Fragility

2 A Cold Trail

It was a cold rainy afternoon in Boston. Winter rain came from the east, pouring on me pretty hard. Hearing the pitter-patter of raindrops falling on the canvas roof of my Ford drowned out the many thoughts racing through my head for this particular case. I came to Richard Gallmore's neighbourhood on the slushy banks of the Mystic River. This place is old. Has a history going back to the late 17th century, when English Puritans came to settle. It's also where you hear spooky legends and tales of witches from Salem flying over these parts on their broomsticks in the full moonlight on all hallows eve. The white pine trees, tall and skeletal, are decorated with long icicles. The trees shroud this place in hazy shades of dark grey, giving a foreboding feeling to this place.

Richard Gallmore's home is in a small woodland, off the main road I traveled on. It is a three-storey house from the looks of it, with surrounding housing areas a couple of acres away on either side. The place seems pricy to live here, better than the cheap apartment flat I call home. The house has to be over a-hundred years old, by the looks of it. It has Victorian Era features, though it seems well taken care of. The house appears to have been painted recently, given a fresh coat of paint of eggshell white on the wooden panels, with a few modern renovations. The roof is copper tiled with a slight greenish tinge. There are stained glass arch windows, a peculiar style of Art Nouveau from the turn of the century. The windows could easily belong on any cathedral, with a large clear, round window that looks like an old-fashioned spoked wheel of a carriage up in the attic.

I parked my car in front of the snow-covered driveway and got out, rushing to the stairs of the porch, gimping along in my strides; I looked upon a dark waiting hall with a staircase that leads to the second floor. I inspected the post of the door, and sure enough, it was busted open inwards. I put on a pair of brown leather gloves, grabbed the flashlight I have in my coat pocket, and examined the door for a few moments. The door has deep thick screws placed into the wood, with an assortment of locks. I would have suspected a janitor lived here, going by the number of keys he needed for the locks. I can see a slight black smear of a large bootprint on the door itself. The shoe size is a good foot long from the mud under the guy's boot. Whoever he is, he must've been a big brute if he busted through this door.

After examining the door, I entered the lobby. I stood there, taking in the dark surroundings. I didn't mind the clap and bang of thunder outside because I slept through worse storms in the trenches. There seemed to be a struggle here, as I saw a statue figure toppled over and busted on the polished walnut wood floor, with regal-looking furniture turned over. I shine my flashlight on the floor, and find more small mud smudges, and follow it to another room to my right.

I came into the library, where I found the many books Richard Gallmore had collected. They are all over the floor, wide open with pages flung out and littering the Turkish silk carpet. I never knew what Richard Gallmore was into, so I examined his books. There's a strange collection of medieval manuscripts and old reprints of some encyclopedia tomes that detailed ancient magic, rituals and sacred rites, and whatnot from many ancient civilizations that are no longer around. From what I skimmed through, the details are of long-forgotten tales of witch cults and dark legends. There are a few occult manuscripts written in languages I am unfamiliar with. I am not into the hocus pocus bull crap people are into these days.

After examining, I continued with my investigation. The library is trashed, and a few items here and there are broken—mainly vases, busts, and some statuettes. I then found it, a well-camouflaged door that blends in with the library's regal green and silver wallpaper, which led to Richard Gallmore's office. The door is ajar but not fully closed. As I enter, and see the place has a mahogany desk, a regular phone, a shattered reading lamp, and a gramophone broken on the floor. His red leather armchair is before a grey granite stone fireplace and a small pool of frozen blood with a tooth stuck into it. Yet, what caught my intrigue for a long moment, is a strange, if not bizarre oil-based portrait above the fireplace. If I can describe the painting best, it would be a black vortex in a fiery red or bloody spiral. Staring out from the abyss are two glowering fiery eyes that look like burning coal embers, with no discernable features from where it is attached. The eyes have a menacing beastly hatred in their gaze that makes me feel uneasy.