The Cursed Painting, Ch. 1
SFTH Improvised fic, group 9 (@sfth-improvised-fic, @fullset-o-lovers, @someacedude)
“They want us to investigate a what?!” Doohickey looked up from the report Clancy had just tossed on his desk. “Why are they getting us to do this?”
“I dunno. Guess no one else wanted to deal with it” Clancy shrugged as he dropped into the chair he had just pulled over to Doohickey’s desk. Despite the whole Don Ciciccio fiasco that had wrapped up a few months back, and the brief falling out they had just after that, Clancy and (now-divorced) Doohickey were back to being coworkers and friends - most of the time. It hadn’t taken long for the Chief to sheepishly chase down both of them as he realized just how much work the two officers had done, and done well. As expected, being friends again took longer, but Doohickey eventually admitted that it had only been a matter of time for him and his wife, and that he didn’t hold what had happened against Clancy. Clancy was thankful for that, not just because he did genuinely enjoy being friends with Doohickey, but they had worked so well together that the Chief would pair them up even when they hadn’t wanted to interact, and no amount of arguments or threats towards each other would change that. (Besides, they had never actually meant it. They were just teasing each other.)
And now they were here. Looking at a case file for a supposedly cursed painting in an art museum. Because that’s exactly the sort of thing the police were for, and just what the two wanted to be spending their time on. It wasn’t even an interesting painting! It showed two guys standing by a table with various trinkets on it, and it had a funky skull in the middle you had to look at from the side to see properly. (Doohickey did admit that he was curious about the skull. How had it been painted from that angle? And why? But that’s not what they were supposed to be investigating.) The painting was called The Ambassadors, which they both agreed was a boring name.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Clancy leaned over Doohickey’s shoulder as he flipped through the file, despite having already read most of it when his boss had handed it to him.
“Did Chief have any idea what he wanted us to do with this?” Doohickey asked, glancing up.
“Nope. My vote is we phone in the Ghostbusters and call it a day”
“You know we gotta do something, Clance.”
“That is something! What else are we going to do? Heck, what are we supposed to do? Dispose of the painting and hope whatever ‘mysterious happenings’ listed here stop?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never dealt with a cursed object before! But neither has anyone else here, and that’s why they gave this case to us in the first place. Chief knows we’re two of the best officers in New York City, and that we’ll give it all we’ve got. We’ve had much worse assignments before, and always powered through to figure something out. The Chief trusts us, Clance, and so do I”
Clancy watched Doohickey silently. He opened his mouth to say something, then sighed. “It’s probably just a bored teenager or staff member. We’ll spend a night or two out there, catch the bugger, and be done.”
Doohickey smiled at him, “Exactly like I said, figuring stuff out already.”
Clancy shrugged, fighting the smile tugging at his mouth. “It’s just stating the obvious. There’s no way there’s an actual curse on it. Here-” Clancy reached out for the file, having complete disregard for his coworker’s personal space, and was reprimanded by a smack on his arm from Doohickey, who picked up the page he had been just about to go back to reading, and instead read it aloud.
“‘The previous owners of The Ambassadors seemed eager to get rid of it, selling the painting for an incredibly cheap price, and reported to us that they had been ‘having a hard time keeping it in one spot’. When we asked for more details, all they would say was that something wasn’t quite right. We didn’t notice any troubles when transporting it, nor while setting it up for display.’
‘The next morning, the glass case we had put The Ambassadors in was completely shattered. The only thing odd about the situation was that there was no glass on the bottom of the case, as there would be if someone had broken it from the outside. It looked as though it had been broken from the inside out.’”
Clancy rolled his eyes. “And it’s not possible that whoever broke the glass swept it off the bottom of the case? Perhaps they thought they were covering their tracks or something.”
“Yeah, nothing too odd about that one.” Doohickey flicked through the pages, then continued reading, ‘After we had cleaned up the glass-’”
“I hope they at least took pictures,” Clancy grumbled.
Doohickey continued without commenting, “‘-We decided to move the painting to a more secure wing while we replaced the case. Exactly one week later, we discovered that it had fallen off the wall, and was balancing against it on only the bottom left corner. Nothing else seemed out of place, and we could not determine any outside source that could have been supporting it at such an angle.” Doohickey paused, expecting a comment from Clancy. When none came, he glanced up, and saw him deep in thought. Despite his opinion on the case, Clancy had found himself intrigued, and was already trying to unravel the possibilities in his mind. Doohickey smiled to himself and finished reading the case notes, pausing occasionally when either of them had a comment or theory they wanted to share.
By the end of the day, they both had an idea of what they were dealing with, and made plans to meet up the next morning to investigate in person at the art museum.
