A Battle of Wits

The sun was shining for the first time in weeks, and here she was, cooped up in her apartment and losing her mind over this damned notebook.

Ana growls, throwing her pen over the page and glaring at the many papers, highlighters, books and notebooks spread out over the table and on the floor around her. If her mother saw this, she would tut and tsk at the disorder. Her mother was nothing if not organized and Ana’s oldest brother had the same trait, but not her. Nuh-uhm… She was an explosion and the aftermath of a disaster all together. It was her process: chaos before order – sometimes, chaos all the time.

It was how she created her path and how she found whatever it was she was looking for.

Sighing, the brunette reclines in the chair and starts to swivel, the lights in the ceiling becoming a blur and lulling her mind into re-tracing every moment until now.

The blasted little black notebook had come to her a week ago, from the hands of a regular client, who asked if she could do him a favor…

“It is for a very good friend of mine, Miss Andrade. He has been trying to solve this mystery for 10 years…”, he had said after putting a small package on the table.

Ana had been curious,... Unimpressed, but curious.

Not about the case. If her curiosity were to determine her workload, she would never sleep. No, she was interested in what could have driven this man, one of her oldest and most serious clients, to ask her for a favor. He had never done it before. He knew her price. She traded one favor for another, and most of the times, her clients didn’t want to be in her debt.

“I thought you were going to ask me to find another lost family heirloom, Lord Bankes, this is why I came… You deceived my associate”, she had answered, not even sparing a second glance to the package.

“And I want to offer you both my apologies”, he had said seriously. “But I wasn’t sure you would come otherwise. It’s a long way from your home to make me a favor”, he hadn’t even blinked.

Ana had to control herself and the smirk that threatened to appear. Lord Bankes wasn’t stupid, he knew she would come one way or another. A favor from him was too enticing to deny, which made her believe this went beyond a friend helping another. Bankes wanted to be sure she would come and listen to him.

“You do know my price”, she had said ignoring his comment.

“I will be in your debt. And my friend said there is a reward if you give him an answer”, he had told her, his body moving slightly forward, the only indication of his anxiety.

She had almost refused any sort of monetary payment, but she thought better of it. Money was money after all.

“A favor from you, Lord Bankes. Anytime in the future. Are we agreed?”, she had made sure to enunciate for him. It was a simple verbal contract, but in her career, most of them were.

“Yes”, he had agreed, nodding his head once. His graying hair barely moving.

“Good. Now, tell me about this mystery”, Ana had said, and just then, she had taken the package.

Lord Bankes had called his friend – Mr. Clifford – and, for the next 30 minutes, Ana felt like her head was going to explode. The amount of information she had had to absorb reminded her of her college professors and the quantity of meaningful words they threw at their students, fully expecting them to understand it all. It was an avalanche and she felt as if she was being buried by it all.

Mr. Clifford was a retiring detective chief inspector. He had worked in the north of England his whole career and there had been few cases he hadn’t been able to close. The little notebook was part of one of them. It had been sent to Mr. Clifford a decade prior, while he had been working on a series of murder cases. Five women had been assaulted and killed in 2 months: same hair color, same physical built, and the same modus operandi. A knife to the heart and a red rose near the body.

The media had called him ‘Dear John’ because he seemed to be killing women that reminded him of a lost love, someone that had gotten away. Mr. Clifford had hated the name, and Ana concurred. It gave too much attention to the criminal, made him feel special. Bolder. Encouraged to do it again.

And, he had. He had killed again, and again, and again.

Then, he had made a mistake and Mr. Clifford – a detective inspector at the time – had caught him.

There had been a frenzy in the media, everybody wanted to know who ‘Dear John’ truly was. But Ana could only imagine the sense of relief for all the women that had been afraid to leave their houses, open their doors to receive parcels, or even leave their windows open during summer.

“He was convicted in all 8 murders. Life in prison”, Mr. Clifford had told her through the cellphone. “That was the first good night of sleep I had in months”, his voice was firm and reminded Ana of her grandfather. A direct, no nonsense man.

She had been about to ask why Mr. Clifford needed her skills. He clearly seemed to have closed the case…

“The very next day, I received a parcel and inside was the little notebook that Rafferty gave you. It had a note with it: ‘You think you can win, boy in blue? You don’t have the wits. I will bring new red roses in 10 years’. It was signed Dear John.”, his voice became a hiss when he said the name. “Of course, I thought it was a prank. A ridiculous prank. But the red rose detail hadn’t been divulged to the media. My colleagues swore none of them sent it. And I know the man I arrested is guilty. I know.”

Then, he told her the book was all written in code. He had worked on it for years, trying to break it, but he had been unable to do so. He had even reached out to his friends in the force for help. But it seemed to be impossible. He needed a key, but despite all his efforts, Mr. Clifford couldn’t find it.

“Rafferty is one of the only people in my personal life that knows about the notebook, Miss Andrade. He has been trying to convince me to ask you to find the key for years… I thought I could deal with it”, he had confessed. “But I have run out of time.”

Ana had braced herself, because she knew what was coming.

“It will be 10 years since I received the notebook in two weeks”, if Ana hadn’t agreed, she would have hung up and left. “Miss Andrade, I believe the key to the truth is in the notebook. If there is anything – it might be a prank. But if it’s not…”

He didn’t have to finish. She knew. If it wasn’t a bad joke, another woman would be dead in two weeks. Ana was all in.

And she had been all in.

For almost two weeks, she had devoted herself to this notebook. Every waking moment in the past 12 days had been focused on finding the answer to this damn mystery. She had even eaten and drunk glaring at the notebook as if food would entice it to tell her its secrets.

It had been to no avail.

Ana knew she wasn’t the best decoder there was. She had had to learn about codes and ciphers because some of her clients had very particular ways to communicate with her, or very particular tastes for the things they wanted her to find.

She had used every variation of a Captain Midnight decoder ring she could think of. She had invented rings with so many variations of Dear John, Red Rose and Man in Blue, that she thought she was going crazy.

Yet, she hadn’t found anything.

Ana had even digitalized some of the pages and sent them to Beatriz. Computers were more of her friend’s world than hers.

Still, they had found nothing.

“Ana, we need the key. This is a fool’s errand if we don’t have the right key and you know it.”, Beatriz had said late last night. “Next time, don’t let your greediness for favors blind you. This is absolutely ridiculous! You are not a decoder; you are a finder. You find things, you don’t uncover mysteries.”

Beatriz was right. As usual.

She was a finder. People hired her to get them things they thought impossible. She didn’t have the skillset needed to break that crazy cipher.

“Gosh, I don’t think I can win this one”, she mutters, eyes still looking at the ceiling, but not seeing anything.

You thought you could win, but you don’t have…

“Wait a… His note! His damn note!” she sits back up, feeling a bit of whiplash but ignoring it. Looking for it among her papers, almost screaming when she finds it on the floor. “You think you can win, boy in blue? You don’t have the wits”

There were 26 letters in the question. Could that be it?

“Oh, he wouldn’t dare…”, she says, eyes glinting.

And, he didn’t.

Two hours later, a new decoder ring, and it wasn’t the key.

“Bloody hell…”, she grumbles, it had been too good to be true. Ana feels herself deflating. Her mother would tell her to stop behaving like a little girl. This wasn’t the end of the world… But she did feel like a stubborn little girl.

Girl.

Girl.

Boy. Boy?!

Why would he call Mr. Clifford a boy? It made no sense unless…

She grabs her cellphone, typing the phrase, holding her breath. She opens the first link, it’s a post about many variations of a quote about a battle of wits and a person unarmed. Ana scrolls down and gasps when she finds the quote from Remy St. Remy: Or, Boy in Blue, by Mrs. C. H. Gildersleeve.

“A battle of wits was to be fought, and the Boy in Blue was unarmed tonight”, Ana recites.

A battle of wits was to be fought, 26 letters.

She had found it.

The sun is almost set when Ana calls Lord Bankes. He is the most ecstatic she has ever witnessed. She put the decoder ring in the computer, and it did its job. The whole little black notebook was not a mystery anymore, and besides the first few lines, Ana had refused to read further. This was not her job. It didn’t matter if the words seemed to recount how the first crime happened, nor did it matter that Ana had a feeling all the murders would be there in detail.

Her job was done. She hoped it was enough.

“I will send the file to your e-mail, Lord Bankes. Tomorrow, I will post the notebook and my findings through a carrier, if you don’t mind”, she says while glancing at the sky.

If she is lucky, tomorrow, it will be blue too. And she will finally be able to enjoy some good weather.

“Excellent, Miss Andrade. I will transfer the 20 thousand dollars as soon as I receive them. Can you confirm it’s the usual American account you want me to transfer to?”, he replies, and Ana blinks a couple times.

“Tr-…”, she starts to question him, then she remembers. The reward! She had completely forgotten. “Yes. Yes, that should be fine”, she says.

They hang up and she smiles a bit.

Tomorrow she will definitely enjoy some good weather. After cleaning her table, that is.