NEW YORK—Methodically piecing together yet another trail of mocking clues left behind by an unhinged killer, NYPD homicide detective Kyle Cartwright acknowledged Thursday that just once he would like to work a case without having to solve an elaborate riddle. “I joined homicide to help people, not because I relish the challenge of unraveling a series of hieroglyphic-themed letters that some wack job mailed after burying his victim in a sarcophagus with a gimmicky lock and a limited supply of air,” said Cartwright, who claims he cannot recall the last time he had simply relied on forensic evidence or eyewitness statements to solve a case instead of using a series of musical cues, Biblical passages, or the periodic table of the elements to decipher crime scene clues spelling out the next victim’s name. “Just to get a single straightforward case of child abduction would be such a relief—find the kid’s estranged father through his welfare records and parole officer, talk him out of doing something desperate, case closed. But, nope, it’s always ‘fold a piece of paper into an origami swan’ or ‘figure out which astrological signs correspond to which prime numbers’ so I can determine the next ritual murder is going to happen by the swan boats in Central Park on the equinox. Just slit their throats, dipshits, I don’t care about how clever you are.” One such criminal arrested by Cartwright, serial murderer Xavier “The Classicist” Brent, has reportedly offered to help the detective with his little problem if he could simply name the beast which walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at the approach of evening.

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