Case 03 — The Missing Resident
From the Libel City cold-case board. One file, one man, one locked office.
MISSING PERSON — LIBEL CITY PRECINCT FILE (cold)
Name: Harlan Fitch.
Reported missing when the night staff realized he hadn't left the building in two days. Found at his desk in the permits office, Grant municipal building. Door locked from the inside. No sign of forced entry. Cause of death: ruled a stroke.
Note: the nameplate on his office door had been replaced within the last year — the staff barely remembered the old one.
Status: closed.
The question: Libel City closed the file. Should it have? Read the details and name what really happened to Harlan Fitch.
Hint: start with the nameplate. The civic administrators of Libel City reinvent themselves under aliases — same face, new name.
Solved it? Check your theory.
- **Permits office, Grant municipal building:** the cover of a civic administrator — the Eight Suits' paper-thin day jobs. - **The replaced nameplate:** "same face, new name." The Suits reinvent themselves under aliases when the old one gets too warm. - **Found at his desk, ruled a stroke, door locked from the inside:** staged. No struggle, no entry — exactly how a debt gets collected quietly. - **The timing:** the MacNasty's raid had just happened. And Ichiban made a covenant the night the cat died — hunt every one of the Eight Suits. He keeps it. **Answer: Harlan Fitch, the second of the Eight Suits** — his "stroke" was the covenant at work.Submit your theory
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Start over: Case 01 — The Zine-Margin Cipher.