The Tulip Eaters

Richards pulled out a chair from the table. Wearily, she sat. Her eyes felt as if they were swollen shut from her tears. How long had it been? How long since she’d walked through the front door and her life had stopped?

Richards took a chair opposite and pulled a worn notebook and a stubby pencil out of his shirt pocket. She watched as he rubbed his right eye. When he lowered his hand, the tic started again. Nora couldn’t stop staring. She tried to focus on his good eye as he nodded at her. “Tell me everything you know. Let’s start with Rose. I’ll need a photo that we can give to the press and TV stations. We’ll also send it to the FBI.”

Numbly, Nora got up and walked to the counter and picked up a framed photo of Rose in her christening gown. Anneke had wanted this picture of her in the dress even before the actual event. Rose was an angel in white, her toothless smile beaming. Nora’s fingers ached to touch the down of her pale red curls. She removed the photo from the frame and handed it over silently. He took it from her and walked into the hallway. She saw him hand it to one of the officers, then return.

“What was Rose wearing? Does she have any distinguishing birthmarks?”

Nora shook her head. “No birthmarks. This morning she was wearing a pink ruffled top and her diaper, of course. She wore a yellow hair band my mother bought for her—it had a flower on it.” Marijke took the tiny band and its crushed bloom from her pocket and handed it to Richards. Nora cringed at the memory of her mother holding Rose in her lap after she had put the headband on that morning. How they had laughed at Rose’s surprised expression as Anneke had clapped Rose’s tiny hands together.

She made herself look up at Richards. “What will you do to find her?”

“Three officers are combing the neighborhood to find out if anyone saw something unusual,” he said. “If so, maybe someone got a good look at the kidnapper’s face. If we get lucky, we might get enough of a description for a police artist to work with. I called the regional FBI emergency response unit that deals with kidnappings before I got here. A CARD team has already been alerted.”

“What is that?”

“Child Abduction Rapid Deployment. They get on these right away.” He glanced at his notes. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a doctor, a pediatric surgeon.”

Richards raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Where do you work?”

“Methodist.” She turned to Marijke. “God, I’ve got to call Bates. I have two surgeries scheduled tomorrow and five more this week.”

“I’ll do it.” Marijke walked over and picked up the receiver. “What’s his number?”

“On the wall. Tell him I don’t know when I’ll be back.” She couldn’t think about work now.

“Is there anyone at Methodist who might be holding a grudge against you?” asked Richards. “A former lover perhaps? A disgruntled coworker?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t date or socialize at work. No time.”

Richards scribbled a few notes. Nora glanced up. Men in white coveralls walked slowly by the kitchen doorway in thin gloves and booties. One held the dreadful gun she’d seen near the dead man’s hand. It was in a plastic bag. “Who are they?”

“CSI,” he said. “They’re going through the house with a fine-tooth comb. They’ll be here awhile.”

Nora nodded, but felt her panic return. “Isn’t there anything else we can do? What about my mother? And who is that bastard in there on the floor?”

“These are all questions we’ll try to answer, but our first step is to get the wheels in motion to find your daughter.” A tic twitched his other eye. He rubbed it wearily. It seemed to Nora that its constant motion must be dreadful. He looked up at her. “Now that we’ve put that into gear, we’ll focus on the rest.”

Marijke walked quietly to the table. “Bates sends his condolences and says he’ll cover for you as long as he can.” Marijke slid a cup of hot tea in front of her and gave her a quick hug. Nora whispered her thanks.

Richards flipped to a blank page in his notebook. “What was your mother’s name? Can you tell me a little about her?”

“Anneke,” whispered Nora. “Anneke de Jong. She is—was—Dutch. She and my father, Hans, immigrated here from the Netherlands after the war.”

“Do you know any of their friends or acquaintances? Someone your mother knew who might have disliked her? Did she belong to any organizations? Was she politically active? Anything like that?”

Nora shook her head. “She was a very private person,” she said softly. “After my father died, my mother isolated herself from the few friends they had. I think she found being with people too painful.”

“Are there any relatives we can talk to?”

“No. They didn’t keep in touch with their family in Holland. I never knew why.”

Richards scribbled on his pad. “What did your mother do?”

“She was a housewife.” Her voice trembled. “My mother was a warm, loving person. She spent all her time taking care of Rose.” An old thought seared her brain. Was it her fault? If she had stayed home instead of going to work, would any of this have happened?

“How old was your mother?”

Nora cringed at his use of the past tense. “Sixty.”

“And your father?”

She had to think. “He would have been sixty-two last month.”

“What did he do?”

“He was a literature professor at St. Thomas University. The classics.”

“Did he have any enemies that you know of?”

Nora shook her head and then felt a well of panic rise. “Shouldn’t you focus on finding Rose?”

He must have sensed her hysteria, because he reached across the kitchen table and squeezed her clenched hands. Nora was surprised. She had not expected the police would openly offer comfort to a stranger. She felt a bit calmer. “Thank you,” she whispered. A nice man, a good man. He will help me.

“We’ve done all we can for the moment,” he said. “We’ll see what the investigators come up with once they’ve gone through the house.”

Nora felt a tap her on the shoulder.

“Drink maar op,” said Marijke.

“Dank je wel,” whispered Nora. She wrapped her trembling fingers around the hot cup, took a small sip and put it down.

Richards looked up from his pad. “Ms. de Jong, did you disturb the crime scene in any way when you came home?”

Nora hesitated. “I don’t know. When I saw my mother on the floor, I ran over to her.”

“Did you touch the body?”

She nodded. “I looked for a pulse. I held her in my arms.”

“Did you touch anything else?”

Nora felt her eyes fill. “Her head—her brains...”

“That’s all right.” He gave her a moment. “And the man?”

“I tripped over him looking for Rose.”

“Have you ever seen him before?”

“No.”

“Did you touch his body?”

She put her head into her hands. “No—no! I didn’t want to get near him. And then I saw the gun on the floor...”

Richards’s eyes narrowed. “Did you touch it?”

Nora thought and then shook her head. Richards straightened his blue tie and made a few notes. His pencil was down to the nub. He muttered as he tossed it aside and drew out a pen from his jacket pocket. As he fired more questions, it seemed to Nora as if he were a journalist on a hot story. What time had Nora left the house that morning? Had she noticed anyone or anything out of the ordinary in the neighborhood? What time had she gotten home? Did her mother care for Rose all day? Was there a housekeeper, gardener or anyone else who had access? When had Nora last spoken to Anneke?

“I left around eight in the morning and got home before five,” she said. “I didn’t notice anything unusual in the neighborhood. No one else has a key to the house. I spoke to my mother after lunch. She sounded...happy.” She realized then that she would never speak to her mother again. Her grief felt unbearable. Then one of the crime scene investigators walked into the room.

Richards stood. “I’m going to see what they found. You wait here.”

“No, I’m going with you.”

Richards studied her. “All right, but first you have to put on gloves and shoe covers.” He glanced at Marijke. “Same goes for you.”

“Of course,” said Marijke.

One of the CSI men handed over gloves and booties. “Don’t touch anything,” Richards warned. “Just look.”

They quickly donned their gear and followed him into the living room. The M.E., a slight man with graying hair, had apparently arrived while Nora was answering Richards’s questions. He stood next to Anneke’s body. Nora could not help but stare at her mother’s forehead, the hideous bullet hole and the blood that had leaked from it, now coagulated into a thick black stream. Pitiful remnants of what used to be Anneke’s beautiful silver hair lay strewn in clumps on the floor. A pair of scissors with its blades wide-open lay partially hidden by the locks of shorn hair. It struck her again that the killer must have chopped off sections of her hair. Why in hell would he do that?

Nora watched as the M.E. knelt and examined the man’s body, first studying the eyes. “No petechial hemorrhaging here.”

“What does that mean?” asked Marijke.

“No burst veins,” Nora explained.

“Means he wasn’t strangled.” The M.E. pointed at tiny red marks that crisscrossed the man’s cheeks. “See the hemorrhaging there? Indicates heart attack, maybe stroke.” He pulled a thermometer from his bag and nodded to one of the investigators, who pulled down the man’s pants, exposing his buttocks. He inserted the thermometer, his eyes on his watch. Nora felt sick.

“Time of death?” asked Richards.

The M.E. wiped the thermometer and gave it a quick glance. “Probably four, five hours ago.” He held up one of the man’s arms. It was stiff, doll-like. “Rigor’s begun.”

“Cause?”

The M.E. shrugged. “Stroke, heart attack, like I said. Can’t confirm till the autopsy.” He struggled to his feet, nodding to the investigator, who pulled the dead man’s pants up.

Nora looked away. Marijke moved next to her and held her hand, their fingers entwined. Nora’s eyes riveted upon her ravaged mother. “Can’t you at least cover her?” she asked angrily. “A sheet, anything?”

The M.E. glanced at her, his eyes sympathetic. “I’m finished. When the investigators give us the green light, we’ll move her to the morgue.”

Nora’s eyes fixed again upon her mother and she caught a glint of silver around Anneke’s neck. Of course, she thought, her locket. She bent over Anneke and reached for it.

An investigator grabbed her shoulder. “Hey! You can’t do that!”

Nora pulled back. “That’s my mother’s necklace,” she said in a strangled voice. “Could you please take it off? She was never without it and I...need it.”

He shook his head. “We haven’t dusted it for prints yet.”

“Then do it now.” She absolutely had to hold it in her hand—the last earthly thing that had been warmed by her mother’s body.

The investigator nodded at one of his men, who walked over and dusted it. The powder left a black ring around Anneke’s neck, as if it were a noose. The investigator then examined the markings on the necklace and compared them to the fingerprints they had taken of the murderer and Anneke. He nodded at the head investigator and handed the locket to one of his female assistants. The woman carefully wiped the soot from the necklace and handed it to Nora. “It’s clean,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Nora nodded numbly as she held the silver orb in her hand. It felt smooth and delicate. She turned it over. Inscribed on it, in fine, ornate script, was the letter A, but barely visible, as if Anneke had rubbed it so often that it had almost vanished into the silver. Nora smoothed the metal until it was warm, as if it had lain only moments ago upon her mother’s skin. Her suprasternal notch, thought Nora. The beautiful hollow in the front of her throat. Nora fastened the chain around her neck, tucked it into her blouse and felt it swing gently into place. It emanated grief and loss, but also love and remembrance.

Nora walked to the window and stared into the backyard. She couldn’t bear the men picking over her mother’s body, like vultures over their kill. Marijke followed and put her arm around Nora’s waist.

Richards finally nodded at the M.E. and Nora watched as two police officers raised Anneke’s body, her limbs hanging askew. Her head lolled to one side, her hazel eyes wide, staring at nothing. Struggling, they got her into the chasm of a black body bag. Another sickening wave of grief rushed through Nora. It was impossible! Marijke held her while she cried and then released her with a soft kiss on her cheek.

Richards moved closer. “Can you think why someone would hack off your mother’s hair like that?”

“I have no idea.”

Richards took her arm and walked with her across the room where the dead man lay on the floor. “And you’re sure you’ve never seen him before?”

Nora forced herself to study the crumpled form and then shook her head. She watched as one of the officers traced a crude, white chalk outline on the carpet around his body. She glanced back to where her mother had lain. That empty space now encircled by the rough drawing struck her like a hammer blow. It was all that was left of her mother.

Nora turned to the dead man again and shuddered. His navy sport jacket, white polo shirt and khaki pants struck Nora as weekend golf wear, not the attire of a killer. He still lay as she had first seen him, his black, hawkish eyes staring up at nothing, his body sprawled, right arm outstretched. Where was the gun? She scanned the room and saw it in a plastic evidence bag on top of the sofa, next to another bag that contained the scissors. She walked over and stared at the gun, fighting a compulsion to pick it up. Maybe if she held it in her hand, felt its heft, then she might accept that her mother was really dead.

After a long moment, she turned back to the officers, who now had formed themselves into a U shape around the stranger’s body. She joined them. Someone had removed the black glove on the man’s right hand. Then something caught her eye. “What is that?”

“Fingerprint ink,” said Richards.

She felt her breathing quicken. “Will you be able to identify him?”

“If he’s committed a previous crime, there’s a good chance. Or if he was ever arrested. His prints are already on their way to the lab. They’ll find a match if there is one.”

She saw one of the investigators now walk in, an older man with a bone weariness about him. Nora wondered if years of seeing mutilated bodies had scored those wrinkles on his face. He stuck his sun-spotted hands into the worn pockets of his uniform and then raised bloodshot eyes to Richards. “Here’s what we know so far,” he said in a raspy voice. “No evidence of forced entry or defensive wounds on the victim’s body.”

Richards nodded. “So she let him in.”

“Them. There’s another set of footprints besides the dead guy and the victim.”

“But my mother would never have let strangers into the house,” Nora gasped. “She was always careful, especially when she was alone with Rose.”

The investigator nodded at one of the other officers, who brought over a bouquet of large, broken tulips, brilliant red and yellow, their petals hanging pitifully over shiny, silver wrapping. “He apparently posed as a delivery man,” he said. “We found them in the dining room, behind the door.”

Richards nodded. “Bag it. What else?”

He nodded toward the sofa. “The gun. We’re taking it to the station.”

“Let me look at it,” said Richards. The older man walked to the sofa and returned with the pistol. With gloved hands, Richards opened the bag and took it out. He peered at it, turning it over and over. Nora noticed that now both his eyes were steady and focused. “Second World War, German. Looks like a Luger.”

Nora squinted at the black gun. “How do you know?”

Richards shrugged. “My father was a collector. He was in the war.” Nora saw Richards turn it over with an admiring look. “It’s in great condition. Looks like the original finish.”

Nora stepped back, repulsed. She couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. She stared at the dead man on the floor. “Do you think he’s German?”

Richards shrugged. “He may have gotten it in the war. Or could have been a collector, too.” He peered down the barrel. “Doesn’t look like it’s been fired much.” He opened the chamber. “Only two bullets missing.”

Nora winced. Her stomach threatened to betray her again.

Richards put the gun back into the bag and handed it to one of the officers. “Put it with the other evidence. Once the CSI guys are finished, take it to ballistics. Confirm the make and model.” Richards turned back to the investigator. “What else?”

He shrugged. “We’ve searched the entire house, dusted all the prints we could find and looked for anything that would indicate a struggle.” He pointed at a lamp near the stairs that had fallen to the floor. “That’s all there is on that score.” He exhaled. “I think the killer got in fast, killed her fast. We bagged everything we could, but my gut tells me we haven’t found much to help us.”

“Anything that indicates who the second perp might be? The kidnapper?”

The investigator shook his head. “The dead guy wore gloves. I assume his partner did, as well.”

“What about the child?” His voice was grim.

Nora held her breath. Please, she thought. Let there be something.

The investigator slowly shook his head. “Nada.”

“Nothing at all?” she cried.

“At this point we got zilch.” Then seeing the look on her face, he spoke more gently. “But in a while we’ll be getting back stuff on the prints and fibers from the lab.” He made a note on a grimy notepad. “By the way, could you look around and see if you notice anything unusual? Furniture misplaced, valuable objects missing—anything like that?”

A thought struck her. “What about by the pool? My mother usually swam with Rose in the afternoon.”

He shook his head. “Looks like they never made it there.”

Richards bent over and studied the dead man’s body. “Have you searched him?”

“You told us to wait.”

Richards looked at Nora and Marijke. “Don’t touch anything and stay back.” They nodded and huddled a distance away. The man lay as Nora had found him—on his stomach, right arm outstretched, head twisted to the left. Richards put on new gloves and knelt, as if genuflecting. With gentle fingers, he folded back the front of the man’s jacket and felt the inside pockets.

After a few moments of probing, he slid something out—a small photo. He studied it and then rose and handed it to Nora. She looked at a worn sepia photo and stared at a slender young man holding on to the handlebars of an old bicycle, smiling boldly into the camera. He had dark, expressive eyes. Nora turned the photo over. Only a date: 1940.

“Ever seen him before?” asked Richards.

“Never.”

“Anything strike you at all?”

She flipped the photo over and looked at the man again. “No.”

He nodded at the investigator, who slid the photo into an evidence bag. Richards then dug into one of the man’s back pockets and pulled out a folded card. “Shamrock Hotel, room 1154.” He handed it to one of the officers. “Get over there. Find the manager and search his room. Find anything you can that might tell us who he is and who was with him. Maybe they left something behind.” The officer turned on his heel and left.

Richards searched the other back pocket. He shook his head. “No wallet, no driver’s license, nothing,” he muttered. “Damn.” Moving to the side of the body, he lifted the man’s left shoulder up and rolled him onto his back. His head bobbled to the right, the dead eyes now staring fixedly upward.

Marijke clutched Nora’s arm and pointed at the stranger. “Nora! Kijk eens!”

Nora followed Marijke’s index finger to the man’s left front pants pocket. Something glittered gold and yellow, barely visible. “Lieutenant, there, in his pocket!”

Richards turned from the officer he was speaking to and stared. He slid the piece of paper from the pocket. It tugged a little before coming free. Richards stared at the bill with its bright colors and odd gilding and then looked up. “Some kind of foreign money.”

Marijke stepped forward, her cheeks flushed. “It isn’t just any money.” She and Nora exchanged excited looks.

Richards looked at Nora. “You recognize it?”

Nora nodded, stunned. “It’s a Dutch twenty-five guilder note.” She looked down at the dead man’s face. “He was Dutch? Why would some Dutchman want to kill my mother? Or kidnap Rose?”

“Hold on,” said Richards. “He could be anyone. Dutch, German, American—who knows? Maybe he’s just someone who traveled there recently and that’s why he had guilders in his pocket.” He handed the bill to the investigator, who bagged it. “Check it for prints.”

Nora leaned closer. She pointed. “Lieutenant, what’s that?”

Richards dug farther in the man’s right pants pocket. As the item came free, Nora caught a glint of silver and saw shock on Richards’s face. Her heart quickened as she stared at Richards’s upturned hand. A pistol. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I can’t believe this.”

He turned it over and examined it. He held it up, looked down the barrel, sniffed and shook his head. “Looks brand-new. And it hasn’t been fired today.”

Marijke and Nora gave each other confused looks.

“If this is his gun...” began Marijke.

“Then whose gun is that?” finished Nora, pointing at the black gun on the sofa.

4

Anneke de Jong grasped her trowel more firmly as she peered through the bay window into the sunken living room. She could see Rose sleeping peacefully in the wicker bassinet Anneke had bought when she was born. It stood close to the window so Anneke could check on her frequently while she worked in the garden, as she did every afternoon. She peered at her watch. Twelve-thirty. Rose would sleep at least another hour.

As she straightened, she felt a pain in her back. Sixty. The thought amazed her. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself as forty—not a day older. She knelt next to the pool and glanced at her reflection. A slight woman with shoulder-length silver hair stared back. In the calm water, she could even see her hazel eyes and the wrinkles etched in their corners. What had happened to the young girl with jet-black hair and endless possibilities?

Walking back to her garden, she refused to think of the different choices she could have made. It doesn’t matter. At least the cancer is gone. She remembered the look in the doctor’s eyes when he’d told her that she had malignant tumors in both breasts. Gone, she now thought. All gone. She still felt the phantom of their softness until her silver locket brushed against the empty places where her breasts used to be.

She held up the trowel to shade her eyes. The sun was blinding, the humidity oppressive. Even after all her years in Houston, she had not gotten used to the searing summers, the air swarming with mosquitoes that increased tenfold after every rain. Here it was, early November, and the afternoon temperature was still seventy degrees. She closed her eyes and imagined Holland’s rows of brilliant tulips in the spring. She was that girl again—laughing on her bicycle with her girlfriends as they rode down green-leaved lanes, the air so crisp. Or swimming in the shocking cold of the North Sea in January when no one else dared go in. She opened her eyes and sighed. The past was the past.

She knelt, dug a small hole in the hard ground and reached for one of the rain lilies she had bought yesterday, flowers that could withstand the blistering Texas sun, blooming only after a rainstorm. She’d bought them in honor of Rose, who had also come after a great storm, one in Nora’s life. Anneke put the plant gently into the ground, filled the hole with potting soil and tamped it firmly with the trowel. As she reached for the next flower, she heard the doorbell.

“Verdomme,” she muttered as she took off her dirty gloves and walked inside. Deliciously cold air hit her at the door, causing her to shiver slightly. She stepped to the bassinet and bent to give Rose a kiss. Her baby scent made Anneke smile. It was even better than the rain lily’s blooms. The doorbell rang again.