The Tulip Eaters. Antoinette van Heugten
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