Where the Wild Roses Grow Read online

  It was freezing cold out there and Violet wasn’t wearing anything but a light dress, the same they wore wearing day and night, that they worked the laundry in and that they slept and ate in. It never kept her warm inside the house. How would it keep her warm outside in the cold?

  Violet hammered her fists into the door and screamed and yelled.

  “Heeeelp!! Let me get back inside!! Heeeelp!”

  But the door remained closed.

  Were they just going to leave her out here?

  Violet cried and kicked the door with all the power she had in her small body. She continued to scream and kick it for many hours, but still it remained closed. Violet was soon starving, a sensation she had gotten used to after arriving at the home, but now it was unbearable. She had a child growing inside of her and it demanded to be fed. She looked down to the ground. It was covered in a white blanket of snow. Unfortunately, not thick enough for her to jump down and not hurt herself.

  Violet sunk to the floor of the balcony with her back at the door. It started to snow again and it felt so cold on her bald head.

  “Please, help me. Please, someone help me,” she pleaded.

  50

  July 2015

  “Could you at least tell me what is going on?” I asked, looking at Inspector Grady when he entered the interrogation room I had been put in.

  First they had let me spend an hour or so in a small cell before finally taking me to the room. I had no idea what was going on. And no one was saying anything. I felt so violated.

  Inspector Grady nodded. He put something on the table in front of me. It was the cross in a small plastic bag.

  “This has your fingerprints all over it,” he said.

  “Yeah, so? It was in my room. On my pillow when Morten and I got back from our walk. I picked it up and looked at it. I had never seen it before in my life.”

  Inspector Grady turned it and made me look at the engraving.

  “So…I’m guessing it belongs to Anna Delaney,” I said. “Since it has her name on it?”

  “Do you know what else is on it?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I really just wanted to get back to the hotel, back to Morten and the comfortable bed. I wouldn’t mind if he watched soccer all night or if he talked to me in a mean way. As long as I could be next to him.

  “It’s blood,” he said. “And I’m guessing it too belongs to Mrs. Delaney. Don’t you?”

  “How am I supposed to know? I found it on my pillow when we got back from our walk. I only know it belongs to Mrs. Delaney because of the engraving on the back.”

  “So, how did it end up in your hotel room, might I ask?” he said.

  “That’s what I don’t know! Why don’t you ask Mrs. Delaney? It is, after all, her necklace.”

  Inspector Grady cleared his throat. “I don’t ask her because she is dead,” he said. “Her body was found in her home earlier tonight by a neighbor who had heard turmoil and walked over there to see if she was alright. He found her lying on the floor, blood running from the back of her head, a bloody rock next to the body, and a red rose between her teeth. He also told us you were there to visit her earlier in the day. That’s why I came to talk to you. You’re the last person to have seen her alive.”

  “She’s dead? Mrs. Delaney is dead?” I asked, terrified. It was one thing to find a body in the river, but once you had spoken to someone only a few hours ago and then learned they were dead, it was a completely different thing.

  “You mean to tell me you didn’t know? How do you expect me to believe that?”

  “I…I don’t know. I guess because it’s the truth. Ask Morten, my boyfriend. He was with me all evening. And Bradan the clerk can tell you we just got back when we found the cross.”

  “And where had you been before that?” Grady asked.

  “We ate dinner at the hotel’s restaurant around six. I am sure a ton of people can tell you they saw us, including the hotel manager, Aileen. I spoke to her during our dinner. She likes to come up to the tables and ask everyone if they are enjoying their food and if they have any needs. After dinner, we took a walk around town.”

  Inspector Grady noted Aileen’s name on his notepad. Then he looked up at me. “That’s not much of an alibi, now is it? You and your boyfriend could have walked to Anna Delaney’s house and killed her after dinner, then come back to the hotel. The town is not that big. The neighbor said he heard the turmoil around seven o’clock. He didn’t knock on the door until later, just before eight o’clock. When no one answered, he walked right in the front door that was open. You two could easily have killed her and been back to the hotel by then. I do have your fingerprints on the bloody cross, which makes for some pretty strong evidence. Did you take it from her and bring it with you? Is it like a trophy? Do you take trophies from all your victims? Did you take one from Bridget Callaghan and Fiona Delaney as well?”

  51

  July 2015

  Don’t touch the cross. Don’t touch the cross!

  I closed my eyes in regret. Victor had been trying to warn me, hadn’t he? He had tried to tell me in his own strange way. He knew the cross would be in my room, and he knew I would touch it and get myself into trouble. When was I ever going to learn to listen to him?

  “So, how did you do it?” Inspector Grady continued.

  He was determined to make me admit to being guilty, and after two hours of interrogation, I was getting so exhausted I was about to admit it just to be left alone. I would never do well in a time of war, if put under torture. I was ready to say anything.

  Yet, I didn’t. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Inspector Grady threw pictures of dead people relentlessly on the table in front of me and forced me to look at them.

  “Let’s get back to Bridget. How did you get in contact with her? Was it your boyfriend who came to her in the boutique?”

  “I told you. We’ve never been to Enniskerry before. You can check with the airlines or look at our itinerary. We arrived Monday, on the night of the murder. There is no way we could have come to her shop before then.”

  “Maybe you had help, huh? I tell you…I had a feeling about you two the first time I laid my eyes on you when Bridget was pulled out of the water. Then, when you were there for Fiona’s discovery as well, I knew something was off. Ever since the two of you arrived in this town, dead bodies have been popping up all over. We never had any crime in this town before, especially not murder. At least we haven’t had any for several years now.”

  “I didn’t do it. Morten and I are innocent,” I said, thinking there was something odd about the way he talked about the first two victims using their first names, like he had known them well. Maybe he had. Maybe they all knew each other well in this town. Maybe they were all insane like Inspector Grady.

  “I don’t know how you pulled this off just yet, but I am determined to find out,” he said, and got up from his chair.

  “So, now what?” I asked. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I will send the cross to the lab and expect to have an answer as to whom the blood belongs very soon. Until then, I don’t have the right to keep you. I’ll have a car escort you back to your hotel. But don’t leave town.”

  I was taken back to the hotel, where Morten was waiting for me in the room.

  “Thank God,” he said and jumped up from the bed, where I could tell he had been watching another game of soccer. I was overwhelmed with sadness and threw myself in his arms.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Why did they take you to the station? I’ve been worried sick.”

  “Mrs. Delaney is dead. She was killed in her home tonight and they think I did it. Or we did it together or something. They have my fingerprints on the cross and suspect the blood to be hers. As soon as they know, they’ll send out a warrant for my arrest. Maybe even yours too. As an accomplice.”

  “That’s not good,” he said. “Have you erased all traces of what you’ve done on your computer? W
e have to make sure they don’t find anything once they start to examine all our stuff. That is, after all, the only wrong thing we’ve done. But if they want you convicted, they might cling to what they have, and if that’s all they can find, they’ll build their case around that until they have enough for the murder charges. I know how these things work, believe me.”

  “I always remove any trace. I’ve learned from past mistakes,” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “They won’t be able to find anything.”

  “That’s good. That’s very good.”

  “What do you suggest we do now?” I asked.

  “We need to find out who put that cross on your pillow. And we need to find out fast. My guess is that it was placed here for the police to find or as a threat to make you stop what you’re doing.”

  “So you’re saying Mrs. Delaney died because I went to her house earlier?”

  “I don’t know. But I do believe someone is trying to stop you. That’s the only thing we can say for sure.”

  52

  February 1978

  That night in the cold on the balcony, Violet cried and begged God to save her. As soon as the sun had set on the horizon, it went dark and freezing cold. Soon, Violet’s body was trembling in the freezing cold. Most of all, she feared for the baby and how it would do, if it would freeze to death, if they both would.

  Her fingers were hurting and she tried to move them. She screamed and yelled and knocked on the door. Even though she knew they weren’t going to come for her, at least it kept her warm. But soon she started running out of strength.

  Was this it? Was this the end of it?

  They got me, after all. They finally got me, didn’t they?

  She put a hand on her bulging stomach and caressed it carefully. “My little baby. Will I ever get to see you? Will I ever hold you in my arms? Will my life ever feel like it is worth living?”

  She sunk to her knees, crying and sobbing, while picturing herself with the baby in her arms as she had done so many times before. She would always imagine the baby as a boy, a boy with Conan’s soft eyes.

  “Why Conan? Why didn’t you want me?” she yelled into the night. “Why did you have to push me away? Why don’t you love me?”

  She thought about the many times they had been together, the many times he had come to her room and loved her. What she wouldn’t give to feel that emotion again. What she wouldn’t do to feel his arms hold her just once again. She still loved him; she still longed for him even after all this time, even after all he had done, even after he had rejected her and crushed her heart.

  She couldn’t help herself.

  “I am carrying your child, Conan. Don’t you care about that, huh? Don’t you care about us? Where are you? Why aren’t you coming for us? Are you going to let them do this to us? Are you going to let them kill us like this?”

  Violet sobbed and felt sorry for herself. Her body was exhausted. There was no more fight left inside of her. The cold was eating at her bones. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the door. She saw her mother and herself as only a child again. Violet started to laugh as she was dancing with her beloved mother in the cornfields back at the farm. She felt warm again. She felt alive again. Her mother’s smile and warm embrace warmed her. It had been a long time since Violet had felt this loved. She wanted to stay in the warm and love forever and ever. And that was when she decided to let go. There was nothing more for her in this life anyway. There was no use in keeping fighting.

  “Come on, Violet,” her mother yelled as she let go of her and started to run through the cornfield. “Come on!”

  Violet giggled. “I’m coming, Mother. I’m coming.”

  Violet looked back and saw nothing but darkness before she decided to follow her mother into the light. The light filled with the love and warmth of a mother’s embrace.

  “Violet! Violet!”

  “I’m coming, Mother. I’m coming.”

  “VIOLET!”

  Violet opened her eyes. Her cheek was burning. Above her stood Ava with a hand lifted in the air. She slapped Violet on the cheek once again, and Violet screamed. She blinked a few times to figure out what was going on. Gone was the cornfield. Gone was the warmth, the sun, and the laughter. Gone was her mother. She was back on the balcony.

  “Violet. You can’t fall asleep out here,” she said. “You’ll die!”

  Ava had brought a thick blanket that she wrapped around Violet. She looked into her eyes. “I stole it from one of the nuns.”

  “How did you get out here?” Violet asked.

  “I climbed over the roof from the attic of the main building. Come. I’ll take you back inside for the night. You’ll die out here if you stay.”

  53

  July 2015

  We couldn’t go to sleep. Even though it was almost midnight, I had no desire to put my head on the pillow. The whole thing was bothering me to the extent that I couldn’t find any rest.

  We tried to go to bed anyway, but I kept lying down, then getting up and walking around, which meant Morten didn’t get any sleep either.

  “Okay,” Morten said, and turned the light back on. “So, let’s go through this instead.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “The two others were killed and thrown in the river. Mrs. Delaney was found in her home.”

  “Maybe the killer wanted to take her to the river, but was disturbed by the neighbor who came and knocked on the door.”

  “That would explain it,” I said. “I still get the feeling that something is a little off.”

  Morten laughed mockingly. “That’s very mildly put. Everything here is a lot off.”

  “Especially that Inspector Grady. I don’t have any trust in him,” I said.

  “He’s probably just doing his job,” Morten said.

  “Defend him all you want, but I don’t trust him. I have the feeling that there is more to this case than just some guy on a killing spree,” I said. “And I want to find out what it is.”

  I grabbed my computer and read everything I could find on the killing of Mrs. Delaney in the local online papers. It was already everywhere. The reporters had been quick to get to the scene this time. It was becoming a high profile case for even the bigger newspapers in the country. Three killings made him a serial. That was something the newspapers knew how to write about. I found one article where the photographer had been so lucky as to get a picture of the body as it left the house in a body bag. To my surprise, he had also managed to get a picture of the rose as it was carried out in a plastic bag in the hands of one of the officers. I zoomed in and looked at it.

  “It’s not the same,” I said.

  “What’s not?” Morten asked.

  I turned the computer in my lap and showed it to him.

  “That there, my friend, isn’t a wild rose. This is a garden rose, like the ones you see in almost every front yard around here. The others were wild roses. The ones that were found in Bridget Callaghan’s and Fiona Delaney’s mouths. Both were wild roses.”

  Morten shrugged. “Since when did you become such an expert on roses?”

  “Since my son gave me a lecture on the many different types of roses. What was it he said again? Something about the roses we buy being manmade. That gardeners wanted one with larger flowers and less spikes, so they bred them to have all that. And then there was something else. Yes. He said that a wild rose has a single petal flower, a thorny stem, and a trailing form. The wild rose only has one set of petals, whereas the manmade ones have many sets.”

  Morten looked at me like I was an idiot. “So?”

  “So, this rose is different. Look at it. This is a garden rose.”

  “You already said that. But what does it mean? You think someone else did this?”

  “I do. I believe this is a copycat. He is following everything that has been in the papers. The rock and blow to the back of the head, the rose between her teeth, but he doesn’t know that the others had a different kind of rose in their m
outh because all the newspapers have just written that it was a rose. Not a wild rose.”

  I tapped the keyboard and found a picture of a wild rose and showed it to him. “There, you can see the difference. They don’t look the same.”

  Morten shrugged again. “Maybe he ran out of wild roses?”

  “Then he’s not following the song. That’s where this killer got it all wrong. He doesn’t realize it’s the song. The song is important to the first killer. To go to this kind of length to fulfill every detail of the song, it has to be of great significance to the killer. And that means to bring the woman to the river bank, where the wild roses grow, have her look at them, then slam the rock in her head, put the rose between her teeth, and push her into the river. Everything has to be exactly like in the song. He’s obsessed with the song.”

  “And in Mrs. Delaney’s case a lot isn’t like in the song.”

  “Ergo, it’s not the same killer. This is someone else trying to use the first two killings to cover up his deeds.”

  54

  July 2015

  “Good morning, sweetheart. You sleep well?”

  The man looked at Caitlin. She nodded sleepily. Her hair was messy, her eyes narrow. She hadn’t quite returned from the land of the sleeping yet.

  “You hungry?”

  She nodded again. The man found some toast and jam and placed it in front of her with a glass of juice.

  “You’re in a good mood today, Daddy,” she said while she ate.

  “Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” he corrected her. He couldn’t stand it when his daughter chewed with her mouth open. It was simply disgusting. He was determined to teach her proper table manners. She was her mother’s girl, for the most part, but at least he wanted to have a say in that.