spongy_mesophyll: A Murder Story
Spoiler
Here is the story of Murder (now archived), the third greatest cache in south-centralish Columbia, Missouri.
Step 1: From the police report on the cache page you go to the scene of the crime and find the wallet. In it are the following items:
- Slip of paper that says “Combination: Winston Smith” hand written.
- A to-do list: “1. Get milk 2. Return Library Book 3. Pick up secret note from under middle bench in front of biggest waterfall at Shelter Gardens on Ash Street”.
- A business card for “Thai Kitchen” with "Dorene" and a phone number written on the back.
Step 2: Go to Shelter Gardens and find a note hidden in a magnet key holder.
My Love,
Oh Herbert, how I love to say your masculine name. I ache for your “Arrrr matey” after each kiss. I long for your tales of maritime lore. But I know your heart lies with another. I know I’m not allowed, but I have sent you an e-mail. I protected it with a password so that your wife can’t read it. The password is the name of the place we first met.
Your “First Mate”,
Dorene
Step 3: The "email" is a password protected Word document on the cache page and the name of the first place they met is "thaigarden".
From: Dorene S—
Date: 11 December 20–
To: Herbert G—
Subject: Your extramarital affair with me, and the money you will pay me not to tell your wife.
Herbert,
I have scraped and sacrificed for you these last 138 days. I have come to realize that my dream of starting a Free Range Chicken Ranch in the Mountains of Colorado and your dream of sailing the High Seas (all seven of them) may be mutually exclusive. If only you would accept my suggestion to convert the ship to an Ocean Going Free Range Chicken Ranch. But no, you say it's not realistic.
I have come to realize that you will never give me all your love. But you can give me something even better. Money. If you won’t leave that little Botanist Bimbo Cheryl then I want restitution!
Leave $1,000,000 in an appropriate container at N3855.550', W09218.793. Put it against the big tree on the uphill side. And cover it with rocks. I don’t want anyone else get my money!
I will leave you to your wife and pursue my dream. If you ever wish to Free Range Chicken Ranch with me, you know where I’ll be.
You’re loving, blackmailing, mistress,
Dorene
Step 4: Go to the coordinates above. There you find a container locked with a combination lock. Combination "Winston Smith" and the description of Herbert as a fan of negative utopian literature are two clues pointing to George Orwell's book, 1984—the combination to the lock. Once inside you find the following note:
I have the money and I must see you one last time. Meet me at our special tree. It’s the big Maclura pomifera, or “the orange one” as you call it. You know the one, where you told me you would kill me before you would give me up. The money will be hidden. I even feel confident enough to tell you that it’s behind the big Gleditsia triacanthos about 60 feet to the north, since you know neither your trees nor your directions.
Love,
Herbert
The Maclura pomifera mentioned above is the Osage orange tree where the wallet was found. To get the final cache you have two options, look behind a bunch of trees or find out what kind of tree Gleditsia triacanthos is. Also known as a honey locust, the tree has very distinctive thorns, up to a foot in length, all over its trunk and branches and is pretty easy to see in the forest.
For those that completed Murder, I hope you had fun. For those that didn't get to, I urge you to make your own cache for others to enjoy.
Cheers,
Mike