Forsaken - A Novel of Art, Evil, and Insanity

by Andrew van Wey

  There were no words that Linda could find to express her utter shock at Jessica’s creation. The room had been transformed, rendered into three dimensions like a funhouse trick. The bunk bed, the table, the shelves, each object felt foreign and detached to the tone and images that now covered every inch of the walls. It was as if she were standing within a painting.

  “What have you done?” Linda whispered.

  Jessica smiled, still clutching the nub of the black crayon, proud of her creation. Then, she pointed to the window and said: “We have visitors.”

  Denial

  THE OLD SCHOLAR closed the door to his office and motioned for Dan to sit on the couch and he did, unable to keep his foot from tapping on the rug.

  “Bob, I don’t know what to say--”

  “Don’t say anything,” Dean Robert said, but it came out in three separate words, each pronounced with force. Don’t. Say. Anything.

  The Dean opened his bottom desk drawer and removed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, a present that Dan and Linda had bought the him years ago before they discovered he had quit drinking. The seal cracked as he opened it and poured two glasses, one into a proper snifter glass and the other into a coffee cup. He gave Dan the glass and kept the cup, taking a slow sip of the amber liquid and turning his attention to the window overlooking the quad.

  Outside, students went about their morning beneath the cold autumn air. Not far off sat the sculpture garden and the Gates of Hell, and on a good day he could see it. But today, there was a faint fog and those statues lay out of sight. Dan sucked the whole drink down and it settled in his stomach. He knew he needed the warmth for what was coming next.

  “You’ve put us all in an awkward position here Daniel,” said the old man.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Dan answered.

  “Of course not. No one means to make a mess, but the results are one and the same.”

  “Bob, please,” Dan found himself saying, begging almost. “I don’t know what happened on that tape, but--”

  “Stop,” Dean Robert cut in, cold and sharp. It was business now. It had always been. Somewhere along the line, Dan thought, he had gone off the rails, confused the two. Their friendship could only go so far.

  “I won’t pretend to know or understand whatever it is you’re going through. That would be dishonest. You are, obviously, having some sort of crisis, that much is clear.”

  “It’s not a crisis,” Dan mumbled.

  “Whatever it is, it’s affecting your judgement. And your professional behavior. Do you agree?” he asked.

  “I...” Dan said, thinking about Linda and the kids. Oh God, what was he going to tell them? Dan couldn’t bear to look Dean Robert in his eyes. That man, that kind old man who had hired him a decade ago, seen such promise in him, even treated him, at times, like a son.

  “I agree... it looks a little strange,” Dan answered.

  “A little strange? Your behavior has been erratic to say the least, and frankly discomforting. Look at you. You’re unkempt, you obviously haven’t showered or taken any interest in your appearance.”

  “I had a rough night.”

  “I saw. I wish to God I hadn’t, but I did.”

  “Bob,” Dan said, and he could feel tears in his eyes. “Please don’t do this.”

  “I’m retiring this year.”

  “What?”

  “That was the plan. I’m retiring, and I was going to recommend you chair the department. I’m not sure I can do either.”

  “Bob, I... I don’t know what to say.”

  The old man took a long sip of the whiskey, savoring it. Then, he turned to Dan. “I’m suspending you from further academic responsibilities for the remainder of the semester. I could have you fired on multiple causes this very minute. Improper ethics, dereliction of duties, rumored sexual trysts with students--”

  The glass hummed. “I didn’t have--”

  “You stole photography equipment.”

  “I didn’t steal it.”

  “No, you just bribed some grad student on work-study to do it for you. And you returned it in pieces. For what? What were you hoping to accomplish? A photo of some ghost?”

  “Bob that painting is fucking evil!”

  Dean Robert’s voice cut in like a canon. “It’s just paint and canvas! That’s it!”

  “No,” Dan shook his head. “No, it’s not just that.”

  Dean Robert leaned back, chair squeaking as he took a deep sip from his mug and closed his eyes. “I want you to listen to yourself, take a second and really listen. Then tell me: were the roles reversed, would you not be saying the same to me?”

  “I...” Dan started, but he felt the lie, thick and dry. It was stuck in the back of his throat, too heavy to expel. “I know how it looks,” he said instead.

  “My point Daniel, is that I could have you terminated. But I’m not going too. You know why? Because I know just how much it would rip your family apart.”

  All Dan could do was nod. He knew Linda would have to go back to work, and in the current economy, with an eight year gap, she would be lucky to land at Starbucks. The house, of course, would be impossible to pay off. There would be late payments, and they would lie to each other, trying to catch up as the envelopes got thicker. A few months later they’d receive a notice of default and then, not long after that, a half season at school at most, the house would be sold out from under them. They’d find themselves standing on the sidewalk, handing over the keys to someone else, another family perhaps, two kids and a dog, and Marty would smile as they drove away from that little side street for the last time.

  “Are you listening to me Daniel?” Dean Robert asked.

  “Yes,” he answered in a soft voice, eyeing a blue jay as it landed on the windowsill and cocked its head sideways at him.

  “You need help. I’m saying that as your friend because I’ve known you for a decade but these days I hardly even recognize you. These little ticks you get?” He held out his hand and shook it in the air. “The constant lies? Your students, they whisper about your conduct, and these whispers get back to me. And this obsession with that painting of yours, my God. Why I let you to take a personal project on, I don’t know, but it ends now.”

  Dan blinked and the blue jay flew away.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean, I never want to hear about it again,” Dean Robert answered.

  “You told me to track down its owner.”

  “No, I told you to figure out what to do with it.”

  “You told me to find out who painted it.”

  “What? Of course I didn’t,” Dean Robert laughed and Dan felt his fingers curl into balls again.“I don’t care who the artist is, that’s your affair.”

  Dan leaned forward, staring into the old man’s eyes for the first time since they’d stepped into that office. “You said it yourself, downstairs: find out if it’s an anonymous donation. It has your name written all over it. That ring a bell?”

  “My God,” said Dean Robert, and his face darkened. “Is that what you thought I meant?”

  “What the fuck else should I think?”

  The old Dean’s voice was slow and low, as if speaking to someone learning the language for the first time. “Miguel said: ‘It has your name written all over it.’ I laughed, because he was right. You understand art like that. Now if you thought I was insinuating something else, I apologize.”

  “Bob, you told me it was my problem.”

  “It is your problem. It’s your painting.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “It was sent to you, it belongs to you.”

  “It wasn’t sent to me.”

  “Who else...” The old man paused, eyes narrowing. “Do you have the card that came with it?”

  “Of course,” Dan answered, fishing the card from his briefcase.

  “Tell me, what does it say on there? Who’s it for?”

  “I don’t...” Dan turned the card over in his ha
nd. The same fifteen letters were there in that same scrawl. Only the order was different.

  “Read it to me Daniel. Please,” the old man asked.

  Dan wiped a piece of dirt off the card and read it aloud.

  “It’s my name,” he said. “Daniel Rineheart.”

  “Of course it’s your name. It’s always had your name on it.”

  Public Spectacle

  HIS FINGERS DRUMMED the steering wheel as he drove away from the university for the last time. The old man’s words still rang in his ear, mocking. It has your name written all over it. He rewound the conversation in his head a dozen times, furious with himself for not having caught the anagram sooner.

  His name: Daniel Rineheart.

  The title: Here in art, denial.

  Daniel.

  Denial.

  Rineheart.

  Here in art.

  They were the words he had shouted from inside the darkness of that video, the words written on those pieces of paper at Old Mabel’s house. Those shimmering letters that, like the clock from the painting, now seemed different when he remembered them, as if they’d always shimmered and changed, just out of focus. Had the card really held his name this whole time? Had the painting changed his memory, or had the opposite occurred?

  Regardless, he thought, it was a stupid trick, and if that piece of glass behind his eyes hadn’t dulled his senses he would’ve discovered it sooner. The painting was covered in symbols that spoke to him and if he’d missed one as simple as his name, what other clues had he overlooked?

  Stop calling it that, said Mr. Glass.

  “Not now,” Dan mumbled.

  Not now, not never, Mr. Glass whispered, and Dan thought of the Imitrex back at home and how it would soon silence that jagged headache so he could focus. Yes, there were other clues, many others to be found. And he would find them, he told himself, like finding animals in clouds.

  But for now, he was exhausted. His neck hurt from the few hours of sleep he had gotten on the floor, if sleep was what that splice in time could be called. His bed, he thought of his bed and his wife, and how soft and warm they both were. He would sleep for a week and he would tell her he loved her and then, maybe a day or a week later, he would tell her his job was at risk. Or perhaps, he thought, he didn’t need to tell her at all.

  Perhaps, Mr. Glass agreed.

  He turned left, blowing through the stop sign a block from his house. Red and blue lights flashed, not behind him, but in front. For a moment he thought he might have driven into a speed trap, but no. The red and blue came from outside a house he recognized as his own.

  Fancy that, mumbled Mr. Glass.

  Two patrol cars idled curbside. Neighbors were gathered, a dozen at least, their attention directed at several men wearing chemical suits and carrying boxes of equipment up the pathway to the front door of his house. He could hear the commotion through the window and he felt his throat tense up. A truck, like an armored car used at banks, sat behind the patrol cars, the words: MOBILE CRIME LAB were emblazoned in gold and black lettering.

  “Linda?!” Dan shouted out as he slammed the car door. The neighbors swung their heads in his direction. The world swam in a surreal thickness, the seconds felt heavy, as if they were happening elsewhere, beneath magnolias in some distant town with its quiet side streets. Not here, he told himself. Not my house. Not my family.

  “Linda,” he called again, and then there she was, Jessica in her arms, rushing over. Her face was scrunched and he couldn’t tell whether she was worried or confused or crying or perhaps all three.

  “I tried to call you,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  “Is everyone okay?!” he asked, searching for Tommy and spotting him standing at the edge of the fence like a stranger to his own house. His wife, his family, they were all here, and for a fleeting second he felt relief.

  “What the hell’s happening?” he asked.

  “Professor,” a voice said, and he recognized that smug drawl in an instant. “Glad you could join us.”

  Detective Cooper appeared from the crowd, heads turning and following him. Dan saw the bulge of a gun and a radio beneath his button down shirt and grey blazer. He wore a smirk, like a playground bully finding the weakest kid alone and with a pocket full of lunch money.

  “What’s going on?” Dan demanded. “What is this?”

  “This is a search,” he said, and held out a pink piece of carbon copy paper. “And this is the search warrant. Join us inside when you get a chance.”

  Dan snatched the warrant and glanced over it. His name and address were listed along a column to the left, and next to it a box labeled: REASON FOR SEARCH read: MISSING PERSONS CASE ID: BG2210-KFC. He recognized the KFC as standing for Karina Francis Calloway. At the bottom sat a lazy signature on a line labeled: MAGISTRATE.

  They had arrived an hour ago, lights and sirens flashing. They had knocked and escorted them out without an explanation, and when Linda described it she teetered on the verge of tears. Her bottom lip quivered, her words were jagged, and she gave sidelong glances to the crowd. Helpless, he thought, a house cat that found itself deep in the jungle.

  “Wait here, I’ll take care of this,” he said, but he didn’t know how he could take care of it. Only that he had to try.

  He caught up with Detective Cooper in the foyer of his own house, now almost unrecognizable. Several men, perhaps a dozen in total, all dressed in chemical coats and jumpsuits, were in the process of affixing black tarps to the windows. The absence of light made the entry way feel subterranean, as if he were descending into a cave.

  “That’s close enough,” said Detective Barton, flashlight in hand as he took heavy steps down the stairs.

  “What are you doing to my house?”

  “Luminol,” answered Cooper as he picked up a spray bottle. “It’s remarkable stuff really. Picks up any trace of blood, no matter how hard it’s been scrubbed. Here, put this on.”

  He handed Dan a disposable dust mask and cupped his own against his mouth.

  “I’m curious professor,” Cooper said, sliding the mask aside to speak. “That Heimdell, back in your office. How’d you come across it?”

  “What the hell does that have to do with this?”

  “Edify me, I’m curious.”

  “I don’t...” Dan started, words heavy and thick, heart racing and the technicians sprayed the walls and shelves with that chemical mist. “It was a wedding present. From the in-laws.”

  “Hell of a gift.”

  “They were generous. Look, I don’t understand--”

  “Sure it’s real.”

  “What?” Dan studied the detective. Was this a joke or a test?

  “The painting,” Cooper said. “Sure it’s authentic?”

  “Of course.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do I...” Dan scoffed. “It’s my job. Instinct. I don’t know, call it a hunch.”

  “A hunch?” Cooper raised an eyebrow as if he found the answer insulting.

  Dan felt the glass grow. “There are things the artist did; ways he painted; colors he used and ones he avoided. He did the broad swaths right handed but the details with his left hand because he had a stroke by that period. Details. It’s like apples to oranges if you know where to look.”

  “The gap,” Cooper said, nodding.

  “What?”

  “The gap, between artist and amateur. Like a satellite photo of the Mississippi. Only a blue wiggle unless you’re on its shores.”

  “Sure, I don’t know. Look, what’s this about?”

  Cooper studied his watch and let out a sigh, as if late to some important meeting.

  “Faith, professor,” Cooper said in that slow drawl. “Would you describe yourself as a man of faith?”

  “What the hell does that have to do with this?”

  “It’s an honest question. Heck, it’s one of the oldest. These days, we get all upset. Like someone’s trying to peek into our pa
nts and see if we’ve got foreskin or not. But there’s nothing private about faith. We just pretend there is. Step back please.”

  Barton’s hand landed on Dan’s shoulder, thick fingers digging in like the claws of a mother bear. He pulled him back as the technicians taped off the window. Dan’s fingers curled into fists.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Dan snapped.

  “And you didn’t answer mine,” Cooper smiled.

  “I’m an atheist,” he said between gritted teeth, realizing that he was starting to doubt even that these days.

  “I didn’t ask about religion, I asked about faith. They’re different, the two of them.”

  “How so?”

  “Faith’s what you double down on when your hand’s hot. What you hope has your back when you’re boxed it. What drives you. Religion’s just whose name you call out. See, we all put our faith in something. All of us. Some even put their faith in deception. Little half truths here and there. Distortions, if you will, masked with smiles. Some might think themselves clever, twisting the truth around ‘til it fits in whatever hole’s the easiest. And others might ignore it, like a rat in a wall, or some strange lump beneath your skin. Like a dinner party tale, changing a little each time. But me, you know what I put my faith in?”

  “Cheap shirts and bad ties, I don’t know.”

  Cooper laughed, slow and low, mask inflating with each chuckle.

  “Truth,” he said. “With a capital T. It’s a powerful thing, don’t you think?”

  “Can’t say I’ve noticed.”

  “Sure you have. Look around you. Your faith brought mine. That’s what we’re doing professor. We’re chasing shadows.”

  “You calling me a liar?”

  “Call it a hunch.” Cooper smiled, dark eyes narrowing. “We’re old enemies, you and I. Our faiths, they’ve been having at each other since the dawn of time. Reckon they will ‘til rapture. Liars and the filth they spew don’t change, they just think they do. Now the question remains: how wide’s the gap between artist, and amateur?”

  He put the radio to his mouth, eyes never leaving Dan, and spoke into it. “We’re ready.”