PILOT: The First Mark

Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show. Playing with Chalk, a scripted true crime fiction podcast created, written, and produced by Don Swan II. Episode 1, The First Mark. There are moments in a detective's career that never leave you. Moments that carve themselves into your memory like chalk on wet pavement. For Detective Lena Hansen, that moment came on a rain-soaked night in downtown Detroit 20 years ago. February 14, 2005. Valentine's Day. She was 26 years old. 3 weeks into homicide. Still believing that every puzzle had a solution, that every case could be closed. The kind of optimism that comes before the job teaches you what darkness really looks like. This is my first one. My first real homicide. Just stay calm. Remember your training. You can do this. The alley was narrow, boxed in by brick walls that had witnessed decades of the city's decline. Graffiti layered over graffiti. A dumpster overflowing with garbage bags. And underneath the yellow crime scene tape, a body. Hansen! Over here! Stay sharp. This one's... different. Different how, Sarge? See for yourself. But Hansen? Don't touch anything yet. I want you to just— look. Really look. The victim was a man in his early 60s. Threadbare coat, worn sneakers with holes in the soles, a backpack containing all his worldly possessions. Everything about him spoke of life on the margins, someone the city had forgotten long before his death. But it wasn't the body that caught Lina's attention. It was the chalk. Is that— Sarge, is that a chalk outline? Around the body? Yeah. We haven't touched it. It was here when we arrived. Patrol called it in about 40 minutes ago. Found by a restaurant worker taking out the trash. A stark white outline encircled the body. Not the quick, practical marking crime scene techs make— this was something else entirely. Precise. Deliberate. The lines were clean, confident. And within the outline, faint smudges and partially erased lines, as if the artist had sketched, reconsidered, erased and redrawn. But we don't outline bodies before processing the scene. That's not protocol. Someone drew this before we got here. The killer. That's what we're thinking. No witnesses. No cameras. The vic's name is Arthur Jenkins. Drifter. No fixed address. No family we can locate. Could this be... some kind of ritual? Something religious or cult-related? Ritual. Yeah, that word keeps coming up. CSU is going to take samples. But something tells me we won't find it at the local hardware store. This feels... deliberate. Planned. Like someone wanted us to see this. It's like they're marking territory. Or, claiming him somehow. Get photos. Document everything. And Hansen? Welcome to homicide. It doesn't get easier from here. The case went nowhere. Forensics came back empty. Standard calcium carbonate chalk. No fingerprints. No DNA. No witnesses. Arthur Jenkins was buried in a pauper's grave. The file went cold. But Lena never forgot that chalk outline. It haunted her dreams. A stark white shape against dark pavement. In her nightmares, the outline would move, writhing like a living thing. 20 years passed. And then, on a cold February night, the chalk outline returned. This is Playing with Chalk. Episode 1: The First Mark. Act 1. Present day. Detective Lena Hansen's office looks like 20 years of casework exploded. Folders everywhere. Coffee mugs forming archaeological layers. A whiteboard covered in case notes that hasn't been fully erased in months. Lena is 46 now. Silver threads her dark hair. Lines around her eyes, not laugh lines. The kind that come from seeing too much. She's good at her job. Maybe too good. She closes cases others give up on. Lena, you got a minute? Yeah, come in. Just finishing the Alvarez report. Please tell me you've got something good, Miller. Detective James Miller is 37. Been Lena's partner for 5 years. Methodical where she's intuitive. Calm where she's intense. They balance each other. Most days. Define good. We caught a body. Downtown alley off Gresham. Female victim, mid-thirties. Sarah Jenkins. Jenkins. That name sounds— Yeah. Same last name as your first case. Arthur Jenkins. Are they related? Family connection? Not that we can find. Jenkins is common. Could be coincidence. But Lena... there's something you need to see. Miller drops a manila folder on her desk. Crime scene photos spill out. Lena picks up the first one. Her world tilts. No... This can't be... this isn't possible. You see it? The chalk outline. Stark white against dark asphalt. Precise. Deliberate. With those same faint, partially erased lines within it. Exactly like the one from 20 years ago. When did this come in? 3 hours ago. Body discovered at 6 AM by a delivery driver. I saw the chalk and— I remembered. You've mentioned that old case. Arthur Jenkins. February 14th, 2005. 20 years ago exactly. Valentine's Day. How could I forget? It's haunted me, Miller. 20 years of wondering what we missed. Sarah Jenkins. 34, accountant at Burton& Associates. No obvious connection to Arthur yet. But the name, the chalk... Lena, this can't be coincidence. No. I don't believe in coincidences like this. Tell me everything we know. 34 years old. Accountant. Lived alone in Midtown. No known enemies. Coworkers describe her as quiet, meticulous, professional. Kept to herself. What was she doing in that alley? Her office is 3 blocks away. Car parked on Gresham. 2 blocks from the scene. Probably walking to her car after working late. Either took a shortcut or— Or someone lured her. Cause of death? That's strange. ME says possible cardiac event. Heart failure. But she was young, healthy, no history of heart problems. Cardiac event. Just like Arthur Jenkins. The autopsy was inconclusive but the theory was heart attack. What about her belongings? Here's another weird detail. Her purse was intact. Nothing missing. Phone, wallet, cash, keys— all there. But in her inner jacket pocket was a piece of paper. Folded neatly. A note? Suicide note? Not exactly. More like... a puzzle. Here's a copy. The photocopy shows a sheet of lined paper. On it, symbols and numbers scrawled in white chalk. Greek letters, mathematical symbols, astronomical notations. Numbers: 3, 17, 42, 8, with no obvious pattern. Geometric shapes scattered between characters. What the hell is this? Some kind of code? That's what we're thinking. Already sent it to the FBI's cryptanalysis unit. They'll run it through their databases. We need the Arthur Jenkins file. Immediately. Every piece of evidence, every photo. If there was anything like this at that scene, any markings, any notes, I need to see it. Already requested from archives. Should have it by end of day. But Lena, 20 years is a long time for a serial killer to go dormant. Long, but not impossible. BTK went 25 years between certain kills. Golden State Killer had gaps of years. And Miller— Look at this outline. It's exact. Down to those little smudges inside. That's not from a photograph. This is muscle memory. This is someone who was there. Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show. A heavy silence. The implications are staggering. Someone patient enough to wait 2 decades. Someone who's planned this with obsessive precision. There's one more thing. The ME noticed chalk dust on Sarah's hands. Under her fingernails. Fresh chalk dust. She touched the outline. Tried to erase it. Or drew it herself. The ME can't rule that out yet. That doesn't make sense. Why would a victim draw their own chalk outline? That would mean she knew she was going to die. I don't know. But it's one more thing that doesn't add up. We should get to the scene. CSU is still processing. I want your eyes on it. Let me grab my coat. And Miller. Pull everything we have on unsolved homicides with unusual markings at the scene. Go back 30 years. As they leave, Lena glances back at the photograph. The chalk outline seems to pulse in her vision. For just a moment, she swears she sees it shift, the lines writhing. She blinks. It's still again. Just her imagination. Just stress. But a cold certainty settles in her chest: this case is going to take her somewhere she doesn't want to go. Into the mind of whoever drew that chalk outline. Act 2. The alley off Gresham Avenue. Morning sun casts long shadows across brick walls, illuminating decades of graffiti and decay. Yellow crime scene tape cordons off the area. CSU techs are finishing up. Detective Hansen. Detective Miller. We're almost wrapped. Thanks, Rodriguez. Find anything useful? Depends on your definition. No murder weapon because there doesn't appear to be one. No signs of struggle. No defensive wounds. It's like she just stopped. What about the chalk? Samples? Multiple samples. Sent to the lab. But I can tell you now, calcium carbonate. Standard chalk. Could be from anywhere. We might get lucky with trace impurities, but don't hold your breath. Lena steps under the tape, eyes fixed on the chalk outline. Even with the body removed, the white lines hold a strange power. They seem to glow against the dark asphalt. It's exactly the same. The thickness, the curves, the smudges inside. Like a photograph from 20 years ago. You've seen this before? This exact pattern? February 14th, 2005. My first homicide. Arthur Jenkins. Same outline. Unsolved. That's a long cooling-off period. It is. Rodriguez, when you processed this, did you notice anything unusual beyond the chalk? Define unusual. The whole thing is unusual. Chalk outlines are a TV myth. We haven't used them in decades. So someone drawing one? That's theatrical. A statement. A signature. The killer wants credit. Or wants us to understand something. Look at these inner lines. The erased marks. This wasn't one confident stroke. The killer hesitated. Made corrections. Why? There was one thing. When we were photographing, the chalk seemed to shimmer? Like heat haze on hot pavement, but it's 40 degrees out. You saw that too? I thought I was imagining it in the photo. Only for a second. Could be camera artifact, light refracting. But my partner saw it too, with his naked eye. It made him dizzy actually, and he had to step away. Dizzy from looking at chalk? I know how it sounds, but I saw him. He's been doing this 15 years. Takes a lot to shake him. Lena stares at the outline in her peripheral vision. She catches that shimmer just for a fraction of a second. She blinks. It's gone. The victim, where exactly was she positioned? Slumped against that wall. Sitting position, legs extended, head tilted left. No signs of trauma. No blood. Just dead. The chalk dust on her hands, could that have come from touching the wall? No chalk on the wall. And the dust under her nails was fresh, pressed in deep. She was gripping something made of chalk. Either the chalk itself or, hell, maybe she was writing something. Writing what? Where? If she was, we didn't find it. No chalk marks except the outline. Nothing on walls, nothing on her clothes. It's like the chalk dust appeared by magic. Lena stands, knees protesting. She's not as young as she used to be. She steps back, trying to see the scene as a whole. The alley, the dumpster, the chalk, the wall where Sarah Jenkins died. Security cameras. Any nearby businesses with footage? We're canvassing, but this area is dead at night. Most businesses close by 6. The restaurant that backs onto this alley closes at 10. Their camera faces the street. The alley is a blind spot. Of course it is. The killer chose this deliberately, scouted it and knew the camera angles. Knew when it would be empty. Detectives, I've got one more thing. We found something in the dumpster. On top of it, technically. This. Bagged and tagged. If you're enjoying this episode, make sure to subscribe and check out our other show, Birthday Suit, a narrative dramedy, where we dive deep into the life of Amanda Nightingale, who built a lingerie empire into a Fortune 500 company, and her life is going great until her former co-stars start writing a book about her past, a past in the adult film industry. The secret of how she raised seed money takes on a new discussion entirely. That's Birthday Suit, a narrative dramedy available wherever you get your podcasts, or go to penoftales.xyz to learn more. And now back to the story. Through the clear bag, Lena sees a book. Old, worn, faded cover. The title barely legible: Historical Ciphers and Codes: A Comprehensive Guide. A cipher book. Was this Sarah's? Don't know yet. Wasn't in her purse. No name inside. But there are bookmarks. Lots of them. And notes in the margins in different colored ink. Someone was studying this intensely. Which pages are bookmarked? All in the section on military ciphers. World War II era mostly. Enigma, Purple, others I'd never heard of. And one page has a note that just says, Arthur J. Quarterly Cipher? Arthur J. That has to be Arthur Jenkins. Sarah was researching Arthur Jenkins. She knew about him. Miller, these cases are connected. Sarah knew it. She was investigating the first murder on her own. Why? Why would an accountant investigate a 20-year-old murder? Same last name. Maybe she thought Arthur was family. Maybe she was trying to find out what happened. Or— or maybe she knew who killed him. And that's why she's dead. The 3 stand in silence. If Sarah was killed because she got too close to the truth, This isn't just a cold case. This is an active killer. Someone who's been watching, waiting, protecting a secret for 2 decades. Rodriguez, I need this book processed ASAP. Every fingerprint, hair, fiber. High-resolution scans of every page, especially the ones with notes. Send them directly to me. You got it. Priority. Lena, we should get back. Dig into Sarah's background. See if we can establish a family connection to Arthur. Interview her landlord, coworkers, anyone who might know about her interest in codes. Go ahead. I'll meet you there. I just need a few more minutes. You okay? Yeah. Just... thinking. I'll be right behind you. Lena stands alone in the alley. CSU packed up and gone. The chalk outline seems brighter somehow in the late morning light. She kneels beside it again. What are you trying to tell me? What am I supposed to see? And then she sees it. That shimmer Rodriguez mentioned. The air around the outline seems to bend, to ripple like water. And within that ripple, for just a fraction of a second, Lena swears she sees a figure standing where Sarah died, holding something white. Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show. What the— She blinks. The vision is gone. Just the chalk outline remains. Nothing else. Just her imagination. Stress. Lack of sleep. A 20-year-old obsession bubbling back to the surface. Get it together, Hansen. You're seeing things. There's nothing here. Lena, you need to get back here now. The Arthur Jenkins file just came up from archives. There's something in it. Something we missed 20 years ago. What is it? Arthur Jenkins wasn't just a drifter. Before he ended up on the streets, he had a career. A very specific career. What kind? He was a cryptographer. Military intelligence. Spent 30 years creating and breaking codes for the Department of Defense. Lena, that cipher we found on Sarah? Arthur Jenkins would have been one of the few people in the world who could create something like that. And with that revelation, the case Lena thought she understood begins to shift. The pieces rearranging into a pattern she doesn't recognize. A pattern drawn in chalk. A pattern that's been waiting 20 years to be solved. Act 3. Lena drives back to the station faster than she should, mind racing. Arthur Jenkins. A cryptographer. Sarah Jenkins, studying ciphers, researching Arthur's death. The chalk outlines identical across 20 years. The cipher left on Sarah's body. It's all connected, but the pattern isn't clear yet. Like looking at those erased lines within the chalk outline, she can sense the shape but can't quite see it. Back at the station, Miller has spread the Arthur Jenkins file across a conference table. 20 years of dust. Yellowed pages. Faded photographs. The detritus of a case that died before it ever truly lived. Show me. Everything. It's all here. The original case file was thin— we didn't have much to go on back then. But there's a supplemental folder I don't remember seeing. Background check documents. Military service records. Carmichael must have pulled them but they never made it into the main file. Lena picks up a DD-214, military discharge papers. Arthur James Jenkins. Served from 1952 to 1982. 30 years. Military occupational specialty: cryptologic technician. Assignments in Germany, Japan, Fort Meade. Numerous commendations. Top-secret security clearance. Cryptologic technician. Assigned to NSA from 1965 to 1982. Specialized in cipher development and cryptanalysis. Jesus Miller. This man was a code maker. Not just someone who understood ciphers, someone who created them. Look at this interview transcript. It's from a shelter worker who knew Arthur in his last years. She says he used to talk about the cipher that got away. Thought it was just rambling at first, but she wrote it down. Said he seemed lucid when he talked about it. Obsessed even. The cipher that got away, the one they wouldn't let me finish. Dangerous, they said, but beauty is always dangerous. What does that mean? There's more. Listen to this. They made me stop. Said the human mind wasn't meant to process patterns like that. But I kept the key. Always kept the key. In case someone understood. Lina, what if Arthur Jenkins created some kind of cipher before he left the NSA? Something they deemed too dangerous to complete? Lina sits down heavily, her mind making connections faster than she can articulate them. A cryptographer creates a dangerous cipher. The military shuts it down. Years later, he ends up on the streets, murdered, with a chalk outline drawn around his body by someone who took the time to make it perfect. Someone who cared. Someone who knew him. The killer knew Arthur. Had to. This wasn't a random vagrant murder. The chalk outline— it's not a signature. It's a tribute. Or a claim. This man was mine. This man was important. And 20 years later, Sarah Jenkins— no relation we can find— is researching Arthur, studying ciphers, and ends up dead with the same chalk outline. With a cipher on her body that Arthur could have created. Sarah must have found something. Maybe Arthur's quarterly cipher he mentioned in the shelter. Maybe that's what the note in the book meant. She was on to something and the killer knew it. Hansen, Miller. We need to talk. Now. Captain Elena Rivera. Lena's boss for the past 8 years. Tough, fair, doesn't suffer fools. The fact that she's here, in the conference room, unannounced, is not a good sign. Captain, we're making progress on the Jenkins case. Which Jenkins case? You're working 2 now. One that's 20 years cold and one that's 3 hours warm. I need to know which one you're prioritizing. They're connected, Captain. Same MO, same chalk outline. I read Miller's preliminary report. I see the similarities. But Lena, I need you to hear me. You've been obsessed with the Arthur Jenkins case since you were a rookie. I've watched you chase ghosts for 2 decades. Don't let this cloud your judgment on Sarah Jenkins. This isn't about obsession, Captain. The evidence connects them. Arthur Jenkins was a military cryptographer who created dangerous ciphers. Sarah Jenkins was researching him. Both killed in the same manner. Both with cardiac events that make no medical sense. Both with chalk outlines drawn by someone with intimate knowledge of the first scene. What are you not telling me? Lena hesitates. Should she mention the shimmer? The vision she thought she saw at the crime scene? No. Not yet. Rivera would pull her off the case, send her to the department shrink. Nothing, Captain. Just my gut. And my gut says we're dealing with someone who's been planning this for 20 years. Someone patient. Someone smart. Someone who understands how to make a death look natural while leaving just enough clues to taunt us. Fine. You've got 48 hours to establish a solid connection between these cases. If you can't, I'm splitting them. Sarah Jenkins goes to Bryant and Torres. You can keep chasing Arthur's ghost on your own time. Understood. 48 hours... that's not a lot of time. Then we don't waste any. I want to talk to everyone who knew Sarah Jenkins. Coworkers, neighbors, her landlord. Someone knew she was researching Arthur. Someone might have seen her with that cipher book. And I want to find out if there's any connection at all—family, friends, professional—between Sarah and Arthur. I'll start with her workplace, Burton& Associates, see if anyone noticed unusual behavior, visitors. Anything out of the ordinary. Good. I'm going to talk to her landlord. And I want to search her apartment. There might be more books, more notes. If Sarah was onto something, she would have documented it. FBI Cryptanalysis Unit. They've got preliminary results on the cipher. Already? That was fast. Cipher does not match any known historical or contemporary encoding system. Appears to be a novel construction utilizing elements from multiple classical ciphers—Vigenère, Playfair, transposition—but with an additional layer we cannot decipher. Recommend consulting with specialized academic cryptographers. So basically, they can't crack it. A novel construction. Something Arthur could have created. Something unique. Lina pulls out the photocopy of the cipher again. Stares at the symbols and numbers. The white chalk against the paper. In her mind, she overlays it on the chalk outline. Both precise. Both deliberate. Both created by someone with a specific message. The Quarterly Cipher. Sarah's note in the book. What if this is it? What if Arthur created a cipher meant to be solved in stages? Quarterly. 4 parts. You think there are more victims? Or more will be. If this is quarterly, and we've only seen one cipher, there could be 3 more coming. Detective Miller? Yes? When? Where? We'll be right there. What is it? Another body. 20 minutes ago. Downtown. Female victim. 20s. And Lina— Tell me. There's a chalk outline, exact same pattern, and a cipher, left in her pocket. 3 victims now. 20 years apart, then 2 in one day. The pattern is accelerating. The game is evolving. And somewhere in Detroit, a killer with chalk dust on their hands is writing a message Lina can't yet read. But she's starting to understand one terrible truth: this isn't about the victims. This is about the cipher. And she might be the only one who can solve it. Which means she might also be the only one who can stop it. Or the next one to die trying. Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show. Act 4. The 3rd crime scene is in a different part of downtown. A coffee shop alley. The victim is Emily Vance, 26, a barista who also happened to be a linguistics graduate student at Wayne State University, specializing in ancient languages and symbolic communication. Lena and Miller arrived to find the scene already cordoned off. Rodríguez is there, her face pale, drawn. She's seen a lot in her career, but this is getting to her. 3 bodies in 1 day, all with the same impossible signature. Detectives. Same as the others. Chalk outline, cipher in her pocket. But there's something else. Something you need to see. What is it? Rodriguez leads them to the chalk outline. Emily Vance's body has been photographed and removed, but the white lines remain. Precise. Perfect. And within the outline, among those characteristic smudges and erasures, there's something new. Words. Drawn in the same white chalk. For Detective Hansen. You're almost ready to understand. The words are small, barely visible unless you're kneeling right beside the outline. But they're there. Deliberate. Personal. The killer is speaking directly to Lina. Lina, this changes everything. The killer knows you. Knows you're working the case. You might be in danger. I've been in danger since the moment I looked at that first chalk outline 20 years ago. This killer has been watching me. Waiting for me. Maybe, maybe I was always supposed to solve this. There's more. On her phone, she took photos today. Screenshots from online articles about the Arthur Jenkins case. About you, Detective. About how you were the first responder. How the case haunted you. She was researching me. Why? Her thesis. We found a copy on her laptop. It's about psychological symbolism in ritual killings. She was writing about the Arthur Jenkins case as an example, about the chalk outline as a symbolic boundary. She had theories. What kind of theories? That the chalk outline wasn't just a signature, that it was functional, part of the ritual. She theorized that certain symbols, when drawn in specific sequences, could create psychological effects, almost like hypnosis or suggestion. She called it symbolic triggering. Lena thinks about the shimmer she saw, the vision at Sarah's crime scene, the dizzy feeling Rodriguez's partner experienced. What if Emily Vance was right? What if the chalk outline isn't just a calling card? What if it's doing something? The cardiac events— all 3 victims, young, healthy people, don't just drop dead. What if the chalk What if it's part of how they're killed? Lena, you're talking about magic. Supernatural. I'm talking about psychology. Suggestion. Arthur Jenkins was a cryptographer, someone who understood how symbols affect the mind. What if he created more than just a cipher? What if he created a weapon? The cipher from Emily's pocket... it's different from Sarah's. Similar structure, but the symbols are evolved, more complex. Lena examines the new cipher. Rodriguez is right, it's similar but advanced, like lessons in a textbook. Sarah got Cipher 1, Emily got Cipher 2, each one building on the last. The Quarterly Cipher, 4 parts. We've seen 2. There will be 2 more. 2 more victims unless we stop this. How do we stop it when we don't even understand what it is? We find out what Arthur Jenkins created. We find out why it was shut down. And we find out who was close enough to him to know about it. Someone from his past. Someone he trained or worked with. Someone who inherited his obsession. Hansen! Detective Hansen! You're looking in the right direction, but you're asking the wrong questions! Who is this? Someone who knew Arthur! Someone who understands what he started! You've seen 3 marks now, 3 lessons, but you haven't learned what they're teaching yet! What are they teaching? That boundaries are arbitrary. That lines drawn in chalk can be more powerful than walls made of stone. That the human mind is a puzzle waiting to be solved. Arthur understood this. Sarah understood this. Emily was beginning to understand. And you, Detective, you've understood since the beginning. You just won't admit it! If you have something to say, say it! The cipher isn't the message. The chalk is the message. The quarterly cipher is 4 boundaries. 4 lessons. 4 mines. When all 4 are complete, the pattern will be clear. And then, Detective, you'll understand what Arthur died trying to finish! 4 victims. You're going to kill one more person! No, Detective! You're wrong! I'm not going to kill anyone! They're going to solve the puzzle! And solving it, that's what kills them! Just like it will kill you when you finally understand! Trace didn't work. Bounced through too many proxies. But Lina— What the hell was that? Lina stands in the alley, the chalk outline at her feet, the words you're almost ready to understand seeming to glow in the afternoon light. The killer just told her everything and nothing. The cipher is a puzzle. Solving it is deadly. And she's been chosen to solve it. Miller, I need you to pull everything on Arthur Jenkins's military career. Everyone he worked with. Everyone he trained. And I need you to find out what the Quarterly Cipher Project was. If it was military, there will be records. Classified maybe, but they exist. And what are you going to do? I'm going to learn what this chalk is really saying. Because if the killer is right, if solving the cipher is what's killing people, then I need to understand how before someone else dies. Even if that someone is me. 3 chalk outlines. 3 ciphers. 3 victims who got too close to understanding. And Detective Lena Hansen, standing at the edge of a puzzle drawn in chalk, knowing that stepping into it might mean stepping into her own grave. But she's never walked away from a case. Not in 20 years. Not even when that case is a trap designed specifically for her. The game has changed. The killer has made contact. And somewhere in Detroit, someone is preparing to draw a 4th chalk outline. The question is, whose? This has been Playing with Chalk, Episode 1: The First Mark. Join us next time for Episode 2: Echoes in the Alley, as Detective Hansen digs deeper into Arthur Jenkins's past and discovers that some secrets are written in a language more dangerous than any code. Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show. The After Show. Welcome to Chalk Marks, the companion podcast to Playing with Chalk. I'm Alex Mercer. And I'm Jordan Hayes. And wow. What an intense first episode, Alex. When those chalk outlines matched exactly 20 years apart, I got chills. Right? The precision, the patience of this killer. 20 years of silence, and then boom—2 victims in one day. Three if you count Emily Vance at the end. Jordan, what's your theory? Why wait 20 years? I think the killer was waiting for something or someone specific. Notice how the call at the end was addressed directly to Detective Hanson. You're almost ready to understand. This whole thing is designed for her. A 20-year-long trap. That's disturbing. And the victims— Arthur the cryptographer, Sarah researching him, Emily writing about symbolic psychology— they're all connected to codes and symbols. Exactly. The killer is selecting people who can understand what they're doing. Or almost understand. That's the key— almost. None of them fully solved it before they died. Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show. Speaking of which, we have a very special guest today. Calling in remotely, we have Detective Lena Hansen herself. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. Though I've got to say, talking about an active case while I'm in the middle of it is... unusual. We appreciate it, Detective. Our listeners are fascinated by this case. Can you talk about what it was like seeing that chalk outline again after 20 years? It was like seeing a ghost. That first case, Arthur Jenkins... it never left me. Every unsolved case stays with you, but that one... There was something about that chalk outline. The way it was drawn with such care. Such precision. It felt personal even though I'd never met Arthur Jenkins when he was alive. You mentioned in the episode that you've been haunted by it. Literal nightmares? Yeah. For years after. The outline would move in my dreams. Writhe like it was alive. I know how that sounds. I'm a detective, we deal in evidence and facts. But that chalk outline, it got under my skin. And now the killer has made direct contact with you. They know you're on the case. They're speaking to you specifically. Does that change how you approach the investigation? It makes me more determined. This killer thinks they can manipulate me, play mind games. But they've also made a mistake. By reaching out, they've revealed something about themselves. They want me to solve this. They need me to. That gives me leverage. The quarterly cipher. For parts, for victims— potentially. Do you think you can stop them before the 4th? I have to. 3 people are dead. I'm not letting there be a 4th. Whatever Arthur Jenkins created, whatever this Quarterly Cipher is, I'm going to crack it. And I'm going to find who's behind this. One last question, Detective. The caller said solving it is what kills them. Does that worry you? That by investigating, by trying to solve the cipher, you might be putting yourself in the same danger? I became a detective to solve cases. To bring justice to victims and closure to families. If solving this case means taking risks, then that's what I do. I'm not going to let fear of chalk and ciphers stop me from doing my job. Whatever this killer has planned, I'll be ready. Powerful words. Thank you so much, Detective Hansen. Stay safe out there. Thank you both. Wow. You can hear the determination in her voice. But also the fear. She knows this is dangerous. And that's what makes Lena such a compelling detective. She's not fearless. She's afraid, haunted even, but she keeps going. That's real courage. So, let's talk theories. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Who do you think the killer is? Someone from Arthur's military past? A protégé? A family member we don't know about yet? And what about the chalk itself? Emily's theory about symbolic triggering— could there be something to that? Is this killer literally using psychological warfare through symbols? Head over to our website, playingwithchalkpodcast.com, and share your theories. We'll read the best ones on next week's aftershow. Join us next week for Episode 2, Echoes in the Alley, where Lena dives deeper into Arthur's past and discovers connections she never expected. Trust me, the revelations are gonna blow your mind. Until then, stay curious, stay skeptical, and whatever you do— Don't trust the chalk. End of episode 1. Playing with Chalk is brought to you by our friends at Pen of Tales Publications. We've got stories to tell. Explore further at penoftales.xyz and find your next great read. Back to the show.