Forsaken - A Novel of Art, Evil, and Insanity

by Andrew van Wey

  The house grew quiet. From distant rooms Dan heard the sound of work-lights snapping on and warming up. A dim, blue UV glow bounced off the dark tarps, giving the house a freak show feel. Voices, faint and muffled.

  “We’ve got something,” the radio buzzed. “Southeast room, first floor.” Several heads snapped in the direction of the hallway like dogs to a dinner whistle.

  “Details, professor,” Cooper said as he removed his mask and followed the crowd into the hallway.

  Flashbulbs strobed from the study and Dan felt Barton pushing him to follow Cooper. No longer a viewer, he thought, now part of the show.

  The door to the study was open, the room darkened. A pop of flashbulbs and murmuring voices echoed out from within. Somewhere among the crowd he could hear Cooper mumble: “Well well,” in that lazy drawl.

  Dan continued, pushing his way in as several technicians stepped aside, their brown stained teeth grinning in amusement. The study was bathed in a UV glow, the corners almost imperceivable in the shadow. His heart drummed and his throat grew dry and narrow in the hushed silence. The rhythmic flash of the camera and the whirring motor of the shutter were the only other sounds as a photographer kneeled and snapped picture after picture.

  Then he saw the luminescent smear of blue light.

  It started on the hardwood floor in the center of the room, a few simple splotches no larger than pennies. Six inches away, it grew. First in a single line, like a paint stroke, and then another line. Two more joined it and he could make out a vague shape, a handprint where the lines intersected. Four fingers and a thumb.

  Like someone had been scratching at the floor.

  The blue luminescence was thickest in the center of the room, emanating outward from a single massive stain that bore the impression of another hand, as if paint had been poured over a still subject.

  But it wasn’t paint. Or at least not paint that came from the end of a brush. It had come from someone, and he knew that the blood he had lost when he cut his thumb was a drop by comparison. It was like the floor of a slaughterhouse.

  The third segment of the stain was the most abstract and violent. Frantic handprints left small splotches behind, as if fingers had clawed and fought at some invisible wall. Two wide smears merged into a twisted single line like some lazy Rorschach print. Jutting out from the center was a single circle of small paw prints that Dan recognized. He’d seen them before, in the damp grass outside, in the mud, and all about the house over the last two years.

  They were Ginger’s.

  Then the smear ended.

  Not at the wall but several feet before it. The trails all coalesced into a single giant brushstroke that accelerated with a final lash of fury and vanished. A single flat line, five feet wide, ended the glowing trail like skid marks ending in a brick wall. But there was no wall, no object to collide with. There was nothing, only a void. Yet something had been there, he thought. Yes, something had stood there for the last several weeks until this very morning.

  The luminance ended where the painting had been.

  “What is that?” Dan whispered, and he realized the whole room was now staring at him.

  “That, professor,” Cooper answered with a smile, “is my faith devouring yours.”

  Interrogation

  THE INTERVIEW ROOM at the Alder Glen police station was warm, perhaps a bit too warm. He had expected stone walls, a single mirror, and an empty table with a recorder. The room had all these, but it felt less like a dungeon and more like a conference room where PowerPoint presentations were given to the presumed guilty. A water cooler sat in the corner, humming and burping the occasional bubble.

  Dan ran his fingers through his hair. The situation had been a nightmare. The neighbors had stared, gawked, and mumbled as he stepped into the backseat of the unmarked patrol car. Tommy had cried, and when Linda hugged him Dan saw tears in her eyes as well. Only Jessica had remained unfazed, smiling as the car pulled away, waving to him as officers unraveled yellow police tape across the wrought iron gate of his home.

  He hadn’t been handcuffed, nor read his rights. He wasn’t being detained, not yet, merely asked to explain the situation, as Detective Barton had put it. And now, waiting in that room, he realized there was little keeping him there other than his own fear of what would happen if he left. Outside the interview room, the moon hung low in the grey sky through a large window that could just as easily be broken as it could be slid open.

  And if he did run, what then? How far could he get? Mexico perhaps, or further south. What little money they had wouldn’t last long, but dollars did stretch further south of the border, and perhaps it could buy a fresh start. He could learn Spanish, take a job restoring art south of the equator. Linda could teach English and they could save their money day by day, building a new life in a new land with a new name.

  He had done it before, he thought.

  A new name, laughed the glass, and Dan rubbed his temples, trying to squeeze that little shard between his thumb and index finger, yet no matter how hard pressed it slipped away.

  A new name. Wouldn’t that be a riot? Mr. Glass giggled.

  Dan studied that window, so easy to open. Guilty men run, he thought, but the innocent stay. And sometimes, the innocent even hang.

  “You’re a real piece of work professor,” said the drawl that he despised as Detective Cooper opened the squeaky door.

  Detective Barton filed in after, stopping to fill up his mug with hot water from the cooler and take a sideline seat further away, dipping a bag of tea into the mug like a one man jury.

  Cooper nodded to the mirror. A few seconds later a red light appeared next to the lens of the surveillance camera. Lights, camera, action, laughed the glass.

  “I must say, when we first met I sort of pegged you for the button down weasel type. But this,” Cooper tapped a folder as he sat down across from him, uncomfortably close. “This is quite a revelation.”

  “Gentlemen, I have no idea what you’re talking about, okay?” Dan sighed.

  Cooper smiled, as if he expected that sort of answer. He eyed Barton, who stirred his tea with a plastic spoon.

  “You’re here because of her.”

  He withdrew small a plastic bag from the folder and slid it to the center of the table. A photo of Karina stared back from inside the bag. That windswept black hair, the hint of a smile on her face, sunlight off her soft cheeks. Dan recognized the picture. He had deleted it and dozens of others on one of his Sunday night camera purges after they returned from Napa. But there it was, staring back at him, and he realized she must’ve copied it from his camera when he wasn’t around.

  “What about her?” he asked.

  “What about her?” Cooper echoed with a laugh, then tapped the photo again as if there was something in it Dan hadn’t caught. “Professor, you’re a suspect in her disappearance. Her car, as I told you, was parked two houses down from yours. Her emails, well, we’ve read all those. Your name was all over them. Her fingerprints and maybe even her blood: both found in your house. Photos, dozens of them like this, were found on her computer. And you say: ‘What about her?’”

  Barton let out a low chuckle, sipped his tea.

  “Look again,” Cooper tapped the photo. “Look closely. You remember this.”

  It wasn’t a question but a statement. Dan did remember it. But what he said was: “Why would I?”

  “Because you took it.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Of course not, you’re right. It just happens to be the same make and model of a camera you own.”

  “They sell ‘em by the millions, that’s hardly proof.”

  “You’re right, it’s a coincidence, of course.”

  “A coinkydink,” laughed Barton.

  “And see, that’s what I finding. So many coincidences. Here’s another one.”

  He tapped that photo again, his finger falling on a distant object: a vineyard set on a rolling hill.

  “See, I coll
ect wine. I find it a good investment. Maybe investment is a poor choice of words. I find it enjoyable.”

  “That’s nice for you,” Dan said.

  “It is, actually,” Cooper answered. “And I’ve been here. This little hill, looking westward from the Rosinni vineyards. Took the ex-wife to this very spot myself. I remember driving back across the Golden Gate, paying the toll, stuck in traffic. Let me ask you: how much is the toll these days?”

  “I don’t know, three bucks.”

  Another chuckle from Cooper. “Six, actually. But you only pay five. See, you’ve got one of those automatic FasTrak boxes in your car. Just drive on through, no slowing down. I keep meaning to get one but I always forget. Thing is, your FasTrak ID came up a day after this photo was taken. Southbound, back into the bay. Coincidence, of course.”

  “Another coinkydink,” Barton quipped.

  “I go to conferences there, all the time--”

  “Right. Conferences in Napa. The kind between two people, one of whom’s married.”

  “This is absurd--”

  “Is it now? Her emails didn’t say the same thing. See they sort of painted a very specific picture. A mentor and his student. A shared passion for art. Maybe it all started out a secret, something hidden, exciting. Something different. We’re human, professor, flesh and blood. Adultery ain’t illegal, least not in California. So when you say absurd, all I hear is a man trying to keep a secret safe from his family.”

  Cooper clicked his pen. Just once. But when he did Dan saw the light overhead flicker for a moment and felt his left hand shake. He rubbed it with his right hand and saw Cooper’s eyes flick downward for a moment.

  “Look, I didn’t have anything--”

  “This affair, of course, is all hypothetical.”

  He double clicked his pen again, eyes shooting down to Dan’s hands as he made the connection. Somewhere, not far away, Dan heard a dog whimpering. “Please stop that,” Dan said.

  Cooper leaned closer. “People change, we all know that. Heck, woman I married wasn’t the same as I divorced, and I’d be lying if I said I was the same man. Time changes everything, even secrets. And maybe this secret wanted more. Maybe she starts asking for things. Presents, like a custom bag with her initials on it.”

  Dan opened his mouth but Cooper smiled, perhaps anticipating it, perhaps hoping for a denial. Somehow they’d connected the custom satchel to his credit card. He held his tongue as Cooper continued.

  “Maybe she wants more time with you, another weekend in Napa. Thing is, this kind of change is slow, like a glacier, inch by inch. Then one day you wake up and it’s on the doorstep and there’s no ignoring it. She doesn’t want to be ‘the other woman’ so she gets more demanding. The calls aren’t fun anymore, meeting her is a chore. Maybe she goes a little Glenn Close and tries to kill herself. Of course, she doesn’t say it was her fault. No no, she says: ‘You made me do it.’ But we both know the truth: it was a calculated risk, that’s why she did it when you were there.”

  “She did it because I was her only friend.”

  “You were more than that.”

  “No, I wasn’t--”

  “Yes you were, but that don’t make you a bad person. You know why? Because you took her to the hospital. You signed her in, came to visit. We both know a bad person doesn’t do that. You cared about her.”

  “As a friend.”

  The pen clicked again. One-two-three in quick succession and in the silence that followed Dan could hear Barton slurping away at the last of his tea.

  “So you took a stroll with this little Betty? So what? It’s not like you tossed away the kids college savings. You had no idea she was dangerous, did you?”

  “Protecting his family,” Barton said, and Dan saw the light flicker for a second. “Family first,” Barton added with brown teeth.

  “Exactly. Family first,” continued Cooper. “So you call in a favor, you get an old friend to take her to Europe.”

  Dan felt hit heart skip a beat. Cooper smiled and clicked the pen a few more times.

  “That was her idea,” Dan said.

  “Not according to Nathaniel Spinozza,” Cooper said, withdrawing a transcript from the folder. “He says, and I quote: ‘Professor Rineheart practically begged me to take Miss Calloway on as a student, a favor that turned out to be a terrible mistake. She was unfocused, unprofessional, and did irreparable harm not only to the project she was tasked with but to the program I started.’ It’s all here, this so-called idea of hers.”

  “No no no, he asked me. He asked a dozen others. Everyone knew about the program.”

  Cooper waved the lie away like a fart in the air. “But it wasn’t about that, professor. It was about her. Getting rid of her. Out of sight--”

  “Out of mind,” Barton added, and Cooper glanced at him like an actor whose precious line was stolen.

  “This whole thing,” Dan paused, clearing his throat as the words stuck. “You’ve got the wrong idea. Karina was, like you say, unstable. I don’t deny that. She, I don’t know, grew obsessed. She thought it was something it wasn’t.”

  “Like love?” asked Cooper in soft drawl.

  “I don’t know. But I did my best to help her find opportunities appropriate for her skills.”

  “Maybe she thought if she came back you’d change your mind. But, let’s be honest, I’ve seen your wife, your family. Why give up all that for some girl?”

  “Exactly,” Dan said. “I wouldn’t.”

  “That’s why she didn’t give you a choice, did she? No, her threats became worse. Students started talking. Your own boss, even he suspected. I know her type. The more you push away, the more her obsession turns to anger, resentment. Even violence.”

  “No,” Dan said. “She wasn’t violent.”

  “You sure? See, her father claims one of his guns went missing after she visited. We found his lockbox in her apartment, a case of nine millimeters inside. Only five were missing. Why only five?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t even know she had a gun.”

  Cooper clicked his pen again. Dan clenched his fist and for a second he imagined burying that pen in the smug man’s throat.

  “Five bullets. Four plus one. I think you know why.”

  “No.”

  “You knew what she was capable of.”

  “No.”

  “What she might have done--”

  “No, you’re wrong.”

  “--to your family--”

  “No she wouldn’t.”

  “--then to you--”

  “You’re so wrong.”

  “--and then to herself. One two three four five.”

  “She wasn’t a killer.”

  “But you thought she was. Deep down, you knew. You knew there would be no happy ending to this.”

  Dan felt a chill as the detective spat out those three words: no happy ending.

  “So you did what you had to do, to protect your family. Because family’s what matters. She was going to hurt them and you stopped her.”

  “No,” Dan said. “No, I didn’t stop her.”

  Click click click went the pen.

  “You protected your family. That’s what a man does. She was going to hurt them and you stopped her. It was self defense after all. Ease your mind. All this, all these lies, we know the truth.”

  Click click click, again and again. Dan clenched his hands together and thought of distant fields and laughing voices. Of a dark old house and a hidden basement. Of going south and new lives with new names.

  “You’re wrong,” Dan said. “You’re wrong about everything.”

  “Am I?” Detective Cooper said with a smile as he clicked that pen again and again.

  Dan closed his eyes. For a moment he wasn’t in that warm room. He was far away, where the walls were white and tall and covered in soft fabric and a woman with a clipboard and a white coat clicked her pen as that ghoulish shape of his brother sat motionless in the middle of it all. And when he had tr
ied to look into those eyes they looked back, through him, beyond him, and he was nothing but a vapor.

  “David?” the shrink asked but he said nothing in return.

  “David?” Daniel had asked as she clicked her pen and when she did his eyes blinked, as if coming out of a trance.

  “Are you there David?” the shrink asked, but David just stared, through the woman, through the walls and stone, to some place far away. The overhead light flickered and his eyes drifted towards it.

  “Am I wrong?” she asked again, clicking that pen but her hands were large and calloused and they belonged to Cooper and the walls were now lined with a large window and a distant moon.

  “Yes, you’re wrong,” said Dan as the room shifted back to that warm police room. He felt the lies grow within, a familiar calm washing over him, and in seconds all became transparent and simple and Mr. Glass grew heavy and hot.

  They were clutching at straws. They had loose connections, circumstantial evidence, sure, and all they needed was a confession. A confession for something he hadn’t done. Guilty men run, but the innocent stay.

  “Gentlemen,” Dan with a broad smile that lit a fire in Cooper’s otherwise calm eyes. “You want a confession? Here it is. You have nothing. You claim I had an affair? So what. You imply, you actually imply, I might’ve hurt her? Where’s the evidence? This whole charade is bullshit. You have nothing on me. And you know it.”

  Cooper sucked air in through his teeth and his eyebrows danced upward. He held that look, as if he’d bitten into something wretched and the taste was stuck in his mouth.

  “You’re wrong about one thing, professor,” he said, opening the folder. He took out a small plastic bag, no larger than a business card, and Dan saw Denise’s familiar scrawl across the receipt at the top. In the bag sat that small stamp sized piece of the painted canvas.

  “You gave us all the evidence we needed.”

  Dan scoffed. “What is this?”

  “You tell us. You recognize it, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Lab said you gave it to them to test. Said it was canvas, but none they’d ever seen. Of course, we both know that’s not canvas, is it?”