The mystery had only deepened after this interview, and the detective was none too happy about it. What had begun as a simple surveillance operation was now running out of control.
11
Prior to seeking out lunch, Ulrich went looking for Cosloy's studio downtown. The artist had a tiny place near a strip mall on Manley Road—a twenty-by-twenty cube with blacked out front windows and a small chalkboard hanging inside the door announcing its unreasonable hours. Aside from special events, the studio was only open three days a week, and for a period of four hours. Ulrich planned to pay the artist a visit that next afternoon, at 1 pm, sharp.
From there, the detective swung by a sandwich shop, scoring a pair of six-inch subs and a large soda. These he brought with him back to the Otterbein building. He hadn't been to his office yet that day, and wanted to make sure he hadn't missed any prospective clients. Parking in the rear lot, he entered through the side door, into the dim little antechamber that led into the bookshop. He paused there a minute, by a row of wall-mounted mailboxes, and checked to see if he'd gotten any recent letters. There was nothing in his box—nothing, that is, except for a crudely-typed notice from Mr. Harden, the owner, reminding him of his impending rent charge. One of these leaflets had been tucked into each mailbox; the one intended for the owners of Page Turners had been crumpled and left on the floor.
While gunning it towards the stairs, Ulrich couldn't help attracting the gaze of the bookshop's manager. With no customers to tend to, Deborah sat slumped over the counter, nibbling red grapes from a small Tupperware container. Now and then, she leaned over the side, spitting the pits into a trash bin. Upon hearing Ulrich's footfalls, she'd suddenly sat to attention, stashing the grapes away and hurriedly coifing her wiry hair. She turned to him with a wide smile, but at recognizing him her expression crumpled into disgust. Without a word, she turned back to her snack, stuffing a few grapes into her mouth and angrily hawking up the seeds.
Ulrich hurried past her into the stairwell, thankful that the encounter had ended without his having to force out the usual pleasantries. From their very first meeting, the woman hadn't liked him. It was no secret that the bookshop was in dire financial straits—Deborah and her husband, Richard, could barely keep the lights on—but the detective should have known better than to offer unsolicited business advice.
During Ulrich's first visit to the Otterbein, the owners had briefly mentioned their lack of customers, and in the spirit of helpfulness the detective had offered his two cents. Noting the drabness of the shop and its limited selection, he'd suggested that they refresh their stock with more popular books and make the space cozier; perhaps that would help the ailing shop turn things around. Richard had accepted this advice agreeably, but Dorothy had taken it as an attack on her proficiency as a business owner, and there the spat had begun.
Since then, the woman avoided him like the Plague, and when they were forced into conversation she went out of her way to speak to him combatively. Often, her statements would be punctuated by rolls of the eyes and lines like, “But what would a detective know about that?” or “How are you getting along, working out of that closet upstairs?” Thankfully, not everyone in the building was that hard to deal with.
Climbing the stairs, Ulrich rounded the second floor landing and found Emma leaning against the rail, munching on a candy bar. The young accountant grinned at him, her pearly teeth coated in a layer of nougat. “How's it hangin', Mr. Ulrich?” She singled out the second-floor entrance with a toss of her head. “I just snuck away from the office. Mr. Gore's been running us hard today and I needed a break. How about you? Getting a late start today?”
Ulrich gave the bag of sandwiches in his hand a little shake. “Actually, I've been working out of the office for most of the day. I just thought I'd stop by for a quick bite and a quiet place to think.”
“Gotcha.” Emma gnawed at her candy bar ferociously, her black bob quaking as she did so, like the mane of a feeding lion. “How's that new case going? Cracked it yet?”
“I wish,” replied the detective, stepping past her. “It's going to be another long night.” He started the walk to the third floor, but stopped just a few paces into it, turning back to her. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded, tossing the empty wrapper over the handrail and wiping her hands on her black pencil skirt.
“I asked you about that pawnshop the other day, remember? You know the place, but have you ever actually been there? Do you know the owner at all? It's owned by a woman, and I was curious if you'd ever met her.” Ulrich took a pull from his soda, the ice cubes within it shifting noisily.
“The owner?” Emma sighed, her large eyes scanning the stairs above and her tongue working to clear the remaining candy from her teeth. “She's, like, middle-aged, I think? Brownish hair, right?”
“Yes, that's the one. Her name is Nancy. You know her?”
She gave a half-shake of the head. “I wouldn't say I know her, but I've met her at least once. A year or so ago, my boyfriend and I were really broke, so we stopped by to pawn some of our stuff. We sold her some of his video games, some clothing and a few tacky pieces of costume jewelry. Honestly, it was a bunch of crap, but I think she could see how broke we were and she gave us a pretty tidy sum for it all. She didn't have to, of course. Looking back on it now, I really appreciate it; if not for her, we wouldn't have made our bills.”
“No kidding.” Recent developments had led him to wonder if Nancy hadn't been withholding certain facts about the strange painting from him—if she hadn't been behind the recent addition of the strange, umbrella-toting figure in the artwork. Hearing Emma's story reinforced his confidence in the client's character, however. “Well, she sounds like an honest, kind-hearted person, then. Thanks for that.” Grinning, he motioned at the second-floor door with his drink cup. “Better get back in there before Mr. Gore comes looking for ya!”
The detective made it to the top of the stairs and then hiked down the hall to his office. There were no notes there, no sign that anyone had been by since he'd last visited, and in this he found a measure of relief. He already had enough going on with this weird case; the last thing he wanted was another needy client pounding on his door.
Taking a seat at his desk, Ulrich unwrapped both of his sandwiches and dug in at once. They were meatball subs, heavy on the cheese and marinara, and he had to crane his neck awkwardly as he ate to keep from staining up his dress clothes. Having forgotten to request napkins with his food, he resorted to wiping his messy chin with sheets of printer paper from one of the many stacks that cluttered his office.
With a full stomach and a long night of work ahead, Ulrich polished off his soda and allowed himself to give in to the heaviness behind his eyes. A short nap would prepare him for the evening of surveillance to come, and using his balled-up blazer as a pillow, he set his head down on his desk and dozed off where he sat, amidst the spent sandwich wrappers.
He awoke in the middle of a dream—a dream whose retreating edges he couldn't hold onto as wakefulness stole over him. A dull light still burned in the high-set windows of his office and in the midst of his hypnopompic spasming he'd managed to adorn his brow with a crimson smear of marinara.
Sitting upright, he checked his watch. It was nearing six. Judging by the light coming through the windows he had another two hours before sunset. This left him just enough time to run home and prepare. Standing up, he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Nancy, who answered on the third ring.
“Hello, Mr. Ulrich,” she began, “I was just about to call you. I'm getting ready to leave. Are you still planning to come by tonight to keep watch?”
He cleared his throat, trying to banish the sleepy huskiness that burdened his voice. “Yes, the plan remains unchanged. I'll be by in a few hours.”
“OK, excellent. Listen, I really appreciate you doing this for me. Let me know if anything happens, or if I can be of any assistance to you. I'll be two hours away, but don't hesitate to cal
l. Like I said before, there's a spare key under the flowerpot out front—the terracotta one. There are also some cookies left over from last night; I'll leave them out for you. Don't hesitate to let yourself in to use the bathroom, too.”
“Thank you, that's very kind,” replied the detective. “I'll be sure to let you know of any developments. Take care and drive safe.”
She didn't hang up, though. “Erm, Mr. Ulrich?” she said. “Suppose this really is a ghost. Excuse me if I still have my doubts, but... if this is what you say it is, how will you get rid of it?”
Ulrich chuckled. “You think I'm taking you for a ride, trying to rip you off?”
“No, it's not that.” She hesitated. “But if you see the thing at my house tonight, where will you go from there?”
“I'll go wherever the clues lead,” he replied. “I'm fairly confident the spirit is wrapped up in that picture of yours. I spoke to the woman who sold you the painting today. Turns out her husband had it commissioned. Now, I'm planning on meeting the artist tomorrow, and we'll see what he has to share. If that fails, I may have to speak to Mr. Villefort, though he's gonna be hard to track down because he's run off with a mistress.”
“Goodness, I had no idea.”
“Yeah, it was an awkward interview with the missus, to say the least. Point is, the only way we'll find out why the painting is haunted is by learning more about where it came from, who's been associated with it. It could be awhile or it might come together quickly, it's hard to say. You're not paying me hourly, so it's not like I'll be running up the meter.”
“I trust you, Mr. Ulrich,” she insisted. “Thank you for helping me with this. I hope you can figure things out and get this taken care of quickly. Please, if anything happens tonight, stay in touch.”
“Will do.”
Setting down the phone, Ulrich threw on his blazer and wiped the sauce from his forehead with a saliva-dampened palm. Quickly locking up, he shuffled down the stairs and struck out to the rear lot, where he climbed into his car and drove to his apartment. There, he checked on Beardsley, who'd gnawed up the corner of a paperback Ulrich had left sitting on the kitchen counter. Once he'd refilled the cat's food and water—not a little begrudgingly—he returned to the car with his thermos in hand and paid Peter Cat a visit, procuring a massive drip coffee from one of the baristas.
He was going to need it.
The sun was beginning to dip as he started for Nancy's.
12
He took up his usual spot beside the curb, beneath the shaggy oak. Finding a touch of light still in the sky, Ulrich left the car and sought out the promised spare key. As Nancy had told him, it sat beneath a terracotta flower pot filled with drooping marigolds. With time to kill and a desire to dip into whatever treats the client had left behind for him, Ulrich let himself in.
Flipping on a few lights, the detective strode into the kitchen. On the table, which was cluttered with mail and other odds and ends, he found a small plate covered with a napkin; beneath the veil was a heap of raspberry thumbprint cookies. Plucking a pair from the stack, he took to pacing about the quiet house, re-familiarizing himself with the territory.
Starting out of the kitchen, he walked past the living room and to the hall where the bedrooms lay. He peeked into those, munching contentedly, then gave the bathroom a once-over. Realizing he'd run out of places to explore, Ulrich settled in the living room. He dropped into a plush olive-colored chair and licked a bit of jam from his fingers while scanning the space.
From across the room, the painting seemed to glare at him.
As his eyes grazed the borders of the thing, he found himself flinching. Without meaning to, he searched out that queer, umbrella-toting figure on the right and glowered at it for a time. The piece had struck him with its bleakness during his first study of it, but as he sat there—alone—its dreariness seemed somehow more intense now. The living room light was off, and only a glow from the nearby kitchen served to illuminate his immediate surroundings. Upon that shadowed far wall, the drab painting was brought into something like sharp relief—not thanks to the sparse light, but because its washed-out hues were lent a greater dimension by the darkness.
Chief among the details that better stood out at that moment were the abode in the background and the trees that hugged its flanks. This, he'd learned, was a property owned by Laura Villefort and her disloyal husband, William. It seemed statelier than the home Ulrich had visited in the upscale Zeiss Cove neighborhood; a holdover from a nobler age. Proud of his purchase, William Villefort had asked local artist Stephen Cosloy to immortalize the property on canvas. The couple had planned to move out of the Zeiss Cove property and into the one pictured for some time, but that plan had seemingly fallen through, and—if his bitter wife was to be believed—William had begun using the place to carry out extramarital affairs.
But he focused on those details for only a moment. What really drew his eye, despite a growing animus, was the figure on the right. He leaned forward in his seat and squinted at it, wondering whether it had advanced further into the foreground since his last study. Finally, he had to get up and look at the thing more closely. Switching on a light, he stood before the painting and took a good look at the figure.
Really, the form hunched beneath the shade of the red umbrella seemed to him a sketch; a placeholder that an artist might throw down for future reference. It looked like a work in progress, something in need of more detailing. Either that, or it had been cast onto the picture by a rank amateur whose lack of skill was all the more apparent for the brilliance of the dominating landscape.
Still, that it was the same figure he and Nancy had seen in his video the night previous, Ulrich hadn't the least doubt. Throughout his day, in the sunlight, he'd thought about that video. He'd considered rewatching it, analyzing it further, but he'd stopped short each and every time. The hideous face glimpsed in the window's reflection was not something to be dwelt upon—not if he ever cared to sleep again.
Who had put that figure there? Laura Villefort had sold the thing less than a week ago and claimed never to have seen anything in it but the drab landscape. The horror in the painting must have appeared there sometime after its sale, but before Nancy had brought it home. Had someone working at the pawnshop painted it? Had Nancy herself done it? Still another possibility rankled him—the possibility that an unearthly hand had set the hideous figure down. But for what reason might something otherworldly decide to mark this painting in such a way? What had been the intended message, and why did the grotesque form assume life each night, tormenting the work's owner?
Ulrich drew away from the picture. Helping himself to a few more cookies and burning nearly an hour in front of Nancy's TV, channel flipping, the detective finally exited the house. Before he left, he put out all of the lights—except for those that lit up the front and back porches. He locked the door, replaced the key beneath the terracotta pot, and started back to the car. The world was blanketed in rich shadow now, the mumblings of the night insects had started up and the warm air had been tempered by a faint nocturnal coolness.
Settling into the driver's seat, he cracked the window and played a little music on his phone. Scanning through the handful of albums he had there, he decided to put the media player on shuffle and was delighted when an old Sinatra favorite came on. Putting the seat back and wrenching open his thermos, he took a sip of Peter Cat's excellent drip coffee and hummed along with the opening notes of “I'll Be Around”.
He was in a surprisingly good humor, considering what lay ahead. The night was young yet; he figured he had time enough for a little cheer. As the minutes ticked by and midnight came to loom closer, the detective found he'd had enough of music, though, and he sat in silence, working through his brew in contemplative gulps.
Half an hour got away from him, then another. The night was spilling out of his grasp, and as the hours deepened he fell sway to certain nocturnal influences. A strain of humidity in the air conjured up something like mist as
ten o' clock arrived; by eleven, a proper fog was brewing. When the glow-in-the-dark hands of his watch told him he was within spitting distance of midnight, he dared a look out his window and saw that the world had been utterly consumed by an opaque darkness.
The night was still, harshly so. In the earlier hours, cars had occasionally passed by and lights had flickered on in adjacent houses. Now, there was no sound to be heard except for his nervous fidgeting against the car floor, the gurgling of coffee in his guts, the discordant settling of his aged ride. The wind died out early on, leaving the mounting fog to sit in immovable heaps that only snowballed with time.
The awaited hour came without his realizing it. Ulrich had been deep in thought for some minutes; he'd considered his office rent and other bills, and wondered how much cash he'd have left when they'd all been paid. He meditated on his recent conversations—his chats with Harry at Peter Cat, his visit with Laura Villefort, the shouting he'd done earlier that evening at discovering Beardsley's scattering of cat litter across the carpet.
He looked at his watch, and when he saw it was just past midnight, he set his thermos aside and sat upright.
No sooner had he prepared to court attentiveness did his blood run cold, however.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The windows were clotted with fog and darkness. He could barely make out the yellowish glow of Nancy's back porch light, or the trunk of the massive oak just outside. He didn't need to survey the property to ferret out the origin of that sudden rapping, however. His ears told him everything he needed to know.
Someone had just tapped on one of the car windows.
He jerked around in his seat, teeth grit, and glimpsed a shadow looming in the rear window. The outline was vague, but it was close enough to be seen for what it was.
Deep Night Page 8