The Missing Pet-Found (Day 1-END)

Once you were in Detective W's office, he had you looked at the satellite map of Owlsburgh on your phone.

"Ha-Eun, you take the southeastern part. Ha-joon, you're responsible for the southwestern part. My friend, you are responsible for the northeastern part. I will be checking the remaining one, of course."

"But, why do we need to do it?" Ha-Eun asked. "That seems like a waste of time."

Detective W shook his head. "The most likely place the dog kidnapper hid the dog is somewhere in the city. There's no way the kidnapper would go all the way to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia for just a quick exchange of money."

Ha-Eun shrugged. "That may be so, but it's still a waste of time. We don't even know where to look!"

"Just look, please. Do jot down places you think are important." Detective W handed Ha-joon and Ha-Eun a notepad. "I will cook some noodles for you guys while you search. Have fun."

You could hear the sizzling vegetables as Detective W cooked in the kitchen. You could smell the sesame oil as you searched the northeastern part of Owlsburgh. He put the noodles on large bowls, and put them on the kotatsu.

"Shrimp noodle? With seaweed broth?" you tasted the noodles. "Wow, it's good!"

Detective W happily nodded. "I know, right?!" He split open his soft-boiled egg with his chopsticks, and drowned the noodles in hot sauce. The entire noodles looked red now. "Mmm... wonderful..."

"Hey! The doctors say you can't eat anything spicy for two months!" Ha-Eun reminded Detective W.

"What, girl? I can't hear you!" Detective W instantly held the bowl of noodles to his mouth, and inhaled it. "Ahh... fantastic. Just needs some chili pepper... yeah"

Ha-Eun grumbled, realizing there was no way to stop Detective W's spiciness obsession. Detective W checked the online map with his laptop. "Hmm... famous landmarks in the northwest... yeah, that should work... the Owlsburgh City Hall... check. That useless, gargantuan orange statue of a carrot in Wagner Park?... check... Hmm... that Michelin 3 star spicy hotpot restaurant in Chinatown? Check."

You slurped your noodles, and looked at the map. "Boss, what is this supposed to do for us? I'm confused."

"Bear with me, my friend. I know this is weird logic, but it's better than no logic, to be honest," Detective W replied and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

You listened as you looked for famous landmarks in the northeast. Detective W continued, "The thing is, ultimately, the blackmailer doesn't want to keep the blackmailed thing forever. Or destroy it. Why? If he does one of the two things, he loses leverage. The blackmailed victim will realize he has nothing to lose, and will do anything to get the blackmailer in jail."

"So, the blackmailer has to give the dog back at some point. But, the question is, how does the blackmailer tells us the location? If the blackmailer is kind enough, he or she will be direct. However, the crueler ones tend to play with the victims, leaving sometimes very difficult clues behind. If we're dealing with the second type, looking for famous landmarks will give us more clues."

"That... that is indeed weird logic... if it was anyone else hearing this, they would call BS on this. But, Boss, you always have a way, right?" you asked.

After an hour of searching, you four compiled your locations. You wrote the list down. There were eight places that were of importance. "The southeastern-The shopping district. The northwestern- the carrot statue, the hotpot restaurant, the city hall. The southwestern-the Freedom II. Tower, the Taranto Museum. The northeastern- the large statue fountain, and the outdoor boxing ring." you read, trying to make sense of it all.

"Great. At least, now we have a direction..." Detective W stroked his goatee. Without warning, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

"Hey! Mr. Milton sent us the blackmailer's message! Take a look!" Detective W slid the phone to the kotatsu's center, and you, Ha-Eun, and Ha-joon took a look.

A piece of paper wrote, "The orange vegetable, the law of the land, and the fight. Find the center in all of this. Once you exchanged the money at that location, your dog will be free."

Ha-Eun wanted to throw something very badly. "Really?! Always giving out clues at the last second? I hate those kind of mysteries!"

Detective W chuckled and shrugged. "That isn't necessarily a bad thing, Ha-Eun. I'm just grateful that the message came at the right time. Those mysteries aren't that bad, in my opinion."

Ha-joon agreed. "Better clues than no clues. Man, if this were a mystery novel, I probably would say something to the author. But, it's not... such a shame."

You looked at the piece of paper one more time. "Finding the center with these three things? What do they even mean? Those ambiguous clues which could mean anything... I hate them the most."

"They're not that ambiguous," Detective W told you. "With a bit of creative thinking and geometry, this clue could be solved. To be honest, I am glad that the famous landmark check came to use."

You looked at Detective W with pleading eyes, and surprisingly, he conceded. "All right, my friend. You just have to tell me what method to use to find the drop off location."

Given all the clues, how would you find the drop off location?

-----------Don't worry, Oreo! We're almost there!--------------