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.

This portrait stumped me. I felt my skin crawl with unease, seeing this strange piece of what I presume to be modern art depicting what looks to be something from beyond, peeking into our realm from whatever black abyss it came from. I stood there, shining my light on this portrait for what seems to be hours. Then I noticed it. The portrait is slightly off-tilt. Realizing this new find, I approached this eerie portrait and look at its sides. Putting my flashlight on the fireplace mantel, I feel around the sides of the frame, and it moves outward on painted hinges that blend with the stone of the fireplace chimney, revealing a black box number safe.

I touched the safe, and it is open and not locked. I figured Richard Gallmore was forced by whatever brute who broke his door in and trashed his place to open the safe. I pulled the heavy steel door of the safe and shine my flashlight inside. The riches of gold and silver coins and family jewellery glitter in the shine of my flashlight. The sight was tempting, seeing hundreds of American double eagles and family heirloom jewellery of diamond and ruby rings. But I found it odder; nothing of value was taken out of the safe, nothing at all, that only a few coin stacks were shifted and disturbed, but nothing seemed to be taken.

Being more stumped as I close the safe, I have no leads in the case, aside from the blood spill being frozen over and a tooth stuck to it. I go back to examine the tooth, which looks like a back molar, probably Mister Gallmore's. He must've got knocked hard and spat the thing out from the looks of it, thus forcing him to open the safe's door.

The trail is cold. I come out to the front porch and gander at my wristwatch, seeing it is half past four. I look to either side and see the two houses off a distance of what seem to be two acres worth of trees and snow-covered hedges that are borders between both residences to Mister Gallmore's home. I go to the first residence to my left, steering my car up to its long cobblestone driveway, where the snow is clear and parked. The home was two storeys and a fairly new residence by the looks of it.

I get out of my car and go up the porch, then knock on the door loudly whilst my gloved finger pushed the doorbell button. "Who is it?" a little old woman's voice calls out to me.

"This is Detective John Lancy of Boston PD! I have a few questions in regards to Mister Richard Gallmore, whose house was broken into, and he went missing a day ago!" I called back. The next thing I hear is a click from the lock and the door opening inward.

Standing in the doorframe, in a green and white sleeping gown coat combo with slippers, is a little old woman who has a hunch and uses the door to support her, "Come in, Officer." she offers, and I go in.

For some time, I drilled the old woman named Millie Hawkins, age eighty-four, retired school teacher, widowed from Mister Benjamin Hawkins, now living by herself since her kids left her to start families.

"Mister Gallmore was always a nice fellow; he and his daughter always visited me on the weekends to share tea and crumpets with," she says, reminiscing, speaking in an English accent. There were many men back in the trenches who had accents from the British Isles. Honestly, I couldn't tell them apart, maybe it's just my Yankee ignorance, or I didn't care back then what a Cockney, Scottish, Welsh, or Irishman sounded like. To me, they were all the same tea-sipping, roast beef munching Tommies.

"Did you know about the people who went into his house?" I asked, writing down the information on my notepad.

"He has a lot of people coming and going into his home. Most are people he did business with at his bookstore, I being one of them. He gave me a medieval manuscript of a Canterbury Tale. I was always interested in reading stories in Old English. He even gave me a few manuscripts from Shakespeare himself. Aw! I so love Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet! How I adore such theatre works of art."

"Did you know anyone else he worked with acquiring some books, like particular books that detail the occult?" I asked again, quickly changing the topic, seeing as the old woman was going off-subject.

"Well...There was a witches' circle in these parts that visited him, and he hung out with them at a place known as the Apophis Cafe. Yes, now I remember. They are strange fellows in that witches' circle."

"I see. Do you know someone he worked with and is acquiring books for?" I asked once more, probing Millie further for answers.

"I once heard him talking to his daughter during our last session of tea about a week ago. He mentioned a man named Victor, something? That's honestly all I can remember, Detective Lancy."

Finally, I fished my first lead in this case!

"Thank you, Miss Hawkins, for the information and thank you for the tea," I say as I take a quick first sip of the earl grey, she brewed. Typical English posh tea, always brewed by snobby British Officers, greenhorns fresh from the academy. They never lasted long.

I was never a tea person. I always enjoyed a hot cup of coffee on cold days. It was always great to have when working on cases in the long-dead hours of the night. Though, now that I think of it, with my coffee addiction and all, I haven't slept well in over a month and lately been having terrible dreams of some sort or another that I find myself waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweats. Can't remember those bad dreams, nor do I want to. Anyway, with my first lead in the case, I bade Miss Hawkins farewell and drove to the Apophis Café.