The Tulip Eaters. Antoinette van Heugten

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