My first case as a detective this year comes from an unknown client. All they wanted when they hired me was to stalk Matthew Adler and give them a profile about his characteristics. I was stunned. I didn’t think that Matthew was the type of person who had many secrets. But, I was wrong, very wrong.
Whatever the case was, I accepted it. It would be a relatively straightforward case for me because I knew Matthew well, and I could easily request help. For my assistant, I asked Nathan Conway, because he knew the information about Matthew’s location. On Monday, October 24, I went to spy on Matthew with Nathan. As a disclaimer, I did bribe Madler’s parents to let me in his house so everything was perfectly… “normal”.
At first, it seemed like the operation would proceed smoothly, I quickly left North before Matthew, and went to the meeting location near Matthew’s house that Nathan had specified. Little did I know, Matthew’s car was right behind mine, so it might have been a little suspicious when he saw the car in front of him go the exact direction he was. But I am sure he must have thought it was a coincidence. I mean, just look at my car, not suspicious at all.
I and Nathan then snuck up to Madler’s front lawn, where we saw Madler step out of the house. We quickly hid in the nearby bush. This would be our first observation. As Madler breathed in the fresh air of a 3:30 PM afternoon, the wind whispered to him to leave his door unlocked. We were lucky to have the wind on our side. Just as the wind had said, Madler had left his door unlocked, so we could easily sneak into his house. As we entered the house, we noticed a room to our right which seemed to be Madler’s recreational room. We then heard footsteps, so we hid by the corners of the room. It was Madler. He walked in with his violin and put it down to admire it. That was our second observation. It seems that he really likes playing violin because of the way he takes care of and maintains it. Looking at his well-maintained case shows that.
Next, we see Madler go up to his room, so we go up and follow him. At one point, he leaves his room, so we go in to collect evidence. Here we see the most about Madler. He has a piano in his room. He is musically very multitalented. We found a small football with a Houston Texans logo on it. He might say that he is a Bears fan, are we really sure about that? We find his very compelling bookshelves with some great books (refer to the gallery). When Madler walked into the room, we had to hide while he did Madler things (also refer to gallery).
Madler then decides to brush his teeth, in the middle of the day for some reason, while I and Nathan reconvene and gather data. It seems that what Madler said about talking to himself was true because the entire time we were at his house, he was only talking to himself, with only one conversation with his mother.
Madler then went back downstairs to eat candy, and while we snuck behind the couch to spy on him, he decided that he should throw candy in our general location. Because of the large noise produced by the actions, Madler’s dad asks what happened. Madler was then told to pick up the candy and if we didn’t get out of the way on time, we would have had our mission jeopardized. Well, that was close. Madler then goes out to his backyard and swings an umbrella imitating a sword. We decided that we had gathered enough data, so we headed out to the front.
As we were about to leave, we noticed that our shoes were gone. We had taken them off because we respected the “no shoes in the house” rule, but now they disappeared. I then suddenly remembered that Madler had taken some pairs of shoes upstairs to his room. We rushed upstairs and when we came back down, we noticed that Madler had come back inside. We hid back in Madler’s living room, waiting for him to leave. As soon as he turned around and left, we rushed to the door and sprinted back to our meeting spot. We had succeeded in our mission.
What we learned about Madler is that what he said in one of his blogs about being an only child is true. He talks to himself a lot, and he does most of everything by himself. He takes good care of his items and spends a lot of time doing a lot of different things. And in true Madler fashion, he does things extravagantly with passion and grandeur. This, alongside some videos, will be the report I will send back to my unknown client. Now all I need to know is why this client wants these files on Madler…
Anyways, here is the gallery:
Madler standing outside
Madler flipping cards
Madler imitating a sword with his umbrella
Madler is doing… something?
Madler looking for his mother
Madler playing the piano
Madler’s car (and me pulling into the street)
Madler throwing candy
Madler sniffing the cool breeze
Me running back to the meeting spot
Madler reading
Madler with his violin
Madler’s room
Aarav, I think this is one of the most interesting blog posts I’ve seen so far. The lengths to which you went to get all this photo evidence of Matthew are very impressive haha! I liked your reference to your car… your license plate is definitely not self-identifying at all. It was really fun to read about your and Nathan’s journey to get inside Matthew’s house without being caught; I guess it’ll be a good practice round for when Assassins comes around second semester. It seems like you and Nathan discovered a lot about the interests and hobbies of Matthew, or “Madler,” from playing violin to being a closeted Texans fan to talking to himself a lot. Personally, I can attest to the fact that only children talk to themselves a lot – there’s no one else to talk to! When you have no siblings, you get used to your own company and your own voice, really. I wonder why he decided to throw candy in your direction – maybe he had his own suspicions to confirm while you guys were hiding from him. The photo evidence was very entertaining to look through too; I wish you the best of luck in figuring out why your unknown client wants so much information on Madler. Great job!
Aarav, I loved reading this week’s blog and I could definitely see how enthusiastic you were about this one. I really like your idea of you and Nathan trying to sneak inside Matthews’s house without him noticing, it gave a fun aspect to the blog! I also love how you and Nathan documented all the things you observed Matthew do throughout the day, and I like how you structured your blog to make it seem like you are a detective! My favorite part about your blog was when you suddenly remembered about the no shoe rule and how you left your shoes upstairs, and it was almost as if your mission was in jeopardy because of that, but I loved how you ended up hiding in his living room and waiting for him to leave. The most impressive part about this blog is all the pictures you included! It really gave a ton of imagery for the reader and allowed the reader to see all the different things your blog contained in a picture. Overall this was such a fun read and good luck on future missions!
Hm. This was an interesting blog. I’m really taking a good look at this Madler character. For someone who shares my name and looks exactly like me, I can say that he really needs to work on his life a little bit. By a little bit I mean a lot. Who the h*ll is this guy? He lets the wind influence his every move? Weak. You say he takes good care of his violin, but does he practice 40 hours a day? I highly doubt it. Uncommitted. He’s brushing his teeth in the middle of the day? Do you really think he brushed for two minutes and made sure to brush in circles while ALSO cleaning his gums? Again, I highly doubt it. Unhygienic. Throwing candy? Perfectly tasty, yummy, scrumptious candy that had every right to be viciously devoured? UNSPEAKABLE. Overall I think that Matthew has got some problems he should work out. He’s clearly insane. You should contact your unknown client immediately and inform them that Matthew must be removed from society until he recovers.