The man in the painting was in his 30s, wearing a gray double-breasted suit and a tightly knotted red necktie, sitting on nothing, hands at his sides, with thick black hair and an almost hidden smile on his face. The background was black, a cloud of indistinct shapes in the darkness like a storm gathering in the distance.
The same man in front of me was in his 70s, but he the same sharp blue eyes and thick chin. Instead of a half-smile, his mouth curled down in a fixed frown. He wore an almost identical suit and necktie, but now he was balding, and he sat in a wheelchair in the living room of his Arlington Heights house. His name was Myles Vollmer.
Me? I’m Tom Jurgen. Ex-reporter, private detective.
“That painting is from 30 years ago,” Vollmer told me, taking a sip of expensive scotch. “I’d like you to locate the artist for me.”
The painting, in an ornate brass frame, sat propped up next to a gas fireplace with bright flames burning behind a glass screen. I leaned for a closer look, feeling the heat on my forehead. No signature that I could see. “So who’s the artist?”
“Carla Ransom. Carrie.” He pronounced it like a bad taste in his mouth. “She went to the Andreas Academy of Art here in Chicago. It’s no longer there. Downtown. I bought a painting from her at an art gallery called Orbit Three, where I met her, and she gave it to me in 1996.”
The dark background behind him in the painting seemed to shift as I looked at it, changing shape like black sand running through an hourglass. “May I ask why?”
He sipped his scotch again. “I’d rather not say right now. But it’s important to me.”
I was curious now, more curious than before. But he was the client, after all, and it probably didn’t matter. “I’ll do what I can. After 30 years, she may be difficult to track down.”
“Do your best. You come highly recommended.” That made me feel good. The check he handed over made me feel even better.
I gave him a receipt and put the check into my wallet, then stood. “I’ll be in touch.”
He lifted his drink. I left him staring at the portrait.
Back home I deposited the check, went through my email, and then started looking for Carrie Ransom. Twenty minutes later I heard Rachel drop her backpack in the living room.
Rachel’s my girlfriend. Red hair, hazelnut eyes, slender, smart—plus, she’s a little psychic. Which comes in handy when my cases veer into supernatural territory, which happens more often than I like. For the last year or so she’s been in graduating school, studying for a psych degree. And she was almost finished. Almost—
She walked into the office. “Finished with my last final.” She sighed. “I’m having a drink. Possibly several. What time is it? I don’t care. Last final!” She raised a fist in the air.
“You go, girl.” I lifted my own fist in a salute.
“Never say that to me.” She left the office but came back in five minutes later with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “Don’t get any ideas, most of this is for me.” She poured.
We toasted. “Now what? Graduation, ‘Pomp and Circumstance,’ throw your cap in the air?”
“They’ll mail the diploma. I’m not doing the ceremony.” She took a drink, then poured herself more.
“Why not? I was looking forward to hearing them say your full name.”
Rachel grimaced. “I only went to high school graduation because my mother made me. I’m not risking her showing up for this.”
Rachel still doesn’t talk about her life growing up much, but I know it was difficult, if not actively abusive. I’d learned not to push. “Whatever you want. I’m just happy for you.”
“Yeah. Now I have to get a job.” She carried the bottle over to her desk. “What was filing unemployment like when you got fired? Was it a literal line you had to stand in?”
Years ago I was fired from my job as a reporter for insisting that the supernatural creatures I was seeing were real, and newsworthy. “Yeah, but I think it’s mostly online these days.”
“Good.” She sat down. “Maybe I can start my own practice. ‘Psychic shrink—I already know your problem.’”
We focused on work. Rachel’s been a graphic designer since I first met her, and she’d been juggling it with grad school for a long time. With her degree I figured she’d phase that out, but right now she wanted to keep her current clients so we had money flowing in. My job isn’t very consistent moneywise, and the internet isn’t free.
So Rachel worked on whatever project she had, and I went back to searching for Carrie Ransom.
She didn’t have any social media presence that I could find. Several people had that name, but none of them seemed to have any history as an artist. I didn’t know what she looked like, so I emailed Vollmer to ask if he had any pictures of her. He didn’t respond immediately, and I kept looking.
The name popped up on some of the public information databases—real estate transactions, arrest records—but nothing that was an obvious match. I took a different approach and tried tracking down someone from the art gallery Vollmer had mentioned—Orbit Three.
It had gone out of business in the early 2000s, but it earned a decent amount of press in art magazines and local papers during its lifetime, and occasionally got mentioned in more recent articles—some relatively well-known local artists got their start showing their work there. So I was able to get some names of people to track down.
After an hour or so of talking to artists who didn’t remember anyone named Carla or Carrie Ransom, I connected with one person who had a number for the son of one of Orbit Three’s partners. The mother had died years ago, the artist said, but the son had helped out at the gallery. So I took down the information and called him.
His name was Paul Greenberg, and his mother, Iris Stallworth, had been one of three owners of Orbit Three. “Yeah, I remember Carrie a little. It was a long time ago.” He had a low, raspy voice. “She was really talented—and kinda weird.”
“Weird how?”
“You know, I didn’t work with the artists that much. My job was mostly sweeping up and cleaning the restrooms and taking out the trash, and sometimes serving wine at the openings. But I helped sometimes installing exhibitions. Most of the artists were nice, some were a little fussy about stuff. I mean, Carrie was pretty nice, she just—did some weird stuff.”
I’ve learned to be patient and let people tell their stories at their own pace. “What kind of weird stuff?”
“One time she was part of a three-person show, and in the section where her stuff was, she had to do this ritual before the opening. There were candles and incense, and there was—I swear to God, it was a dead bird in a plastic bag.”
“Yuck.”
“Yeah. She did this little ceremony, chanting something. It was only about five minutes, and then she was done. At least she cleaned it up herself, she didn’t make me do it. She took the bird with her.”
“Did she do that a lot?”
“She never brought the bird. I talked to my mom, and I guess she talked to Carrie. There was another artist who complained about the incense and the chanting too. That’s when she stopped showing at Orbit. That was in, uh, 1999 or so.”
“What happened to her after that?”
“I’m not real sure. I think I saw some of her stuff at other galleries, so I guess she kept working, but I haven’t even thought about her in years.”
“Do you have any idea where she is right now?”
“No. You could ask—no, he’s dead. Oh yeah, ask Simon. He was a critic. He followed her for years. I guess he thought she was a genius or something. Or maybe—” He chuckled. “I don’t know.”
“Simon who?”
Simon Almeida was a retired critic. He’d covered art, music, theater, and even video games for the Sun-Times and lots of local and national magazines, and then on the web when print went onto life support. He seemed eager to talk, like someone who missed having an audience. But when I mentioned Carrie Ransom, he got quiet.
“I haven’t seen Carrie in years,” he finally said. “The last I heard, she was going to Mexico. That was in 2012 or so. I don’t know if she ever came back.”
“Did something happen?”
“She got sick. I don’t know—cancer? Maybe. I just—we didn’t see each other for a while, and then she just disappeared. Someone told me about Mexico.”
“Who?”
“A friend of hers, Nicole. Nicole Gersen. An artist. But she died a couple of years ago.”
I didn’t get anything more out of him, aside from the feeling that he was afraid to talk about Carrie Ransom. Bad breakup? That was my guess, but it could have been anything.
I looked into Nicole Gersen and found that her son was also an artist. He lived in New York, but I gave him a call and left a message.
I kept working until 5:30, when I ran out of leads. Then I had to start dinner.
“There’s a pre-graduation party tomorrow night,” Rachel told me as she dumped some parmesan cheese over her spaghetti. “Want to come?”
“You and all your grad school friends?” I’d met a few people in her program. But I’m not much of a party person. “You’d have more fun without me.”
“Suit yourself. It’d be fun to prove I really have a boyfriend.” She smirked.
I scanned her body up and down. “They think someone who looks like you would have to make up an imaginary boyfriend?”
“They don’t always believe I’m working on cases with you. When I ask them to take notes for me, or tell them I was up all night fighting demons.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I will. People will wonder what you see in me. It’ll keep them guessing.”
“Oh, they already wonder that.” But she squeezed my hand. “It’ll be fun.”
I nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
Lewis Brannick sat up in his chair. What the hell?
Nothing. He saw nothing. No sound. But he’d heard something. His name.
He sat facing the TV in the corner of the condo. The TV was big. The bookcase behind him was wider and taller, crammed with books and antiques, with a bronze bust of Napoleon perched on top as if surveying the room. He’d bought that years ago, when he’d hoped to become the Napoleon of finance.
He’d done well—well enough to own this penthouse condo overlooking Lake Shore Drive, a 32-year-old second wife and two Porches and a Mercedes in the parking garage below. Maybe he wasn’t Napoleon, but his life was good.
Something whispered his name again. Lewis . . .
The TV was muted. His young wife was gone tonight, out with girlfriends at a play, she said. What time was it? Maybe she came back? “Hilly!” His voice was a croak. He reached for his water, took a swallow. “Hillary?”
No answer. He picked up the remote, turned the TV off. He turned his head, looking back toward the window. The blinds were up. He could see lights glowing on the waters of Lake Michigan, yachts and ships gliding through the night.
He turned back to the TV and switched it on. Whatever.
Then again: Lewisss . . .
Behind him, the bookcase lurched. It tilted forward, settled back, then rocked forward again, silently. He never heard it. He didn’t see the bronze bust fall from its perch at the top, just a shadow tumbling down over him, what the hell, what the—
Pain slammed into his skull. For a second he fought to understand what was going on. It couldn’t—how could it—oh my God—
Lewisss . . .
Blackness.
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