The Tulip Eaters. Antoinette van Heugten
aching that filled her now made her realize that she had been unable to truly mourn Anneke’s loss because of her terror for Rose. Now her mind flooded with memories: Anneke’s cool hand on Nora’s hot forehead as she lay in bed with the flu when she was eight; Anneke’s eyes shining with pride at Nora’s graduation from the University of Texas; Anneke’s joy-filled face when she first held Rose in her arms. Her mother. The only person in the world who had known her completely. Now she would know what it was to be an orphan, lost and alone.
She bent to clutch a fistful of dirt and let it fall from her hand onto the coffin. It hardly made a sound. That made her heart clench and then she felt dizzy. Marijke wrapped her arm firmly around Nora’s shoulders. Nora took a deep breath and turned from the grave. Nothing she could do for her mother now. After receiving hushed condolences from the few attendees, she and Marijke walked toward Nora’s car.
“Are you all right?” asked Marijke.
“Don’t worry. Once we get home, I’ll be fine.”
Just as they reached the car, someone called to her. “Ms. de Jong?”
It was Richards. He loomed above her. She felt confused. What was he doing here?
As if reading her thoughts, he nodded at the last of the mourners heading toward their cars and shrugged. “We always go to the funerals. Sometimes the murderer—or, in this case, his accomplice—shows up or watches from a distance.”
Nora felt sick. “I...see.” She saw Richards glance quickly at Marijke and mouth, Wait here. Marijke nodded and got into the car. Richards took Nora’s elbow and walked with her to a nearby oak tree. The lush green leaves against the cloudless sky seemed so damned peaceful. Nora felt anything but. He released her elbow and stopped. She didn’t like something in his eyes. Her breath caught. “What is it? Have you found Rose?”
“No, no news on that front yet, I’m sorry to say.”
Nora felt tears come to her eyes. She wiped them away.
“Did you see anyone here today you didn’t know?”
She thought and then shook her head. “Just old friends of my parents. My boss, a few colleagues, that’s all.”
Richards nodded. “Well, we have found out a few things I’d like to tell you about.” He pointed to a concrete bench by the oak. “Let’s sit.”
Nora suddenly felt so exhausted she wondered if she could manage those few steps. She wished she could just curl up under that huge, leafy tree and go to sleep. And never wake up.
She sat on the hard bench. Richards sat, reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out and lit it with a silver lighter.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
He gave her a half smile. “Goes with the job.”
She nodded. Yes, that’s all she wanted, small talk. If it wasn’t about Rose, then focusing on Anneke’s murder would require more energy than she could muster.
Richards took a deep drag and then exhaled. “We have something to tell finally. The perpetrator checked into a Motel 6 the day before the murder and never checked out. My men were able to get into his room.”
Nora felt some of her energy return. “Was there anything to help us find Rose?”
Richards put up a hand. “Hang on. Let me run through it all first. We found a passport.” He took out a small notepad and read from a worn page. “The fingerprints match those we took from the dead man. Dutch Immigration confirmed yesterday that his name was Wim Bakker, born in Amsterdam, address Westerstraat 453, fifty-seven years old.” He gave Nora a sharp look. “Have you ever heard that name?”
Nora shook her head. “But that doesn’t mean anything. My parents never talked about their life in Holland. All they told me was that they had family there, but that they were estranged and did not want to discuss their past. When I lived in Amsterdam, I tried to find them, but never did. The name ‘de Jong’ is very common in Holland.” She shrugged. “I suppose they could have known this Bakker before they came here, but how would I know?”
“You’re absolutely sure you’ve never heard of him?”
“Yes, of course.” Impatience rose in her. “Who was he? How did he know my mother? Do you have any idea why he killed her?”
Richards shrugged. “We asked the Dutch police to obtain a warrant to search his home, which they did yesterday. All they found was a bed and a few chairs. Looked like he hadn’t been there in a while.”
All she wanted now was to jump up from the bench and run—somewhere! It was maddening getting these useless bits of information in drips and drabs.
She stood and paced. “Are they going to find his family? He must have children, friends, maybe an employer. Someone will know why he did this and who was with him. And who took Rose!”
Richards flicked his cigarette on the ground and looked up at her. His eye twitched. Nora stopped. She remembered that twitching when he first saw her mother’s body on the floor. When she was hysterical about Rose and he tried to calm her down. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
Richards avoided her eyes. “It looks like we’re at another dead end.”
“What do you mean?” She made him meet her eyes.
“We just got another call from Dutch Immigration,” he said quietly. “Apparently the ‘Wim Bakker’ whose information was on the passport is not the man who killed your mother.”
“But that doesn’t make sense!”
“The Dutch police have confirmed that Wim Bakker is a heroin dealer who was arrested when he went through Immigration in Amsterdam six months ago. He is now in prison.”
Nora shook her head several times. She needed the puzzle pieces to fit and they didn’t. “But how would this man who killed my mother get his hands on a fake passport?”
Richards stubbed his cigarette out on the grass and straightened. “Dutch Immigration says that because of Bakker’s incarceration, the killer could have gotten it anywhere. When a Dutch citizen is wanted for arrest, the typical protocol is for his passport number and photograph to be placed on a list for the Immigration agents to check in case the criminal tries to leave or enter the country. If the agent finds such a number on the list, they’re supposed to confiscate the passport and immediately alert airport security so the suspect can be taken into custody.”
“So why didn’t that happen?” Nora was furious. “Why was he permitted to go to Schiphol, waltz through Immigration, take a transatlantic flight and enter the U.S.?”
“Because he had an excellent forgery. He replaced his photograph with that of Wim Bakker, but he didn’t change the fingerprints.”
“But wasn’t the passport number the same?”
Richards shook his head. “One digit was altered.”
“How could that happen? Are they just idiots? People must try to get away with this all the time.”
“They told us that the forgery must have been done by a professional.”
“The black market?”
Again Richards shrugged. “They don’t know. Whoever did it had specific knowledge of the special papers and symbols used, the particular sequence of numbers and precisely what information was required.”
“Are the Dutch police going to figure this out?”
“It’s out of their jurisdiction. Immigration is in charge and they’re looking into it.”
Nora sat and felt her shoulders sag with hopelessness. “That’s the Dutch way of saying that they’ve done all they’re going to do.”
Richards stood. “I wish I had better news.”