The land of dead flowers: (A serial killer thriller)

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  He picked up the list with the information about Morris Bishop, found the phone, and dialed the number. The man could ignore the call, could tell Max to get lost, but those were details Max didn’t want to think about. Anna felt uncomfortable calling strangers—he, never. She looked like she was being tortured if she had to call some official organization. She had never talked with the editor of her publishing house—everything was via email. Like somebody would bite her through the receiver. Now Max understood how she felt, but he didn’t know what was different about this call that made him react like this.

  “Hello,” Morris answered, sounding friendly.

  Didn’t recognize me yet, Max thought.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Who’s this?” The man’s voice turned to ice.

  “Sorry for bothering you again. It’s Max Stevenson, the writer. I was …”

  “How did you find my phone number?”

  Shit, it will be worse. He will start to suspect something fishy now.

  “I didn’t want to bother you with my visits, so I decided to call. I just need to ask a couple of questions, if you have time.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  The man didn’t disconnect as Max expected. It seemed as though he waited for another question.

  “Sorry. I wanted to ask what furniture you have in your bedroom.”

  “You are sick.”

  “Just tell me if the comforter is blue and if there’s a dresser in front of the bed, the windows …”

  “I told you not to sneak into the other rooms.”

  “Yes, you said that and I didn’t. All of it … I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “So, you’re writing a book about my house?”

  “Not exactly. You see, this book is calling me. I’ve never had anything like this happen before. I feel like if I don’t write it, something horrible will happen. It’s not about your house, but a house that looks like yours. An atmosphere, remember?”

  The man didn’t say anything, probably thought that all writers were psychopaths. If he believed a writer had visited his house and not a con man. Based on the tone of the man’s voice, Max assumed he took him for what he was, but it didn’t mean he had to change his attitude toward the visitor. Probably, there was some curiosity, but no desire to help.

  “I’ve never had anything like that happen,” Max repeated.

  “I don’t care. Do you still believe someone was killed in my house?”

  “I have a strong feeling about that, but no proof.”

  “I hope you won’t appear here again looking for a body.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t appear without your permission, but I need to do that eventually. Listen, do you have an attic?”

  “An attic? Of course I have an attic. You could see it from the street.”

  Max almost dropped the phone when the dizziness attacked him again. The thing that appeared in front of his eyes robbed him of speech. Why?

  “Hey, writer, are you still there?”

  “I …” Max shook his head, his vision cleared. “Do you have … a green dress?” This time Max didn’t doubt the man was going to hang up on him and he wouldn’t argue. This question was strange even for him.

  “You’re kidding, right?” the man asked reasonably.

  “You know, I’m not sure myself. We, writers, are strange people. I thought about a green dress. From the attic. Dark green actually.”

  “I don’t have any dresses in my attic. I live alone and don’t have a habit of wearing women’s clothes.”

  “Yes, sure. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Is that it? I have to go.” The man said it politely to Max’s surprise. He probably thought Max was mentally ill, and he was treating him accordingly. Max, the crazy writer, could burn his house down since he knew the address.

  Max almost said that he wasn’t going to set anything on fire, but composed himself in time. The man could call the police and ask for a restraining order against the writer who went to la-la land.

  “Yes. Thank you for your help. Do you mind if I call you again with questions?”

  “Are you going to come here?”

  “Not without your permission. I promise.”

  “You can call. I don’t know what else I can say. I hope you’re not going to call every day. I’m not at home every day.”

  “No, of course not. Thank you.”

  “Bye now.”

  Max turned the phone off and put it on the table with care. The sudden change of mood seemed strange, but understandable. Morris must have really decided that the writer was crazy, and it was in his own interest not to make him irritated. Again, he wasn’t going to set the house on fire.

  “Green dress,” Max cackled. “Maybe I am crazy. If it’s not some other problem I’ve got.”

  Dropping against the back of the chair, he threw his arms behind his head and whistled, thinking about an idea that came in such a strange way. The character from his book, the owner of the house, kept his mother’s dresses in the attic.

  “It’s Hitchcock and I can’t do that.”

  But the thought seemed attractive and Max typed it in a different file. He could use it for future books. Maybe.

  “Green dress, huh.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Groaning, Morris pulled the ladder to the floor and climbed up into the attic. He started coughing from dust flying in his face. It wasn’t a surprise; he hadn’t been here for two years. He went inside, rose from his knees, and looked around. A thick layer of dust covered old boxes, the chest, broken furniture, books, and magazines. In the far corner of the attic, covered with a big plastic bag, hung the green dress. His mother’s favorite dress.

  Stepping over scattered books, he approached it, untied the bag, and lifted it up, so he could touch the smooth fabric. As often happened, he got an erection. Not bad for a man of almost sixty and no Viagra. The excitement disappeared in a second when Morris remembered the writer and his sneaky questions.

  He lowered the bag and glanced out of the attic window. He could see the house so well from here. From here, he had often watched Angelica, who didn’t have a clue of his observations. A couple of times she forgot to close the drapes in her bedroom, and he masturbated as he watched her changing clothes. If his mother had caught him, she would have smacked him and deplored the boy he was growing into without a father. What could she do? He thought he would make her jealous. He wanted her to be jealous and didn’t understand why he wanted her to feel jealous. Was it right? All boys of his age wanted girls of his age. But he wanted his mother. He was confused. Strange feelings bothered him, tortured his soul. He didn’t want to think about these things. He wanted to push them far into the back of his mind, and throw it out of his head completely. So, he did what most people his age did; he chased girls.

  Angelica was the first girl who really touched his heart. He liked her more than an object for transferring his vague juvenile feelings. She was beautiful, popular, but at the same time, so decent. She had never been rude to her mother or to other adults. She didn’t drink and dated only one boy. There was something else about her Morris couldn’t explain, but it attracted him. Something ephemeral, which subtly made her reflect his mother.

  Their bodies were the first thing he noticed. His mother’s body didn’t change until the last day of her life. She didn’t gain weight around her waist, her shoulders were smooth and fragile, and her legs were slim and muscular. Everyone he selected had been the same. Maybe he didn’t notice it consciously, but he understood right away that it was her. Later, when everything was over and his shed once again became empty, he thought about her as he carved a new figurine and understood the reason for his choice. Narrow hips, straight shoulders, firm steps. No one could hide this under the clothes. He felt it more than he took it in visually. Didn’t he notice certain girls during the summertime, when their bodies were covered with thin material and the sun highlighted their contours? He noticed them and wanted them, but
he had to hold back his desire. Until it became intolerable. Until the day his mother died, which happened a week after her birthday.

  Now what happened?

  Morris stepped away from the small window, dusted off the chest, and sat down on it, turning to the dress.

  When this person knocked at his door, called himself a writer, and asked if he would show him the house, Morris didn’t trust him and wanted to call the police if the guy didn’t leave. He wouldn’t call the police, of course; he didn’t want them in his house, but for some people it worked. Some people were scared of the police as if they were mad dogs. If he had a dog … Only, dogs barked when they were not asked and he liked silence. The neighbors’ dogs already poisoned his life.

  Then this writer started to talk about murders in the house. It felt like somebody hurled an ice stone in Morris’s stomach and that pressed him to the ground. Later, he believed the guy didn’t really know anything and was just a psycho, but at that moment, he thought it was the end. Who was that person behind the door? Could he sniff out something? That was why he had to let him in. He needed to look at the man and try to determine if he had known something. In the first few seconds after the psycho walked inside, he knew that he wasn’t a cop, but a crook.

  Morris knew cops; he had one as a friend. The guy hired him for a project on a summerhouse. He wasn’t just a cop, he was from a higher echelon, but they all had the same faces. The snotter who called himself a writer was not only a psycho, but also sick. As soon as he entered, he fainted. First, Morris thought the crook was pretending, but it looked too real. Then he left his card, and of course Morris googled his name. What a great thing this Internet was. The guy wasn’t just a writer, but a famous writer. Morris didn’t read, he rarely watched TV, and he had no idea about most of the celebrities in any field, let alone literature. He found a picture that confirmed the psycho’s identity. It didn’t calm Morris, but provided more questions. The crazy writer talked about dreams. He talked about Morris’s house being a part of that dream and he talked about murders.

  He made it up, of course. It was his job to make up crap, so other idiots would spend money on it and stuff their brains with the productions of a sick mind. It was his job, but how did he find out about the green dress? Not just a dress, not in a closet, but in the attic and green. How?

  What if it was the cops’ idea to use this clown to reach him? Somebody had gotten into his house and climbed up into the attic. They hadn’t known about the garden with immortelles, because if that were the case, they wouldn’t need this comedian. They would interview him, like they did in all those movies he watched out of boredom or a desire to forget. No, no, no, no one had known anything and the writer came with his own stupid motivation. Morris didn’t believe that he dreamed about the house. Then what?

  “How did he find out about the dress?”

  Morris started to cough again and decided to climb back down. This attic that had been closed for two years; he could suffocate from the dust.

  He closed the attic stairs and entered the bedroom.

  Okay, say the writer saw the bed. Of course he saw it. He stood right by the bedroom. He saw Morris’s photo in the article.

  “That’s right.” Morris touched the statuettes on the dresser. “He read the article about me in the paper. He found my address. His imagination started to work like it happens with crazy snotters like him. I do it sometimes as an artist. So, he wanted to write a new book about a murder because he writes about murders and …”

  Morris fell silent, smoothed out his photo on the wall, and walked to the kitchen, where he drank a glass of water. With another glass full, he went to the living room and sat down on the couch.

  How did he find out about the dress? A guess? The attic and the bed? Maybe he …

  Morris laughed at his own thought. He didn’t believe in psychics. Those crooks pulled the wool over the eyes of idiots who didn’t know how to wait. They had to know what fate was going to bring them. They had to know if they would make a million, breed a flock of kids, they wanted to know the day of their death. They had to know all of that so they would have a direction to live. They needed hope to drag them from year to year. They needed help in making decisions. They didn’t want to be in despair when everything was falling apart. They trusted those crooks, who laughed at night over their stupidity, counting money that they enticed with lies. No, Morris would never believe in psychics. He was a sociopath—yes, but not a naïve idiot. They would come to a wrong address.

  What if?

  He drank some water, put the glass on the coffee table by the couch, and turned on the TV. The old TV warmed up for two minutes before the screen came alive. News. A flood somewhere. Did someone want to see it and know it would happen? Who was interested if some people, in some poor, unspeakable country had been left without roofs over their heads? The fewer of them the better. What were they here for? So millionaires, who didn’t know where to spend their money, could feed them? They were so stupid they couldn’t feed themselves. What were they here for? Who needed them?

  “How did he know about the dress?”

  Morris pressed the button on the remote control with fury. He hated everything and everyone. Who cared about that stupid flood that wasn’t even in America? He hadn’t taken the dress from the attic for two years, how could he see it? Morris would have forgotten the writer or told him to go fuck himself if he hadn’t mentioned the dress. Well, maybe he wouldn’t tell him to go and fuck himself; he was a famous person. He wouldn’t understand such treatment. He would think there was something wrong with a person who didn’t want to help a famous writer. It was unheard of! He could speak about it in his interview, give away his name, and name the town where he lived. The writer had gotten offended and that was it. Morris would become famous himself. Like he hadn’t had enough from this picture and the article.

  He had to get the dress out earlier this time. Maybe press it, or maybe even wash it. There had to be some unpleasant smell after such a long time in the bag. What should he do now? Maybe he should wait for the writer to leave him alone.

  “No. Nada. No one is going to stop me from doing what I enjoy. Especially some psycho who thinks too much of himself. Oh, what a damn snotter! Hah! He thinks everyone must kneel before him!”

  Morris grabbed the glass from the table, but in spite of drinking water, he flung it with all his might. The glass didn’t hit the wall straight as Morris had expected, first it knocked over the vase with ten roses by the TV, along with Mother’s crocheted cloth. The vase broke and the flowers scattered on the floor. Fragments of the glass and the water that was in it covered everything on top.

  “Son of a bitch! You fucking writer! Look what you did, damn snotter! Huh? Damn you!”

  Morris rushed to collect the flowers, but cut his hand on a splinter.

  “Fuck you, you snotter! Who asked you to come here?”

  Despite the blood oozing from his wound, mixing with water and fragments of glass, Morris gathered the flowers and put them neatly on the table. Then he collected the fragments of the vase and lay them out, so he could glue them later. After that, he went to the kitchen to get a dustpan and a broom, cursing the writer with words his mother wouldn’t approve.

  CHAPTER 16

  Max heard Anna puttering about the kitchen. He heard her entering the living room and sitting on the couch, he heard the computer waking up, but he didn’t want to open his eyes. With all his might he tried to hold on to the image. The image of a girl of about six. Light hair with a tint of gold-brown eyes, and freckles scattered over a button nose. When she smiled, a dimple appeared on her left cheek. A beautiful girl, full of energy and life. Max could feel the warmth and love coming from her. All of these mixed with some anxiety. As if a monster was following this wonderful child. A monster that was ready to attack at any moment. The girl smiled, and her hair glowed in the sun like a halo. She was an angel. He studied the girl’s face in his dream as she played with her mother. He saw a
river, and a glade covered with yellow and white spots of daisies. Mother and daughter weaved garlands, and the girl said that she couldn’t make them as beautiful as her mom’s. Her mother answered that she could do it when she had grown up.

  “What if I don’t grow up?” the girl asked.

  “You have no choice.” Her mother laughed and tousled her daughter’s golden hair. Then they let the garlands flow on the water.

  When the river’s blue water turned black, Max woke up with his heart beating heavily and with the image of a golden-haired angel before his closed eyes.

  Something fell in the living room and Anna cursed.

  “Time to get up.” Max opened his eyes, and glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand. 8:14. His wife was leaving for work in fifteen minutes, and he would stay alone with his thoughts, images, and his book that refused to be written and wouldn’t let him go.

  Getting out of the bed, Max put on his sweat pants and a T-shirt, and then went to the living room.

  Anna sat on the couch with her laptop on her knees, and a mandatory cup of coffee. Books were scattered on the table.

  “What are you doing, Babe?” Max asked.

  His wife turned to him: the cup of coffee in one hand, her other hand glued to the keyboard.

  “Did I wake you? I dropped your books.”

  “I forgot to put them on the shelf yesterday.” Max moved Anna’s bag from the chair to the floor (there was always a bag on the chair), sat down, and rubbed his eyes.

  “You also forgot to put the ice cream in the freezer. If you want some sweet milk with nuts—it’s on the bottom shelf. I haven’t thrown it away yet.”

  “Damn. But I like sweet milk with nuts.”

  Anna took a sip of coffee, studying Max.

  “What? I forgot, sorry.”

  “I came home last night and the stove top was red. Forget to turn it off?”

  “Oh. That’s serious. I could have burnt the house down. I’ll be more careful.”