(Intro music fades in. Acoustic guitar, church bells, a faraway female voice.)
VOICEOVER: The Black Tapes is in part an exploration of belief and the search for truth, and in part a profile of the founder of the Gottlieb Institute, professional skeptic Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Our story is progressing in order, week by week. So, if you’re a first-time listener, welcome to the show! Go start at episode one. Don’t worry. I’ll wait.
NEWT: From CTC Studios and the WGBH Podcast Network, welcome to the Black Tapes Podcast. I’m Newton Geiszler.
(Interlude music #1)
DR. GOTTLIEB: (voice message) Hello, Mr. Geiszler. It’s Hermann Gottlieb. I wanted to... apologize for our conversation last week. I was dismissive and improperly personal. I should not have hung up so abruptly.
Yesterday I got an interesting call. It pertains to a case you might be interested in--one of the ones you refer to as the “black tapes.” If you want to hear more, please give me a call.
NEWT (VO): When I got Dr. Gottlieb’s message, I called him back right away.
(sound of phone ringing)
(click)
DR. GOTTLIEB: Hello.
NEWT: Dr. Gottlieb, hi. It’s Newt Geiszler from the podcast.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Oh. Hello Mr. Geiszler.
NEWT (VO): Dr. G apologized, again, for hanging up on me. I told him it was all right.
NEWT: (brightly) ...and I’m very annoying. So in short, apology accepted. Water under the bridge.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Very well.
NEWT: And one other thing?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Yes?
NEWT: If this is going to be a working relationship, you’re gonna have to drop the “Mr.”
DR. GOTTLIEB: The?
NEWT: I’m saying you don’t have to be so formal. First-name basis is okay.
HERMANN: Very well, Newton.
NEWT: Um--well, not exactly what I--
NEWT (VO): Now, you might be wondering: why would he share this second case with us? Why offer an olive branch? My producer Mako had the same question.
NEWT: Maybe he feels bad for how the Hall case ended.
MAKO: Maybe. But that doesn’t seem like enough.
NEWT: Maybe he wants to promote his next book?
MAKO: (doubtful) Hmm.
NEWT: (doubtful) No, probably not.
MAKO: I’m glad we get to look into this new one. I am. But what does he get out of sharing more cases with us? I’d just feel more comfortable if we knew his motive.
(beat)
NEWT: What if I ask him?
NEWT (VO): So I did.
HERMANN: You’re wondering why I’m willing to be part of your program?
NEWT: Basically.
HERMANN: Ah. It’s simple. I wish to be the voice of reason. Our culture has stopped trusting science and has reverted to a subjective stance. Meanwhile, scientific literacy steadily worsens. So what are we left with? A culture where uninformed opinions dominate because the opinion is the sacred form of discourse in this country. This is where we get the anti-vax, flat earth, juice cleanse, “I married a ghost” headlines. It’s all sensation. Where is the accountability? Where are the skeptics?
NEWT (VO): (aside) He went on like this for a while.
HERMANN: (...) ...knew that you had spoken with people like Dr. Cantor, even Mark Grandi. I realized that if I did not call you back, you might look to one of them instead. And the idea of one of those ridiculous “experts” getting this platform to spout more of that nonsense to listeners, and to you? The idea was, frankly, torturing me. Since your first episode aired, we’ve seen a significant uptick in inquiries to the Institute. People are listening. I want nothing more than for that to continue. I believe you want the same thing.
NEWT: ...Mutually beneficial, you’re saying.
HERMANN: As long as you agree that it is.
NEWT: So I get to look into your black tape cases, and in exchange, you get a platform to “renew” skepticism.
HERMANN: Do you find that reasonable?
NEWT: I find it very reasonable. I like having the terms on the table. Most of my subjects don’t admit they want to get anything out of it. But you’re up-front about it. I like that.
(interlude music #2)
(Loud beep, then we hear a MALE VOICE, 20s, intent and slightly hoarse. He is muffled through the phone.) Hi. This is a message for Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. My name is Tomás Hawking. I’m the drummer and co-songwriter of a band called The Nephi. You’ve probably heard about us. We’ve been in the news lately. I heard you on Newt Geiszler’s podcast. I know this sounds strange, but I’d like to speak to you about a painting. You’ve probably heard of it... Il Sorriso Capovolto. I... I’d rather not say more over the phone.
(interlude music fades out)
NEWT: The Nephi. Short for Nephilim, if I remember my Boston indie band trivia right.
MAKO: That’s right.
NEWT: (confidentially, to audience) Mako’s a bit of a local music buff.
MAKO: Shh. The Nephi were an up-and-coming hardcore group from Allston. Their music was pretty average. They really made their name with some pretty outrageous, occult-themed stunts. The lead singer would do things like light fires, chant incantations, and even draw his own blood onstage.
People started coming for the show rather than the music. Some critics didn’t like the sensation over the music. And some good Boston Catholics didn’t like the Satan-gazing. Dan Penrose was quite a lightning-rod figure. He was controversial and chaotic, but charming. A few months ago he started dating a minor Kennedy, which got the Nephi some more mainstream attention.
NEWT: Guess not all good Boston Catholics hated him. (laughs)
MAKO: (amused) Yeah, they were a pretty bizarre couple.
NEWT: Yeah.
MAKO: That was, until Dan Penrose’s recent death.
NEWT: I remember. They found him in the woods, right?
MAKO: That’s right. It was last month. It was quite strange. Penrose was found tied to a tree, but he could have untied himself pretty easily. His official cause of death was exposure. There was alcohol in his system, but nothing else, according to the report they released.
NEWT: I’m guessing some people saw this as kind of...
MAKO: More occult stuff? Yeah. They did. There was a lot of wild speculation.
NEWT: ...Like?
MAKO: (sigh) Well, some of his critics believed he got what he deserved for dabbling in the mystic and unholy.
NEWT: The religious critics?
MAKO: Yes, but also the occult critics. I heard people who said Penrose didn’t, quote, “know what he was messing with.”
NEWT: So some people believed he was really--what? Doing witchcraft?
MAKO: (skeptical) Apparently.
NEWT: (intrigued) Hmm.
MAKO: And then there were others who just believed he was a disturbed young man.
(interlude music #2)
NEWT (VO): I met with Dr. Gottlieb across the river, in his Cambridge office.
NEWT: So tell us about this painting. Why would Tomás Hawking have an interest in it?
HERMANN: I couldn’t tell you why a musician like Mr. Hawking would have an interest in this painting. But I can tell you about the painting itself.
NEWT: Please.
HERMANN: Il Sorriso Capovolto is a late work by the Renaissance painter Caravaggio. Its actual title is Professore di Filosofia, which means “Professor of Philosophy,” but Il Sorriso Capovolto is its popular nickname.
NEWT: And it means?
HERMANN: It means “The Upside-Down Smile.”
NEWT: Weird nickname. Can you describe the painting for our listeners?
HERMANN: It’s an oil painting of three men in a dark room. One man, older, wearing a sort of professorial robe, is gesticulating while another man, probably his student, looks on. There are a number of papers and books on the desk between them, dimly lit by candlelight. This is the main action of the painting. In the background of this office, or room, whatever it is, you can see a third man in profile, reading a book.
NEWT: Oh, I see.
(sound of clicking)
HERMANN: Look closer. Do you notice anything strange about the man in the background?
NEWT: His features are kind of blur... (realizing) Oh.
HERMANN: Yes.
NEWT (VO): It’s hard to make out at first, but the man in the background has an... unusual face. There’s white at the top, below his forehead, which at a glance you might take for his eyes. But then you realize--it’s actually his teeth. His mouth is where his eyes should be, and his eyes are where his mouth should be.
NEWT: ...The Upside-Down Smile.
HERMANN: Exactly.
NEWT: That’s creepy as hell.
HERMANN: Many scholars agree. And collectors. This small painting is the subject of a popular myth called the Capovolto Curse.
NEWT: What a catchy name.
HERMANN: Quite.
NEWT: What are the stipulations of this curse?
HERMANN: It’s quite simple. Anyone who comes into possession of the painting dies within a year.
NEWT: How straightforward.
HERMANN: If you’re familiar with the so-called curse around the Hope Diamond, this one is of a similar nature. The Capovolto Curse is well-documented...
NEWT: (insinuatingly) Dr. Gottlieb, are you saying this myth is substantiated?
HERMANN: (crisply) Certainly not. Sensation formed the basis for this myth, and coincidence and a catchy name have done the rest.
In the early 1800s, it was acquired by a German duke who was assassinated a few months later. The painting was passed on to an obscure English nephew, who gambled it away, and died soon after of alcohol poisoning. Its whereabouts were unknown for a few years, and then it reappeared in the possession of a collector of curiosities. The sort of 1800s Englishman who went on big-game-hunting expeditions.
NEWT: I know the type.
HERMANN: Well, this collector hosted a dinner to celebrate the acquisition of this obscure Caravaggio. There was an incident in the kitchen and the house went up. All the attendees at the dinner were killed in the fire.
NEWT: Good god. How did the painting survive?
HERMANN: It got trapped under a stone wall and emerged relatively undamaged.
NEWT: Okay, Dr. G, this is pretty extreme. It’s one thing to call coincidence, but a whole house party killed in a fire? A party held in honor of this painting? And the painting survived? At a certain point, you’re ignoring the evidence.
HERMANN: At a certain point, but not this one. Every myth has to originate somewhere. Tragic house party in 1849 is the origin of the Capovolto Curse.
NEWT: (...)
HERMANN: Correlation, or causation? That’s the root question at the heart of matters like these. In this case, causation has been attributed where it shouldn’t. (...) (sounding amused) You look dissatisfied with that answer.
NEWT: Dissatisfied? Me? What makes you think so?
HERMANN: (...) Well, the painting went into a trust for a few decades. It was in this period, following the tragic fire, that the curse rumor was born. The grandson who eventually inherited the collection had every reason to fan the flames; he was the one who traced it back to the duke and his nephew, deepening the story. Then a few months later, he sold it off at an obscene price. You can almost always trace myths like these back to someone looking to turn a profit.
NEWT: Okay, Scooby Doo. Tell me this guy bit it.
HERMANN: Eventually.
NEWT: But within a year?
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: Dr. G.
HERMANN: He died in the 1889 flu pandemic. Along with thousands of other people.
NEWT: (chastising) Dr. Gottlieb.
HERMANN: This is nothing but coincidence. It would have been statistically unlikely for him not to die in the pandemic. And I’m afraid the curse ends here. The next three documented owners all lived long, happy lives.
NEWT: How much do you know about this? Why is it a Black Tape?
HERMANN: It’s somewhat obscure, but it’s of local interest, and my former assistant, Justin, brought it to my attention. He was very interested in it... Obsessed, really.
NEWT: Local interest, you said?
HERMANN: That’s right. This painting doesn’t look familiar to you?
NEWT: No?
HERMANN: Its last owner was Isabella Stewart Gardner. She acquired it in 1910. It was stolen from her museum eighty years later.
NEWT: Oh my god. You’re joking. This is one of the paintings that got stolen in the Gardner Museum heist?
HERMANN: It is.
NEWT (VO): For our non-Bostonian listeners, or those who don’t know, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft is one of the great unsolved heists of the 20th century. Early on the morning of March 18th, 1990, two men dressed as police officers entered the museum, ostensibly on a disturbance call. They proceeded to tie up the guards and, over the next hour, steal thirteen pieces valued at a total of $500 million. They stole works by Rembrandt, Degas, Manet, Vermeer, and Caravaggio. It’s still the largest-value theft of private property in recorded history. And despite more than twenty years of investigative efforts, not one of those pieces has been recovered.
Because of the stipulations of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s trust, the frames still hang in the museum where the thieves left them. They sliced each painting out with a knife. In some, you can still see the jagged edges of the cut canvases.
NEWT: That’s insane. I must have stared at those empty frames in that museum a million times. This used to be in one of them.
HERMANN: It did.
NEWT: Well damn, now I know why the thieves were never caught. One of the paintings killed them!
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT (VO): I didn’t think it was possible for this case to get more interesting. A possibly-cursed, infamously-stolen Renaissance painting? With a creepy extra in the background? But believe it or not, it did.
After the break: we finally speak with drummer Tomás Hawking, and ask an art historian about the other myths of the Sorriso Capovolto.
I’m Newt Geiszler. It’s the Black Tapes. Stay tuned.
-----------SPONSOR BREAK #1-----------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
MALE VOICE: Hi. You’re Newt Geiszler?
NEWT: That’s me! I hear you’re a fan.
MALE VOICE: I love your show. You’re shorter than I expected.
NEWT: (brightly) I get that a lot. Ready?
NEWT (VO): I sat down with Tomás Hawking at his studio in Cambridge.
NEWT: So. How did you first hear about this painting?
HAWKING: I heard about it from a fan, actually. Dan and I co-write... co-wrote, I mean--we wrote the songs together. As time went on, he got more into the performance aspects of it. The flashy stuff. I stayed more focused on the lyrics.
His performance stuff, though, started attracting a different type of fan. A more... intense type of fan. They were really into his, like... (trails off)
NEWT: ...spooky sensibilities?
HAWKING: ...I don’t like to label people, but, yeah. They seemed satanic. Witchy. They creeped me out a little bit. Sometimes they would talk to me after a show, if they knew I was the writer. They would tell me how deep my lyrics were, how they saw these connections--things I had never meant to put in there. Mythical stuff. Biblical stuff. One guy told me the BPM was the inverse square of the Pythagorean comma. I still have no idea what that means.
NEWT: And you heard about the painting from one of these fans?
HAWKING: That’s right. One dude pulled me aside and told me to look it up. He said the text on it would “interest” me.
NEWT: And you looked?
HAWKING: I found online that Il Sorriso Capovolto was one of the missing ones from the Isabella Stewart Gardner. So I looked at the text on a high-res scan.
NEWT: Sorry--what text?
HAWKING: On the book. You’ve seen the painting, right?
NEWT: I’ve seen the reproduction.
HAWKING: The professor has a bunch of papers and books on his desk. One of them is open and it has a bunch of words on it--a code. The whole myth about the painting is around that code.
NEWT: Hm. That’s not the myth I heard about.
HAWKING: Well there’s the curse where the owner dies within a year. There’s also this code. I read more about it on some, you know, wacko deep web forums. People are crazy about this code. No one’s cracked it.
I thought it was pretty interesting, and that I might actually write a song about it. I sent the links to Dan so he could check it out too.
NEWT: And was he interested?
HAWKING: Way too interested. He got way more into it than me. It was all he talked about for the next few weeks. He started corresponding with some of these nutbags, I think. Then he started cancelling practice. Then the next thing I know, he’s dating that b--
NEWT: (quickly) Ainsley Kennedy-Brooks?
HAWKING: ...Yeah. Her. They had met before, but they started dating after he got into this whole painting thing. A few weeks went by. I didn’t see him at all. Barely a word. Then, one night, he shows up at my house. It’s like 3 AM. He’s drunk out of his mind, and maybe high, and he’s talking about this painting. He says he saw it, and now he’s going to die. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
NEWT: Well see, there’s this curse--
HAWKING: I know there’s a curse. What, you think I don’t know about the curse? No, I know. I didn’t get what he meant. The painting is missing, Dan, I said. I know, he says, but I found it.
NEWT: He saw the real one? The actual Sorriso Capovolto?
HAWKING: Yeah. Two weeks later, they found him dead in the woods. Tell me that’s not the curse.
NEWT: Damn.
HAWKING: Yeah.
NEWT: So did he say where or how he saw this painting?
HAWKING: He did, sort of. He was pretty incoherent. But it sounded like it was a friend of a friend of someone Ainsley knew. I asked him when he woke up the next morning, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Now I’ll never know.
NEWT: (hesitantly, thinking aloud) ...Do you think there’s any chance that he... started dating her, in order to get to this painting?
HAWKING: ...What?
NEWT: You said they knew each other before. They started dating after he became obsessed with the painting. Maybe he knew she had connections in the black market art trade.
HAWKING: (doubtful) I don’t know, man. Have you seen that girl? A little too Vineyard Vines to patronize the black market.
NEWT: Don’t underestimate the money, Tomás. Never underestimate the doors it opens. Even--especially--the unsavory ones.
HAWKING: (unconvinced) I guess.
NEWT: So. It’s your opinion that this painting was what killed your friend?
HAWKING: Whoa, dude. Way to change tracks.
NEWT: Sorry. Too abrupt?
HAWKING: A bit. (...) I mean, doesn’t it make sense?
NEWT: Honestly, no. The curse is that the owner dies within a year.
HAWKING: (defensive) And?
NEWT: Well... unless Penrose bought the painting...
HAWKING: No other explanation makes sense.
NEWT: Do you think he bought it?
HAWKING: I never saw it, if that’s what you’re asking me.
NEWT: What kind of cursed painting kills someone by tying them to a tree?
HAWKING: (harshly) It could have been those people. The people he was corresponding with. The cultists.
NEWT: You think they could have killed him? What makes you think so?
HAWKING: (angrily) Maybe. I don’t know.
NEWT: Do you know any of their names? Contact info?
HAWKING: No.
NEWT: ...What about Ainsley Kennedy-Brooks? Do you know how we might get in touch with her?
HAWKING: No. Sorry.
(interlude music #2)
NEWT (VO): We go in touch with Ms. Kennedy-Brooks’s publicist, but they declined our request for an interview. Requests. We are still digging into possible black market connections to the missing painting. Seeing as the BPD, FBI, and ISG Museum have been searching for this thing for twenty-four years, Mako is not optimistic. But I am.
Meanwhile, I sat down with Dr. Qian Shao, a historian who works at the Museum of Fine Arts and teaches art history at the museum school. I wanted to ask them about the earlier history of the painting, as well as the mysterious “code” Tomás Hawking referred to.
DR. SHAO: Hi, you must be Mr. Geiszler.
NEWT: Wow. You’re the art history professor? The MFA lets people wearing snapbacks be professors?
DR. SHAO: And NPR lets Rivers Cuomo impersonators be reporters? I learn something new every day.
NEWT: (laughs) Ha! Good god, you got me.
DR. SHAO: I did. So you wanted to know about Caravaggio? Il Sorriso Capovolto, is that right?
NEWT: (still recovering) Please.
DR. SHAO: Caravaggio was an interesting dude. His paintings depict these theatrical, almost Hollywood-esque moments, of terror, torture, pain, or conversion. The extreme moments of human experience. Yes, they’re usually Biblical scenes. But in this era people were getting interested in the human side of the biblical, and like all good Renaissance painters, he was good at finding it.
Caravaggio was a dramatic bitch outside of work too. Apparently he was ready to brawl at any time. He was so touchy and violent, in fact, that he was tried for murder and sentenced to death in Rome. He fled to Naples, where he made his career as a painter. Later he was in another fight and his face was disfigured. He died soon after, under pretty mysterious circumstances.
NEWT: Damn. What can you tell us about his relationship to this painting?
DR. SHAO: Most historians agree he painted this in the last year of his life. The same year as his disfigurement.
NEWT: Do we know who the people in the painting are?
DR. SHAO: No. In all likelihood, they were models.
NEWT: What about the curse? Did that start in the 1800s?
DR. SHAO: This painting actually has an occult cachet that goes way back, back before the Duke of Hanover’s great-nephew started telling tales. It actually goes back to when Caravaggio painted it in 1609. People have been seeing something satanic in this painting pretty much since day one. They point to the deformed face--the symbols on the book--see, there here?--and this text on the paper.
NEWT: I’m told that’s a code.
DR. SHAO: It sure is.
NEWT: Unbreakable?
DR. SHAO: So far. Though there’s been lots of speculation. There have been some theories--some people who thought they cracked it. But nothing reputable. Other people believe it’s just nonsense.
NEWT: What do you think?
DR. SHAO: Caravaggio isn’t my particular specialty. But I know enough about him to doubt that he would just throw some gibberish on there.
NEWT: So what do you think it says?
DR. SHAO: ...I wouldn’t begin to speculate.
NEWT: ...I’m hearing a “but...”
DR. SHAO: But, others have. I’ve read some interesting fringe theories.
NEWT: Please share, Dr. Shao.
DR. SHAO: There’s a common speculation that, when translated, this text is an incantation to open a portal. Not the Aperture Science kind.
NEWT: Dude. What kind?
DR. SHAO: A portal to hell.
NEWT: (genuinely surprised) Oh my!
DR. SHAO: Yeah. A portal to hell of the biblical variety.
NEWT: Now, I went to Hebrew school, not Sunday School. But I don’t think they taught portals to hell in Sunday School either.
DR. SHAO: (chuckles) No. But you might be surprised how common this is in the history of Christianity. Satanists, rebellious monks, curious peasants. People have been trying to commune with hell for centuries.
NEWT: (still sounding incredulous) People including Caravaggio?
DR. SHAO: Allegedly. It’s impossible to say if he was a member of one of these groups, or if he just came across the text and thought it was interesting. Ever since he first painted it, this code been accumulating rumors like a snowball rolling downhill. Rumors of it being a code from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, from the Freemasons, the cult of Pythagoras.
It’s hard to say where the rumors started, because they’ve been in the literature since basically 1610. And the most common theory is that, whatever cult or group or gang Caravaggio got or stole or borrowed this code from, they came calling.
NEWT: ...They killed him? Over this knowledge?
DR. SHAO: Like I said, he died under mysterious circumstances. But he had a lot of enemies. We’ll never know which one got to him first.
NEWT: (after a thoughtful pause) You say everyone is clamoring to decode this.
DR. SHAO: That’s right.
NEWT: If he really stole this incantation from an existing group--presumably from a longer text--wouldn’t that exist somewhere else in the world?
DR. SHAO: If it does, no one has found it yet.
NEWT: Then isn’t it possible this was an original creation?
DR. SHAO: I suppose.
NEWT (VO): We’ll be right back.
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NEWT (VO): Dr. Shao’s background definitely added a new layer. A direct line with demons? What would make Caravaggio interested in such a thing? I mean, Do I sympathize? Am I interested? Sure, I mean, aren’t we all? Interested? In demons?
And did he plagiarize this supposed portal incantation from some cult, or was he perhaps a member of such a cult? Or did he invent it himself? Was he killed for it? And if so, was he killed for heresy, or because someone else was willing to kill to get it?
HERMANN: These aren’t the kind of questions historians are really equipped to answer. Not without a time machine.
NEWT: I know. But still!
HERMANN: Still?
NEWT: It’s still fascinating.
HERMANN: It’s certainly interesting. But without evidence, it’s pure speculation.
NEWT: You’re no fun.
HERMANN: I can tell you some of the mythology about portals to hell. That was, I believe, your original reason for this meeting.
NEWT: Was it?
HERMANN: I’ve heard about this putative decode your art historian referred to. It comes with a compelling story. I believe it was my intern Justin who told me about it.
NEWT: And this code is some sort of portal?
HERMANN: People have been looking for this incantation for centuries. It cannot open a portal on its own--it is an incantation to invoke a demon with that capability.
NEWT: (interested) A demon?
HERMANN: An archdemon, actually. There is also a supporting myth from one of the Gnostic Gospels rejected by the church. In fact there are actually two oblique references to a demon with similar capabilities in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
NEWT: What do they say?
HERMANN: As you might recall, Lucifer led a revolt against God.
NEWT: I recall.
HERMANN: God banished Lucifer to hell. But on his way out of heaven, Lucifer, now referred to as Satan, created some sort of a back door. This portal would allow Satan and his minions back into the earthly realm without God knowing.
NEWT: And it can be opened by this archdemon, provided we call him up with the correct incantation?
HERMANN: (back to skeptic voice) Certainly. If any of this were real.
NEWT: Oh, certainly.
HERMANN: Besides the fact that this incantation is a myth, and a myth mostly based on non-canonical texts, reading the Caravaggio code as this incantation is nothing more than wishful thinking. No one knows what the incantation sounds like, and additionally, there are several glaring issues with the decoders’ methodology.
NEWT: Hmm.
HERMANN: (pauses) May I ask you something, Mr. Ge--Newton?
NEWT: Shoot.
HERMANN: Why are you so interested in these black tapes?
NEWT: (...) Intellectual curiosity, I guess?
HERMANN: You don’t sound very certain.
NEWT: Well I could ask you the same question, Dr. Gottlieb. Why devote your life to this?
HERMANN: (agreeing) I suppose it is difficult to sum up.
(beat)
HERMANN: You think your reasons, then, must be similar to mine.
NEWT: I would never dream of presuming such a thing.
HERMANN: (chuckles)
NEWT: But it won’t stop me from trying to figure those reasons out. Hermann, can I play you something?
HERMANN: What sort of something?
NEWT: It’s something we recorded for the last episode. About you. I wanted to get your permission to air it.
HERMANN: ...All right.
(clip from Episode 2 plays)
NEWT (VO): Earlier, when Laurie Hall asked Dr. Gottlieb accusatorially if he had been married, he said no. Perhaps he thought the matter was too personal to discuss with Laurie--sure. But he was lying. Hermann Gottlieb was married. Legally, he still is. His wife went missing in 2005 under mysterious circumstances. She has not been seen for the last ten years.
HERMANN: ...You’re investigating me?
NEWT: Nominally. This came up when we were doing background checks on all our paranormal investigators. I’m afraid to say you had the most interesting backstory of any of them.
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: Again, I’m not going to air any of this without your permission. So you can tell me, honestly: what do you think?
HERMANN: About the personal angle?
NEWT: You don’t sound into it.
HERMANN: (not sounding into it) So your interest in these cases isn’t purely intellectual curiosity. It’s also personal curiosity about me.
NEWT: It wasn’t, at first. But the more I learned, the more it seemed your work and your life were... interconnected.
HERMANN: That’s true of anyone. It’s true of you, I’m sure.
NEWT: Sure. Of course. But the connection is, in your case, if you’ll excuse me, fascinating.
(beat)
HERMANN: (tensely) What do you want to know?
NEWT: (quickly) You don’t mind?
HERMANN: I can’t promise I’ll answer everything.
NEWT: Fair. Do you mind talking about what happened with your wife?
HERMANN: Not at all. (pause) There isn’t very much to tell. We were driving up the coast to Acadia. We stopped for gas. I went inside to pay. When I came back outside, she was gone.
NEWT: That must have been terrifying.
HERMANN: It was.
NEWT (VO): So Dr. Gottlieb was willing to talk about his personal life, to an extent. This was good news. But he left some details out. For example, the fact that he was the prime suspect for a long time, and the fact that his wife’s parents went on record saying they held him responsible.
Now, we know that the husband is always the prime suspect. And with good reason. Domestic violence is responsible for more than half the killings of women in the US. But in the case of Vanessa Gottlieb, the police ruled her husband out and switched their focus to a serial killer working in the area at that time. As for the parents, same thing. Parents are generally unlikely to trust their daughter’s chosen partner. Again, perhaps not without reason.
We reached out to Vanessa’s parents, and they agreed to speak with us. We’ll have that interview next week.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gottlieb and I visited the home of the Penrose family.
WOMAN: Hi. Are you the reporters?
NEWT: Well, I am. This is Dr. Gottlieb. He works in Cambridge.
WOMAN: I’m Nell. Good to meet you both. Please come in.
NEWT (VO): Dan Penrose still lived in his family home in Dorchester when he died. His mother, Nell, told us he liked living in the house where he grew up. She was gracious, but still in deep mourning.
(sound of door opening)
MRS. PENROSE: This is the garage. Dan and the boys practiced a lot in here.
NEWT: Did you like their music?
MRS. PENROSE: I didn’t listen much, to be honest. It’s not really my kind of music. I was just glad they were making a living doing what they loved.
NEWT: Of course. Not many people get that opportunity.
MRS. PENROSE: You know, I was standing here when I got the phone call.
NEWT: I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.
MRS. PENROSE: Yes. (...) Excuse me.
(click of door closing)
NEWT: So this was his studio.
HERMANN: I assume the police already went over everything interesting.
NEWT: Don’t assume so fast. What’s this?
HERMANN: His laptop?
NEWT: Shouldn’t the police have taken this?
HERMANN: Probably. Maybe he only used it for music. Are you--
(sound of typing)
NEWT: Yes?
HERMANN: Newton.
NEWT: I just want to see what he was making. Look. This was open in Garage Band.
(discordant music begins playing)
HERMANN: (tsk sound) The noises people consider music in this day and age, I honestly cannot fathom.
NEWT: Come on, take it easy. It’s an unfinished work!
HERMANN: If you say so.
(sound of boxes being shifted)
NEWT: I bet a lot of people would be interested in hearing this. I wonder if Tomás has a copy.
HERMANN: ...Newton?
NEWT: Mhm?
HERMANN: (...)
NEWT: What is that? A tube?
HERMANN: It’s a carrying case.
NEWT: For?
HERMANN: For canvas. It’s used to transport rolled-up paintings.
NEWT: (...)
HERMANN: Now--
NEWT: Holy [expletive bleeped].
HERMANN: Now, wait. It’s empty. If you came to steal a painting from the dead, would you take it out of the tube, leaving evidence it was here? Or would you simply steal the tube?
NEWT: Well, probably, but not necessarily. Maybe his purchase of the tube could be traced back to him--like, through credit card statements--and the thief didn’t want to leave a hole--
HERMANN: That’s a bit of a stretch, Newton.
NEWT: Maybe he bought the tube in preparation to buy the painting, and died before the transaction was completed.
HERMANN: Or maybe this tube was used for something completely different. Carrying musical equipment.
NEWT: (unconvinced) Maybe. Let me take a picture of it. We’ll get in touch with the police and share our suspicions.
HERMANN: (also unconvinced) You really think he was mixed up in a black market art deal?
NEWT: I’m not sure I think that’s why he died, but it seems like a possibility. How do you think he died?
HERMANN: The police said there was alcohol in his system. He was being treated for bipolar disorder. He was probably in the midst of a manic episode when he tied himself to that tree. Dan Penrose is not the first nor the last musician to fall prey to his own mind.
NEWT: So it’s that simple?
HERMANN: Occam’s razor, Newton. It could be black market art dealers, it could be apocalypse cultists. Or it could be the last episode in a series of many in a difficult life.
NEWT (VO): Occam’s razor, huh. The young musician is troubled, not the latest victim in a two-hundred-plus-year-old curse? A curse that began with a trumped-up story about a housefire, a drunk, and an unlucky collector? Sure. But that’s the origin of the myth, not proof. And it’s just coincidence that so many others have died.
What about Justin, the intern who was into this cult painting way before it was cool? Before the Nephi? What Dr. Gottlieb didn’t mention--what he may, in fact, not know--is that Justin McCall died six months after leaving the Gottlieb Institute. His car flipped over on I-95 in an ice storm. He was killed instantly.
What makes some things different? What imbues them with this power, this power to captivate us, ensnare us? What makes people give their lives away to these stories? Will we ever understand?
(outro music begins)
Next time: a famous haunted house, an infamous exorcism. Plus, we delve more into the disappearance of Vanessa Gottlieb. I’m Newt Geiszler. It’s the Black Tapes Podcast.
See you next time.
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