The Tulip Eaters. Antoinette van Heugten

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      “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.”

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