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

by Natasha A. Salnikova

“She looked like her father.” The woman smiled. “Red hair, light brown eyes. Golden. My beautiful, beautiful girl. Do you want to see her photo?”

  “Yes, absolutely.” Max looked at his watch. “Next time, please. I’m sorry, but I’m running late. I did a lot of things around town.”

  “I understand.”

  Did Max really want to see a picture? He didn’t know. A name was one thing; it could be coincidence. The missing daughter of the woman from the red brick house had the same name as his character. He accepted it. If he saw the face from his dream in a photo, (he didn’t doubt that) it would prove that something supernatural had slinked into his mind. Something he didn’t believe in, something he made sarcastic jokes about. Was he ready for that? He thought he was, but he didn’t feel that way now. Was he ready to give to that girl not only his mind, but his life as well? Why did he think about life? No one could control that. No one. Right?

  “You said drugstore?” Max asked as he returned his thoughts to the woman, who looked uncomfortable. “Are you okay? Cold or something?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m old and my back hurts sometimes. My doctor gives me prescriptions.”

  “I can drive you there.”

  “No, no! Thank you! You’re in a hurry already and Walgreens is right around the corner.”

  “I can drop you off.”

  “Thank you. It’s all right.” The woman waved her hand and took a step back. There was a new expression in her eyes. Suspicion.

  “Okay.” Max smiled, trying to regain the trust that seemed to be slipping away. His emotions must have shown on his face, and the woman decided the writer was insane. What could one expect from somebody who wrote about murders? He didn’t want and didn’t need her to think like that. This time, unlike others, he cared.

  To his relief, the woman smiled.

  “I need help with information about your town. Do you think you can help me? I’ll mention you in the book.”

  “I saw you always thanked the people who helped you. You will add my name?”

  “By all means.”

  “Oh.” The woman touched her cheek with her hand. “You know, my friend, she doesn’t read your books. You, please, forgive her. She likes romance novels. I read all kinds of books, but when I read your book that first time, Flowers for Dolly, you became my favorite. You write about dark things, bad things, but at the end, the good always wins. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

  “Thank you.” Max felt a cold touch to his skin. The expected snow had started.

  The woman must have noticed the snowflakes and lifted her head.

  “Okay, I know you have to go too,” Max said as he turned to the car. “Are you sure? It’s not a problem for me to drop you off.”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Stevenson.”

  “Okay. Thank you for your help.”

  “I haven’t helped you.”

  “You don’t mind if I come again? I’ll call before.”

  “No, I don’t mind at all, Mr. Stevenson.”

  “It’s Max, please.”

  “Max. Call me, so I’ll know and stay home. I’ll make fresh cookies.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call.”

  “What about my phone number?”

  Max didn’t want to remind the woman that she gave him the number already, so he pulled his cell phone out and pretended to enter numbers the woman told him. Then they said goodbye to each other. In his rearview mirror, Max saw the woman watching his car drive away.

  Max smiled despite the fact that he didn’t have anything to smile about, besides the simplicity and sincerity of the woman. He liked her. Her soft voice and desire to help. She could be his mother or his grandma. She was older than Anna’s mom and his own.

  As always, the thoughts of his mother chased away any good mood. It was difficult to be in a good mood with his thoughts, but something impalpable, ineffable enveloped his heart.

  His mother. His father. His family. If not for his aunt, he would have grown up in a foster family. Maybe she didn’t love him, but he was always fed, he had his own bed, and he even received an allowance.

  His father had been drunk more often than sober. He yelled, threw plates, and hit anyone in his way. His wife or son, it didn’t matter. His mother hated her husband, but she didn’t want to leave him for fear of having to raise her kid alone. Instead, she left the boy without supervision, hiding from her husband. It was later, when he went to live with his aunt, that he learned she had a few lovers.

  It didn’t matter anyway. His mother wasn’t home, and from the age of five, Max learned to make peanut butter sandwiches and pour milk in a cup without spilling it. When he had milk. And bread for that matter. At six, he started to use the stove to warm up Campbell’s soup and make macaroni and cheese. If he could find those. Sometimes he went to bed hungry and went to school hungry if his mother forgot to stop by a store. When she came home on days like this, discovering an empty fridge, she asked her son to forgive her. She had too much stress. Sometimes she even hugged and kissed him—something his father had never done.

  At seven, he spent too much time alone outside of their duplex, and his neighbors started inviting him to their houses. They sat him at the table with their kids, and asked how he was doing in school and how his mom and dad were. Their looks of pity made him feel ashamed, but he tried not to pay attention. It was easier when his stomach was stuck to his back and could think only about food and nothing else.

  At eight, when he got home from school or a friend’s, he took out one of his composition books and wrote stories. He wrote about aliens who kidnapped him and brought him to their planet with as much food as he could eat. He wrote about getting into a magic country where candies grew on trees and rivers were made of chocolate. He took books from the library near his house, science fiction mostly, and read, locking himself in the closet, sinking completely into another world.

  When Max was eleven, his father disappeared. He went to work in the morning and never came back. His mother said that he “found another ho,” but his aunt later told him that Lauren asked one of her lovers to getting rid of him. The police had talked to his mother, but she had never gone to court. The police hadn’t found him. They also hadn’t found Angelica.

  His mother died when Max turned fifteen. Her death was ludicrous. She started to drink in her last year of life, just like her husband. One time she went downstairs when she was drunk, fell, and broke her neck. His neighbors gossiped that it should have happened a long time ago. People from social services came and wanted to put him into a foster home, but his father’s sister arrived in time to snatch him. She said that no one would humiliate her family like this. So, Max grew up with his two cousins, a brother and a sister. They didn’t mind his “invasion” and supported him in everything. They supported him at his new school, where at first he didn’t fit in, but then became popular. He ran for class president and won. He was the editor of the school newspaper. He received dating invitations from girls. All of it had changed him, made him feel like a human.

  He didn’t hide the facts of his biography, but he also didn’t share everything. He didn’t talk about his mother’s potential lovers, or his father beating the crap out of him. Many journalists asked how he grew to be such a sensitive, sincere man. Max smiled at that and always gave the same answer—books. They became his refuge. Because of them, he didn’t get mad at the whole world, he didn’t become a sociopath or outcast, and he became what he was now. He was a loving husband and a successful writer. Sometimes, he added that his mother loved him despite her neglect. He wanted to believe it, but he knew he had been a burden to her. She would probably have left his father to be with somebody else if not for him. She might not have died so young. Max became what he was despite all the psychological predictions that everything had depended on upbringing. For Max, the most important was a choice. Every person could choose what he wanted to be. He didn’t think of his family often because he didn’t want to sour his existence, but he wa
s happy that these memories didn’t impact him in any way.

  Now … Now he wasn’t sure he had a choice. Where to go, what to do, what to write? His thoughts belonged to someone else and he had agreed to it. Because whatever was happening, despite all the mysticism, it had been his choice from the beginning. He chose to write and he chose to allow another willpower to enter his mind, whoever this will belonged to. He allowed her to take the upper hand. For now.

  CHAPTER 27

  Morris was about to go outside, but when he opened the door, he saw that damn snotter’s car. Again. He came here again! What the hell was wrong with him? Why? What did he want? He slammed the door shut, almost pinching his fingers, and listened to the roar from the only car there. It stopped somewhere close, but not at his house. Strange, everything was strange.

  Morris dashed to the back of the house with all the speed his old legs and achy back were capable of. He dropped his jacket on the floor, grabbed the rope, and pulled the attic ladder down, opening the entrance. He climbed up, slipped inside, and almost fell head over heels. By some miracle, he held on to the edge. He ran to the window, out of breath and bending at the waist, and peeped outside. His heart dropped when he saw the writer’s car parked by the house of his neighbor, Mrs. Porter. He was in the car, waiting for something, watching. Then something happened that was insane and didn’t make any sense. Wilma Porter came out of the house, and the writer jumped out of his car to meet her. They talked. They talked for about ten minutes. Porter smiled, frowned, and then the writer pulled out his cell phone and dialed something. Or entered. He drove away after that, but his neighbor waited for his car to disappear before she moved.

  Morris’s legs became weak and he reached the chest with difficulty to sit down on it.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said as he breathed deep and hard. “Something’s definitely wrong.”

  Okay, first he came to this house, talking some nonsense about dreams and books. Then he called and mentioned the attic and the green dress. It made Morris think, but didn’t bother him much. This snotter couldn’t know what Morris was up to. He couldn’t know about the hunt, the statuettes, and the immortelles in the garden. But today.

  “It’s too much.”

  Today, he hadn’t just appeared here to sniff for something. Today, he had talked to Wilma Porter. He talked to Angelica’s mother. What did it mean? What did he want from her? Could he know? But how? It was impossible! The detective had been here and found out nothing, and suddenly some writer! After so many years? How?

  “It’s impossible! He couldn’t even guess. But how did he know about the dress?”

  And about the murders in the house. Was he playing some kind of game? He knew or assumed that somebody had killed people in this house. Knew or assumed. How?

  Morris stood, ignoring his spinning head and buckling legs, and went down the ladder. It had become too difficult to breathe in the attic. In the kitchen, he opened the window and sat at the table in front of it, taking in cold air and looking at the snow that was flying into the room and melting instantly upon meeting the warm air.

  “He has to be out of my way.” Morris squeezed his fists and teeth so hard that he started to shake. “Kill him.”

  He thought over a plan. It wouldn’t be difficult to lure him in. Just say you would show him through the house and this snotter would be here. Like a jackal on dead flesh. Everything else would be purely technical. What about the consequences?

  Morris poured cold coffee into the cup, added two packs of brown sugar, and returned to the table. He gazed at the shed that was ready to meet a new guest. Everything was ready, and if it weren’t for this freak, Morris would already have been spending time in the company of a young charmer.

  “Sucker! Idiot! Son of a bitch! I hate you!”

  What would the consequences be if he killed the writer? Of course, he was a famous personality. The police, probably FBI, would look for him. They would list all his phone calls, unwinding every hour of his movements. This snotter probably told somebody about visiting this shit hole Watervliet, somewhere in the eastern part of New York, spoiling the lives of good people. Or worse. What if the police did find something, but decided to fool him, drive him crazy. They talked the writer into sniffing around. So, no one would suspect anything. Tell this Bishop guy that you dreamed about his house. Lie truthfully, pass out. Right. So, the dress … What about the dress? They had to have sneaked into the house to find it; there was no other way. Why didn’t he notice anything? He always saw all the details.

  He had to!

  “Okay. Calm down.”

  Morris finished his coffee and moved to the living room, leaving the cup on the table and the window open.

  They don’t know about the garden—that was obvious—otherwise the writer wouldn’t walk around town and Morris wouldn’t spend his time at home. All they had were assumptions and nothing concrete. He would show them. He would show them. Soon, this snotter would drop his attempts to be a spy and look for his wife. Spying on the writer and trying to kill him away from the house wouldn’t be a good idea either. He was a young, healthy man, too much of a risk to try to take him. His wife, on the other hand, was perfect. She was beautiful, as if she had been made to order. She was exactly what he loved.

  Remembering Anna, Morris relaxed and even caught himself smiling, swimming out of his thoughts. This time, the flower of love didn’t grow freely in his heart as it used to. It felt like it was preparing to blossom, but there wasn’t enough sunlight to help it. The sun was covered by a dark cloud. As soon as it disappeared, everything would be the same. The way his romantic soul demanded. No one would say he wasn’t romantic.

  Morris found his jacket, shrugged it on, and went outside, closing the zipper on his way. He opened the door a little and peeked out, watching Porter’s house. Wilma was old and retired; she couldn’t go far. She didn’t drive, which meant she would return soon.

  He wasn’t mistaken. About ten minutes after he opened the door, she appeared in his view. She carried a plastic bag in one hand, and limped. She was old. He remembered her from a long time ago. She was stunning. Even his father had noticed her in that short time he had been home. Time didn’t spare people. What did it do to him? What would it do to him at her age?

  He stepped out on the porch and called the woman before she reached her house. She turned and waved to him without a smile.

  “Mrs. Porter!” Morris smiled and hurried to meet her. She stopped, but he could see that she did it unwillingly. Like many other people, she didn’t like her neighbor. If she knew the truth about him, she probably would have tried to kill him. This thought made Morris smile even more. “How are you doing?”

  “Good, thank you. Yourself?” the woman said when he stopped beside her, gasping for air.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Everything is fine, as usual. Did you want something, Morris?”

  She wants to get rid of me fast, Morris thought with anger.

  “I saw you were talking to some man.”

  Wilma looked around before turning to her neighbor again. He pulled the hood of his jacket to cover his face, protect it from the snow.

  “Yes, I was.” She shook off the snow from her shoulders.

  “I looked out the window and saw him standing here. It made me worry for some reason. I wondered who this guy was and what he wanted. He’s not local. You live alone and he’s so imposing. Expensive car. I thought I’d ask. What if he wanted to scam you? Some pervs prey on old people.”

  “I’m not that old,” the neighbor said, clearly offended.

  “Of course not!” Morris waved. Old goat. “But you live alone. We neighbors should care about each other. We have been together for so many years. Lived on the same street. You have known me since I was a kid.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Morris.”

  He remembered her calling him Morry. He was the boy next door, just a few years older than her daughter.

&nb
sp; “What did he want?” Morris asked with curiosity. He tried not to look tense.

  The woman sighed and twisted the bag in her hand. Snow dropped from it. She didn’t want to talk to him. Later, if the writer came again, she might tell him about Morris asking questions. If he came again. That snotter.

  “He’s a writer,” she said. “Popular. His name is Max Stevenson. You may have heard of him.”

  “Oh yeah!” Morris clasped his hands. “Of course! I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t see well from the window. I talked to him also.”

  Morris decided to say it. What if the writer should visit again and tell her about talking to him?

  “Is that right?” The bored expression left his neighbor’s face; her eyes sparkled with interest. “What did he tell you?”

  “He asked me to show him the house. He told me that he saw my house in his dream and wanted to write about it.”

  “Is that right?” Wilma pressed her hand, in a blue glove, to her lips. “He told me about the book too. He also told me that he wants to call one of his characters Angelica.”

  “Huh. Really?” Morris’s hands started to tremble, and he hid them in his pockets, trying also to conceal the emotions on his face. “Angelica.”

  “I think I looked like you do now. I told him that was my daughter’s name. I think he was surprised too.”

  “It’s all so interesting. You think he’s really a writer?”

  “I recognized him right away. I went to New York to meet him. To meet Max Stevenson. I liked one of his books so much. Flowers For Dolly that book is. I’ve read it so many times, especially certain parts. The mother in that book loses her daughter. He wrote it like he went through it himself and I felt that. I know what it is to lose a child.”

  Morris listened to her useless babbling. The old woman would talk to anyone so that she didn’t have to go home and look at the pictures of her missing daughter and her dead husband. Not a house, but a big tomb. What did she have? Only memories. Just like him. He had a life, plans, goals, unlike this old woman. He wasn’t going to listen to her chattering, wasting his precious time.