TESSA BLACKWOOD’S CRIME TIME

Official Walkthrough

The following guide represents what, in my mind, is the most logical path to complete this game. However, there is no fixed way to get to the end. After the first few searches, which are likely to be the same for every player, the order in which you will find clues will depend on how your own train of thought shapes you searches. Inevitably there will be some toing and froing for you, but that’s just how detective games work!

This guide will take you through the whole game, but it does not explain the case in detail. You need to read through the evidence to understand everything that happened at Bell Farm in the summer of 1964. Also, the guide does not cover all possible interactions with all characters and search engines. If you investigate on your own, and use this guide only when you’re really stuck —as you should—, you will soon realize the game world is a lot richer than I explain in the following paragraphs.

In relation to searches, the parser is fairly forgiving. For example, it will give you the same result for “St Michaels parish”, “St Michael’s parish”, and “St. Michael’s Parish”. This implies that some of the terms I refer to in cursive typefont below allow for slightly different wording and spelling. Also, please bear in mind it’s hard to cover all possible synonyms of a word in the in-game dictionary, so sometimes you may have to use “case file” instead of “case folder”. Sorry. This is a known issue that I would like to improve in the future.

The beginning

Begin by reading the first piece of evidence in your Evidence pinboard, which is an old clipping of the Silverlake Herald, Tilly Creek’s local newspaper.

Tilly Creek is only a small town, so many people make it to the local newspaper at least once in their lifetime. This clipping offers you some leads in the shape of people’s names. Note some keywords: Lisa Bell, Betty Bell, Bell Farm, St. Michael’s Parish. Then try looking them up in The Herald’s app, on your cell phone.

A simple Lisa Bell search tells you there is information about the engagement and demise of one of the two victims. So try Lisa Bell engagement and Lisa Bell death. You will learn about Lisa’s fiancé, Walter Hargrove. Look him up too. You’ll find out Lisa was engaged to a pharmacist and that he was a reputable expert on castor oil.

If you go as far as to look up the Botanical Garden where he once delivered a conference (keyword: Hargrove’s conference), you’ll find out the Botanical Garden is still standing and that there is an ongoing initiative known as ‘Know your plants!” that you can profit from. You may now call 915420508 anytime to deepen your connection with nature (no need to do it right now, though). Also, you will find out the corpses of the Bell girls were found by their father, James Bell.

The St. Michael’s Parish search opens up a new browser. This mostly contains information about people’s birth and death dates, which will come in handy later. In addition, the Herald gives you the names of Reverend Wilson and Mary Lockhart. There is also a phone number you can now call to contact Reverend Wilson: 915535399.

Searching for Bell Farm tells you that the farm was sold a few months after the deaths. William Vance bought it from Edward Bell, presumably James Bell’s heir.

The story branches out

Now there are different leads you can follow. Maybe try James Bell, and subsequently, James Bell death. This nets you some background info and a picture in your evidence folder that you can use to complete the Who is who. Interestingly, James Bell’s obituary is written by Vera Jensen, and the first piece of evidence you got for free is signed by V.J. It seems Vera covered this case for the Herald, so look her up. Maybe she wrote other meaningful articles? With this search you get another picture and, surprise, her maiden name: Lockhart. Where did we hear that name before? Oh, yeah, that’s right: Mary Lockhart helped Reverend Wilson get the parish archive online.

Let’s ring up the reverend to find out whether there is a connection between Vera and Mary. Go to the contacts tab in your phone and dial 915535399 (without spaces). You have now reached Reverend Wilson. He does not know anything about the Bell case or about Vera Jensen/Lockhart —which is not surprising because he has only been the parish priest since 2020—, but he does know Mary Lockhart and gives you her number (915432353).

If you ask questions about the Bell case and Bell Farm, Wilson will give you the number to the Sheriff’s Office (915431249) and mention that there is something named the Silverlake County Archive. Search for the County Archive in the Herald and you’ll get a new app.

Let’s call Mary Lockhart and ask her about her mother and about the Bell Farm case. Bingo! Vera left some notes about the case that will be incorporated to your Evidence pinboard.

Evelyn and Walter

There is an interesting correspondence between Walter Hargrove —remember, Lisa’s fiancé—, and Evelyn Sinclair. Read through the details. The two of them had some sort of joint scheme going on between 1963 and 1964, even though Hargrove was already engaged to Lisa Bell. In addition, it seems Hargrove also went by the name of Dawkins. Suspicious, isn’t it?

At the bottom of the letters there is a series of odd-looking dots. Some kind of secret code? Perhaps, but we can’t decipher it yet.

The post office record reveals that the letters between Hargrove and Evelyn got more spaced apart towards the end of 1963 and through the first half of 1964. Maybe one of them was losing enthusiasm in the relation? Evelyn’s letter suggests Walter was becoming more distant.

The property feud

Vera Lockhart’s notes include another cool piece of evidence: a page torn directly off Betty Bell’s diary. This tells us James Bell disinherited Betty because she wanted to marry Edward Vance!

Vance? Where did we see that family name before? Yes, that’s right. William Vance, Edward’s father, bought Bell Farm shortly after James Bell’s death. We can look up William Vance in the Herald’s archive to discover that acquiring Bell Farm turned out to be an excellent business move.

Let’s investigate Bell Farm a little more. Go to the Silverlake County Archive app in your cell phone. Now look up Bell Farm. Legal mumbo-jumbo and privative rights to the waters of Willow Creek. Interesting. When William Vance won the Livestock Fair prize —read the Herald’s entry on Bell Farm again— he said that having a plentiful supply of water was key to his success. Maybe Willow Creek is the reason why he wanted Bell Farm? By looking up the Vance Estate we deduce that, for all his money, William Vance had no privative rights to water.

The newspaper clipping also mentioned something about a lawsuit and an appeal. Maybe there are records in the County Archive? This is not strictly required to complete the game, but it helps us understand why Bell and Vance hated each other. Look up Bell vs Vance and Vance appeal.

The opening page of the County Archive mentions property rights and people’s last wills. We know Betty Bell was disinherited, so the archive could contain some info about James Bell’s will. Let’s look it up. We find out there are two wills. James Bell’s first will and James Bell’s second will. Betty Bell was indeed disinherited in February 1963.

In other words, Lisa Bell was the sole heiress to Bell Farm when the two sisters died!

Half-way recap

So now we have a coveted property —Bell Farm—, with a sole heiress, Lisa Bell. Could this be a motive for anybody to kill her?

William Vance is an obvious suspect. You should investigate this line first, but you’ll end up discovering he had a different strategy. He knew James Bell was terminally ill and that the Bell twins did not have the drive to run Bell Farm, so he was using his money to choke Bell Farm slowly, stripping it from its workers and making it unprofitable. He knew the Bells would need to sell sooner or later (as it actually happened). He did not really need to murder anybody.

Edward Bell, the closest relative to the Bells of Bell Farm, would also benefit from Lisa’s death. We don’t know much about him, but we’ll find out he’s a city boy with little interest in farming. He sold Bell Farm to Vance shortly after he inherited it.

Finally, there is the plot by Hargrove and Evelyn Sinclair. We do not know much about it just yet, but soon we’ll see that there is more to it than meets the eye.

Evelyn’s story

Come to think of Evelyn, we have not yet investigated her. The Herald tells us that he disappeared not long after the death of the Bell sisters. We also learn Evelyn had a brother named Avery Sinclair. Looking up Evelyn Sinclair disappearance we discover she was found dead in a well of Bell Farm. Her body was found by Lee Howe, a farmhand. Maybe Howe is still alive? Maybe Avery is still alive?

Indeed, a search in the Herald reveals Avery is now an old lawyer on the verge of retirement. His number is 998088991.

You ask Avery Sinclair about Evelyn, about Hargrove, about the two of them, and about a book Hargrove gave her as a present. Hargrove’s book gives you two crucial pieces of evidence: Evelyn’s annotations about ‘ricin’ and the secret code to decipher her hidden messages to Walter. We also learn that Evelyn was a good student when she was at school.

Remembering the “Know your plants!” initiative, you call 915420508, only to find out that ricin is a powerful poison that leaves no trace. Now we are talking! So Evelyn was playing around with castor oil recipes to learn how to prepare poison? (Just by the way, it seems obvious that she collected the castor oil seeds from Hargrove’s pharmacy, conveniently across the road from home).

Deciphering the secret messages reveals another unsettling truth: Evelyn planned to do something drastic to Lisa. Maybe this included poison?

And we find out Hargrove begged her no to do it. Maybe he had fallen in love with Lisa after all?

Note this all happens a few weeks before the deaths, at a moment in which Hargrove has been engaged to Lisa for a long time, with no official date for the wedding. Remember also that the letters between Hargrove and Evelyn are not as frequent as they used to be. Maybe Evelyn thought Hargrove was growing too fond of Lisa?

We can now turn to Howe. There are some clues about him here and there, but we know Vera Jensen/Lockhart wrote about him in the Herald. A call to Mary Lockhart is in order. Sure enough, she remembers Lee Howe. Apparently, he was tried for the murder of the Bell twins and Vera got him off the hook. He subsequently left town and opened a milk business in Coniston.

Looking up Howe Milk in the Herald you find an ad with a phone number: 915531015. We call Howe and we ask him about everything we can think about, including Evelyn. This nets us a police file where we find information about how Evelyn tried to frame him during the investigation of the Bell deaths.

Hang on, a police file? Didn’t the priest give us the Sheriff’s phone number?

The Sheriff files

We call 915431249. We can ask Officer Wolfe about quite a few things, including Sheriff files or Sheriff archive. There is a directive whereby information about historical cases has been recently disclosed to the public. Maybe as a consequence of the success of true crime podcasts? Who knows?

When asked about historical cases, he lets us know we need to ask for the name of the case plus the word ‘file’. Hence, we ask about Sinclair file, Bell file, and Vance file. We also try Hargrove file, but it doesn’t work. After a little to-ing and fro-ing, he tells us Hargrove might have used a different identity. We know he also went by the name of Dawkins. Dawkins file does the trick and now we almost have all the evidence we need to complete the case.

I will let you read through all the new evidence. But there is an additional name that comes up: Sid Carver. It seems Mr. Hargrove was heavily indebted to the mafia. Looking up Sid Carver on the Herald app tells us the mobster was spotted at Joey’s Diner, Tilly Creek. The following is not necessary to complete the mystery, but if you look up Hargrove’s pharmacy on the County Archive app you’ll find out Joey’s Diner was directly across the pharmacy. That’s where Carver presumably took the pictures of Hargrove and Evelyn.

There is a menacing note among the evidence you just collected. This contains a veiled threat to Evelyn’s life that incriminates Carver —at least at the level of a true crime podcast! :)

The solution

By now we should have all pieces of evidence, all character pictures and all post-it labels, so it’s a matter of completing the Who is who? (optional) and the Podcast script.

This is what your Who is Who? Pinboard should look like, but completing it is optional.

And the podcast should read as follows:

James Bell, owner of Bell Farm, had a dispute with William Vance, owner of the Vance Estate, over property boundaries. The Silverlake Court ruled in favor of Bell Farm on June 23, 1962. Soon after, James Bell disinherited his daughter Betty Bell upon finding out she had become secretly engaged to William Vance’s son. Lisa Bell then became sole heiress to Bell Farm.

William Hargrove, local pharmacist, was heavily in debt. He was in love with Evelyn Sinclair, the maid at Bell Farm. Together, they plotted to take over the property. William Hargrove seduced Lisa Bell and they became engaged. William Hargrove and Evelyn Sinclair planned to wait patiently for James Bell’s imminent demise to murder Lisa Bell. Thus, William Hargrove would become rightful owner of Bell Farm and would be free to marry Evelyn Sinclair. But Evelyn Sinclair thought he was growing too fond of Lisa Bell and became jealous of her.

On the night of July 13, 1964, Lisa Bell and Betty Bell died in their sleep. James Bell found the corpses the following morning.

Evelyn Sinclair poisoned the Bell girls with ricin, a derivate of castor oil obtained from William Hargrove’s pharmacy. On July 12, 1964, Evelyn Sinclair prepared dinner as usual and then went home pretending to be unwell. Lisa Bell was the target, while Betty Bell was just collateral damage.

Though outraged, William Hargrove game Evelyn Sinclair a credible alibi while deciding what to do next. Days later, Evelyn Sinclair’s corpse was found in one of Bell Farm’s wells. Sid Carver, a mobster, was the likeliest culprit, as he had issued a veiled threat against Evelyn Sinclair in a message to William Hargrove. William Hargrove fled town soon after Evelyn Sinclair’s murder.

Then you get a more complete run down on the story from Tessa Blackwood herself!