Command of Silence

by Paulette Callen

  I eased myself out from under the covers, always curious about what garb I will wake up in. This morning, I was not surprised to find myself in a satin negligee that I had never worn. I’d seen it before. It was Dora’s. So much for her staying gone till the investigation was over. At least I woke up in my own bed. Alone. I had wanted to get rid of this little number, but Olive, ever practical, said why bother? She’ll just steal another one. So we kept it.

  I wrapped myself in my flannel robe and headed for the coffeepot.

  While I was trying to decide what to do—take the portraits down so Aurora wouldn’t see them, or leave them—they were hers after all; she would have to know what happened to them sooner or later, and wondering where Olive was—she would know what I should do—a new painting on the easel caught my eye. I approached it, cautiously, fearing rats and spiders, or that it was something else nasty left by Dora.

  All I saw in it were flowers. I was relieved. Aurora frequently painted flowers. This painting was different, however. It wasn’t paint, for one thing. I touched it with my finger. It was dry. She had used crayons, not children’s crayons, but those expensive things you get in art supply stores. And she hadn’t used a canvas, just a square of poster board. She had obviously drawn this very quickly. Something else was different about the rendering from what she usually did. This was like a garden, but not a realistic garden. The flowers were floating in a dark space with no discernible light source. Robin Bartholome always said that Aurora performed magic with light on her canvases. Maybe it was supposed to be a night garden, or a garden in a solar eclipse.

  I suppose somebody will buy it, I thought and turned to make my coffee and stepped on the home page of the garden site I’d printed out from Spencer’s computer. It was lying unfolded on the floor by the easel. Only this one page. All the other pages were still on the counter where I had left them. I looked at the picture again.

  Aurora was speaking to me, but what the hell was she saying? “Why can’t she just write notes like everybody else, dammit?” She signed her name to her paintings. I knew she could write. “Why is everybody so damned peculiar?” I couldn’t tell if Aurora had come out before Dora had done her damage, or after. But I couldn’t worry about it now.

  And since Aurora wasn’t going to tell me more than what was in this picture, I needed someone who knew something about flowers and gardens. I threw on some clothes, took the poster board and the hard copy of the home page, grabbed my wallet and keys and went out. Ray would be angry that I didn’t call her right away. Dora’s symbolic murder of the lot of us, excepting Aurora, would compel Ray to take some sort of action. I didn’t know what, but whatever it would be, it would take me off the investigation and I couldn’t have that. I would tell her, but later, when I didn’t feel I could be of any more help.

  I walked over to Broadway and then two blocks south to Flower Power, a flower and plant store run by an aging hippie.

  He wore his gray hair in a ponytail, had a grizzled unkempt beard, and favored India cotton shirts (That is sooo forty years ago! Hester moaned when we first met him) open at the neck, the better to show off a peace medallion suspended on a strip of well-worn leather. His blue jeans were always patched and his braided leather bracelet was nearing the end of its life. Soon it would just fall off. When it finally did, Hester bet that the spell would be broken and he would cut his hair, shave and put on a suit. He smiled at me when I came in. The smell in here was wonderful. Green plants, fresh soil, flowers. And a whiff of patchouli.

  “Hey, Shy, got something for me?” When Aurora started painting, we brought small paintings of flowers to him and he sold them on consignment. We still brought him things, though not so often since her larger paintings were doing so well downtown. “I can give you a special price on tulips. Got a load of them. Lilacs will be in soon, I expect. They blow out. If you want some, put your name on the list and I’ll give you a call. No peonies yet. Put your name on the list for those too. We don’t get many.”

  His name was Chris Johansson. He was originally from somewhere in the Midwest. He’d come to New York by way of Southern California. He was one of the few people in my life who hadn’t gone all glassy-eyed when he met me. I guess, considering the things he’d seen on many a drug trip gone bad, I didn’t strike him as so weird.

  “I don’t know if you’ll want this. I need to ask you about it. Look at it and tell me what you think.” I handed him Aurora’s painting.

  “Whoh-ooh! What’s that little sister of yours been smokin’?”

  I had started to tell him my story once, but I think he didn’t want any more stories in his head. He’d tuned me out. I never tried again. He had the idea that Aurora was my little deaf and dumb agoraphobic sister. I left it at that. It wasn’t such a bad description of her.

  “Nothing that I know of, but she picks up ideas and I was wondering what you could tell me about this.”

  He studied it and tugged a strand of his sparse and straggly beard. “Far freakin’ out, man.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, I know your sissy doesn’t get out, but she knows her plants.” He tortured his chin hair some more. “This is just wrong.”

  “Wrong how?”

  “It’s a garden, right? I mean, some sort of garden. It’s not a bouquet. It’s plants growing, not cut and arranged, and it looks like outside. You see a hint of a fence there maybe, or the edge of a wall.” He turned the painting and cocked his head and brought the poster board back to right side up. “But you’d never find this stuff growing together in a garden. Not on this planet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Plants have seasons and climates. Some plants grow in hot weather, some in temperate. Some plants grow, like, in the freakin’ rainforest, man,and some burst their little blooms on the lone prairie. But they don’t party together. Here’s a cactus, see, right there. Kind of blurred, but it’s a cactus all right. And here you have what is a pretty convincing orchid, and some zinnias over here next to a couple tulips. Not likely, man. Not likely at all. Different soils, different times of year. Maybe, possibly, in a hothouse somewhere, but not any garden. They are all like that. None of these flowers would grow together at the same time in the same place. Here’s an apple blossom. And right here, she’s painted a marigold. I’d say it’s a fantasy garden, but it’s more like a nightmare. Is she trying to be funny? It’s not funny. It’s kind of, well, sicko. I hate to say that, but it’s not right.”

  I felt my pulse quicken. My first pair of expert eyes had been Aurora’s. Now I had my second. Someone who could talk like a normal person. Well, almost like a normal person. “Look at this.” I handed him the printout of the garden site home page. He read it slowly. I curbed my impatience.

  “Is this a joke? This has to be somebody’s idea of a joke, right?”

  “I don’t know. I want you to tell me.”

  “Same problem. All wrong.”

  “Wrong flowers?”

  “Wrong information.”

  He reached for a book from the shelf behind him. It was large, heavy and worn. He opened it at random. “Here, see? This is the legend.”

  “The little sun there means what kind of light you should plant in. It will be full, or filled in to varying degrees. Get it?” I nodded. “That little drip shape means the amount of water, the Z indicates what zone. See, they are called plant-heat zones. Pretty standard coding. They have numbers and colors. So for each plant you can tell by the number and color what part of the country they’ll do well in. What zone. See? The map, here—” He flipped to an early page in the book, “…is colored to match. Then you have these numbers that tell you what time of the year to plant, how deep and how far apart. But the numbers here… on this Web site it’s all gibberish. See, you’ve got hardiness zones, heat zones, all the symbols mean something. But these symbols…I don’t know, this outfit needs a new webmaster or something. Somebody who knows something about flowers. This is garbage. They must get a shitload of e-m
ails from people who planted something and watched it die. There should be a law against this. This is criminal, man.” Chris felt about plants the way some people feel about puppies.

  “You are absolutely right. Thanks, Chris. Thank you very much. You can have this, if you want,” I said, indicating the painting.

  He almost said no, then caught himself. Something for nothing is tempting, even if you don’t just love the something. “Sure, thanks. I’ll put it up at Halloween.”

  I thought, Thank you, Aurora. Thank you very, very much. I’m sorry about what Dora did. We’ll deal with her, I promise.

  Chapter 20

  I rang the precinct, and then ducked into a health food store and bought an extra-large strawberry/soy shake and into Starbucks for a large light coffee. Juggling my containers of hot and cold, bitter and sweet along with the paper in my hand, I walked to the station.

  I waited for Olive to tell me to be careful...she’d just had our dry cleaning done, and for Hester to complain about how she would look with stains on her jacket and why did I have to wear the black one again. But they were silent. Instead, I heard the eerie sing-song of Bethy-June and Sula. Snow White and Rose Red pricked their fingers to death they bled.

  “That’s cheery, kids. I’m on it. We don’t need to rush. Leo isn’t even there yet.”

  “You cracked it, eh?” Rudy had smacked his gum in my ear when I called.

  “No, but I think I found something he can crack it with. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “I’ll call him. Come on in. Bring your own coffee.”

  “Got it covered, Rudy.” I’d come to a bench outside a pastry shop and sat. Now that I knew what I was not looking at, a garden site, maybe I could see what was there. I’d stared at the numbers. If they didn’t mean what they were supposed to mean, what did they mean? What kind of code—no—codes hide meaning. Hide in plain sight. Lance must have been telling me I was not looking at a code. Lance and his stories and metaphors, Aurora and her pictures. Why couldn’t people just tell me things, straight out? The only thing I got straight up was the bitching of the two divas. Everybody else was cryptic, poetic or mute. I sucked up the last of my smoothie noisily and tossed the waxy container into the tall city trash basket next to my bench. Sipping my coffee, I stared at the numbers again. Maybe it wasn’t in the numbers. But then, why change them? Why not use real heat zones and planting information? The numbers had to mean something. I couldn’t see it. Did the flowers themselves mean anything? The choice of one flower over another? But why change the numbers?

  Nothing is hidden.

  Then why couldn’t I see it?

  I tossed my empty coffee cup into the trash. I went into the pastry shop and bought another cup of milky coffee and a croissant. I waited for Hester’s protest. Again, it didn’t come.

  I walked my thoughts, my Web page and my brown paper bag to the precinct.

  “Rudy.”

  “Shiloh.” Chew chew.

  “He back yet?”

  “On his way.”

  “Can I go up?”

  He nodded as he picked up his ringing phone.

  I sprinted up the stairs and found my way to Leo’s desk at the back. Jimmy Stokes was not here. The officers who were, just nodded as I went by or were too absorbed in their work to pay attention to me.

  I unpacked my coffee and croissant at Leo’s desk and munched and sipped and thought and studied the damn page. His computer was on. I wondered...I punched in the URL for this Web site. There was the Web page, same layout. Different flower, different numbers.

  You’re doing this wrong.

  “Where have you been?”

  You need to think like a pervert.

  Oh, Hester. That’s your job.

  Hester and Olive were back, nattering at each other, but they were right. I had to look at this from a different point of view. I’m a pedophile. What do I need to know? I need to know where a child is, when, who to contact… No…all I’d need is a phone number and a date and time to call.

  Oh, cripes. So simple. Stupidly, brilliantly simple.

  I smacked the table and made an agghh sound that jerked heads up. Leo was walking toward me down the aisle, Feeney right behind him. If the newbie had had a tail, he’d have been wagging it. Leo said, “Whaddya got?”

  I jumped out of his chair and slapped the paper with the flat of my hand.

  He sat down. “What am I looking at?”

  “A Web site.”

  Feeney leaned over his shoulder. “For flowers, or gardens.”

  “Yeah, it says Flowers and Gardens, Feeney. This one of Burkes’ sites?”

  I said yes.

  “Our lab checked—”

  I cut him off. “But nobody in your lab is a flower expert. They know computers and porn sites. This is no garden site.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a message board. For pedophiles. It tells him who to call for details on a vulnerable child.”

  He stared at the page.

  “I didn’t see it at first either. I was looking for something complicated. But it’s not. See those numbers and letters there?”

  “Forget the letters and symbols. They don’t mean anything. They would mean something on a real site. But this isn’t a real flower site. Ignore them. Just read the numbers. Backward.”

  “Looks like a phone number. Two numbers left over.”

  “Time.”

  “Huh?” Feeney grunted.

  “The time they should call. And look at this.” I pointed to Leo’s computer screen. “I opened this just now. Different day, different flower. But read the numbers backward. A phone number.”

  “It’s not the same number,” said Feeney, perplexed. Leo looked skeptical.

  “Strangers on a Train, Leo, Strangers on a Train.”

  “What the hell…”

  This time Feeney got it first. “It’s an old Hitchcock movie, Lieutenant. These two guys—strangers—meet on a train. They get to talking and discover that each has a problem that could be neatly solved by a little murder. Only they don’t want to get caught. So they make a deal. They’ll each do the murder for the other one. They think it’s the perfect couple of crimes, because the murderer has no connection to his victim, and they’ll each have an alibi for the victim they are connected to. Right?”

  He was eager for a little pat on the back, and I gave him one. Not literally. “That’s good, Feeney.”

  He beamed.

  “I think that people in this network exchange information on where and how to get children. So the children that they know are always taken by someone else, completely unrelated. A total stranger.”

  Roses are red violets are blue roses are red violets are blue

  “We have to shut this down.” Feeney reached for Leo’s phone.

  “No!” Leo and I yelled at him at the same time.

  “We are going to call these numbers. We’ll pick off these bastards one by one,” said Leo.

  Feeney asked, “Will this lead us to Anna?”

  Roses are red violets are blue violets are blue violets violets violets!!!!! The chanting was loud, insistent and incessant inside my head. “Get your lab to find…”

  “How you holding up?” Leo cocked his head and tried to look into my eyes.

  “I’m fine, Leo. Find the site that the kidnapper accessed. The one that—” The word stuck in my throat, “advertised her. You don’t have to go back farther than April third.”

  “April third?” the newbie parroted.

  Roses are red Violets are dead “Stop it!” I said out loud. Feeney was about to open his mouth again. Leo held up a hand to stop him and waited.

  “Not you, Detective Feeney, sorry. That is Anna’s birthday. That was the day of her party.”

  Leo asked, “Soooo, how will we know which site refers to her?”

  “Find the day when the flower on this homepage was a violet.”

  Feeney was slow. “Why is that…”

  “Because,”
Leo was now on board, “she was wearing those goddamn overalls with a goddamn sign on them…TAKE ME.” Leo swore more richly under his breath as he got the lab on the phone. “Harry! Leo. Tell the girls and boys that nobody goes home till I have a name and address. … The Keating case. … Yeah, I know, but you’re gonna do it again. I’m putting Shiloh on the phone. She’s got an idea and I want you to follow up on it and get me some names. … Five minutes ago!” He handed me the phone.

  I explained what the lab needed to look for and why. Harry wasn’t balking at the job, but he had a point, “There could be hundreds of hits. How are we going to know which ones are pervs and which ones are just people surfing for flower sites?”

  Violets are blue that’s the clue blood is red roses are dead I rubbed my forehead. “Leave out the names that are obviously women. Then, I don’t know. Get them all and we’ll have to sort it out here.” I looked at Leo for confirmation. He nodded.

  I was certain they’d find a site in our time frame with violets on it, but if they didn’t, I told Harry to call me with what they did find. Leo took back the receiver and barked some more instructions.

  She bathed with roses red, And violets blew And all the sweetest flowers That in the forest grew.

  Feeney was on the phone bringing in the members of the task force who weren’t already at their desks. Today’s Web site said the time for the call would be thirteen—one o’clock.

  Chapter 21

  Within thirty minutes, six detectives had assembled. They were a haggard-looking bunch, all in street clothes, from suits and ties to faded jeans and holey T-shirts, depending on their personal preference and the streets they haunted for information. I’d met most of them. They just nodded or offered a wan smile if they caught my eyes, but no one came over to chat. I was grateful.This wasn’t the complete task force.Four were assigned to other cases, including the case of the child found yesterday in the park.