Antoinette Heugten - The Tulip Eaters

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.