Week 2/Mailing 2

This week is when things finally started coming to life. I went to the Morgue. Mwahahaha. Sounds ominous, right? People are just dying to get in there. Bad joke. Anyway, I figured out how to use the weird symbol from Patient 164's room with the ring of letters Found Under the Morgue table and got the name of the presence that was speaking to me through the Call and Response session. The spirit's name was:

Dr. Lloyd Edelman.

Then, we can discuss what I like to call the Clown Cipher. The easiest way I know to crack this is to take a look at the words V and N in the cipher. The only words that are single letter words are I and A which is the only two options for either of those. If I try substituting the letter I for V, that's a difference of 13 letters. A ROT13 (or rotate 13 spaces) cipher does exactly that. If I convert the rest of the alphabet based on this, I obtained the following message:

**I was a codebreaker in the war.

I helped bring down Hitler.

Codes were what I loved in life.

Codes are what I will continue to use in death.

I know about the serial killer.

I'll tell you what I know, but I have to do it my way.

Your friend, Arlo.

Check the third brick in the corner of patient 164's room.

This is the hiding place.**

So, our good friend, Arlo, comes to the rescue again. The intel he provides is spot on. By looking in the right place in Patient 164's room, we learn a lot about the good doctor who communicated with us in the Call and Response. And I use the word "good" ironically. He was a terrible guy from what I can tell.

Now, let's talk about Nancy's communications in week 2. Based on her clue, you should have used a black light on the last page of the black notebook and found the word VALIUM. She provides the cipher conversion for each of those letters in her note. My only question is how did that word get there in the first place? And how did Nancy know it was there? I have to admit this particular mystery has me stumped.

She also told us a fact about Tick Tock that was given to her in a drug-induced stupor by Patient 164. That fact is: the killer is not inked (which I would take to mean has no tattoos)

I did learn a couple of additional things about Angus Cartwright, the Veilwood mortician, that gave me the creeps. He had gotten fired from a funeral home prior to securing the job at Veilwood. Apparently, his employer caught him having lunch with one of the bodies he was supposed to be preparing. According to what I learned, Cartwright had the dead guy propped up in a chair, seated at a table, dressed in his burial clothes (all "Weekend at Bernie's" style...iykyk) with his eyes pushed open to watch as Angus Cartwright devoured his bologna sandwich and rambled on about the weather, the New York Yankees, and the state of politics. The only reason Cartwright was able to get hired at Veilwood is because his cousin was the owner of the facility. Figures. Nepotism makes the world go round.

Oh, and Angus Cartwright was also known to be a collector of old occult books. He had a few there were even worth a good bit of money. I found a picture of him from when he worked at the Gentle Nightshade Funeral Home. Doesn't look like the kind of guy who would play with dead things. I guess you just never know, do you?

Which brings me to The Dead Pool list. It was obviously compiled by Cartwright himself. But, I don't think it's an accurate list. For starters, some of the names (either first or last) are replicated. I think it might be something he uses to communicate in some sort of way. I also think it links him to Tick Tock.

Oh, and a fun fact about Carter Ennis: his father was an amateur watchmaker. Carter was known to carry a pocket watch that his father built for him around at all times.

Lastly, I did manage to find an image of one of Tick Tock's infamous pocket watches that he left with each body.