(fade in: theme music: acoustic guitar, church bells, a faraway female voice)
VOICEOVER: Welcome to Season Two of The Black Tapes Podcast. I’m your host, Newt Geiszler.
This season, we’re continuing our exploration of belief and the search for truth through a series of unsolved paranormal cases. Our story progresses in order, week by week. So, if you’re a first-time listener, welcome to the show! You’ll have to start at episode one if you want even the faintest idea of what I’m talking about.
(interlude music #4)
NEWT: It’s been about six months since our last episode. Six long months, for you, I bet. Let me assure you, they have been very long for us. Dare I say the six longest months of my life? (confidingly) That might not be an exaggeration.
We ended our last episode with several major revelations. First: that Vanessa Gottlieb, who has been missing for the last ten years, may be alive and in Florida. Second: that someone anonymously mailed us a certain painting.
You probably heard about that on the news. The national media frenzy ruined our cliffhanger a bit. But after the painting furor died down, we hit something of a dead zone. Ghosts hibernating for the winter, maybe. Or maybe it was the radio silence from our subject and collaborator, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.
But in the spring, things picked up. Fast. A lot has happened, and there’s a lot to sort through. We’re going to do our best to make sense of it all. We’ll start by doing updates with Mako, my producer.
MAKO: So at the time of recording, it’s May 1st. Our first day recording for season two.
NEWT: (politely) Whoop-whoop.
MAKO: But we’ve been doing plenty of pre-pro. We had a lot of mail to sort through. So, I’m going to ask you for updates on some of the questions I’m sure our listeners have. Cool?
NEWT: Hit me.
MAKO: So number one, do we have any idea where Tomás Hawking is?
NEWT: No. Well, sort of. We got nothing for about five months, and then, in March, he sent us another one of his cryptic emails.
MAKO: He sure did.
NEWT: So, the one attachment was a photo. It’s a landscape shot of some hills and trees, with a river. Looks nice. No landmarks or distinguishing features, though. No buildings. So we didn’t know where it was, until...
MAKO: (chuffed) Yes. Well, I thought it might be geotagged. Most phones do that automatically nowadays. So I checked the metadata.
NEWT: And was it?
MAKO: No. But it gave me the idea to check his other email attachments--like that audio file he sent us last year.
MAKO: Yes. It’s geotagged.
NEWT: (excited) Really?
MAKO: Yes. I wish I’d realized before. So, now we know where Tomás was, six months ago.
NEWT: So where was he?
MAKO: Limoges, France.
NEWT: What’s there?
MAKO: Not much. I have the exact coordinates, but according to Google Maps, it’s just an empty stretch of road.
NEWT: Hm. Do we have the budget to fly to France?
MAKO: No. But I have another idea.
NEWT (VO): She always does. So we reached out through our networks and found someone in France with the time and inclination...
MALE VOICE: (deep, affable) Hello?
MAKO: (warmly) Hi, Raleigh.
NEWT (VO): Raleigh Becket is an old friend of ours. We worked with him at NPR until he got his dream promotion to Europe, where he now works for the BBC World Service. He also used to date a certain producer I know...
MAKO: Can you hear us?
BECKET: Mako Mori, is that you?
NEWT: (fake grumpy) Ahem. Me, too.
BECKET: Hi, Newt.
NEWT: Did you get the files we sent you?
BECKET: All business, huh?
NEWT: Don’t flirt with me in front of Mako, Becket. Not cool.
MAKO: (laughs)
BECKET: But yes, I did. I’m in Paris right now...
NEWT: Well la-di-dah.
BECKET: ...But I should be able to head down to Limoges.
MAKO: Any idea what’s down there?
BECKET: Not much, as far as I know. A booming wine business.
MAKO: Hmm.
BECKET: But I’ll see what I can find. I’ll keep an eye out for long-lost paintings worth millions of dollars.
NEWT: Hey, not everyone can find those. We just happen to be very talented.
MAKO: Shh, Newt. Thank you, Raleigh. We appreciate it.
BECKET: Of course. Let me know if there’s anything else around here for me to dig into, and you got it.
MAKO: Thanks.
BECKET: Talk to you guys soon.
(Skype hang-up sound)
NEWT: He’s jealous.
MAKO: Of?
NEWT: Our painting.
(updates segment resumes)
NEWT: (to audience) We’ll get to that painting later. Now. Back to updates.
MAKO: Yes. Second question, have we identified your mystery man, alias Sexy Danny Ocean?
NEWT: The Great Coffee Cup Heist of 2015 remains unsolved. As yet.
MAKO: What about the Hall family?
NEWT: It’s been almost a year since we first interviewed them. Laurie reached out via email. She apologized for her radio silence, and said they haven’t been having any problems since they got Tessa back.
MAKO: That’s good to hear. And last of all, do we have any updates on the Vanessa Gottlieb case?
NEWT: Nope. We have one reported sighting, last December, in Homestead, Florida. We’ve been in touch with Ms. Smoot since, but she hasn’t seen her again.
MAKO: And her husband?
NEWT: We have not heard from Dr. Gottlieb since December.
(voicemail message plays) Hello. You’ve reached the office of Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as possible.
NEWT (VO): Gottlieb left his assistant, Marian King, in charge of the Institute during his absence. She told me he'd taken, quote, “an unofficial and temporary leave.” When I asked her how long he'd been gone, she told me it was “undetermined.”
So, where does this leave us? The Black Tapes Podcast, minus the tapes? For the time being, it seems so.
And then there’s our painting.
DR. SHAO: Well if it isn’t my old enemy, back again.
NEWT: (warmly) Good to see you too!
SHAO: Come in, Newt. (sound of chair moving) You don’t look so good, dude.
NEWT: Been getting that a lot.
SHAO: Well, I don’t have to guess why you’re here.
NEWT (VO): I sat down with Dr. Qian Shao, our friend the art history professor from Season One. I visited their office in January, shortly after we received the painting, anonymously delivered to our office by courier.
The painting we received was not Il Sorriso Capovolto. It was, as I’m sure you heard on any news network for the next week, a formerly obscure Dutch painting called Landscape with Obelisk. Which happens to be one of the other paintings stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990.
As soon as Mako and I received the canvas-shaped package, we suspected something was afoot. We immediately called the museum, brought it to them, and watched them open it. The suspense of those 90 minutes almost ruptured my spleen.
When they opened it and found this Flinck, rather than the Caravaggio, I expected them to be disappointed. I certainly was. But the museum folk were ecstatic. Keep in mind, these works were stolen 25 years ago. Not hide nor hair had been seen, until now.
Once they authenticated it, they broke the news. Mako and I got interviewed by a lot of outlets. Suddenly our little New England podcast had a national platform and a lot of curious onlookers. A lot of curious onlookers, wondering, justifiably, why reporters making a podcast about ghosthunters and exorcists had been the recipients of an infamously missing oil painting.
Of course, we were wondering the same thing.
NEWT: So what can you tell us about this painting?
SHAO: Well, Landscape with Obelisk is by Dutch painter Govert Flinck. It was painted in the so-called Dutch Golden Age, a.k.a. the 17th century.
NEWT: Can you describe it for us?
SHAO: Sure. So it’s a landscape, pretty standard for the time, with a large tree in the foreground taking up a lot of the composition. There’s a couple of small figures by the tree, one man talking to another on a horse, and behind them a road leads down to a bridge. The bridge leads in to a small town. There’s also, in the background, as the title suggests, an obelisk.
NEWT: Is there anything interesting you can tell us about this painting’s history?
SHAO: Not much. It’s not my area of expertise. (suspicious) I’m starting to think I’m the only art historian you know.
NEWT: No, it's just that all the other ones I know are such dweebs. When I come to your office, I’m not sure if I’m going to learn something or get pummeled.
SHAO: So gratifying to hear.
NEWT: And what can I say, I like to live a life of danger.
SHAO: (laughs) The only interesting thing about its history is that for a while, it was incorrectly attributed to Rembrandt, whom Flinck studied under. But by far the most interesting thing about this painting was its getting kidnapped.
NEWT: What about the painter?
SHAO: Govert Flinck was a pretty typical painter for his time. He apprenticed under Rembrandt, like I said. Eventually he bloomed into a career of commissions for official and diplomatic portraits.
NEWT: So... what do we know about this obelisk?
SHAO: Frankly, nothing. It’s unknown what town this is meant to depict, if any. There’s been no discovery of an obelisk like this in this area in this time period, though it’s possible the records are simply lost. But hey, if you want me to say it’s a magic and/or cursed obelisk for your show, I will. (louder, to mic) Listeners, the obelisk is cursed. We found it on the moon. It is bringing the knowledge of good and evil to monkeys.
NEWT: (laughing) No--no, no. Thank you, though.
SHAO: Anytime.
NEWT: Can you think of any reason someone would send this to us?
SHAO: Best guess, based on the content of your show?
NEWT: Aw, you listen?
SHAO: Obviously. Best guess? Someone sent it as a threat.
NEWT: A threat?
SHAO: You initially thought it was the Caravaggio, right? The painting that curses anyone who owns it? Why wouldn’t you? It wasn’t. But whoever sent it made sure you signed for it.
NEWT (VO): I had thought of that, too. Mako, who would have been the actual recipient of the curse, wasn’t too impressed. Even if it was a threat, she said, it was the threat of a curse. “Yeah, right,” she said. I told her she sounded like Gottlieb. And she told me I sounded like someone who wasn’t getting enough sleep.
(interlude music #5)
NEWT (VO): It’s true. I didn’t want to include this in the show, since it’s sort of personal, but Mako said it would be good for me. So, here you go: since the end of our first season, I’ve been having problems sleeping.
It’s not the first time I’ve had insomnia. I’ve always been a workaholic. I don't know how to sit or stop or let things drop. It’s in my nature. It was especially bad, for example, in college. Since then, it comes and goes. I sometimes lie awake for hours, unable to slow my brain down for sleep.
This bout, though, is different. It isn’t falling asleep that’s the problem--I can drift off. It’s staying asleep. I always wake up within an hour. I can’t get more than an hour of consecutive sleep.
It’s... pretty bad. It’s not interfering with my work--“yet,” says Mako. So I’m starting treatment before it does. I’ll keep you updated.
(voicemail message plays) Hello. You’ve reached the office of Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as possible.
NEWT (VO): So there we were: out on the water without our guide. What would The Black Tapes be without the tapes people sent to Gottlieb? But over the winter, people found another place to send their claims of the paranormal, even without the promise of prize money. They started sending them to us.
There were a lot of messages. We set about wading through them. But one morning, I ran into someone outside our office who had left us several messages. Her name was Georgia Cavallon.
(voicemail message plays)
WOMAN: (harried, rushed) Hi, there, my name is Georgia Cavallon. I’m from Maine. I sent your team an email last week, about um, about my son Jacob. I know you probably get a lot of these messages but I... I think you’ll be interested in my case. My email has everything... the report, and the photos. Um. Okay. Thanks. Bye.
NEWT (VO): Georgia Cavallon is a single mom with a son named Jacob, who is six. Georgia is short and slight, with long, wavy hair. She reminded me of Lucille Hall, a bit. Something in the wariness in her eyes. She invited me up to her home in Portland.
NEWT: So Georgia, could you repeat for our listeners what you told me?
GEORGIA: (clears throat) Of course. So, it started about two years ago. Jacob was about four, and just starting preschool. I’m not a superstitious person, I want to say, up front. I never really believed in like... ghosts, or anything.
NEWT: But you listen to our show.
GEORGIA: Oh--(laughs nervously) yeah. I mean, for fun. That’s not really--why. Um, so this was two years ago. We were living in a different house then. It was the bottom floor of an old two-family owned by this old lady. Her husband had died recently and she started renting out the downstairs apartment. I had a new job, Jacob was starting at school. It was a clean slate.
Well a few weeks into September, I heard a voice in his room. At night. On the baby monitor. It was very faint. So faint, I thought it was coming from upstairs--the landlady watching TV, or something, you know. I went in to check.
NEWT: What did you see?
GEORGIA: Well, nothing. Just Jacob. But Jacob was awake. I asked him if he had been talking, and he said “Yes.” I said, “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” And he said, “It’s rude to ignore people.”
I said, “What?” But he didn’t say anything else, just curled up.
NEWT: Hm.
GEORGIA: Yeah... It was a creepy thing to say. But kids are weird, right? Jacob had an active imagination. So I chalked it up to that.
NEWT: But?
GEORGIA: ...Well, it happened again. Not long after. Maybe the next week. I heard him talking on the monitor--it was louder, this time. Loud enough that I could tell it definitely was Jacob. But it sounded for all the world like he was talking with someone. He was laughing. Like they were joking around.
I went up, opened his door, and he was standing on the bed, reaching towards the ceiling. He froze when I came in. “Honey, what are you doing?” I said. He just stared at me. “Honey? Were you talking to someone?” “Yes,” he said. “What were you doing?” “He was going to lift me up.” “Who was?” “My friend.” “That’s who you were talking to?” “Mhm.”
NEWT: Interesting.
GEORGIA: So, yeah. I didn’t take it as weird, at first. Like I said. Not superstitious. Active imagination. But it kept getting more... intense. We would be sitting quietly, at the table or in the living room, and suddenly he’d burst out laughing. I would say, “What’s so funny?” And he would say, “He made me laugh.”
It started to unsettle me. Eventually, I took it to the school psychologist. She said it was just imagination. She recommended that I give Jacob more “stimulating” activities at home, to channel his creative energy. Like art.
So I did. We started doing lots of drawing and coloring. This worked for a while, I felt. He was talking less about his imaginary friend. But he was drawing... a lot.
NEWT: Was that... a bad thing?
GEORGIA: Creativity wouldn’t be a bad thing. But Jacob was drawing the same things over and over.
NEWT: What things?
GEORGIA: (sounding uncomfortable) They were sort of... shadows.
NEWT: Well... I mean. Don’t all kids’ drawings look like scribbles?
GEORGIA: No... not like this. They weren’t stick figures. They were... substantive. Scratched-in. Kind of like... kind of like cave paintings.
NEWT (VO): Georgia showed me some of the drawings. She was right--they were a bit like cave paintings. And they were weirdly uniform for kids’ drawings. There are rows and rows of black, scratchy shadow people. Always black. Always with long arms and long legs. If I had a kid who started drawing these, I’d be a bit freaked out.
NEWT: So what happened next?
GEORGIA: (sighs) Well, I wasn’t panicking yet. It was what happened next that did it.
I heard some things on the baby monitor that night--just sounds of movement. Whispering. I thought maybe Jacob was having bad dreams. Talking in his sleep. I poked my head in, but everything looked normal. So I went to bed.
The next morning, I go in to wake him up. I open the door, the room is full of sunlight. Takes a minute for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I see it. The walls... the walls are completely covered in drawings. Drawings of the marching shadow people. Row after row after row after row. Thick as a wallpaper pattern.
NEWT: Oh my god.
GEORGIA: I... freaked out. I shook Jacob awake and asked him why. He wouldn’t say--he wouldn’t say it wasn’t him, but he wouldn’t say it was, either. And he wouldn’t look at the drawings. But I made him show me his hands. They were covered with black.
The pictures on the wall looked like charcoal or maybe crayon--I couldn’t tell. I wanted to find the crayon, or whatever, wherever they were. There was so much on the walls that it must have taken ten whole crayons. I searched everywhere. I got a little frantic. I couldn’t find anything--not a crayon or pencil or charcoal. Instead, I found something else.
NEWT: What?
GEORGIA: Under his bed... in the hardwood floor. There were symbols carved into it. A wheel. In the center was a pentagram.
NEWT: Wow. Really? Do you have a picture?
GEORGIA: No... no. As soon as I saw that I freaked and took him out. I didn’t let him back in that room. We moved out immediately.
NEWT: So the carvings. Those were new?
GEORGIA: The thing is, the apartment was furnished. The bed belonged to the landlady. I had never really looked under it before. So it’s possible they were there already. It was certainly my first--my first superstitious thought.
NEWT: What was?
GEORGIA: Well, that the apartment was haunted. That those symbols were... something, and that sleeping over them was doing something to my son’s head.
NEWT: So you bounced.
GEORGIA: We sure did. We moved in here. About a year ago.
NEWT: And did it help?
GEORGIA: No. It didn’t.
---------SPONSOR BREAK #1---------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
(interlude music #4)
NEWT (VO): Georgia brought me up to Jacob’s room to tell the next part of the story. Jacob was out with the nanny during our interview.
NEWT: So you moved in here last year?
GEORGIA: Yes. Fresh start number two.
NEWT: The wallpaper is nice. Crayon-free.
GEORGIA: (slight laugh) Yes. Well, the fresh start lasted hardly a week before things got strange again. I came into the kitchen for breakfast and found the table had been turned.
NEWT: Turned...?
GEORGIA: 90 degrees. I had it up against the window on the long side, and when I came in, the short side was against the window. Two of the chairs were knocked over.
NEWT: That must have been unsettling.
GEORGIA: I fixed it. Next day, the living room furniture had moved.
NEWT: Moved how?
GEORGIA: The couch was rotated around. I fixed that too. The next day it was the armchairs. They were turned around and pushed up facing the walls. I was starting to get seriously panicked. The third or fourth night was when I heard it.
NEWT: Heard what?
GEORGIA: I heard the furniture moving. I was lying awake in bed. And then, downstairs, I heard a scraping, creaking across the floorboards. Someone, or something, was moving our furniture around down there.
I was petrified. I stayed completely still in bed until it stopped. I don’t think I slept at all that night. When I went down the next morning, sure enough, the kitchen table had been moved.
The next night, I tried to record the sounds. I heard them again. But when I played the recording back, they didn’t show up. The mic on my phone wasn’t strong enough.
So the night after, I left the baby monitor downstairs. It automatically starts recording when a sound is heard. Then I laid awake upstairs, waiting.
NEWT: And?
GEORGIA: And nothing. I heard nothing. It was like the... whatever it was... knew. And it wasn’t going to let me catch it.
(interlude music #5)
NEWT (VO): So, I know what you’re thinking. Or maybe I just know what Dr. Gottlieb would be thinking. He would be asking me to ask her for the hard evidence. So far, she hadn’t produced any.
GEORGIA: So I installed a nannycam.
NEWT: Ah. Good on you.
GEORGIA: Well, I was starting to get... actually superstitious at this point. I thought, if the cam catches it happening, I’ll have something to show to the police. Or, if it can only happen when I’m not watching...
NEWT: ...Then it will stop once the nannycam is up, because it's being observed. Schrödinger's cat.
GEORGIA: Exactly. Well, for whatever reason, it worked. The furniture stopped moving.
NEWT: That must have been a relief.
GEORGIA: It was. For a little while. Soon after there was an... incident.
It was a weeknight, and I was exhausted. I was getting ready to take a hot shower. Jacob was in the living room drawing. Just as I got into the shower, I heard a knock on the door.
I said, “I’ll be out in a few minutes, honey!” And I got into the shower. There was another knock. I said the same thing, told him to wait. Then there was another knock. Then another.
It started knocking harder, louder. Pounding on the door. I looked out around the curtain--I was terrified. The door was shaking in the frame. It got louder, and louder, and then--then it just stopped.
NEWT: And it wasn’t Jacob?
GEORGIA: No. It was way too powerful for a five-year-old. I was absolutely terrified. I put on a towel and opened the door. No one was there, of course. I hurried down the hall, still soaking wet, and found Jacob in the living room. He was sort of standing there. I asked, but he said he hadn’t heard anything.
NEWT: Was anyone else in the house? Besides the two of you?
GEORGIA: No. It was just us.
NEWT: Huh.
GEORGIA: But... I got it on the nannycam.
NEWT: Got what? The intruder?
GEORGIA: The... something.
NEWT (VO): Georgia pulled up the footage for me on her computer. By this point, I had become a little concerned by the lack of evidence. I was relieved she had something concrete to show me.
GEORGIA: There... see that?
NEWT: Um, I don’t think so.
(click, click)
GEORGIA: That.
NEWT: ...Oh.
NEWT (VO): She showed me the nannycam footage from the moment of the knocking incident. It’s the living room, from a high angle. You can see most of the room, and the doorway into the hall. Jacob is sitting at the coffee table, drawing. Then, as if following a prompt we can’t hear, he gets up.
He stands up and walks closer to the wall where the nannycam is. He tilts his head back and looks up. Not directly into the camera, but just under it. Then he starts talking.
NEWT: Is there sound on this thing?
GEORGIA: No. Sorry.
NEWT (VO): So, he stands there talking to nothing. Thin air. Then he stops, stares, with his mouth a little bit open. Like he’s listening. Then his eyes move, like he’s watching someone walk away.
Then...
Well here’s the thing. Something moves across the camera.
It’s brief--not more than a half-second. It obscures the bottom half of the frame. It’s not much more than a shadow.
NEWT: Wow. That’s... Interesting.
GEORGIA: What? It’s terrifying, is what it is.
NEWT (VO): Another few seconds go by with Jacob staring at nothing, and then Georgia comes running into the room in a towel. She’s frantic. She grabs her son by the shoulders, says something to him, then pulls him into a hug.
Her testimony was still her only proof. But the video evidence certainly proved one thing--whatever she saw or heard that night, it terrified her.
GEORGIA: Soon after that, I found something else. That’s what I brought you up here to see.
NEWT: Please.
(sound of fabric)
GEORGIA: This.
NEWT (VO): Georgia Cavallon pulled the rug back on the floor by Jacob’s bed. There were two gashes in the floor.
GEORGIA: Someone moved his bed. They scraped the floor, 'cause the bed is so heavy.
NEWT: So it couldn’t have been Jacob?
GEORGIA: No. This bed took two men to move. When I saw the gashes, I had this horrible feeling in my gut. I dropped down to the floor to look under the bed and... sure enough.
NEWT: Symbols?
GEORGIA: (upset) The same symbol wheel. Carved into the floor.
NEWT (VO): I got down and took a look myself. It was hard to see under there, from that angle, so I took a picture with the flash on my phone.
The carvings were rough, hacked. They were not the work of a craftsman. If it wasn’t for the depth of the gouges, I would have said a kid did it. But I don’t know any kids who have that kind of tensile strength.
I didn’t recognize any of the symbols. I kept the picture, anyway, in case I had someone to show it to in the future.
GEORGIA: Needless to say, when I saw those symbols, I was horrified. The same thing, all over again. That was when I first called the Gottlieb Institute.
NEWT: Did he answer?
GEORGIA: I got a callback from some girl, but nothing else.
NEWT: When was this?
GEORGIA: January. Two months ago.
NEWT: Mm. Yeah. He’s been... hard to reach, lately.
GEORGIA: So he isn’t coming?
NEWT: Sorry.
GEORGIA: (disappointed) Oh.
(beat)
GEORGIA: Well there’s... one more thing.
NEWT: What’s that?
GEORGIA: Come look in the closet.
NEWT (VO): Listener, I did. And wouldn’t you know, I got the strangest sense of déjà-vu?
Georgia Cavallon moved her son’s clothes aside and there, in the back of the closet, was a shape on the wall. A shadowy, smudgy, spectral shape. I could see gaps for eyes, and maybe a gap for the mouth. But the gap for the mouth was above the eyes...
After my initial shock, I started to notice some things. If it reminded me of Tessa Hall’s closet, it was only conceptually. First of all, this was done in crayon. That much was obvious. Tessa’s was more like a smoke smudge or mold stain. This was more a scribble than a smudge. The hand of the artist was obvious.
A human hand, if I had to guess.
NEWT: So this was why you called our podcast?
GEORGIA: Yes.
NEWT: Why, exactly?
GEORGIA: Well it... it looks just like the one in Tessa Hall’s closet. And in the cabin. Doesn’t it?
NEWT: I can see some similarities, yes.
GEORGIA: Well?
NEWT: ...Well?
GEORGIA: Is it the same?
NEWT: Well...
GEORGIA: (urgently) I need to know, Newt. I need to know if he’s like her.
NEWT: (cautiously) Like Tessa? Like her how?
GEORGIA: Is he strange like her? Is someone or some thing going to come for him one day?
NEWT: (uncomfortable) Well... I don’t really know. It’s hard to say. There’s some similarities between your cases, but... overall, I mean, it’s not like...
GEORGIA: So you can’t help us?
NEWT: I’m sorry. I wish I could do more. I’ll take your case to the Gottlieb Institute. I’ll see what they say...
GEORGIA: (sighs angrily)
NEWT (VO): I didn’t really know how to respond to Georgia’s urgency. There were parts of her story that I didn’t feel like I understood. Then there was my own emotional state. Would my processing, both emotional and evidence-related, be better if I had gotten some sleep?
It’s not our job to solve these cases, just report on them--but someone brings you into their home, and shows you their most secret, defenseless desperation, it’s hard not to feel responsible.
But solving them wasn’t our job--that was Gottlieb’s job. And he wasn’t here.
(interlude music #6)
I wanted a second opinion, so I asked Georgia to put me in touch with Jacob’s nanny. Her name is Grace. She's a student at a nearby college.
NEWT: So the first thing I wanted to ask you about is an incident from the winter. Where Georgia heard knocking on her bathroom door while she was in the shower. Do you know about this?
GRACE: (young woman, somewhat harsh voice) Oh, yeah. I remember that. And she talked about it for weeks after. Did she show you the film?
NEWT: (surprised) Yes--she showed you? I wouldn’t think, since it’s a nannycam...
GRACE: Oh, no. I mean, yes, she showed me. Later. But I was there.
NEWT: You were there? That night?
GRACE: Yes.
NEWT: She said she and Jacob were alone.
GRACE: Well, I don’t know what she’s talking about. I was there. I’m there every weeknight. I was probably in the kitchen while she was in the shower.
NEWT: Did you hear the knocking?
GRACE: No. But honestly I don’t remember the specifics. It was a pretty normal weeknight. It might even have been me knocking on the door.
NEWT: Pounding on the door?
GRACE: I mean, probably not, but who knows how she heard it?
NEWT: So she showed you the footage? With the shadow?
GRACE: She did...
NEWT: ...But?
GRACE: Well, that might have been me too.
NEWT: The shadow? It was pretty high up.
GRACE: I might have been dusting. Like I said, I don’t remember.
NEWT: Well you don’t appear anywhere else in the footage.
GRACE: There’s another doorway, to the left on that wall. The wall where the camera is. It leads into the kitchen.
NEWT: Yeah, I remember seeing that.
GRACE: I could have come in and out without showing up.
NEWT: I guess it’s possible. Yeah. So does this sort of thing happen often?
GRACE: What sort of thing? Like, weird things?
NEWT: Yeah.
GRACE: All the time.
NEWT: Do you have any theory as to why?
GRACE: Like, do I think the house is haunted?
NEWT: (laughs) I’m not trying to lead the witness.
GRACE: (serious) Well I don’t. I don’t think it’s haunted.
NEWT: So what do you think?
GRACE: (...) Do you know Georgia doesn’t sleep?
NEWT: What?
GRACE: She’s an insomniac. She has it bad. She didn’t start taking meds for it until about a year ago, I think. I think the meds help, but they...
NEWT: (worried) They what?
GRACE: Well, you know how those sleep meds are. Like Ambien. They’re potent. They make people sleepwalk.
NEWT: ...Do you think Georgia Cavallon is sleepwalking?
GRACE: Sleepwalking, having waking sleep visions, whatever. I don’t know. But I think “haunted house” or “demon child” is her avoidance explanation for what’s really going on.
NEWT: ...Which is?
GRACE: That she needs help. Like, the furniture thing. That worries me.
NEWT: The moving living room furniture?
GRACE: The moving bedroom furniture. I was cleaning up Jacob’s room a few months ago and I found these scrapes in the floor...
NEWT: Yeah, Georgia showed me.
GRACE: ...Well?
NEWT: ... (realizing) You think Georgia made those carvings?
GRACE: (uncomfortable) Well--yes. I mean, obviously it wasn’t Jacob. There’s no way he could move that bed.
NEWT: But he draws on the walls sometimes.
GRACE: According to his mother.
NEWT: You haven’t seen him draw his shadow people?
GRACE: Oh, those. Yes, I’ve seen those drawings. But I’ve never seen him draw on a wall. He’s pretty well-behaved.
NEWT: You don’t think the way he draws the same shape over and over is strange?
GRACE: Not really. I used to babysit a little girl who only drew rainbows. Over and over, day after day, rainbow, rainbow, rainbow. She was autistic, she liked the repetition. Jacob hasn’t been tested, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was on the spectrum.
NEWT: So you really think Georgia carved those things under the bed?
GRACE: Yes.
NEWT: But why would she do that?
GRACE: I don’t know. Maybe she did it in her sleep. Maybe she has munchhausen disease.
NEWT: Munchhausen-by-proxy?
GRACE: Yes. Or maybe she just wants the attention.
NEWT: Well. That’s a little dismissive, don’t you think?
GRACE: (darkly)...She really likes your show. Did she mention that?
NEWT: Well, obviously I know she listens...
GRACE: No, no. She’s like, a superfan. She listens all the time. I’ve heard the same episodes multiple times, just being around the house. She tried to get me to listen. It’s not my thing--sorry.
NEWT: (troubled) So you think she’s been manipulating her experiences? To line them up with what happens on the podcast? To get on it?
GRACE: It’s possible, isn’t it? It’s more believable than a furniture-moving ghost, isn’t it?
NEWT (VO): According to Georgia, she didn’t start listening to our show until this winter. Most everything happened before that. But is it possible that she’s... reimagining things? Or recontextualizing her past experiences with our new framework? What if she believes something that I put in her head, because she was sleep-deprived?
Or worse--what if she made it up? What if she was putting her son through this just to get on our show? There was some physical evidence--the scratched floor, the drawing in the closet, and the video. But many of the incidents came with no evidence besides her story.
Georgia wasn't the only caller that we interviewed. But we decided to include her because of the particular questions her story raised. I didn’t want to believe she made it up. I didn’t like being the skeptic. I wanted someone who would look at the video, and the photos, and tell me, definitively, whether or not it was real.
Even if I knew what they would say. It would have been nice to hear.
(interlude music #4)
NEWT (VO): The case left me feeling like we’d gotten nowhere. I almost called the Halls--but I was glad I didn’t. Because when I got back to the studio, Mako dropped this bombshell.
NEWT: What’s going on?
MAKO: I just got a call from Sheriff Collins. From the Westfield Police.
NEWT: With--Collins? What did he want?
MAKO: Tessa Hall’s kidnapper. They caught him.
NEWT: (shocked) What?
MAKO: (grim) Yeah.
NEWT: How? Where--who?
MAKO: Apparently his name is Robert Motherwell. He hasn’t given them much. But they found him the same old way--he returned to the scene of the crime.
NEWT: Wow. The cabin?
MAKO: Yeah. When they found him he was just sitting there. They said it seemed like he was waiting for them.
NEWT: So what did Collins want with us?
MAKO: He was actually... looking to get in touch with Dr. Gottlieb.
NEWT: ...Aren’t we all.
MAKO: Yeah, well, apparently Motherwell will only speak to Gottlieb. He’s insisting on it. He won’t give them anything.
NEWT: What? Seriously?
MAKO: He said that. He specifically mentioned our show to the cops.
NEWT: Yikes... I bet Collins didn’t like that.
MAKO: (darkly) He did not. He was very displeased.
NEWT: (laughing) What did he say?
MAKO: I can’t actually repeat what he said, on air...
NEWT: Right. (nervous laugh) Well... I guess we have to... what? Leave another message at the Gottlieb Institute?
MAKO: I guess so.
(voicemail message plays) Hello. You’ve reached the office of Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as possible.
NEWT (VO): We left Gottlieb a message telling him the situation with the kidnapper. No reply. Collins called us again the next day. He yelled at me this time.
With that, I decided I’d had enough. I jumped on the Red Line and rode across the river to the Institute.
It was a chilly afternoon for May. The leaves were finally out. I hurried up those familiar brick steps. It had been six months since the last time I was there.
NEWT: Hey, Marian. Long time no see.
MARIAN: (high, mild voice, somewhat brittle) Hm? Oh, hi, Newt.
NEWT (VO): Marian King is Dr. Gottlieb’s assistant. She’s small, with short hair and bright lipstick. I think she goes to Harvard? I don’t know much about her. Usually it seems like she’s judging me. She’s definitely good at her job, because her job is keeping out me and others Gottlieb doesn’t want to talk to, and, well, I haven’t caught a glimpse of him in months.
Most of the time, she’s the one we leave messages with. She’s probably pretty sick of us at this point. Usually, she doesn’t like us recording her, but today, I was able to talk her into it.
NEWT: I like the Oscar Wilde shirt.
KING: (distantly) Thanks.
NEWT: What are you reading?
KING: Studies in the Psychology of Sex by Havelock Ellis.
NEWT: Oh. Yeah. Classic. (obviously lost) For school?
KING: No.
NEWT: Oh. Uh. Cool. So... Is the doctor in?
KING: No. He told me to take a message, though, so (sigh) go ahead.
NEWT: So you’ve seen him recently? Does that mean he’s around?
KING: He told me to relay any messages.
NEWT: Well, it’s kind of important.
KING: I bet.
NEWT: No, seriously. It’s a police matter.
(silence as King presumably gives him an unimpressed look)
NEWT: (sigh) Sheriff Collins with the Westfield Police wants to talk to him. Like, really wants to. He’s calling me and yelling at me. I’d rather he yell at your boss.
KING: And what’s this in regard to?
NEWT: The Tessa Hall case.
KING: Got it.
(sound of tearing paper)
KING: I’ll make sure he gets it.
(pause)
KING: Was there something else, Newt?
NEWT: Aren’t you going to call him?
KING: Can’t if you hover.
NEWT: Right. Sorry. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?
KING: (sigh) Go ahead.
NEWT (VO): Listener, at this point, I regret to say, I took the only recourse I had: underhanded journalistic slinking. In my defense, times were desperate, and the police were literally on my tail. I went down the hall, snuck around the corner, and went upstairs to Dr. Gottlieb’s office.
(sound of footsteps)
(door creaks open)
NEWT: ...Whoa.
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb’s office was... kind of a scene.
It was a mess, actually. He had gone full-on conspiracy nut. I’m talking thumbtack and red string spiderweb, all around the walls. The walls were plastered with printouts, newspaper clippings, pictures, notes. There were photos and files and disk drives and tapes all over every desk, chair, and even on the floor. It was complete turmoil.
He hadn't run away. He'd run right off the deep end.
I stepped in with a mix of thrill and horror. So, he was alive.
And this was what he had been doing.
(sound of paper)
NEWT: (muttering) Hey...
NEWT (VO): After a long look around the room, some things started to jump out. I saw a picture of Vanessa, and a picture of Father Dirac. Then I saw another picture I recognized.
NEWT: (muttering)...Is that...
(door opens)
KING: Hey!
NEWT: Oh, [expletive bleeped].
KING: What are you doing in here?
NEWT: Marian. Where the hell is Dr. Gottlieb? Have you seen this? Is he okay? I need to talk to him right now, and if you don’t tell me where he is I swear I--
HERMANN: It’s alright, Marian.
NEWT: (...)
HERMANN: (hoarse) Hello, Newton.
NEWT: (voice stripped) Hermann.
(slow footsteps as Hermann enters the room)
(beat)
NEWT: I’ve been trying to get in touch.
HERMANN: I know.
NEWT: It’s... um. It’s the Westfield Police, they need you to...
HERMANN: I know.
NEWT: Well you--
HERMANN: Newton.
NEWT: ...Yes?
HERMANN: I need your help.
(outro music begins)
NEWT (VO): Next episode: Hermann goes west to speak with the kidnapper, plus we follow up on some long-lost friends from last season, and watch a new old tape.
I’m Newt Geiszler. It’s the Black Tapes Podcast. See you next month.
(music fades out)
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