A Splash of Red

When a mystery writer moves into a new apartment that seems too good to be true, he slowly unravels its grisly history.

Photo by Jem Cohen

The summer of 2005 is the worst time in my life. My landlord decides to sell the Boerum Hill house I’ve rented an apartment in for sixteen years, and then—in the aftermath of arguments about where to move—my wife suddenly walks out on our marriage. In the midst of a ferocious heat wave and at the peak of one of New York City’s most inflated housing markets, I trudge across Brooklyn searching for a rental I can afford on my own, on a freelance writer’s budget. One tiny apartment’s only window looks out on a grimy airshaft. Another is a dark basement below the office of a doctor who practices adolescent gynecology.

The asphalt is so hot that it sticks to my shoes. The date when I have to leave my old apartment looms closer and closer. I’m panicking that I’ll end up homeless when a miracle occurs:  I stumble across a funky, eccentric Park Slope realty office where a petite, friendly French woman tells me that she has the perfect solution. She drives me to Ditmas Park, a …