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The Tulip Eaters
Antoinette van Heugten
In a riveting exploration of the power the past wields over the present, critically acclaimed author Antoinette van Heugten writes the story of a woman whose child’s life hangs in the balance, forcing her to confront the roots of her family’s troubled history in the dark days of World War II… It’s the stuff of nightmares: Nora de Jong returns home from work one ordinary day to find her mother has been murdered. Her infant daughter is missing. And the only clue is the body of an unknown man on the living-room floor, clutching a Luger in his cold, dead hand.Frantic to find Rose, Nora puts aside her grief and frustration to start her own search. But the contents of a locked metal box she finds in her parents’ attic leave her with as many questions as answers—and suggest the killer was not a stranger. Saving her daughter means delving deeper into her family’s darkest history, leading Nora half a world away to Amsterdam, where her own unsettled past and memories of painful heartbreak rush back to haunt her.As Nora feverishly pieces together the truth from an old family diary, she’s drawn back to a city under Nazi occupation, where her mother’s alliances may have long ago sealed her own–and Rose’s—fate.
In a riveting exploration of the power the past wields over the present, critically acclaimed author Antoinette van Heugten writes the story of a woman whose child’s life hangs in the balance, forcing her to confront the roots of her family’s troubled history in the dark days of World War II…
It’s the stuff of nightmares: Nora de Jong returns home from work one ordinary day to find her mother has been murdered. Her infant daughter is missing. And the only clue is the body of an unknown man on the living-room floor, clutching a Luger in his cold, dead hand.
Frantic to find Rose, Nora puts aside her grief and frustration with the local police to start her own search. But the contents of a locked metal box she finds in her parents’ attic leave her with as many questions as answers—and suggest the killer was not a stranger. Saving her daughter means delving deeper into her family’s darkest history, leading Nora half a world away to Amsterdam, where her own unsettled past and memories of painful heartbreak rush back to haunt her.
As Nora feverishly pieces together the truth from an old family diary, she’s drawn back to a city under Nazi occupation, where her mother’s alliances may have long ago sealed her own—and Rose’s—fate.
The Tulip
Eaters
Antoinette Van Heugten
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
This novel is dedicated to my parents, Frans and Lony van Heugten, who fought in the Dutch resistance during World War II.
In their early twenties, they risked their lives for what they believed in. Their spirit and courage has inspired me in every endeavor.
They will always be my heroes.
Contents
PREFACE (#u401747fb-6b37-50c8-aa68-772892701f69)
CHAPTER 1 (#ue8b38f0f-ef2d-5af9-ad93-21cfefbe8f05)
CHAPTER 2 (#u77ee6d1e-cd6f-5268-889d-c47ea2c3baee)
CHAPTER 3 (#u0082369b-7dc3-520b-b718-cc45143e0d77)
CHAPTER 4 (#ueefda28c-439a-5a10-a9a9-b44e0575c263)
CHAPTER 5 (#uce541838-1f6f-5bee-b73e-15179c57312c)
CHAPTER 6 (#u457276ea-801f-5a4c-bf89-47a8d9cbbd8b)
CHAPTER 7 (#u4f146557-2f21-5fed-9731-341bcca78d56)
CHAPTER 8 (#uf8634a87-9ef0-5850-b130-200172ab80ba)
CHAPTER 9 (#ua6cc9dc7-9b6c-5e19-a8c8-2de89271522b)
CHAPTER 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 50 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 51 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 52 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 53 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 54 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 55 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 56 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 57 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 58 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 59 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 60 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 61 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 62 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 63 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 64 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 65 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 66 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 67 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 68 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 69 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 70 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 71 (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
EXCERPT (#litres_trial_promo)
PREFACE
We have no milk, no bread, no potatoes—just rotten peels. The boys now have to go far into the fields to pull frozen tulip bulbs from the ground. We grind the pulp and make thin soup and watery porridges from them. They are bitter, practically inedible, but we choke them down because otherwise we will starve.
—Anonymous Dutch housewife, circa 1944
During the Hongerwinter in 1944, a railway strike was ordered by the exiled Dutch government to further Allied liberation efforts. The Germans retaliated by placing an embargo on all food transports. Gas and electricity were cut off during one of the harshest winters in history. Potatoes and vegetables were long gone. There was no meat, milk, butter, coffee or sugar and not enough bread to feed one person, let alone a family. There was only one thing left to them in the barren fields.
Tulips.
Four and a half million people were affected by the famine. Over 20,000 starved to death. This represents the nadir of the war—Dutchmen forced to forage and choke down their national flower to stave off starvation. It is one of the great ironies of the Dutch occupation.
1
November, 1980
Nora balanced the grocery bag on one hip and inserted her key into the lock of the door leading from the garage into the house. This was the best moment of every day. Rose. Her beautiful baby—almost six months now. Every little thing she did was a revelation. How she raised her tiny hand to Nora’s face as she held her. How her wide eyes, the deepest of blues, reacted to the slightest change of tenor in Nora’s voice. How the warmth of her small body nestled into Nora’s when she took her into her arms. When she held Rose, Nora didn’t know where her own body ended and her daughter’s began.
“Mom?” she called. No response, but that was normal. This was usually when her mother put Rose into her tiny, ruffled bathing suit and swirled her around in the pool. Moving back from Amsterdam to live with her mother had been a blessing. The thought of Anneke and Rose at home playing while she worked filled her with gratitude—and today was no exception. Contentment warmed her as she thought of the love she and Anneke shared in caring for Rose. Grandmother, mother and child. Life was perfect.
Nora shifted the groceries higher onto her hip and glanced at the pile of mail on the entryway table. Nothing interesting. The newspaper lay open. She scanned the headlines. Iranian Phantoms and F-5 Tiger IIs Attack Iraqi Airfields Near Basra. Nora shook her head. It was already 1980. Would the Middle East ever right itself? Her eyes flicked down the page. Los Angeles, Comedian Richard Pryor Badly Burned Freebasing Cocaine. Big surprise, she thought.
She looked through the living room window and caught a shimmer of water from the pool. Joy flooded her. She would take the groceries into the kitchen and then put on her bathing suit. She couldn’t wait to hold Rose in her arms. Every evening it felt the same—as if she had been gone for days. That first touch of baby skin revived her spirit, calmed her soul.
She stepped into the living room, still holding the groceries. She heard them crash to the floor and then her own scream. “Mom!”
Anneke lay prostrate on the thick white carpet, her beautiful hazel eyes gaping at the ceiling, a single bullet hole through her forehead.
“No!” screamed Nora. She ran into the living room, fell to her knees and feverishly searched for a pulse. Her fingers pressed again and again into the soft skin of her mother’s neck, but there was nothing, nothing! Darkness exploded within her as she stared into Anneke’s vacant eyes. Nora’s heart leaped when she heard ragged breathing, until she realized that it was her own. “Oh, God, Mom!” she moaned.
Nora bent and cupped her mother’s face with shaking hands. As she pressed Anneke’s cold cheek against her own, Nora felt her heart slamming against her ribs, her breath now in hoarse gasps. Moaning, she closed her eyes, hoping wildly that when she opened them, this would all be a nightmare. But when she looked again, all she could see was a sickening stream of dark, ugly blood that ran from the gaping hole in Anneke’s forehead in a jagged path down her pale cheek. Then she released her mother’s face and saw the same slick blood on her own palms. Vomit rose up, but she fought it down. She stared at this face she loved. “Mom,” she whispered, “please, please don’t leave me!”
Half-choking, she looked at the blood on her shaking hands. Then she smelled it—a metallic odor of copper and rust—one she recognized all too well from the operating room. Her own mother’s blood on her hands! Bile rose in her again.
She studied the bullet hole. Scarlet blood had stained her mom’s silver hair, turning it a grisly purple, the flesh around it charred and black. The odor made Nora gag when she realized it smelled like burnt pork.
Moaning, she sat and clutched Anneke’s limp body and rocked her back and forth. Anneke’s slight frame swayed with the movement. Then Nora noticed that her gorgeous gray hair had been hacked off in ugly clumps, leaving stark patches of white scalp. She looked wildly around. Tufts of silver hair all over the carpet—feathers from a bird shot from the sky. “Why?” she cried. “Why would anyone do this to you?”
She drew back to shift her mom’s body onto the carpet. Anneke’s head lolled to one side. Nora screamed. The bullet had blasted a large hole through the back of her head. Nora felt faint. Gray brain matter mixed with blood hung out of Anneke’s skull. Nora tried to push the gray lumps back into her mother’s skull. They felt like buttery worms and smelled like spoiled eggs.
“Mom! Oh, Mom!” Gasping, she saw nothing but the hideous remains of her mother’s head and the slippery blood and brain matter on her own hands. The monstrous sight gripped her. She struggled up onto all fours and heaved waves of green bile onto the white carpet. Then she knelt, taking huge breaths, trying not to pass out. The silence felt endless. She heard only the ticking of the grandfather clock across the room, a relentless metronome to the macabre scene before her.
She roused herself. Her next thought was an iron spike into her brain. “Rose!” she cried. “Where are you?” Adrenaline shot through her as she jumped up and ran to the bassinet. No Rose! She raced into the nursery. The room was dark, the crib empty. “No!” Panic surged within her.
She rushed back into the living room and ran past her mother, desperate to search the other rooms. Running toward her bedroom, her heel caught on the rug and she fell. Pain seared through her right ankle.
Sobbing, she rolled over and found herself face-to-face with a total stranger. A man lay on his stomach, his right arm outstretched. His head was twisted toward her, right cheek pressed into the carpet. She screamed and tried to move away, but her ankle felt on fire. His face was so close that she could have felt his breath on hers—if he were alive. His black eyes looked as dead and cold as her mother’s. Then she saw the gun, dark and sinister, inches away from his outstretched arm and gloved fingers. Nora gasped, her heart in her throat. Who was he? And where, oh God, where was Rose?
She got to her feet, wincing at the pain in her ankle, and rushed into each of the other rooms. “Rose!” she cried. “Rose!” She limped back and knelt by her mother, sobbing. “Where is Rose, Mom? Where is the baby?” She appealed to Anneke as if she could still give Nora an answer. Anneke’s blank, unholy stare never moved from the ceiling. What in God’s name had happened? She rose unsteadily, favoring her ankle. Her body still shook. Who was the dead man? Why had he killed her mother? And Rose? Why would anyone kidnap her baby?
Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she ran to the front door and flung it open. She saw no one in the street, no one in the neatly groomed front yards. “Rose!” she screamed, as if her darling could answer her. She slammed the door and went back inside. Something on the carpet now caught her eye. As she knelt down and picked it up, she moaned. It was Rose’s tiny yellow hair band. Its cheerful flower had been ripped off and lay a few feet away. Then she knew. Rose was really gone. She clutched the flower to her breast and sobbed. One thought now pierced her mind.
Was Rose still alive?
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.
After a long moment, she turned back to the officers, who now had formed themselves into a U shape around the stranger’s body. She joined them. Someone had removed the black glove on the man’s right hand. Then something caught her eye. “What is that?”
“Fingerprint ink,” said Richards.
She felt her breathing quicken. “Will you be able to identify him?”
“If he’s committed a previous crime, there’s a good chance. Or if he was ever arrested. His prints are already on their way to the lab. They’ll find a match if there is one.”
She saw one of the investigators now walk in, an older man with a bone weariness about him. Nora wondered if years of seeing mutilated bodies had scored those wrinkles on his face. He stuck his sun-spotted hands into the worn pockets of his uniform and then raised bloodshot eyes to Richards. “Here’s what we know so far,” he said in a raspy voice. “No evidence of forced entry or defensive wounds on the victim’s body.”
Richards nodded. “So she let him in.”
“Them. There’s another set of footprints besides the dead guy and the victim.”
“But my mother would never have let strangers into the house,” Nora gasped. “She was always careful, especially when she was alone with Rose.”
The investigator nodded at one of the other officers, who brought over a bouquet of large, broken tulips, brilliant red and yellow, their petals hanging pitifully over shiny, silver wrapping. “He apparently posed as a delivery man,” he said. “We found them in the dining room, behind the door.”
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.
She knelt, dug a small hole in the hard ground and reached for one of the rain lilies she had bought yesterday, flowers that could withstand the blistering Texas sun, blooming only after a rainstorm. She’d bought them in honor of Rose, who had also come after a great storm, one in Nora’s life. Anneke put the plant gently into the ground, filled the hole with potting soil and tamped it firmly with the trowel. As she reached for the next flower, she heard the doorbell.
“Verdomme,” she muttered as she took off her dirty gloves and walked inside. Deliciously cold air hit her at the door, causing her to shiver slightly. She stepped to the bassinet and bent to give Rose a kiss. Her baby scent made Anneke smile. It was even better than the rain lily’s blooms. The doorbell rang again.
“Coming!” She hated her quiet afternoons with Rose to be interrupted. It was a golden, sacred time, not to be broken by some lost deliveryman who needed directions or, worse, a zealot who wanted to lead her to Jesus. At the door, she looked through the peephole, opened it and clapped her hands. “Flowers! Oh, how wonderful!” She saw a tall man with white hair and a craggy face holding a brilliant arrangement of tulips—yellows, reds, whites—looking as if they would burst from the silver paper wrapped around them.
As she reached for them, the smile on the man’s face disappeared. He threw the flowers inside and lunged for her. In seconds, he had gloved hands around her neck. He kicked the door shut and forced her backward.
Terrified, Anneke opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. His hands were tourniquets. She couldn’t breathe. She felt herself passing out, but then he released his grip. She stumbled, fell to the carpet and took deep, hacking gulps of air. Her mind reeled in horror. Who was this monster? What did he want?
The man stood over her. “Look at me, you bitch!”
Gasping, Anneke slowly hauled herself up and stared at the furious man, his white hair and black eyes. Dutch! He was speaking Dutch!
“Don’t you recognize me?” He grabbed her shoulders and then shook them—hard. When she did not respond, he shook her again in a wild rage.
“Please,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t know you.”
“Speak Dutch to me, you bitch. Or have you forgotten that, too?” He yanked her toward him and then shoved her down onto the living room floor. She tried to scramble away, but he was quick and kicked her fiercely in the ribs.
Anneke screamed and writhed on the white carpet. Her heart slammed in her chest, her legs would not obey her. “Stop!” she cried in Dutch. “Take what you want. My purse is on the counter! Just please, please, don’t hurt the baby!”
As if she knew what was happening, Rose began wailing. Anneke held up her arms, as if to ward off another blow. The man moved quickly to the bassinet and picked up the baby, swathed in a soft yellow blanket, and stood grinning at Anneke. “And who is this? The grandchild of a whore?”
“No!” He had the baby— Oh, God! She struggled to her feet and tried to wrest Rose from his arms. Rose’s screams became screeches. Every cry was a spike into Anneke’s heart. Rose! I have to get her—now!
The man blocked Anneke with one arm, holding the baby just out of reach of her desperate arms, taunting her with crazed black eyes. He thrust the infant high above him. Rose howled even louder, her face a florid red as the blanket fell to the floor. He then yanked off the baby’s yellow hair band and threw it onto the carpet.
“Stop!” Anneke fell upon him, her fists pummeling his arms and head, but her blows were futile. The man struck her across the face. It was as if a hammer had slammed into her jaw. God, he wasn’t going to stop until he killed them both!
“Get out of my way.” He pushed Anneke aside and dumped Rose in her bassinet.
Anneke rushed to the baby, who was purple from screaming, and clutched her precious Rose to her breast. I have her safe—in my arms! She whirled around and felt fury rise in her. “What is it you want! If it isn’t money, then what?”
He smiled at her, a twisted grimace. “I’ve waited for this moment for over thirty years.” His voice was soft and cruel. “You know me from the war. Can you guess now?”
Anneke quickly laid Rose in her bassinet, trying to breathe. Who could he be? “I don’t—really, I—”
He glared at her. “Isaac.”
Feeling shocked and confused, she stared at him. And then it hit her. “Isaac? Can it be?”
He smiled at her, a twisted grimace. “Remember me now?”
Her hand went to her throat. “Abram’s brother,” she whispered.
“Don’t even say his name, you Nazi! You and your husband.” He laughed. “What a shame he’s already dead. Killing him would have been a true pleasure.”
“What are you saying? I loved Abram—”
“You’re a goddamned liar!” He shook his fist. “You’ve always been a liar. Hiding here like the assassin you are, Mrs. de Jong. Your filthy name is Brouwer. And your husband—his was Moerveld.” He strode closer and stopped a foot away. “You ran away. You knew you’d be arrested for the traitor you are. Your neighbors would have hacked off your hair, marched you down the street in disgrace and thrown you into prison!”
“No!” she cried. “That’s not true!”
He pulled out a pair of scissors from his jacket pocket. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to do to you now.”
Anneke ran, but he thrust his foot out and tripped her. When she hit the floor, she screamed and scrabbled to fight him off, but he knelt on both of her arms. She was a pinned butterfly, desperate to escape.
With one hand, he grabbed her hair. With the other, he clutched the scissors and began savagely slicing off clumps of her fine, silver hair. With each cut, he threw the locks up into the air like a madman.
“Stop! Oh, God, stop!” she shrieked, watching her hair snow down around her. The more frantic his motions, the less precise his cuts. Black terror consumed her. She felt shooting pains as he gouged her scalp. Blood ran into her eyes as she screamed and tried to twist away. As if in communion, Rose began wailing from her bassinet.
As he hacked, Isaac ranted on. “No, dear Anneke, you tricked Abram into falling in love with you and then you betrayed him—and my entire family.”
“I did not!” she cried. “You, of all people, know I would never do that! I loved Abram and your family! I tried to help in every way I could—”
Isaac threw down the scissors and stood. Anneke tried to get up but fell back, sobbing. Struggling to her knees, all she could see were bloodied clumps of her hair strewn across the white carpet. She sat and cradled her head in her hands. When she pulled them away, they were covered in blood.
“Isaac!” She moaned and held up her crimson hands. “What in God’s name have you done?”
Isaac stood above her, pulled the pistol from his pocket and spat upon her. Anneke recoiled, sobbing. He was mad! What would he do to her—to Rose!
“Now admit it, all of it!” He pointed the gun at her head. His eyes speared hers, his voice molten metal. “Including what that bastard of a husband of yours did.”
“Hans?” Anneke looked up, unable to stem her tears. “He married me and brought me here. I was so numb and hopeless about Abram that I didn’t care where I went, as long as it was out of Holland.”
“You married your lover’s murderer!”
“Are you crazy?” she cried. “Abram was killed by the Nazis. Hans had nothing to do with it!”
“Can you truly sit here in front of me and deny it? Your boyfriend was jealous and shot my brother between the eyes. All the neighbors heard them raging at each other—over you.”
Anneke raised her bloody hands, imploring. “You’re wrong, Isaac. Hans could never hurt anyone. Yes, he was jealous of Abram. And Hans wanted me to love him. But I didn’t.”
“No, no, he killed my brother and you turned us all into the Groene Politie.”
“No! I was there!” she cried. “Abram and Hans were fighting, that much is true. But the police shot Abram—not Hans. I came running to try to stop them—”
“Stop lying!” His voice was a razor cut. “Your lover killed Abram and you brought the police with you in case that son of a bitch didn’t finish the job.”
“Isaac, I don’t know why the police were there!” she sobbed. “They must have followed me. You have to believe me.”
Suddenly he slapped her so hard she fell. It felt as if a bullwhip had sliced her face.
“How stupid do you think I am? We had witnesses! They came running when they heard that bastard of yours threaten to kill my brother if he didn’t leave you alone. By then Abram was dead.” Anneke put her bleeding head into her hands and moaned.
“What they did see was you standing there with the Politie by your side. Did you know that two days after Abram was murdered all of us were arrested, thrown on a train and shipped to Mauthausen?” He wiped away his tears with a rough gesture, his other hand still pointing the pistol at her. His voice was broken. “My whole family was gassed. Amarisa and I made it out.”
“Amarisa,” whispered Anneke.
“Yes,” snarled Isaac. “My brave sister. Would you like to hear what they did to her?”
“I can’t—”
“Can’t what? Hear that she was raped every day? That they smashed her leg when she took too long in the food line? That they slit her face from lip to ear?”
Anneke felt vomit rise in her throat. “Oh, God, Isaac, please believe me—”
He grabbed her by the collar with his free hand and pulled her up until her eyes were level with his, now pressing the cold gun barrel against her forehead. “Don’t you talk to me of love! You seduced my brother, promising you would find a way to get him out of the country.” He shook her hard. “�Foul spawn of a Nazi,’ my father said. �Apples don’t fall far from the tree, especially rotten ones.’”
She tried to pull away, but every wound he had inflicted had left her in agony, helpless. “Isaac, I wasn’t lying to you, or them! Why would I do such a thing?”
“Because you were a Nazi, just like your father. You haven’t forgotten about Joop, now have you?”
She sagged in his arms. “No,” she whispered, “that part is true. My father was a Nazi.”
He flung her onto the couch. “All you good Dutchmen kissing the Nazis’ boots. In 1940, there were 140,000 Jews in the whole country. Lucky for you and your SS father, almost all of us were rounded up in ’43 and forced to live Amsterdam. Like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Anneke hung her head. “But I’m innocent.”
“You know damned well that you went to every Dutch Nazi rally, every march, wearing your brown NSB shirt and swearing allegiance to that maniac! Pretending to steal coal and food from your SS father for us, when all along you were just reeling us in for the kill.”
“No, no!” Her eyes searched wildly around. She felt that her shame must be stamped in her eyes. “I was in the NSB and did go to the rallies,” she whispered. “My father made me.”
“And did he make you go out with charming SS officers?” His snarl was a cobra strike. “Don’t bother to deny it. I saw you myself, walking with some gallant German killer.”
Anneke hung her head. When she raised her eyes, she felt only dullness and defeat.
“Enough. You’re a liar and a murderer and you’re finally going to get what’s coming to you.”
Anneke fell to her knees. Hopelessness filled her. “Do what you want to me. I don’t care. Just please, please, don’t hurt the baby.”
Isaac pointed the pistol at her and shook his head. “No, I’m not finished with you yet. I want you to imagine my father starving in that miserable camp after you betrayed him.” He stepped closer, lowering the gun barrel until it touched the top of her head. “Do you know how we even knew he was alive? He got messages to us from a cell he shared with fifteen other men! Fifteen men with only one bucket to piss and shit in! He wrote on lousy scraps of toilet paper that he sewed into the lining of his filthy clothes. The laundry girl passed them on to us.”
Isaac choked up and then pressed the barrel harder against her head. “And do you know the first question my brother always asked when I snuck into whatever hellhole you found for him to hide in? �Where is Anneke? Is she all right? Tell her I love her.’”
“Oh, Isaac, I loved him, too—you must know that! And I protected you. What about the day you were walking down the Singel and were stopped by the Groene Politie? Don’t you remember?”
“You wore the NSB uniform, that’s what I remember,” he snarled.
“No, you know what I’m talking about. I pretended to fall off my bicycle and the Duitsers ran over to help me—”
“Because they saw your uniform and knew that you were a filthy Nazi, too.”
Anneke looked into his angry eyes. She had to make him understand! “No! I did it to distract them so you could get away. And you did!” Isaac still glared at her, but said nothing. “What about the food I brought your parents every week? And in the winter of ’44, when your mother was so sick, I brought medicine for her that I stole from my father.”
“What I remember about your Nazi father is that he turned in four of my friends. Shipped them off. Dead now. And we all know why you pretended to protect us, feed us and even made Abram fall in love with you.”
“Why?” cried Anneke. “Why would I have done that if I didn’t love all of you?”
“Because it was all part of your plan to turn in a Jewish family to win more NSB medals to pin on that Nazi outfit you wore. We were just another notch in your belt.”
“You don’t understand any of it.”
“I understand perfectly.” Then Rose wailed from her bassinet. Isaac picked her up and walked to Anneke, baby under one arm, pointing his pistol at her with the other. But Rose kicked and cried in his arms. He tried to switch her to his right side, but she screamed louder. “Shut up, godverdomme!”
Anneke saw her chance and sprang up. She kicked out at Isaac and caught him in the knee, grabbed Rose and ran. Off balance, Isaac recovered quickly, shoved the pistol in his pocket and dashed after her. Anneke bolted up the back stairway, adrenaline erasing her pain, and hurtled breathlessly into her bedroom with Rose under one arm. Hands shaking, she slammed and locked the door and then flung open a drawer on the night table. Where was it? Her hand closed around the cool metal.
Isaac banged on the door. “I’ll break it down, you bitch!” he yelled. “And when I do, I’ll kill you with my bare hands—and that child!”
Anneke flung the door open. With Rose on her hip, she moved toward him. Isaac lunged forward, his hands reaching for her throat. But when he saw what she held, he stopped cold.
“Get your hands behind you.” She pointed her pistol at the spot between his eyes. She waved its barrel gently up and down. A deadly calm filled her. When she spoke, her words sounded like silk. “I know how to use this, as you are well aware.”
Isaac’s face contorted with rage. “A Luger!” he shouted. “And you say you’re not a Nazi? You lying whore!”
Anneke gave him a small, bitter smile. “Shut your goddamned mouth,” she said softly. Then she saw him frantically try to free the pistol from his pocket. She clicked off the safety. Isaac froze. “Put your fucking hands behind your back.”
“No.”
Anneke hiked Rose higher on her hip and trained her eye down the sights of her pistol. “I never enjoyed killing. But you are threatening me and my family. If you don’t do as I say, what happens will be your fault—no one else’s.”
She saw the artery in Isaac’s neck bulge with each ragged breath he drew. He was clearly calculating his odds, but finally did as she said. The bastard was listening to her now, wasn’t he? “Turn and walk slowly down the stairs.” Rose began to whimper and struggle, but Anneke shushed her, jiggling her as they followed behind him.
Isaac quickened his descent, tensing as he glanced sharply behind him. Anneke jabbed the gun barrel into the back of his neck. “Run and I’ll kill you.”
As they neared the foot of the stairs, suddenly Anneke heard the front door open and someone burst into the front hallway. “Papa! Papa, are you here? It’s Ariel!” a man called in Dutch.
Anneke shoved the barrel into Isaac’s neck—hard. “Don’t move!” she said with deliberate calm. Isaac halted like a marionette whose string had been jerked.
She heard this Ariel’s voice coming from the dining room. “Papa!”
“Walk.” Anneke’s voice sounded like the slice of dueling swords as she prodded Isaac with the gun barrel. They crept farther down the back stairway in silent tandem. “Say one word and I’ll kill you both.” He gave her a deadly glare, but obeyed. At the bottom step, Rose slipped on Anneke’s hip and cried out. Isaac whirled around and managed to grab the baby and wrench the Luger out of Anneke’s hand.
“Rose!” Anneke leaped forward to wrest away the baby, but Isaac grabbed the pistol and shoved her aside. Then he turned and pressed the black barrel into Rose’s pink cheek. The baby twisted and screamed, but Isaac held her fast. Now he smiled.
“You! Walk here!” His voice was an evil whisper as he pointed the gun at her. “Slowly, very slowly.”
Horror gripped her as she saw the black pistol sink farther into Rose’s cheek. Then she saw the younger man, Ariel he called himself, on the far side of the room. “Help us!” she pleaded.
“Papa!” he cried. “Put down the gun!”
Barely breathing, Anneke continued her careful approach, trying not to hurry, to alert Isaac. But when she was a few feet away, he pressed the barrel against Rose’s temple so hard that the baby screamed. “Stop!” he thundered.
Anneke halted as he backed away from her. “Isaac!” she screamed. “Don’t!”
Ariel rushed toward them but stumbled on a small rug. By the time he righted himself, Isaac was on the far side, away from him and Anneke. “Ariel, don’t move!” he shouted.
“Papa, I can’t let you do this....”
“Stop right there!” he bellowed, swinging the barrel from Anneke to Rose and back again. “Or pick which one you want to die.”
“No!” he cried. “Neither!”
Isaac gave him a hard look. “Why the hell are you here?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Anneke saw Ariel inch closer to her. She felt a wild hope. Maybe he could stop him!
“I went to your apartment and couldn’t find you,” he said. “Then I saw the plane reservations and I knew—”
“Enough! Let me do what I have to do!” He clutched Rose tighter and pressed the barrel to her temple.
Anneke fell to her knees, sobbing. “You can’t kill her!”
“Now you will see what it is to watch a member of your family murdered.” His voice was a deadly whisper. “First her, then you.”
“No, please!” She had to do something. And then it hit her. “Wait—you don’t know!”
“Oh? And what don’t I know?”
“The baby...” Anneke choked on her sobs.
“Spit it out. It will be last thing you say before I kill you both.”
“Rose, she’s—” Anneke, still choking, uttered her next words. “She’s Abram’s granddaughter.”
“What?”
Anneke, racked with sobs, collapsed onto the carpet. “I was pregnant before Abram died,” she whispered. “I had Nora, his daughter....”
“Get up!” yelled Isaac. “This is just another one of your lies! You’d say anything to save her.”
Anneke struggled to her feet and stood shaking. She looked at Rose, still writhing in Isaac’s arms. Doomed. My darling Rose is doomed—because of me! And Nora—how will she—
Suddenly, Ariel sprang over the couch, but when he recovered his balance, Isaac had already taken aim at Anneke. The gunshot roared through the air. Anneke’s body jerked backward as blood spurted from her forehead.
“No!” shouted Ariel. He ran to her, knelt and felt wildly for a pulse. Her blood sluiced his hands, slick and hot. He looked up at Isaac. “You killed her!”
Isaac, still holding Rose, dropped the Luger as his knees buckled. Rose tumbled onto the white carpet, still wailing. Ariel saw Isaac’s eyes widen as he clutched at his throat and gasped for air. He fell to his knees, his face contorted.
Ariel rushed to him and cradled his head, moaning. “Papa? Papa, no!”
“My heart—” His voice was a strangled whisper. “Medicine...hotel.”
Frantic, Ariel looked around and then saw the phone on the end table. “I’m going to call for help.” He started to stand.
Isaac grabbed his son’s arm and pulled him down, spittle foaming at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were fading as color drained from them. “Too late for me,” he whispered. “The baby, take the baby!”
Ariel sobbed, holding his father close. “Papa, please!”
Isaac shook his head and held Ariel’s weeping face between his hands. His eyes struck Ariel like an army commander dying in battle. “She’s Abram’s...take her home, raise her Jewish. Promise me!”
“I can’t do that, Papa!”
“Yes, you can,” he said hoarsely. “You can and you must.”
“Please don’t make me!”
“Promise me!”
Ariel sobbed. “All right—I promise. I promise!”
Isaac nodded and dropped his hands from Ariel’s face. A half smile played upon his lips. “Abram...” he whispered.
Ariel watched as he convulsed and then was still. Ariel thrust his fingers into Isaac’s neck, digging for a pulse. Nothing. “No, no,” he moaned. Ariel stared at him and at Anneke, horrified, until he realized that Rose was twisting on the carpet, howling. Softly sobbing, he picked her up.
Then he heard the sound of a garage door churning. “Oh, God, what do I do?” He clutched Rose to his chest.
Then ran as fast as he could.
5
Nora stood in the blistering Houston sun at Anneke’s freshly dug grave and watched as her coffin was lowered. The funeral ceremony had been a dreary blur. Her black blouse and skirt, damp and clammy, clung to her like wet leaves. Feeling suffocated, she only half listened as the priest recited the Catholic rite. The priest had never known Nora or her mother. She had had to provide him with the highlights of Anneke’s life so he would have something to say.
After Hans died, Anneke had stopped going to church. Her mother had never told her why, nor did Nora ask. Nora had gone only for her father. He would have been crushed if she told him that she didn’t believe in the Pope. She still lit a candle for him at St. Anne’s—on his birthday and on the day he died. She tried to pray after lighting the candle. Just sitting in the silence, surrounded by the glow of stained glass that cast down prisms of color, she always felt restored.
She stared at the coffin in the ground. More candles to light, another dead parent to pray for. Nora glanced around her. It was pitifully sad. She now realized how rarely her parents had strayed outside the world of two they had built and then guarded from outsiders. Other than Marijke, a few colleagues from the hospital stood awkwardly around the grave, telegraphing bleak looks in her direction showing that they were clueless about what to say. How do you comfort the daughter of a brutally murdered woman?
If it hadn’t been for Marijke holding her up, Nora knew she would not have gotten through it. So many times she had thought she would faint, run or scream.
The 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.”
Nora turned away, forcing herself not to cry. She heard her voice come out in a defeated whisper. “Me, too.”
They walked silently back to her car. Before Richards turned off the path toward his own vehicle, Nora grasped his arm. “What about prints? Did the crime investigators find any?”
Richards shook his head. “We have the killer’s prints, obviously.”
“No, no! I mean the kidnapper. He didn’t necessarily wear gloves, did he? Surely he touched something—the front doorknob, the furniture, maybe even Rose’s bassinet.”
“Well, if the killer wore gloves, we have to assume his accomplice did, too. Besides, we’ve dusted the entire place,” he said wearily. “We did find a few latents, but the FBI isn’t ready to say anything until they’ve run them through Quantico.”
“And when in hell will that be?”
Richards looked at her, surprised. “Soon, Nora. We’re pressuring them.”
Nora thought a moment. “What about footprints?”
“It appears that there was a struggle and movement on the staircase to your mother’s bedroom, and other footprints in the entryway and dining room.”
She looked up at him, feeling almost hopeful. “Maybe they were looking for something. Maybe that’s why they were all over the house?”
Richards shook his head. “We combed the house thoroughly taking prints, seeing if anything seemed to be disturbed. But other than the furniture that was in disarray, nothing else was tossed. When you confirmed that your mother’s jewelry and other valuables were still in the house, it might fit the profile of a robbery gone wrong. That might account for your mother’s murder, but it doesn’t explain the kidnapping. The last thing a robber caught red-handed would do is to take off with an infant.”
“Maybe they didn’t find what they were looking for and the struggle got out of hand before they could.”
“Who knows? It still doesn’t make sense that the accomplice didn’t steal something.”
“Except my child.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine that my mother would let Rose out of her sight or out of her arms, no matter what the struggle.” She looked up at Richards and finally let her tears fall. She was furious to feel so helpless.
Richards took Nora’s shaking hands into his own. They were warm, but Nora drew no comfort from them. He probably does this for every mother with a missing child, she thought. She withdrew and began pacing again. If she kept her feet moving, maybe something else would come to her. Something had to come to her.
“Once the FBI processes the prints we found in the house, we’ll send them on to the Netherlands. Maybe the killer had a record and they are on file. Maybe the partials we found—they must have belonged to the accomplice—will turn something up, as well.”
“You told me it was unlikely that latent prints would do us much good.”
“We’ll see.”
“�We’ll see, we’ll see.’ That’s all I ever hear from you people.”
She stood and started to walk to her car. She flung a look back at Richards and spit out her next words. “I’m sick of this. No one is doing enough. You don’t have one damned lead about my daughter and she’s been gone for three days. I’m going to figure this out for myself.” She flung open the car door and started to climb in.
Richards held the door open. “Nora, wait!” His voice brooked no argument. “You can’t do that. You don’t have the resources to track this down and you’ll just do more harm than good.”
Nora yanked on the door, but he held it fast. “Let go,” she said in a menacing voice.
“Obviously, this isn’t the time for us to continue this conversation,” he said tersely. “We’ll discuss it later. But there’s one last thing you need to keep in mind. You have no choice right now but to stay at home.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you have to be there if the kidnapper calls.”
Nora got in and slammed the door closed. She felt a cold resolve as she rolled down the window and met his hard glance. “You know as well as I do that if that bastard wanted a ransom, he would have called days ago.” She refused to give way to tears. “I’m going to find my daughter. You tell your people to lead, follow or get the fuck out of my way.”
6
Late that evening, Nora sat in the living room with Marijke. Both were exhausted after the funeral and Richards’s discouraging news. The police were tapping her telephone, but no call had come from the kidnapper.
“I don’t think I can take any more today,” mumbled Nora.
Marijke poured Nora a glass of cold white wine and then one for herself. “Maybe we should try to sleep.”
Nora glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s only ten. I’m too wound up. How can I sleep when Rose is still out there?”
“Nora,” said Marijke softly. “You’ve been through so much today. The funeral, Rose, Richards...”
“I know, I know.” She joined Marijke on the couch and sipped her wine. Instead of calming her, it made her more anxious.
Marijke suppressed a yawn. “I think I might turn in.”
Nora noted the dark circles under her friend’s eyes. “You should. You’ve been shoring me up for three whole days.”
“I got a call from the nursing home. My mother isn’t doing well. After two strokes, I’m not sure how much longer she can hang on.”
“Oh, God, Marijke. I’ve been so selfish. How old is she now?”
“Eighty-five.” Marijke sighed. “I’ll have to go back soon.”
“Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” No, she thought sadly. I won’t.
Nora stood and patted Marijke’s shoulder. “Go to bed and get some sleep. We’ll both feel better in the morning.”
Marijke yawned. “Don’t stay up too long.”
Nora summoned a smile. “I won’t.” After Marijke said good-night,, Nora paced for an hour, waiting for something. Someone. For Rose. Her wandering was useless, but she couldn’t face her empty bed and the nightmares she knew would come. She sat on the couch, staring at the Sony Walkman that Anneke had given Nora on her birthday, a wildly extravagant gift at two hundred dollars, the first gadget of its kind. Anneke had known how much Nora loved listening to music while she jogged at Memorial Park.
Nora stood and continued her pacing. As she passed the front window, a dark, official-looking Ford pulled up to the curb. A man got out and strode up the walkway. Nora looked through the peephole and opened the door before he could ring.
“Lieutenant?” Panic rose in her throat. “Have you found something?”
Richards shook his head. “Not yet.” He stood awkwardly on the doorstep. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” She stepped back and led him into the living room, avoiding the thick blue blanket she had spread over the bloody carpet. She couldn’t bear the sight of it.
When they sat, Nora turned to him. “I’m confused. Why are you here?”
He gave her a sheepish look. “I thought I’d drop by after you chewed me out this afternoon.”
Nora felt her color rise. “Oh...that. I was completely out of line.”
“No, I was thinking like a cop. I can’t imagine what you’re dealing with, even though I’ve seen so many parents go through it.”
“I owe you an apology.”
“No, no, I have a daughter, too. I can’t imagine how I would feel if the same thing happened to her.”
“Where is she now?”
“With her mother.” He loosened his tie and sighed. “Melissa’s autistic. It’s been a hard road.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” Nora felt terrible as she watched him stare at the floor. “How severe is it?”
He looked at her with pained eyes. “She’s nonverbal, has been since birth. Now she’s seven and things aren’t much better. She needs round-the-clock care. I couldn’t be there. My schedule.” He shrugged. “My wife couldn’t take it anymore and left.”
Nora didn’t know what to say. She held up a wineglass. “Red or white?”
He smiled. “Whatever you’re having.”
She waited for him to settle back and take a swallow. “I just realized I don’t even know your first name.”
“Nathan.”
She nodded. “Well, you didn’t have to come over so late just to apologize.”
“I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay,” he said. “But you’re right, it’s late. If you want me to go—”
Nora shook her head. “Oddly enough, I don’t. I’m terrified.”
“I hope you believe me when I say we’re doing everything we can.”
Nora felt a catch in her throat. “You don’t think you’ll find her, do you?”
“It’s way too early to think like that.”
“But how can I think about anything else? No witnesses. A murderer no one can identify. A kidnapper who hasn’t called for a ransom. My baby gone, maybe forever.” Her head fell into her hands.
She felt his arm around her shoulder. She shook her head and sobbed.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her,” she whispered. “She’s my whole life.”
“I know. We’ll find her, I promise. You should try to get some sleep.”
They sipped the rest of their wine in silence and then she stood and walked to the foyer. Richards followed. “I’m going to do everything I can to bring Rose back to you.”
Nora felt a rush of gratitude. “I know you will. And I want to thank you—for caring.”
She watched him walk to his car, get in and drive away.
7
Nora held a steaming cup of coffee in her hands. She had slept fitfully, alternately waking in a cold panic without knowing why until the terrifying realization washed over her that Rose was really gone, maybe hurt, maybe dead. Interlaced with those terrors were images of her mother, bloody and battered, begging Nora to help her.
She glanced at the clock, her vision blurred, as if her eyes were filled with sand. Eight o’clock. She sipped the hot coffee gratefully, hoping that it would give her the strength to make it through another day. She looked at Marijke, calmly knitting on the couch.
The phone rang. Nora went to the kitchen and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Nora? It’s John Bates.”
Oh, God. The hospital. Her job. “Hi, John.”
“Nora, how are you? I can’t believe it. Your mother, your daughter—it’s awful.”
“I know, I know. And I’m sorry, but I just don’t know when I’ll be back. I have five surgeries this week, but—”
“Don’t worry. I’ve already covered them for you.”
Relief swept through her. “Thank you, John. I know how shorthanded you are.”
“I’ve told Personnel you’re on a leave of absence for a while.”
“I pray I’ll have Rose back soon, but I can’t even think about work now.”
“It’s a terrible situation.” There was an awkward pause. “You know I’ll give you as much time as I can.”
“I understand.” Nora closed her eyes. He couldn’t promise to keep her job open. Residencies like the one she had were rare. There were scores of young doctors who would kill to take her place. “John, how long a leave do I have?”
“I’ve bought you two weeks so far.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Call me when you hear anything. We’re all thinking about you.”
“Please thank everyone for me. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”
“Of course.”
Nora hung up and stared across the room. She had completely forgotten about work. God, was it only a few days ago that she had operated on Rita? Nora’s eyes felt gritty and raw as tears welled up and coursed down her cheeks. She remembered her dismay when she diagnosed the three-year-old with a brain stem tumor. And although she would have preferred a less dangerous course of action, the magnitude of Rita’s tumor forced Nora to perform a surgery that might kill her. She’d had no choice but to go in and pray that she could sufficiently debulk the tumor and give Rita a fighting chance.
Nora could still feel the nausea that had gripped her when she had opened Rita’s tiny skull. The cancer had spread, its evil tendrils wrapped around the ganglia of the lower hemisphere of her cerebellum and had already crept through the opening to her spine. There was nothing she could do. Then, as Nora began to close, Rita’s frail heart simply stopped beating. In her mind’s eye, she saw the monitor flatline. Her stomach clenched. She would never get used to the dread of that long walk from the O.R. to the waiting area. The mother had rushed toward her, had taken one look at her eyes and wailed—a keening that filled Nora’s ears even now.
And what about Michael, a seven-year-old whose malignant brain tumor had returned? The brave little boy had made Nora promise that she would do his operation. Then there was Alana, a teenager, terrified by the blindness caused by a tumor pressing on her optic nerve. Nora dreaded letting them down. But if she didn’t have Rose, she didn’t care about her job, about anything.
Her coffee was now cold and she felt too tired to pour herself another cup.
Rose, Rose. Each day that passed without a sign or information of her abductor meant that the chance she’d be found decreased dramatically. Thinking that Rose might be one of those kids, sought for years and then lost for all time, made Nora desolate. “We can’t just sit here,” she said through clenched teeth.
“What else can we do?” Marijke asked. “We have to let the police here and in Holland do their jobs. I know you hate this, Nora, but we have to be patient.”
“I’m sick of waiting.” Nora stood and paced.
“Then let’s do something productive.”
Nora heard the very Dutch, let’s-get-on-with-it tenor in her voice. “What do you suggest?”
“Have you thought about whether you want to stay in this house when Rose comes back?”
Nora sank to the floor in her old jeans and T-shirt, surprised by her friend’s question. “I haven’t given it a moment’s thought.”
“What do you think you will do?”
“I never want to live here again. I couldn’t bear it.”
Marijke put down her knitting needles and stood. “So maybe we should just start packing things up? Wouldn’t that be more positive than just sitting here feeling trapped? Besides, I’ll have to go home soon and I don’t want you to have to do this alone.”
“God, Marijke, I’m so sorry. Of course, you have to go back. Is there more news about your mother? Is she worse?”
“She’s the same, but there’s also my job.” She poured herself another cup of coffee. “The director has subtly informed me that I must return soon. He knows I’m up for tenure, so I can’t risk disobeying him.”
“Damn. You told me you couldn’t stay much longer, but I didn’t want to think about it. It’ll be hell for me without you here.”
Marijke looked stricken and Nora forced a smile. “No, I’ll be fine. I always pull through. And I’ll let you know the moment I hear something.”
“Surely there must be someone you can call when I go?”
“Well, it’s embarrassing, but the answer is no.” Now she hesitated, avoiding Marijke’s gaze. “When I came back to the States, I was still broken-hearted about Nico.”
She hated hearing the sadness in her voice. Nora thought briefly of her two years in Amsterdam, the happiest of her life, and her fellowship with Dr. Jan Brugger, one of the world’s top researchers in brain cancer. It had been intense, thrilling, each day more fascinating than the next, and she somehow had become the superstar of his program, the reason that John Bates had contacted her to come work for him in Houston.
Nico. Falling in love with him, living together in perfect happiness. Until it all fell apart. She had so tried not to dwell on him and their tortured breakup, his refusal to move to Houston with no future for himself in America. Nora still felt a stabbing regret. She glanced at the silver ring of his she still wore, its tulip design delicate, lovely.
“Nora?”
Nora returned to the present. “I didn’t want to be around anyone except my mother. And she understood that I needed to be left alone until I could get my life back on track. Then just as I started meeting people, I found out that I was pregnant. What a shock! But so exhilarating. It eclipsed my life. I didn’t have time for anything else.”
She saw Marijke give her a sideways glance. “You’re still in love with him.”
Nora avoided her gaze. “No, I don’t think about him anymore.”
“Hmm,” murmured Marijke. Nora was relieved when she said no more about it.
She glanced at the silver-framed photograph on the coffee table. Rose’s newborn face was red and scowling, as if birth had not been the liberating experience it was cracked up to be. She stared out with her big eyes and fierce wisps of copper hair. Nora felt comforted. It made Rose look as if she had come into the world a fighter, a survivor. Like herself.
Marijke slipped her knitting into her bag. “So, if you’re not going to stay here, why don’t we start packing up boxes?”
“Not Rose’s room.”
“Sure. But we can work here and then tackle your mother’s bedroom.”
Nora was so deathly sick of waiting and of the adrenaline rushes that plagued her that Marijke’s words brought her a welcome sense of purpose. She stood and dusted off the seat of her jeans. “All right. You start here. I think I’ve got some empty boxes in the garage.”
“Fine.” Marijke stood.
“Wait a minute,” said Nora. “Do you suppose the killer and the kidnapper might have been looking for something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But the investigators said there seemed to be a struggle—footprints up and down the stairs.” She rubbed her chin, thinking. “What if killing my mother wasn’t the only thing they came for? And we still have no idea why they’d take Rose.”
“Nora, maybe you’re just grasping at straws.”
“But what can it hurt? We’re going to pack up all of this stuff, anyway—why not search for a clue?” Possibilities rushed through her mind. “Something my mother had that they needed? Something that could give us insight into why this nightmare happened?”
Nora thought she saw Marijke bite her lip. “We have to pack up everything, anyway, and if we do a thorough job, who knows what we’ll come up with?”
“There must be a link between my mother’s bizarre murder and that man on the floor. But what?” Her eyes now fixed upon Rose’s bassinet, a cruel reminder that pierced right through her.
Marijke returned to the couch and motioned for Nora to sit, but Nora remained standing, energized by her theory. “Look, the police searched the house, but how much time did they really spend looking? Their objective was physical evidence, not motive. And one guy said he could tell by the footprints that two people went upstairs. Maybe that’s what we should focus on.”
Marijke shrugged. “If the FBI and all those policemen can’t find a connection, how can we?”
Nora felt excitement for the first time since that terrible evening. “Look, we’re going to search every nook and cranny of this house. We’ll go inch by inch until we find something—anything—that might shed light on the murder.”
“Nora, even if we do find some motive, how will that help us find Rose?”
“Because the two have to be linked. Mom was Dutch. The forged Dutch passport, the Dutch money on the killer—these aren’t coincidences. Maybe the accomplice panicked, grabbed Rose and then ran away, not thinking of the consequences.”
“But even if we find out why your mother was killed, how will that explain why his accomplice would risk kidnapping Rose? And why wouldn’t he already have called demanding a ransom?”
Nora saw Marijke react to what must have been Nora’s look of disappointment. “But,” said Marijke kindly, “anything is worth trying at this point.” She stood. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
Nora hugged her, the most positive reaction she had mustered since that awful day. She went to the kitchen counter and picked up a pad of paper and a pen. She chewed on the plastic cap, her brow furrowed. Then her eyes cleared and she wrote furiously on the pad. She tore off two pages and handed one to Marijke.
“Here’s a list. You start in Mom’s bedroom. I’ll look downstairs. Even if we don’t find anything, it will give me something to do instead of sitting by the phone going crazy.”
Marijke glanced at the page Nora had handed her. “What am I looking for?”
Nora shrugged. “I don’t really know. Anything. Old papers or letters, documents, something hidden away. If there’s anything at all, it won’t be sitting out in the open. I’ll start down here with the oldest files in my father’s study. Who knows where they would hide things?”
Marijke stood and folded her arms. “Nora, do you really think they would have kept incriminating documents?”
“Maybe not, but what else can we do but try?”
“Vooruit! I will begin.” She disappeared down the hall.
Four hours later, Nora, still sitting on the study floor, looked at the cardboard boxes now packed with books, files of financial papers and tax returns, small Delft Blue plates and figurines. The sad detritus of over thirty years—all she had left of her mom and dad. She looked around her. In a way, it was the souls of two people she was packing into those boxes, fragments of two lives not only unfinished, but unlived. She had found nothing relevant from their past, but every object had evoked a memory. In her mind’s eye, she saw her father’s wide, gentle hands holding a thick book with a look of pleasure on his face. The needlepoint pillow nestled into her mother’s chair, its profusion of roses like the ones Anneke had tended so passionately in her garden.
Nora stood, her legs cramped from sitting cross-legged while poring over her father’s files. She glanced outside. The fiery Houston sun was setting in a bath of surreal colors. Probably pollution, she thought. She walked to her father’s desk, picked up a framed photo and studied it. A dark-haired, beautiful Anneke stared out at her, a quiet smile on her face. The photo, she knew, had been taken in 1946, the year her parents married. She studied the background. Was it Holland or Houston? The sepia backdrop and faded black-and-white figures told her nothing.
She studied her father’s expression—proud and happy. He had been the affectionate one, a disciplined academic with one soft spot—his daughter. She’d never known him to be anything other than patient, kind and fair. She stared at the smaller photo next to it, Hans pulling a red wagon up the hill at Hermann Park, while a five-year-old Nora waved and smiled.
Her eyes blurred with tears. Her mother had had terrible bouts of depression, often emanating an all-consuming sadness. Sometimes they would make her angry; other times she’d withdraw to her garden or stare out of the small bay window next to her bed. Nora’s poor father had never seen Rose, had never known the relaxed woman Anneke had become during the years after his death.
As a child, whenever Nora would try to touch Anneke’s arm or awaken her from what seemed to be some kind of trance, Anneke would not react, as if her mind were elsewhere and her soul had fled. It had frightened Nora as a child and even more now.
Where had Anneke disappeared in those moments? Could it have something to do with the man who killed her? Why didn’t she ever tell me? How will I bear it if Rose never comes back to me—if I’ve lost both of them without any answers? Nora heard a keening cry, an animal in the wild, lost by its pack, howling in the dead of winter. Only after she had heard the piteous noise did she realize it had come from her.
She looked over at the door to Rose’s nursery and walked into the dark room. Rose’s sweet smell, which had permeated the house, had started to fade. Nora panicked. What if she forgot what Rose looked like? The tiny details of her chubby cheeks, the unique spectrum of blues in her eyes...would they fade, too? Would she forget all the features that made up the Rose she adored, the minute, vital things that no one knew but her mother? And if she forgot those, would Rose—wherever she was—know instinctively that her mother’s image of her had faded, feel it and then give up?
“No!” She grabbed a photo of Rose and, through blurred tears, studied each of her features—every crinkle of her smile, every shade of her flushed cheeks, every pixel of color that made her eyes the only ones Nora believed in.
She would find Rose. Rose would be safe. Her baby would come back to her. To think anything else was a black road to madness. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the dining room and stared at herself in the huge mirror over the china cabinet. The light of dusk that sifted through the plantation shades cast a fading glow. Nora felt she was looking at herself in a different century, like the wedding photograph of her parents, which had branded itself in her mind.
In the photo, Anneke sat without smiling, her dark, long hair and eyes somehow resigned, the terrible fragility of her thin body, her white skin a sharp contrast to the dark hair and eyelashes. A second look at herself in the mirror told Nora that she was her mother, her coal-smudged eyes set in skin too-pale, paper-white.
Turning away, she wondered if she should have acceded to Anneke’s pleas that she live with her. If she hadn’t agreed, at least her mother would be alive and she would still have Rose. No, she could not have done otherwise. When she saw her mother’s radiant face as she’d exited the blurred Customs door in Houston, she’d known that there was no other choice. Her mother’s piercing look of longing and love had overwhelmed her.
And Nora did need her. When she found out that she was pregnant, it had sealed their commitment to each other, walking the ancient path of life: mother, daughter, granddaughter.
She wiped away her tears and looked at the dining table, so dark, heavy and worn. Four plain chairs surrounded it, the fourth rarely hosting a guest. Although born in America, Nora was raised in an undeniably Dutch home. Dinner at six every evening—meat, potatoes, gravy and applesauce—vegetables optional. And canned, never fresh. Family meals passed through her mind, the quiet murmur of Dutch as they related the small details of their day. The house always spotless, the stoep scrubbed every day with her mother’s hard bristle brush and a cake of old-fashioned soap. Work was work, duty was duty, family was private.
As she walked through the downstairs hall, it struck Nora that Anneke had changed nothing since Hans’s death. Every object on the walls and tables, every stick of furniture, every candlestick and piece of silver, was precisely the same as it had been when Hans drew his last breath. Did it give her comfort to keep everything the same? Did she love him?
The banging of opening and closing drawers from upstairs brought Nora back to the present. Marijke had taken her instructions to heart.
Opening the hall closet, Nora pushed the winter coats aside and looked at the floor. Nothing. She ran her fingers down the row of jackets and suddenly felt something familiar, the coat Anneke had bought for Hans only months before he died. His cancer had made him so weak that he was freezing all the time. Nora tried to imagine what that felt like—to have Siberia in your bones. Raising the thermostat to its highest setting hadn’t helped. Anneke had abandoned the Dutch rule against extravagant spending and bought him a full-length navy cashmere coat. From the moment he slipped it on, Nora knew that he would never take it off. On the morning he died, it was wrapped tightly around him, as if he had created his own shroud to avoid further troubling his wife or daughter. She crushed her face into the soft sleeve, wishing he were here now to help her.
An hour later, she was finished. And not one step closer to any discovery than when she began. She felt too exhausted to cry. She heard footfalls as Marijke came downstairs and into the hallway. Marijke looked at her and shook her head.
Nora closed her eyes. Maybe she should take a nap. She hadn’t slept more than a few hours at a time since that horrible day. And Marijke must be dead tired, too. As Nora watched her open the door and walk into the garage, she felt a stab of guilt. Had she had taken terrible advantage of the fortuitous visit of her dear friend? If her mother died, Marijke would never forgive herself for not being there. Well, a few hours’ sleep might give them both the strength they needed to carry on.
But then she thought of the attic. She hadn’t been up there since she was a small girl, playing hide-and-seek with Hans. She went into the hallway and looked up at the trapdoor, its worn rope dangling from the ceiling. Despite Nora’s height, it took her two attempts to grab it and yank it down. The old wooden stairs finally released and lowered, groaning as dust and dirt fell onto her head.
Nora wiped her eyes, stared up into the dusty abyss and then went into the kitchen. She opened the drawer where her father had always kept the flashlight and then walked back to the rickety ladder that hung with an air of crooked despondency. She picked her way carefully up, waving the flashlight back and forth as soon as she entered the murkiness of the attic.
The light traveled over rose-colored insulation and, through dust motes, the fetid air clutched at Nora’s throat. Almost immediately, rivulets of sweat ran down her face. It must be over a hundred up here! Once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she spotted a row of old cardboard boxes. She opened every one, sneezing at the dust that rose from them.
Their contents were unremarkable. Her grade school records, baby clothes and photos of her with her parents in Galveston in summer. Her heart lurched as she saw the happiness on both their faces. Gone, gone.
When she closed the last box, she stared at her filthy hands as sweat streamed down her back. Weary and disappointed, she took another look around. She saw nothing other than the boxes she had already opened. In typical Dutch fashion, her mother had stacked them neatly against the wall, had even organized them chronologically.
She took a final glance at the marshaled nothingness around her. This was getting her nowhere. And the attic had been her last resort. Surely this was where secrets would have been hidden if they existed at all?
She swept the dim light around one last time. It fell upon a broken chair, an old broom and a pair of heavy work shoes, the kind favored by her father. She pointed the faint beam into every corner, but saw nothing except disabled toys, crippled furniture, old mattresses and torn boxes that revealed their useless contents with an almost defiant air.
She knew why her mother had saved these things. It was the Dutch way—the conviction that the moment anything was thrown away, it would be needed again. Well, it was all just junk.
She turned to go back downstairs. Her feet felt leaden, her mind reduced to dull panic. At ground level, she would call to Marijke, only to learn that she, too, had found nothing. And then she would fall into her bed and try, try, try, to make another plan—no matter how crazy—to do something to find Rose.
Thoughts tumbled over in her mind like laundry in a dryer. Why hadn’t she found even a hint of why this son of a bitch had come? Surely there had to be something that would give a clue as to what she should do next!
She again pointed the beam into every corner, but saw nothing. She had turned to go back down when the flashlight shifted in her hand and reflected something metallic in the far corner. She pushed aside a few empty boxes and looked. On the dusty floor was a small container about the size of a toolbox. She wiped the dirt off of the label. Blank. Probably empty. She picked it up. It rattled.
She sat on the broken chair. It wobbled, but held her weight. She put the metal box on her lap. Its clasp was broken, as if it had been smashed long ago. She struggled to breathe as she pulled back the lid and aimed the wavering light at its contents.
Nora stared into it, afraid of what she might find. Could this be it? Could it contain the clue that would connect the dots to these horrible events?
Hands shaking, she cradled the box in her lap and aimed the light down. A sheaf of papers—yellowed onionskin with battered edges bound by a green ribbon. She untied it and spread the papers on her lap. She realized she was holding her breath. She stared at the green ribbon as it fell to the floor, a satin spiral. Would it be a clue, a Pandora’s box, or worse—nothing?
She took a breath, picked up the flashlight and pointed it at the first page. It was thick paper that seemed to be an identification document. The name at the top was “Anneke Brouwer.” A small black-and-white photograph of her mother stared back, unsmiling. Nora felt almost dizzy. Her mother’s maiden name, as far as she knew, was de Bruin. Moving her index finger slowly down, she peered at the card more closely.
“Damn!” Her hands shook so that the beam of light skittered wildly. She gripped it tighter and looked again. The card was dated July 1945 and stated that Anneke was born in 1920. It had an arresting illustration at the top, a black-and-red flag with a triangle in the center. The emblem of the Dutch lion with sword and arrows stood in front of a blue-and-white shield. Nora felt confused. She knew what the Dutch flag looked like, and this was not it. But it was the words in flamboyant print underneath that caused her to gasp. “Nationale-Socialistische Beweging.”
“What?” she whispered. “The NSB?” She knew enough Dutch history to know that during the war, this was the reviled organization of the Dutch Nazis. “No!” she cried out. “It can’t be!” She dropped the stack of papers as if they were coiled rattlesnakes.
Her mother an NSB-er? A Dutch Nazi? The one thing Anneke had told Nora when she had asked about the war was that she had fought for the resistance. Nora strained to process this new information, to see where its edges might fit into the puzzle about Anneke’s murder and Rose’s kidnapping.
She snatched up the documents and peered at the card again. It was incomprehensible! The print before her eyes shimmered and rippled, a mirage in the desert. Dizziness filled her head as she felt the flashlight slip. Her sweaty forehead fell into her filthy hands.
She sat back and stared at the brown dust that had sprinkled over the documents, the lockbox and her hands. What did all this mean? Who was her mother? A hero fighting the Germans or a fanatic Dutch Nazi carrying out Hitler’s version of the New Order?
Moments later, she raised her head. She had to go on. With shaky hands, she laid the first page on the floor and picked up the second. It bore an ornate wax stamp. She picked up the flashlight and examined it, some kind of legal document so translucent and brittle it could have been an ancient scroll. The bloodred seal cracked in two as she raised the paper into the watery beam of light. A small photo of her father as a young man was stapled to the right corner. Unaccustomed to the legalistic Dutch, it took her a while to make out the gist of it.
In the Name of Her Royal Highness
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands,
This action is hereby brought against the Dutch Citizen hereinafter named
HANS ALBERTUS MARTINUS MOERVELD
For the Murder of
ABRAM DAVID ROSEN
By virtue of the Complaint sworn to before
The Royal Court on this
Sixteenth Day of September
In the Year
Nineteen Hundred and Forty-Five
* * *
Nora gasped. Her eyes flew to the middle of the page, where the charge was stated in bold print, along with the Oordeel, the Court’s decision. Only two words.
WAR CRIMINAL
And the Vonnis, the sentence.
DEATH.
8
Nora stared at the paper, the words blurred. Finally, she calmed herself enough to focus. Her father’s real surname must have been Moerveld. And the paper stated he had been tried in absentia for murder. Tears of disbelief fell onto her cheeks. Her father—a murderer? Of a Jewish man during wartime?
“No, Papa, no!” she whispered. It couldn’t be. Imagining him, she saw a gentle smile on his face as she sang “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” for her first-grade class at Poe Elementary; felt his strong arms pick up her bruised body from the street the first time he tried to teach her to ride a two-wheeler; the cozy comfort as she sat on his lap as he read La Fontaine to her. Whoever the man described in this document, it was not—could not—be her father.
And Abram Rosen, who was he, and why would Papa be accused of killing him? The attic air choked her. No, no, no! She could not accept this. Wiping her eyes, she looked at the last line of the document and that one, black, irrevocable word: Death.
She glanced through the remaining papers and then folded them into a clumsy parcel. She would take them downstairs to Marijke. She felt a new stab at their import, but also something electric. This had to be the “something else.”
As she started to put the papers back into the metal box, she peered into it. Something was stuck to its metal side. She scrabbled her fingernails against it until it came free. A small booklet, a Dutch passport. A stern, younger version of her father stared back at her. Underneath was the name “Hans Moerveld.”
Why had he changed his name to “de Jong”? And when had he and Mama decided to abandon their true identities? If the documents were true—and how could she dispute them—then they both had urgent reasons to flee. Papa must have whisked Anneke away to avoid arrest.
Nora thought back to her college days, when she had embarked on a self-made path to learn about her parents’ lives during the war. Neither would speak of it. They each insisted that she not ask more questions. Their admonition had, of course, fueled her intention to do precisely that.
She’d learned that after Dutch liberation day on May 5, 1945, known NSB-ers—men and women—had been dragged down the streets and jeered at by their neighbors and countrymen. Many were paraded around with shaved heads to further demonstrate how reviled they were. Some were pelted with rotten fruit, tied up and beaten.
Could that be why the killer had hacked off clumps of Anneke’s hair? God, what other reason could there be? Her mother a Nazi and her father a murderer?
And this killer—whoever he was—maybe he had come back for revenge. Maybe he’d also meant to kill Papa but didn’t know he was already dead.
Nora’s head spun. But why did this bastard wait thirty years? And even if Mama had been an NSB-er, what could she have done that would warrant such a long-held hatred and brutal death?
9
Clutching the metal box, she clambered down the folding attic stairs and ran into the living room. “Marijke!” she cried. “Come quick!”
Marijke hurried in from the garage with a sheaf of papers in her arms. “Wat is er? Are you all right?”
Nora grabbed her arm. The papers Marijke held fell as Nora pulled her down onto the couch next to her. Hands shaking, she put the metal box onto Marijke’s lap.
“What is it?”
“It’s insane! It’s about my parents, the NSB...during the war, my mother, their names—” She tried to catch her breath. “Everything I ever knew about them was a lie!”
Nora saw Marijke’s eyes widen as she stared at the box. “What do you mean? Where did you find this?”
“In the attic, in a corner. It doesn’t matter. Read!”
“Okay, okay, I will!” Marijke pulled the sheaf out of the box, placed it on the floor and stacked the papers on her lap.
“For God’s sake, Marijke, hurry up! It’s so awful, I can’t stand it!”
Marijke held up her hand. “Wacht even, Nora. I want to read these carefully.” Minutes dragged like hours. Nora felt like jumping up and pacing, but she didn’t want to miss the moment when Marijke finished reading. Other than her widened eyes, Marijke didn’t say a word. When she finished, she sighed and turned to Nora. “You had no idea about this? They never mentioned any of it?”
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