The Photograph

The phone rang at 2:47 in the morning.

Why me, Lord? Drunk with a wrong number, I thought, and was not going to answer it. Something told me this might be real, so I reluctantly picked it up. “Yeah?”

“You have to help me. My daughter has disappeared”, woman’s voice, crying and scared but still in control.

“Missing persons is a police case, why involve a PI”?

“They think I’m crazy. They just laughed at me”.

“Ok, when did your daughter disappear?” “Yesterday. . . tomorrow, I don’t know. There is this strange photograph…and it frightens me.”

A photograph shouldn’t set a person off unless connected to kidnapping or blackmail. This didn’t sound like it, or she would have said so. “OK, lady, we better meet but not here. There is a Bar and Grill on Kenneth and Matilda. Meet you there in half an hour. And it will cost you $500 dollars just for getting me up in the middle of the night”.

It was only 15 minutes from my flat, but I wanted to get there first to see what I was dealing with before I was cornered into something. I ordered a Scotch and sat at a corner table where I could see all sides, back to the wall, and waited. She came in looking behind her as though fearing pursuit.

She introduced herself, “My name is Francine Devries. My daughter Isabella has disappeared. She found a strange photograph of herself sound asleep, in a strange room. It was dated three days from now. The room looked like our attic. Curious, she went in and never came out. The attic door is sealed from the inside”.

“I’m Rick O’Shea and you owe me $500”. She slid the bills across the table, “Next month’s grocery money”. Make me feel guilty, will she? I tucked the bills in my shirt.

“Tell me about the house and this attic. I’ll go and see it in the morning. Not much I can do tonight. If your daughter is in that attic she will still be there in the morning”.

“It is an old house, kind of run down on a side street, Cul de sac. We have only lived there a couple of years. Just since her father died. We had no money. It was shelter and it was cheap.”

“Nothing strange ever happened there before? Sounds, footsteps, anything missing from the house?”

“Old houses always make weird sounds, especially when the wind blows.”

We went back to my flat. Francine wasn’t going to sleep anyhow, so I poured us both a drink, and threw a blanket on the couch for her. Next morning we had breakfast and went to this mystery house with the seemingly one-way attic door.

It was one dilapidated place, no wonder it was cheap. We went upstairs to the attic entrance. As Francine said, the door was sealed, like it had been glued to the frame.

This time there was a note on the door on very old, yellowed paper, “Do not attempt to force this door. You cannot know what horrors await you on the other side”.  

Force the door? I’d have needed a sledgehammer and a cutting torch. But who placed the note? It had to have been done last night when we were not here. Were they back inside the attic?

“OK, I am going to sleep up here and see what happens”.  I didn’t believe in ghosties, and ghoulies, long legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night. Yeah, right...and O’Shea is an Italian name.

“I’m staying right here and taking no chances on unknown person(s) showing up with more notes for the door. Can you bring me some food and a couple of blankets, please?” I should have brought my Scotch, a too-late afterthought.

By the time it got dark, I was bored out of my mind. No sounds, no nothing. I lay down and tried to sleep. At 3:00 am I was instantly alert, my hair standing on end. They say there is nothing sweeter than a baby’s laughter, except there was no baby. Laughter…then silence, so thick you could pour gravy on it.

I turned on my flashlight and looked at the door. Another picture, another note. The picture was Isabella, looking very happy. It was dated today. The note said, “Thank you for sending her to us. She will be very happy here and we will look after her.”

I grabbed my things, raced down the stairs, flung the money at Francine, and ran. Dealing with the other world is a job for an exorcist, not a PI. When I got to my office, I poured myself a tumbler of Scotch to steady my nerves. After two more tumblers I was so steady, I couldn’t move.