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

by Natasha A. Salnikova

  “He’s an idiot,” Morris said.

  “Where is he?” The man fished out a pack of cheap cigarettes and stuck one in his mouth.

  “He’ll come. He comes every day.” Morris was shaking and he couldn’t hide it, but his father took it the way he wanted.

  “Got cold feet?” He smacked his son’s head, hurting his ear. “It will work good.”

  “Can I look at your knife?” Morris asked, and he almost dropped it when his father gave the knife to him.

  “Snotter,” Bishop senior said kindly. “It’s okay. You’ll learn something.”

  Morris unfolded the knife and touched its shiny, smooth blade.

  “Dad, why do you hit my mom?” he asked.

  “Huh?” He spat again then sucked on his cigarette. “What kind of question is that, boy?”

  “You hurt her. She’s good.”

  “You’re an idiot, Morris. You have to hold your woman like this.” Father shook a red fist. “They must be like butter. You’re the man, the master of the house. Women are made to serve you. Got it, boy? And I don’t beat her that much. She’ll live. Look at you, protector. Don’t you ask me these questions no more. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Morris nodded as he squeezed the knife handle with all his might. He didn’t shake anymore, and if he did, it wasn’t from fear. “Look, Dad! It’s him!”

  Bishop turned to look where his son pointed, and Morris hit him with the knife. The left side of his back. Then again and again. Blood gushed everywhere, onto Morris’s face, but he didn’t stop even when his father fell to the ground and stopped moving. He didn’t say a word, didn’t scream, or even turn. Morris stopped only when his hand started to get numb. Panting, he turned his father on his shredded back. Bishop senior’s eyes were open, the cigarette hung in the corner of his mouth. Morris dropped him in a hole he’d dug the day before, filled it up with dirt, threw some dry leaves on top. Then he washed himself and his clothes with icy water, and went home wet, shaking from cold.

  His mother asked why he was wet, where he had been, and Morris answered that some big boys pushed him in the water. His mother asked if he’d seen his father, and Morris answered that he hadn’t. Then his mother helped him change, checked his skinny body for any bruises, and demanded that he tell her the names of the hooligans. She wanted to go to the school and complain. Morris didn’t tell her, of course, but promised that nothing like this would ever happen again. Later, he went to bed and spent the whole night in the corner, with his thumb in his mouth. The police couldn’t find his father. Morris returned to the forest more than a dozen times to check the grave. After two years, he dug it up. There had been bones, teeth pressed together on a naked skull. Morris grabbed the only golden one, pulled it out easily, and pocketed it. It had been in the bottom of his drawer since then, in a small wooden box. The memory of his father.

  Morris sat on the couch and rocked, dreaming about his mother sitting next to him and hugging him.

  CHAPTER 59

  Max stopped his car by Wilma’s house again, but didn’t get out. How would she take his new discovery? Would she believe him? Yes, she trusted him, but now he had something completely different. Would she accept him?

  Finally, after twenty minutes, when his back started to hurt from a still position, Max made up his mind, climbed out of the car, and headed to the red brick house. Wilma opened right away and gazed at him, surprised.

  “Oh, I didn’t expect you again today.” She held a book in her hand, Flowers for Dolly. He always thought the name of this book came to him from somewhere else, but he would never tell anyone about his ideas.

  “I need to tell you something important.” Max’s voice sounded indistinct, slow and far away.

  “Something new from Angelica?” Not a shadow of doubt. Total belief that he had communicated with her dead daughter. Full trust.

  “I know everything.”

  “Come in.” The woman stepped aside letting Max in, then closed the door. Max dropped his jacket in the hallway and followed the woman to the living room, where he sat on the couch beside her. Wilma put the book, with the back cover up, on her knees, and Max saw his photo. Mysterious smile as the photographer suggested. He had so many ideas then, and he thought he understood life. How could he assume that all his understanding would change?

  Max turned to the woman then moved to the chair. He wanted to face her, wanted to see her every move. He looked at her differently now and felt differently toward her, but the truth was, he had known all of it from the beginning. Not consciously, but deep in his heart. Now, she was going to know too. She had to.

  “The problem is …” Max started and stopped. A lump in his throat blocked his voice. The woman put the book aside, fiddled with the bottom of her gray cardigan, and smoothed her hair that was already smooth. Max cleared his throat, and wiped moisture from his forehead. “I don’t know where to start,” he said and smiled. “It’s probably a professional habit. I work the longest on the first few lines. They should be strong, to grab the reader.

  “You’re not writing a book, Max. Tell me, please.” Wilma’s voice was calm and quiet.

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Max asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “I’ve heard the word,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “I’ve heard it many times. I think I know what it means, but I’m not sure.”

  “It’s the rebirth of a spirit. A soul leaves its body to move into another one. Many religions support this theory. I didn’t believe in it. To be honest, I’d never even thought about it seriously as being something legitimate.”

  Wilma touched her cheek then covered her mouth with her palm. Her eyes were round, but she didn’t say anything.

  Max wiped his palms on his pants.

  “You understand what I’m trying to tell you, right? First, I thought that Angelica, your daughter, found me somehow to deliver the information. You know that. I thought she wanted me to find her killer. However, she doesn’t exist separate from me. She’s not a creature or a ghost. I would sense her if she was a ghost. Something. Then, during my last black out, I saw everything that had happened and finally I understood. I remembered my past life.”

  Wilma stood, waved her hand, fell down again.

  “Sorry for telling you about it. Like this. I don’t know any other way to present it. I’m so confused.”

  “I don’t want …” the woman mumbled. Now both of her hands covered her mouth.

  “Please, please!” Max dropped to his knees in front of her. “It doesn’t let me live. It’s like lava coming out of me. I can’t hold it back. I don’t know why it happened to me, but when I saw Bishop’s photo in that newspaper, something moved in my mind. Something started to shift. My past life started to seep out in drops. How could I know what was going on? I didn’t know.”

  “I don’t want to hear anymore.” Tears came out on the surface of the woman’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, but my soul has lived before in Angelica’s body, before she was killed.”

  “This is not true! Not true!” Wilma started to cry. She stood and recoiled from Max when he touched her arm.

  “How would I know all of this? How would I know that she came in one day from school, crying, and threw away her pleated skirt? You couldn’t get anything from her and she’d never told you what happened. How would I know about that? And I … she was killed. I know who killed her.”

  “Go away. Please, go away.”

  Max rose to his feet and wanted to hug the woman, but she stepped back with her arm forward as if protecting herself from a blow.

  “Your neighbor killed her, Ms. Porter. Morris. Morris Melvin Bishop. He tricked her and made her enter his house and he held her there for a few days before he killed her. I saw everything. I heard the song he whistled in another room. The song was Flowers for Dolly. He smothered her with a pillow. He wanted to use a rope at first, but then changed his mind. He didn’t want to see her eyes. He told her that he had alwa
ys loved her. She begged him to let her go.”

  Max stopped when he noticed that Wilma just shook her head, silently.

  “It’s terrifying,” he said, “but it means we don’t die. We are forever. Angelica is alive.”

  “Go away.” The woman, stumbling, went to another room. Max heard sobbing and the sound of the closing door.

  He stood for some time in the hallway, then put on his jacket and went outside. Standing by his car, he looked at the architect’s house. Then he had an idea. He remembered about a gap between two houses and moved his car there. The car barely fit, but Max knew it wouldn’t be visible from the architect’s house. He, in his turn, saw its front part when he stood on the corner of the gap. He did just that. He knew he was going to freeze, but decided to watch the house no matter what and warm up in the car periodically.

  CHAPTER 60

  Morris slowly came back to his senses. Was it the doorbell? Did somebody ring at his door again?

  He straightened up and flinched from the pain in his back. How long had he been sitting like this? His jaw ached, his eyes burned, his knees unfolded with difficulty.

  Yes, the doorbell again. Who was it this time?

  Frustration started to rise from the bottom of his stomach, pushing away apathy, confusion, and fear. No, he was still scared because they could come for him and it would end his freedom. Only he was ready to fight. If it was that damn snotter, who scribbled papers with his ugly thoughts, Morris was going to kill him. They could try to find him, but they wouldn’t. He was going to kill his wife too. Morris went to the kitchen to get a knife, hid it under his belt, covered it with his sweater, pulled on his jacket, and headed to meet his guest.

  Opening the door, he couldn’t hold a surprised gasp.

  “You?”

  “Hi, Morris,” Wilma said as she adjusted her blue scarf. Her eyes were red as if she had been crying.

  “Hi.” Morris glanced behind the woman’s back, but the street was empty. It was getting dark, wind and snow were becoming stronger, and no one wanted to be outside. “Has something happened?”

  “A lot has happened.” The woman stared straight into Morris’s eyes, and he had a hard time holding her gaze. “I haven’t been here since your mother died.”

  “Yes.”

  “Forgive me, Morris. I had a tough time.”

  Morris didn’t answer. He tried to understand what this visit meant, and he had his suspicions. The writer. His tricks. What did he tell her? Did he tell her everything?

  “May I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “I’d like to talk to you. Look at Mary’s pictures.”

  “Well.” Morris took a deep breath. “My house is messy.”

  “That’s all right. I know you live alone. You’re a man, an artist, a creative person.”

  Morris wasn’t in a hurry to let her in.

  “I won’t take much of your time.”

  Morris drew air into his lungs one more time, smiled, and opened the door wider. When the woman entered, he checked the street again making sure it was empty, and shut the door.

  Wilma walked inside slowly, as if she walked on thin ice. She turned her head left and right, and nodded.

  “Everything is the way I remember. Nothing’s changed. You kept everything as it was with her, Morris. Even her tablecloth and dishes. I see new paintings. Interesting pictures. So much red. Too much red.”

  “What was it that you wanted, Mrs. Porter?”

  The woman turned to Morris, and he started to shake again. Something new flashed in her eyes.

  “Morris, you liked my daughter, did you not?”

  “Everyone liked her,” Morris said after a pause, and swallowed. “She was a good girl.”

  The woman nodded again and looked around. “She was a very good girl. That was Mary’s room?”

  “Yes! It’s messy!” Morris sprinted to the bedroom and blocked Wilma’s way.

  “It’s all right,” she said, surprised. “Don’t worry about that. I remembered your mother had a big portrait of herself there. Is it still on the wall?”

  “I took it down. I had to paint the walls.”

  The woman glanced in the room despite Morris’s protest.

  “It’s there, on the wall, as it used to be!”

  “Yes, it is. Did you want something else?”

  “What are those, on the dresser? Some wooden dolls?”

  Angelica’s mother squeezed past Morris into the room.

  “What is this? Your photo is here from the paper. This one ... looks like my Angel.” The woman raised her eyes to Morris. The thin, wooden figurine trembled in her hands. “It looks like Angelica.”

  “Why did you come here, Mrs. Porter? Why?”

  “Did you do something to my daughter, Morris? Did Max tell me the truth?”

  “Why did you come here?” Morris pulled the knife from behind his belt and lifted it up.

  “Morris!” The figurine fell to the floor. Morris swung his arm and hit the woman in her stomach, through her thick coat. She made a short gasp.

  “Why did you come here!” he yelled, wiping his tears. “Who asked you to come here? Why? Why? Why?”

  Morris shut the door to the bedroom and dropped to the floor near it. The bloody knife he threw aside.

  “It’s not my fault! It’s the writer! That damn snotter!”

  He sat by the door, wailing, then he picked up the knife. It was time to say goodbye to redhead. He had no choice.

  CHAPTER 61

  Max waited five minutes and dialed the detective’s number. Wilma walked past him without noticing him and rang at the architect’s door, and then she talked to him and entered his house. Max didn’t know exactly why she went there, but he suspected it would end badly. He pushed her to this visit. She didn’t believe him, or she didn’t want to believe, but he dropped seeds of doubt in her soul and she needed to disperse them. Couldn’t she accept the fact that the killer of her only daughter had lived on the same street with her for all these years? That he talked to her, looked into her eyes, smiled at her? Couldn’t she trust that a famous writer, an absolute stranger to her, was now the shell for her daughter’s soul? What mother would easily believe that her daughter was reborn in a male’s body? Did he believe this possibility completely? He didn’t. He just knew. He knew that even if he had remembered his past life, and it wasn’t only on paper anymore, but also in his mind like a movie that he’d watched recently, he was still the same. He was an adult, a writer, a husband. Only now, he pondered if his passion for bloody mysteries had been a reflection of his past life.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Max twitched from the scream.

  “I’m sorry. The connection isn’t good.”

  “What did you get?” the detective asked impatiently, but politely.

  “You need to come to Watervliet immediately. I’ll tell you the address. The killer is Morris Bishop. I think he’s also related to my wife’s disappearance. Maybe. I don’t know why or how. What’s important right now is Angelica’s mother, Wilma Porter. She entered Bishop’s house and I’m worried about her. I think he might hurt her.”

  “Hurt her. Where are you located now?”

  “Near Bishop’s house.”

  “Are you spying on him?” The detective didn’t sound irritated anymore; he was mad.

  “I know he’s the killer.”

  “Are you spying on him?” Now the voice became aggressive.

  “I have to.”

  “How long are you going to stay there?”

  “I don’t know. It’s cold and I’m freezing, but I need to know what’s going on there. You have to come here now because the woman is not coming out.”

  “What woman?”

  “Angelica’s mother, I told you. You know what? I can’t wait for you. I feel something bad is happening there. I hope you’ll be here soon.”

  “Don’t! You shouldn’t go there!”

  “Start driving.”

  Ma
x told him the address and turned the phone off, in spite of the detective’s screams. He turned the sound off in case the detective called back, and went to the gray house, moving his stiff fingers, barely feeling his feet. He was shaking from cold and fear. He was scared that he had waited too long, guessed for too long, pondered. He was afraid that it was too late.

  Before he reached the door, he stopped, noticing the gate to the backyard was open. Without hesitation or doubt, he pushed the gate and stepped into the yard. He looked over at the black sedan and the gray van. The van.

  “I’m an architect,” Morris said. “I have to deliver materials.”

  “Materials,” Max mumbled, walking toward the van. His heart pounded in his chest. “Materials.”

  He pulled the back door handle and it clicked then opened.

  Ropes and rugs. Nothing shocking. An architect who delivered materials could have ropes and rugs in his van. What materials? Max didn’t know much about architecture, but could assume. He started to close the doors when something flashed on the covered floor. He bent inside; the smell of dog hair suddenly hit his nostrils. He remembered it well from living with his aunt. They had a Labrador and his aunt hated it, but tolerated it for her kids’ sake. Her kids took the dog out without complaints. If the dog went outside after the rain, his aunt yelled more than usual because of the dog smell.

  Max hooked with his stiff finger a gold chain with a heart pendant. Inside that pendant, there was a diamond. Max gave it to his wife about a month ago for no reason. Well, he just wanted to make her happy, that was a good enough reason for him.

  “What kind of a mystery writer are you, Stevenson?”

  Max closed his eyes for a second to calm down and start thinking, stuck the pendant into his pocket, and raced to the house. He slid on the stairs, fell on his knee, but jumped up instantly despite the sharp pain that shot through his leg. He pushed the door and came face to face with the man on the floor. Morris held a knife in his hand that was covered in blood; his face was wet with tears. He stared at Max in stunned disbelief.