The Tulip Eaters (2 page)

2

Nora limped into the kitchen. As she dialed the operator, her sobs strangled her.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Come on!” she shouted. “Answer the goddamned phone!”

“Operator, may I help you?”

“Yes—
please!
There’s been a murder, my baby is—”

“I’m putting you through to the police,” said a nasal female voice. “Please stay on the line.”

Nora felt as if an eternity passed before she heard a slow Texas drawl finally come through. “HPD—Brody.”

“Officer—my mother, my baby!” she cried.

“Hang on,” he said soothingly. “What’s the problem?”

“My mother—she’s been murdered!” Terror scrambled her words. “Dead man...on floor...my baby...kidnapped!”

“Slow down now,” he said quietly. “Is the perpetrator still in the house?”

Nora wished she could reach through the line and throttle him. “No!”

“Name?”

“Nora—Nora de Jong.”

“Address?”

“Four eleven Tangley. Get someone here—now! Rose could be anywhere—someone could have killed her....”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said quickly. “I’ll send an officer right over. You sit tight. Don’t touch anything, don’t do anything. You understand?”

Nora sobbed. “Yes, yes! Just please hurry!” She slammed down the receiver.
God, what should she do? Call Marijke.
Her Dutch girlfriend visiting from Amsterdam was giving a speech at Rice University on European economics.
She would help!
Nora scrabbled through the notepad on the kitchen counter, finally locating the number Marijke had written down that morning. Her hands trembled so she could barely punch the buttons. With every ring, Nora grew more frantic.

“Professor Sanford’s office,” said a bland female voice. “Miss Mitchell speaking.”

Nora took a deep breath. “I need to speak to Marijke van den Maas immediately.”

There was a pause and then she heard a rustling of paper. “Dr. van den Maas is giving a lecture now. I can’t interrupt her. Are you a student?”

“No, I’m not a student!” Nora could hear her own hysteria. “I’m a friend of Dr. van den Maas’s. This is an emergency!”

“Name?” The woman’s unruffled tone sounded as if students called with emergencies all the time.
Stupid, asinine woman!

“Nora de Jong!” Another sob escaped her. “You have to find her and have her call me immediately. My—my mother has been murdered—”

“Oh, my God!” The wooden voice came to life. “Give me your number.”

“She has it,” Nora sobbed. “Hurry, please!”

“Don’t worry, she’s just across the quad. I’ll run over there right now.”

Nora now heard the hollow dial tone. She sat on the kitchen stool, stunned. She could not face going back into the living room. The silence was eerie, malevolent. As if she were in purgatory, suspended in agony. All she could think about was Rose.
Rose.

She wrung her hands and struggled to breathe, trying to focus.
If the dead man killed Anneke, then who took Rose?
There had to have been someone with him. How would the police even begin to find him? Her thoughts darted to horrible scenarios. Rose clutched in the arms of a killer or madman racing down I-10—out of Houston, out of the U.S.—never to be seen again; Rose held for ransom and tortured to scream through the phone; Rose thrown into a Dumpster where she would be eaten by rats; Rose screaming and shaking, her tiny face turning blue while large hands strangled her.

“No!” she told herself fiercely. “Stop it! You don’t know anything. She’s fine, she has to be. They just want money. That’s it, that’s got to be it!” But her words sounded hollow. She shut her eyes to keep away the horrible visions.

After what felt like hours, the phone rang. Nora picked it up on the first ring. “Marijke?”

“What happened?” Nora heard the astonishment in Marijke’s voice. “Your mother—she’s dead?”

“Marijke,” she cried. “Please come home—now! It’s too terrible. My mother’s been murdered—” Then a strangled sob. “Someone took Rose! She’s gone—I can’t find her anywhere!”

Marijke’s voice came through clear and firm, a voice Nora had always trusted. “Listen to me. You have to calm down. Did you call the police?”

“Yes, but they’re not here yet.” She burst into tears.

“Okay, I’m going to talk to you until they get there and then I’ll come right away.”

Nora began sobbing so that her wailing was the only sound she heard.

“Nora?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling faint.

“I’m here,” said Marijke. “Just hang on until the police come.”

Nora took a deep breath. “You’re right. I have to keep it together, for Rose.”

The front doorbell clanged. “They’re here!” Nora dropped the phone and sprang to her feet, forgetting about her ankle. With a sharp cry, she ran to the door. Three officers stood there with grim faces. One stepped forward. He was fortyish, tall and square-jawed, with intense brown eyes and short-cropped hair. No wedding band, but the pale ring of flesh on his left hand showed it had not been long since it had been removed. With his blue suit, white shirt and polished black shoes, Nora thought he looked more like a politician than a policeman.

“Ms. de Jong?” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Richards.”

Nora flung the door wide-open. “Please...please help me!”

Richards nodded at the other two men and walked in. They followed.

“There!” She pointed at the living room. “My mother, that...
man
on the floor...the gun.” She tried to walk with them into the room, but Richards held her back with one of his large hands.

“I’m going to have to ask you to step aside, ma’am,” he said. “We have to keep the crime scene undisturbed.” He nodded to the two officers. “Gloves and footwear. No moving anything, no touching the bodies.”

Nora wrung her hands and sobbed. “My baby! Someone took her. She’s only six months old!”

Richards took Nora by the shoulders and focused his dark eyes upon hers. “Ms. de Jong, I have to ask you to calm down. I need to get as much information as I can, especially since your daughter appears to have been taken.”

Nora took a deep breath and forced herself to be still.

“That’s better,” he said softly. Nora noticed that he had a tic in his right eye. It distracted her.
Was he nervous now or was it something he did all the time?

One of the officers walked over to them. “I radioed the station,” he said. “CSI and the M.E. are on their way.”

Richards nodded and turned back to Nora. “First, is there anyone I can call for you? Your husband? A friend or relative?”

Nora shook her head, her eyes tearing again. “No,” she whispered. “I’ve called my friend who’s visiting from Holland. She’ll be here soon.”

“What about your father?”

“Dead. Three years ago. Cancer.”

“No one else you’d like here with you?”

“No.” There was no one. Since she’d returned to Houston, she’d been swamped with her job and then Rose’s birth. The friends she’d had here had scattered to the winds during the two years she’d been in Amsterdam. Anneke had been her only friend—her best friend.

Richards put on latex gloves and pulled paper booties over his shoes. As he stepped into the living room, Nora saw Marijke walk into the foyer. She stopped and clapped her hands to her mouth as she took in Anneke’s mutilated body and the dead man on the floor. Nora rushed to her and Marijke threw her arms around her. Nora sobbed uncontrollably as she felt Marijke’s comforting grasp tighten.
“Nee, nee,”
she whispered,
“het komt goed—echt waar.” No,
thought Nora,
it will never be all right!
The lilt and accent of her voice sounded so much like Anneke’s that it made Nora cry even harder.

Nora saw Richards cross the room and nod a silent greeting to Marijke. His tic had stopped. “Ladies, I’m afraid you can’t come in here. We have to let the crime investigators do their work—search for evidence while the scene is still fresh.”

Marijke nodded at Richards and took Nora’s arm. “Come with me.”

“No, I have to know if they find anything!”

Richards shook his head at Marijke, who then tugged gently on Nora’s arm and led her through the kitchen to the nursery. Sweet baby smells assaulted Nora as she stepped into the room—the silken scent of baby powder, freshly laundered clothing, one yellow wall covered with photos of Rose.

Nora clutched the empty crib and fell into the rocking chair beside it, shaking. “Who is that monster?” she asked. “And why would he do such a thing?” She looked up at her friend, tears still streaming. “Oh, Marijke, none of this makes any sense! Who took Rose? What has he done with her?”

Marijke knelt in front of her and put her strong hands over Nora’s trembling ones. She looked steadily into her eyes. “Start from the beginning.”

When she finally managed to speak, Nora could hear the frenzy in her voice. “I came home from work and called for Mom— Oh, God...” Marijke squeezed Nora’s hands. “I went into the living room and there she was.” Nora stopped. Telling the story made it too real, but she had no choice. She forced herself to continue, making Marijke’s warm eyes her focal point. “There was blood everywhere. The back of her head, her brains. I...I tried to put them back....”

“Enough,” said Marijke softly. She stood and pulled Nora out of the chair, wrapped her in a warm embrace and let her cry.

When Nora had exhausted herself, she lifted her eyes. Gratitude filled her. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

Marijke gave her a small smile. With a firm arm around Nora’s waist, she walked her to the bed. Nora stopped and put her hand in her pocket.

“What is it?” asked Marijke.

Nora handed her the bright yellow headband and its pitifully crumpled flower. Nora felt her stomach turn, rushed to the bathroom and vomited. Using the tiled counter for support, she watched Marijke grab a washcloth and run water over it. Nora closed her eyes and let Marijke gently wipe away her tears. The washcloth felt cold. Nora never wanted to move, never wanted to see what she had seen, never wanted to believe that Rose was gone. She walked back into the nursery, pacing. She spoke in Dutch. “Marijke, they’ve got to find her! I can’t bear it!”

Nora watched Marijke go to the couch and pat a place next to her.
“Kom.”

Nora sat down and let Marijke still her trembling hands again. Nora felt some of her strength return. “I have to stop this,” she said firmly. “I can’t help my mother. All I can do is work with the police to find Rose.” She met Marijke’s brown eyes and felt fire in her own. “I just have to believe that Richards and his men will find her.”

Nora stood and stared at the corner of the room. The painting she had begun of Rose rested on an easel, half-finished. Her heart lurched. Would she ever see her again? She felt haunted by Rose’s luminous blue eyes, staring at her from the canvas—so happy, so trusting. She felt as if a limb had been ripped from her body. She smelled Rose’s baby smell, felt the delicious weight of Rose in her arms and the pull of her womb as Rose latched on to her breast.
Would she ever feel those things again?

3

After what felt like hours, Richards came into the nursery. “Ms. de Jong? Could you come with me?”

She stood but felt dizzy and stumbled. He caught her. She felt his strong arms around her. When she steadied and he let her go, she yearned for someone she loved to hold her, to shelter her from this torment.

“You all right?” She nodded. He grasped her elbow and led her into the kitchen, avoiding the living room.

Marijke followed and patted Nora’s shoulder. “I’m going to make you a cup of tea,” she whispered.

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.