Where the Wild Roses Grow

by Willow Rose

I wrote it down. I had a feeling I was on to something important here. “So, she worked with the girls as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “At the same time as Mrs. Delaney?”

  “Yes, I believe they did work there at the same time.”

  And now they have both lost a child to the same killer.

  “There is one thing I don’t understand,” Morten said.

  “And what is that?” Father Allen said.

  “How can Mary Margaret Callaghan and Anna Delaney both have children if they were nuns?”

  Father Allen stopped smoking. He stared at Morten like he didn’t know what to tell him. Then he cleared his throat.

  “They both decided to leave the convent to start a family. It happens sometimes that women regret their decisions. Maybe it was from being around all those pregnant girls all the time. You know how the biological clock is constantly ticking. Tick-tock, right?”

  I finished my second cup of tea and looked at the father. “Could I use the restroom, please? This tea is running straight through me.”

  59

  July 2015

  I walked down a corridor like the father had instructed me to in order to find the nearest restroom. Only, once I found it, I continued my walk, since I heard children’s voices and became curious.

  I found a door where the sound was coming from and entered. It was the kitchen. In there, I found Einin. She was sitting at a small table breastfeeding a baby while another child, no more than two years old, was playing on the floor. She didn’t see me at first. I cleared my throat and she looked at me with a gasp.

  I smiled. “Hi there. So sorry to disturb you. I was just looking for the restroom.”

  She looked anxiously at me. “I…I was just…”

  “No. No. Don’t get up. Just feed your baby. I’ll find it myself. ” The little boy looked up at me.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Cian! Schuss. I am sorry. He’s very direct.”

  “And very advanced for his age. You’re a smart boy, aren’t you?” I said. “I’m Emma. I’m from Denmark.”

  The boy looked at me with big wide eyes.

  “Do you know what Denmark is?” I asked the boy.

  “He has never even been outside of the village,” Einin said. “I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to…please don’t tell the father that we were in here. He never usually lets us come up…” she stopped herself.

  “He doesn’t let you up here with the children?” I asked. “Where does he keep you, then?”

  Her lips tightened, but her eyes wandered to a staircase leading down.

  “Down there?” I asked, feeling appalled. “He keeps you in the basement?”

  “It’s not so bad,” Einin said. “And only when there are people in the house. He doesn’t want them to see the boys.”

  “How old are you, Einin?” I asked.

  “Me? Nineteen.”

  My heart dropped. “Why do you live here?”

  She shrugged. “I was a troublemaker in school. Got myself into some bad stuff. You know, smoking and stuff. The father helped me out. Got me away from all the bad stuff and bad people.”

  “I see.”

  I walked out and back into the corridor, feeling like screaming my anger out. I walked into the office where Morten and the father were still sitting, sipping their tea and eating their sticky Irish scones.

  “I think we’re ready to leave,” I said.

  Morten got up and shook hands with Father Allen. I grabbed my purse and jacket. Morten left the office first and I was about to follow him, when I turned and looked at the father.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” he said. “It was a pleasure speaking to the two of you. Have a safe trip back to Denmark.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “And congrats on everything. The boy certainly has your eyes.”

  The father’s smile froze. He stared at me, his jaw dropping, as I slammed the door shut.

  “What the heck was that all about?” Morten asked when we were back in the car.

  “I couldn’t help myself,” I said. “The bastard is hiding an entire family in there.”

  “What?” Morten asked and turned into the road. I could see the church in my rearview mirror. A chill ran down my spine. The girl couldn’t have been more than seventeen when she had the first child.

  “I didn’t think that a Catholic priest was allowed to have children,” he said.

  “They aren’t,” I said. “That’s why he tells them to stay in the basement whenever there are people in the house and pretends that she is a housekeeper.”

  60

  July 2015

  The man was walking up the river. His foot slipped on one of the slippery rocks and then his foot was in the freezing water. He cursed and pulled it out. He sighed and looked downstream. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t found anything yet. It had to be here somewhere. The water would have carried it towards the village by now. Wouldn’t it? It had been surprising how close to the place where he had pushed them in the water that the other two had been found. He would have thought they would be carried all the way to downtown. That was the plan. But instead, they had both been found in the forest outside of the village, very close to where the man had killed them. He didn’t quite understand that.

  And this time, no one had found the body at all, much to his dissatisfaction. Now he was trying to locate it to see what had happened, if it was stuck somewhere or something else had happened to destroy his plan. He had been walking for at least an hour now and still found nothing.

  “Come on, where are you?” he mumbled, irritated.

  It had been raining, but had just stopped. He was both soaked and cold. How hard could it be to find a dead body?

  He was getting closer to where Carrick Mulligan had been killed and still no trace of him. It was strange. Very strange indeed. A body didn’t just disappear like that, did it? The guy was pretty big. The river was shallow.

  The man continued. He stepped in a pile of mud and got his expensive black shoes even dirtier, then ripped his pants on a bush and cursed.

  “Damn roses.”

  Why didn’t anything in life ever go according to plan? When he had prepared all this, it had looked so good on paper, so satisfying, and the first kill had felt just that. Satisfying. But now all this had happened? It was very frustrating. And then there was this thing about the old lady who had been killed in her house. The man had been reading all he could find about it and it made him so mad, so ANGRY! Everything about that kill was so wrong. Someone was using him, misusing The Rose Killer’s good name, and they were doing everything wrong. So terribly wrong. Didn’t they know art when they saw it? Didn’t they understand it had to be done right?

  People were so ignorant.

  “You can’t just take someone’s identity and go around killing in their name, making it look like it was them, when it wasn’t. You simply can’t do that. It isn’t right. It’s just not right.”

  The man was murmuring to himself when suddenly he saw something in the water. It was him. It was Carrick Mulligan. His body was lying on the bottom, but he could see him through the clear water. He must have sunk to the bottom right after he was pushed in, the man concluded. He hadn’t realized that would happen. It wasn’t part of the plan.

  The man wondered what to do, when suddenly he heard voices. Low voices speaking behind some of the trees. He hid behind one and peeked out. Two people were talking. A man and a woman. He approached them carefully, staying hidden behind the trees, running from tree to tree not making a sound, feeling just like a ninja warrior. Those had always fascinated him. Now he was just like them. Or Tom Cruise. Yes, he really was just like Tom Cruise.

  As he came closer, he could see their faces. Oh, what a joy it was for the man to see the worried faces of Mary Margaret Callaghan and Father Allen. He couldn’t have planned it better himself.

  “So now you finally believe me, huh?” Mary Margaret said.

 
“I’m telling you, Mary. They came to my house. They…started asking all these questions. We have to get rid of them somehow. Both of them.”

  “I asked Grady to take care of it,” Mary Margaret said. “But he says he can’t keep them locked up. Not enough evidence, or something. We’ll have to do something about it ourselves, then.”

  Father Allen nodded. As always, he was smoking his pipe, but for once his usual smirk had been wiped off his face.

  Not so charismatic anymore, are we, Father?

  The man giggled. He couldn’t believe the commotion he had caused. Finally, he was getting some payoff for all his work. Soon, they were done talking and were about to leave.

  No! They can’t leave yet. I have to get their attention somehow.

  The man found a rock and threw it in the water next to where the body had sunken in. The two of them turned around.

  “What was that?” Mary Margaret asked with a light gasp.

  “It sounded like something falling in the water,” Father Allen said. “Something big.”

  “Do you think someone’s there?” she asked. “Do you think someone heard what we said?”

  Father Allen shook his head. “Probably just an animal. A deer or something big.”

  “I’d better check it out,” Mary Margaret said, and walked towards the river with firm steps.

  The man watched with great anticipation as the father followed her. They stopped at the bank, where they stayed and looked for a little while.

  “I don’t see anything,” the father said.

  “You’re right,” Mary Margaret said. “Guess I’m just a little jumpy lately. I haven’t been sleeping ever since Bridget died.”

  “I am truly sorry for your loss,” the father replied through a fog of smoke emerging from his mouth. “For our loss. It’s terrible what happened to her.”

  Mary Margaret snorted. “When I get my hands on whoever did that to her, I swear, Father…I’m going to…it won’t be pretty.”

  “We all feel the same, Mary. We all feel the anger you carry.”

  Mary Margaret clenched her fists. Her jawbone was showing. “I just can’t believe she had to…that she had to die.”

  “I understand that you miss her. We all do,” the father said.

  “She was the only one I had, you know? She was my entire family. I hate having to go through this. I loathe waking up in the mornings knowing she won’t call today because she isn’t here anymore. Thirty-six years, Father. Thirty-six years ago, she changed my life completely.”

  “Love does the strangest things to people,” he said, while gazing out at the water. “Say, what is that?”

  The father pointed with the end of his pipe.

  “What’s what?” she asked.

  “Out there in the water. There’s something in there, on the bottom. Is it an animal?”

  “That’s no animal,” Mary Margaret said, and stepped into the shallow water. She approached the body and looked down. Then she looked back at the father with a terrified look on her face.

  “It’s Carrick Mulligan.”

  61

  March 1978

  Sleeping with the elderly nuns was the worst punishment Violet could have imagined. The stench coming from them was unbearable. Their breath smelled of death, their skin of decay.

  They were all sick and coughing all night, making it almost impossible for Violet to get any sleep. At the same time, the baby was almost always awake at night, kicking and bouncing around, making it hard for her to rest.

  Violet was so tired all day from the lack of sleep, she wasn’t able to work as hard as was expected of her. She couldn’t carry the piles of laundry anymore, so the nuns made her scrub walls and floors instead.

  All day long she would be on her knees, her back hurting badly, and then all night she was among the old women who were complaining and groaning in their sleep, some even woke up screaming that they didn’t want to die, others snoring so loudly it made her go insane. Every now and then, one of them would wet their bed or do what is worse, and then Violet had to change their sheets and clean the women. It was a job that made her constantly feel sick to her stomach, and if it hadn’t been for the expected soon arrival of the baby, she would have opened a window and jumped. Finished it off right here and now. The baby was the only thing that kept her alive, kept her going day after day.

  She didn’t get to see Ava anymore. The nuns kept them apart, and since Ava had been her only friend at the convent, Violet felt extremely lonely and sad every night when she put her head on her pillow.

  One night, when she finally fell asleep, she was dreaming about Conan. She dreamt he came for her and told the nuns he was going to take her back to his place and take care of her and the baby. It was a recurring dream for Violet, both at night and during the day, so it wasn’t unusual, but this time the dream turned into a nightmare, when Mother Superior stopped Conan and had him thrown out of the convent, and Violet once again found herself on the balcony locked out, screaming and hammering on the door while she froze to death.

  She thought she was still dreaming when she heard Ava’s voice. “Violet. Pst. Violet. Wake up.”

  She opened her eyes and looked into Ava’s face. She had been whispering in her ear. Violet smiled widely.

  “Ava!”

  “Shhh!” she said, looking anxiously around her.

  “Ah, don’t mind them,” Violet said. “They can’t hear anything anyway. You can speak as loud as you want.”

  Ava laughed. That was when Violet realized something had changed about Ava. She was much skinnier and had bruises everywhere.

  “What have they done to you?” Violet asked and grabbed her arm. It was purple all over.

  “Listen,” Ava said. “I’m getting out of here. Do you want to come? Me and this other girl are leaving tonight.”

  Violet sighed. She really wanted to. She did. Then she looked at her stomach and realized that it was too late for her.

  “There is no way I can survive on the streets with this stomach. Or with a baby in my arms once he comes,” she said.

  Ava looked disappointed. “I understand.”

  “It’s too dangerous when I have the responsibility for another and not just myself,” Violet said. “I have to think of what is best for the baby.”

  “I get it. You don’t have to make excuses. Anyway, I just wanted to give you the chance to come with us or at least to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye it is, then,” Violet said, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m going to miss you here. You were my only friend. Be careful out there.”

  “We will,” Ava said. “Wish me luck. Anything is better than this place, right?”

  “Right.”

  62

  July 2015

  “They found another one.”

  Morten and I had just arrived back at the hotel. We had been gone all day. After leaving the father, we had a nice lunch at a pub in town. Later, we had gone to Mrs. Delaney’s house and spoken to the neighbor. He hadn’t wanted to let us inside, so we had spoken to him in his yard. He told us how he had found Mrs. Delaney and that he believed someone ran out the back of the house just as he entered the front door. At least, he heard the door open, and once he got out in the back, the door was left wide open. I could tell the neighbor didn’t trust us much and he kept asking me if I wasn’t at the house earlier in the day. I told him I was and that the police believed we had done it, but it was a lie, and I was determined to prove it. I wasn’t sure I convinced him, but I got the feeling that he relaxed around us after a little while.

  We couldn’t get into her house, since it was all blocked by police tape, and I wasn’t in the mood to commit more crimes that they could charge me for, by crossing the tape. So, we decided to go back instead.

  Bradan was the one who told us there had been another murder. He was standing behind the counter as we entered the lobby.

  “Another body?” I asked.

  “Yes, up by the river again. Rose betw
een the teeth and everything. Just like the others. The media is all over it. It’s crazy, huh?”

  I looked at Morten. “It sure is,” I said, grabbed the key, and stormed up the stairs. I don’t think Morten had ever seen me run this fast up a set of stairs before. As soon as I was in the room, I turned on the TV and found the local station.

  Bradan was right. It was literally all over the TV. The screen was plastered in Breaking News signs. I turned up the volume.

  “The body of a man, Carrick Mulligan was found in the river around noon today. It was the local priest, the well-known Father Allen who found the body as it was lying on the bottom of the river. As in the previous cases, the killer had stuck a rose tightly between his victim’s teeth. What puzzles everyone is why it is a male this time, since The Rose Killer’s earlier victims have all been women. Let’s go to our reporter on the scene, Marie. Marie how does it look?”

  I looked at Morten. “It’s a man this time?”

  “Apparently,” he said, looking as surprised as I was.

  “That’s odd, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “It sure is.”

  I grabbed my phone and started to Google the killing. I read through all the online articles I could find about the four killings that had shaken the small quiet town of Enniskerry. It made no sense at all.

  “Maybe it was after all the Rose Killer who killed Mrs. Delaney,” Morten said. “I mean, he is apparently not afraid of deviating from his principles. Killing a man named Carrick Mulligan isn’t exactly like the song.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “What are you thinking?” Morten asked and crept up next to me. It felt good to have him close to me. He smelled so good. He kissed my neck and I closed my eyes, but not for long. A gazillion thoughts wandered through my mind. The reporter was still speaking loudly in the room.

  “Wait,” I said, when a woman appeared in the picture on my TV screen. She didn’t want to talk to the camera and hurried away. “That was Mary Margaret Callaghan,” I said.