sam asked.
“The second victim was Gary Wicks, the publisher of Trim Magazine,” Morgan continued.
“I don’t see how this case relates to any environmental cause,” Ward pointed out.
“Perhaps the killer regards pornography as a type of social pollution,” Sam suggested.
“Maybe, Sam,” Ward said. “The pollution angle might tie into the third crime.”
“The third victim,” Morgan went on, “was Jonathan Byteman, the son of the computer guru at Stanford. The kid was the originator of the famous Jerusalem X computer virus. They still haven’t been able to eradicate this particular bug.”
“Cyber-pollution,” Sam offered. Both Morgan and Ward nodded in agreement. “The fourth victim?” Sam asked.
“The fourth victim was Arnold Troutman. He was the chief engineer of the Far East division of Eckland Chemical. Eckland, you may recall was the company that had the industrial accident in Sri Lanka in which poisonous gas escaped from a faulty canister and thousands of people perished,” Morgan answered.
“How did this one buy it?” Sam asked.
“CO poisoning—found dead in his car with the motor running,” Ward replied.
“That certainly fits the pattern of environmental pollution,” Sam said.
“But the rest of them don’t, Sam,” Ward stated.
“The fifth victim was really an odd one. Lash Gobel, the right-wing conservative radio personality was killed in his favorite restaurant. The potato soup was