The River and the Roses (Veronica Barry Book 1)

by Sophia Martin

  “Too much birthday cake,” she said with a weak smile.

  Melanie frowned at her. “You want to sit down?”

  Veronica shook her head. “No, I'm fine, Mellie. I think I just came off the sugar rush kind of hard.” Melanie gazed at her, her eyebrows drawn together. “Really, I’m fine. How’s Chris doing these days?”

  “Well,” Melanie said with one last penetrating look, “he says he likes San Diego but he can’t wait to get back.” She smiled at Veronica. “I think he misses me.”

  “Aw,” Veronica said, and they started to walk again. “So cute.”

  Melanie blushed a little. “So I told him he better hurry up reorganizing the office, or whatever, and get back up here. I miss him too.”

  “Pretty cool.” Veronica’s eyes glittered. “Things could start getting serious here…”

  “We’ve been taking it slow for a reason,” Mel said, indicating Angie, who struggled to stop Harry from dragging her to the edge of the pond so he could bark at the ducks.

  “How’s she doing with it all?”

  “She seems okay,” Melanie said. “She was resistant at first, you know. It isn’t easy. There was that terrible dinner at the Thai place, you remember?”

  “Oh yeah. She threw a cucumber at you,” Veronica recalled.

  “It was a piece of celery, I think, and she claims it was an accident. But the whole night was so tense and I thought she’d hate him forever no matter what anyone did. But now she seems to be loosening up. Asks when he’s coming over and talks about what to make for dinner or what movie to watch with him. Of course, he’s been gone for two weeks, so I wonder if now she’s getting used to him not being around…”

  “Hey, you know what I said about envying, you? I take it back.”

  “Oh, nice.”

  “Well, I only have to worry about whether a guy I like is allergic to cats,” Veronica said. “And if Harry doesn’t like him he’s history anyway.”

  “Seems a little harsh,” Melanie laughed.

  “Oh no,” Veronica said. “Harry likes everyone, most of the time. But he has very good instincts. If he growls at someone, I listen.”

  Melanie nodded. “You’re probably right to. There are a lot of bad people in the world.”

  Chapter 2

  In the dream, roses surrounded her; they crowded in, then slipped away. Red ones, pink ones, yellow. Except the colors were off and stained by the streetlights, and she knew even though she didn’t see anything else, that something was wrong.

  She widened her eyes, trying to see, to understand, her pulse quickening. Everything was dream-hazy and only some images came through clear. Her eyes caught movement between the roses. Legs in jeans, running. From somewhere else, gasping and crying. The running stopped. Then a shift, and the agonized breathing became her own—she was no longer herself, but one of the people she had heard a moment before. She felt jerked upwards. Her crying changed to moans and a desperate, “No, no.” Something knocked her down. The smell of the roses overpowered her, suffocating. Her throat closed. Her chest felt paralyzed, and panic flooded her. She couldn’t breathe.

  Veronica struggled in her sheets and opened her eyes, sucking in air. Stumbling from the bed, her feet tangled in the afghan and she caught herself against the cool wall. The red numbers of the alarm clock glowed: 11:13. “Oh god.” A moan escaped her. It wasn’t over. She was awake but it hadn’t stopped. Roses. Roses. McKinley Park. It had to be. She was going to be too late.

  She ran from her house, leaving the door open, no thought of the cats and dog. Harry followed but she didn’t notice. Veronica sprinted straight for McKinley. A dark car slammed on its brakes, horn blaring. Veronica stumbled, holding up her hands, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. The shock of it stopped her and for a breath she hesitated, but then the urgency gripped her again. She rushed across to the curb. She halted, staring into the park, but she could see nothing beyond the low light of the periphery of street lamps that encircled it. She pushed on, headed to the rose bushes.

  Veronica’s legs felt rubbery and her breath came in painful bursts. When she saw the body on the ground Veronica fell to her knees beside her, sobbing. Taking the woman in her arms, she cried, unaware of the blood which soon covered her.

  She was too late. Veronica began to wail, cradling the body of a woman against her. She didn’t know her, but the intensity of the grief made everything but this moment, with the flowers swaying around her as she wept, seem like the only reality she had ever known.

  Then the vision washed over her.

  ~~~

  She was running, in heels. No time to stop and take them off. From behind her, he called to her, telling her to stop. She was afraid, so afraid—but also guilty, like she knew this was what she deserved.

  There ahead: McKinley Park. The trees loomed, strange in the dark, at the wrong angle, black and frightening.

  “Hey!” he called behind her.

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted, but she knew he never would.

  ~~~

  The sound of the sirens approaching crept into Veronica’s awareness. She looked at the body of the woman she held in her arms and released her, noticing for the first time that blood soaked her nightgown. How could this be happening? Was this just more of the nightmare that woke her—was it minutes before? Hours? And propelled her to this rose garden?

  So much blood. Veronica pushed the grass with her palms in an effort to raise herself and to move away from the corpse. She stumbled and her nightgown snagged on thorns. The sound of brakes added themselves to the sirens—over at the curb, two squad cars halted.

  Veronica pulled free of the thorns and took a step toward the flashing red lights, but her ankle turned and her knees buckled. As she pitched forward, the ground rushed up far too fast, and the next thing she knew she was inhaling grass. She closed her eyes and everything went black for a little while.

  She blinked her eyes open, to see flashing red lights illuminating cars at strange angles. She was sitting on a curb. People moved around her, but she couldn’t focus on them, and trying to made her head spin. Nausea washed over her.

  “Ma’am. Ma’am.”

  Veronica swallowed bile. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she murmured.

  “I need a sick bag!” a man called. She jerked away from the voice and squinted open her eyes—had she shut them again? Where was she?

  “Ma’am, we’re taking you to the station for questioning. Do you understand me?”

  It was the man from the grocery store. Veronica registered this fact, but felt nothing. Isn’t this a strange coincidence? her mind asked in a detached way. She wiped a hand over her face and then saw the blood on it and cried out.

  “Make sure someone cleans her up once they get done examining her,” he told someone.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. “I don’t understand.” Dread washed over her body. Barking startled her. She looked around. Harry stood stiff-legged about fifty feet away, growling and barking. “My dog!” she exclaimed. “That’s my dog!”

  The man looked over and then shook his head in frustration. He lifted her up by the arm.

  “Please, that’s my dog. I have to take him home.”

  “Ma’am, you have to come with me. You’re going to the police station with Officer Juarez, here,” the man said. Juarez stood before her wearing a uniform that looked so dark it was black. The man from Safeway wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was dressed the same as he had been in the store—nice shirt, khaki pants—except he was wearing a coat now.

  “Who are you?” Veronica asked him, her eyes searching his face.

  “I’m Detective Seong, homicide. We’ll see each other again in a little while.”

  ~~~

  No one would listen about Harry, and eventually Veronica stopped asking about him, settling into a dull feeling of dread, horror and worry. It was a nightmare. She wanted it to end.

  A male officer with pale skin and a mustache took Veronica’s
statement when she first arrived at the station. An aging female officer strip-searched her and then let her clean herself off in the bathroom before leading her to wait in a small room with four chairs and a table. On one wall was a large mirror. An interrogation room, like on TV. She sat down and stared at the wall, waiting for it to be over. She had put her long cotton nightgown back on, though it was stained over most of the upper half with blood. The blood was drying and it made the fabric stiff. It was awful. If she sat still enough, she hoped she could stop feeling it, but the blood was all over her. Her skin crawled under it.

  Her feet were a mess, as well. She’d tried to wipe them down when she cleaned herself up in the restroom. She’d run to the park barefoot, and you could tell. Bruises and cuts covered them. Some of the cuts still oozed blood. They started to hurt only once Veronica noticed them in the restroom and tried to clean them. Now as she looked down at them she could see little blood smears on the floor. The sight of the blood was upsetting—it brought up other images she really didn’t want to see again. She tried to keep her eyes closed while she waited, but she didn’t like being in the dark either.

  After a long time, the Asian man entered the room, followed by a red-haired woman. The woman dressed very much like her partner: nondescript striped collared shirt, khaki pants, belt.

  The man from Safeway held a thin file.

  “It says here your name is Veronica Barry,” he said as he sat down opposite her. The woman leaned against the wall and watched. She had a hard set to her mouth and her eyelids drooped a little with weariness.

  Veronica nodded.

  “You live a few blocks from the park.”

  “Yes, on B street.”

  “What were you doing in the park, Miss Barry?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

  “I’m Detective Seong and this is Detective Felsen. Now answer the question, please. What were you doing in the park at one in the morning?”

  Veronica raised a hand to her mouth, noticed it was shaking, and put it back in her lap. “I don’t know,” she said. “It was… so strange. I had a dream.”

  “You had a dream, and happened to run into Sylvia Gomez in the park?”

  “What? No.” Veronica shut her eyes. “I don’t know what happened. I woke up from a nightmare. And it was like I was still dreaming. Look, I don’t know what happened. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “How do you know Sylvia Gomez?” Detective Seong asked.

  “I don’t,” Veronica said, her voice breaking. “Is that her name? The—the woman? I don’t know what’s going on. I just—I saw the roses and I knew something was wrong—I tried to get there in time, but when I got there she was already on the ground.” Her eyes widened and her heart skipped. “Oh god. You think I killed her?”

  Detective Seong sighed. He leaned back in his seat and looked round at the other detective, who raised an eyebrow. Then he turned back to Veronica. “No, we don’t,” he said, sounding weary. “But at the very least you seriously disturbed a crime scene and you may have destroyed evidence.”

  “I’m sorry,” Veronica said, her voice weak. “I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to help.”

  Detective Seong sighed again. “You didn’t know her?”

  “No.”

  He looked back at his partner, who nodded. “We’re going to release you, Miss Barry. But you’ll probably be hearing from us again in the next few days. If you think of anything you may have seen or heard that could be useful in the investigation, you must call us immediately, do you understand?”

  She nodded. “I guess I need a cab.”

  Detective Seong stood up.

  “I don’t suppose—” she started, then stopped herself. He gazed at her. “My dog,” she said at last. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to my dog?”

  Detective Seong nodded. “Come with me.”

  She followed him out of the interrogation room. His partner said something low to him and he nodded and patted her on the shoulder.

  “If it’s alright with you, I’ll drive you home, Miss Barry,” he said. Veronica nodded numbly. It felt like her brain was shutting down. All she could think about was Harry, her worry for him overwhelming everything else. Had he been hurt? One of the police cars might have hit him. Was Detective Seong taking her to him? What if he was killed and the detective was going to give his body to her?

  Down in the parking lot Seong took her to a dark colored car. Harry jumped up against the inside of the passenger window.

  “Oh my god, Harry!” Veronica exclaimed, pressing her hand against the glass.

  Seong chuckled and shook his head. “When you said he was your dog back at the park I wasn’t sure whether to believe you.” He opened the door and Harry lunged out, trying to wrap himself around her legs.

  “Oh baby,” she said, petting him.

  “Okay, everybody in,” Seong said. She got in on the passenger side and Harry jumped in on her lap, determined not to be separated from her again.

  As they pulled onto the road, the light was starting to change. The sun was rising. Seong said, “Do you remember anything about what you saw, Miss Barry?”

  Images flashed in her mind. Roses. The black trees.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. Holding Harry made her feel better; safer than she had in hours.

  “Anything might help.”

  She shook her head. She dug her fingers into Harry’s thick fur.

  She could still feel herself in the vision, running in heels. It was hard to run.

  “She knew him, I think,” Veronica said at last.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  Seong was silent. Veronica stroked Harry’s fur. She glanced over at the detective. His eyes stayed on the road.

  “I think she felt… guilty about something. She knew he was going to hurt her but part of her thought… she deserved it,” Veronica said. It felt good to get it out. She glanced at Seong again, to gauge his response.

  His face showed no reaction. Finally, after a moment, he said, “You claim to have never met Sylvia Gomez, but you seem to know some things about her. How do you justify that, Miss Barry?”

  “I don’t know,” Veronica said. “It’s just… an impression. An impression I got when I found her, I guess.”

  “In your statement you said she was already dead when you found her.”

  “I’m pretty sure she was. She wasn’t breathing.” Veronica swallowed. “There was so much blood.”

  “And yet you got the impression she knew her attacker well enough to feel guilty about something?”

  “Yeah,” Veronica said, feeling miserable. “Like I said, it was just an impression.”

  “Like a psychic?” His tone was flat.

  “No, no,” she blurted. “I’m not a psychic. I just… I get feelings sometimes, I guess. But nothing like this, usually. But I just… I just got a feeling. It’s probably nothing. I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “And you didn’t see anyone, or hear anything, before you found the body? Or even after?”

  “No,” she said. “I told the officer everything in my statement. I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone.”

  They pulled onto B street and after a block she spotted a blur of white fur.

  “Oh my god, Blossom!” she exclaimed.

  “What?” Seong said.

  “My cat! I must have left the door open. Oh no. She got out, and that means Binky, too.”

  “Binky?”

  “My other cat. Oh no. Please stop, Detective. I need to get out.”

  “Okay, okay, hang on. Let’s get to your house so you can put your dog inside, first.”

  She cupped a hand over her mouth and nodded. He drove up in front of her house and double-parked. No way he’s getting a ticket, she thought and then considered how odd her mind was to think such a thing at a time like this. But it must be nice, her mind continued. “Oh shut up,” she breathed. Seong’s eyes flicked
toward her but she didn’t think he heard what she said.

  She got out and took Harry to the door, which was open. She decided to go through the house and put him in the backyard, at least until she caught the cats.

  “Wait a minute, Miss Barry.”

  She stopped and looked at Seong.

  “You left your door open like this?”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Let me go in first. You never know, someone could have made the most of it.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. When would this night be over?

  Detective Seong drew his gun and eased into her duplex. Veronica still held Harry by the collar and she didn’t want to try to lead him around that way, but she strained her eyes for any sign of the cats. She would have called out but she felt inhibited by Seong’s presence. He reappeared at the door a moment later.

  “Looks like it’s all clear,” he said. She headed in. “Seems like you had a party here,” he said, indicating the streamers, which she had yet to take down.

  “Yeah, I had a surprise party for a friend yesterday.”

  “Any drinking at this party?”

  Veronica glanced over her shoulder as she went through the kitchen and put Harry out. “Some.”

  “Did you get drunk?”

  With that, Veronica had had enough.

  “Look, Detective Seong, I really appreciate your driving me home. And I’m sorry, really sorry, that I might have screwed up your crime scene. But I didn’t get wasted yesterday and have some kind of drunk nightmare that led me to Sylvia Gomez’s body. I had a nightmare, yes, but it wasn’t because I was drunk. I don’t know what it was. And I tried to help her, but I was too late. That’s all I really know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have two cats to find.”

  Seong held up as hand as she made for the door. Veronica stopped.

  “Just a suggestion. But you might want to get changed. The smell of blood on your clothes. Well, animals freak out about that kind of thing.”

  Veronica raised her hands in frustration and then gave a curt nod. “You’re right.”

  She went to her room and shut the door. She wondered why he didn’t just leave. Was his shift over or something?