Where the Wild Roses Grow

by Willow Rose

  They took us to the police station in Enniskerry afterwards. They put us in a small room, took our passports, and gave us a couple of bottles of water. I was beginning to crave that Jameson again. Maybe more than ever.

  “They’re just checking us,” Morten said to calm me. “It’s routine.”

  “Of course,” I said, wondering where they could check up on us at this hour of night. Maybe they were just making sure our passports were authentic. Would they really call Denmark and get our criminal records? Checking me out might come with new problems. They would know about me being investigated for illegally hacking into government documents and police files. I was never convicted, but still, it had to be in there somewhere in my papers. I didn’t trust they had erased it.

  I took a couple of long deep breaths. “Just not quite how I pictured we would spend our evening,” I said and looked at Morten.

  I had never felt this nasty before. I had the taste of vomit still in my mouth and couldn’t remove it, no matter how much water I drank. My feet were soaked, since my boots hadn’t been able to keep all the water out when we hiked. I was sweaty and clammy underneath the jacket and could smell myself.

  I just really wanted to go back to the hotel.

  “Hello, Mrs. Frost and Mr. Bredballe,” one of the men from the site said as he entered the room. He looked to be in his sixties. “I’m inspector Grady. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  “That’s okay, Inspector,” Morten said. “We know you’re just doing your job. We don’t mind waiting if it can be of any help to you.”

  He handed us our passports back. “Appreciate it. Now I think we have been through everything here. You’re free to go. I think we have what we need from you. Otherwise, we will be in contact with you at the hotel.”

  I looked at the inspector and was about to get ready to get up, when I felt the urge to speak.

  “Who was she?” I asked.

  The inspector looked at me. “I’m sorry. We can’t tell you that until we’ve notified the family.”

  I shook my head. “Of course not. It’s just…I can’t get her out of my mind. I keep seeing those…eyes and the red rose. Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea why the killer placed a red rose between her teeth?”

  The inspector sighed. “Again, I’m sorry…I really can’t talk about the case while it’s ongoing.”

  “No, of course not,” Morten said. “We understand. Let’s just go back to the hotel…I’m sure the inspector has better things to do than to answer all these questions.”

  “But it must mean something. The rose, I mean,” I continued. “Have you seen it before? Have there been others like her?”

  Inspector Grady smiled. I assumed it was a polite smile.

  “You sure are a curious little lady.”

  It had been awhile since someone had called me little. It made me chuckle. I was anything but small these days.

  “Sorry about that,” I said. “I was just wondering if there had been others. It seems like we’re dealing with a coldblooded killer, if you ask me. To place a rose like that…it’s very special, like a signature of some kind.”

  Inspector Grady nodded. “That is one way of looking at it, yes.”

  “And what is the other?” I asked.

  He sighed. I could tell he couldn’t wait to get rid of us. I was being annoying. I know I was. But I also knew if you didn’t ask, you never got any answers.

  “It might be an act of love,” he said. “A declaration of her beauty.”

  “So you believe he loved her?” I asked.

  “Listen. I don’t believe anything right now. All I know is we have a body and that it is late. My family is waiting for me. So, if you’ll excuse me, I really want to go home.”

  “Of course, Inspector,” Morten said. “We were just leaving.”

  We left the station and went straight to the pub next door. Smelly or not, we were starving, and couldn’t wait till after we had showered. The few other people in the bar didn’t seem to care and we found a table to sit at. I couldn’t stop wondering about the woman and kept seeing her face in front of my eyes.

  “You gotta let it go,” Morten said, after we had drunken the first pint of Guinness. I had been sitting in silence and not spoken a single word. I looked at him like I didn’t understand.

  “What was that?”

  “You have to let it go. The murder. It’s not yours to solve. It’s in the hands of the police and we’re on vacation. You’re not turning this trip into some insane murder mystery. I’m not letting you do it.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “No, of course not, sweetie. I would never do that to you.”

  13

  July 2015

  It was in the paper the next day. Front-page photo of the woman. They had found an older picture, maybe from about five years ago, where she looked a lot younger than she did the night before she died. The text told the reader that her body was found up the river. The man felt a thrill of pleasure as he read the article over and over again. Everything had gone according to the plan.

  “Dad, Dad…see my hair,” his daughter Caitlin said, coming into the kitchen. “Isn’t it pretty?”

  The man smiled with a sigh. Kids and their way of always needing your attention. He put the paper down and looked at her.

  “Yes, luv. That looks beautiful. Did your mother braid it?”

  Caitlin nodded eagerly. Her mother entered the kitchen in her pantsuit, threw a piece of toast on a plate, and poured herself some coffee. Her hair was pulled back in a bun. The man hated when she did that to her beautiful hair. Made her look like a damn librarian.

  “I’m late,” she said, slightly growling. “Could you make Caitlin some breakfast and take her to Granny’s?”

  The man sighed. It was always the same. Just because she was a big shot with a career as a reporter at the local TV station, and he was a simple blue-collar worker, she always assumed that her job was more important than his was.

  He smiled, determined to not let this get to him. He clenched his fist underneath the table. “Sure. You just run along now, luv. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Marie didn’t even smile back at him. She swallowed the bread and tea, and then rushed out the front door with her briefcase under her arm. No kiss. No see you later. No I love you. Just like always, she was simply gone. Always in a hurry to get somewhere. Always so busy. Never any time to stop and smell the flowers.

  Never any time to stop and wonder what her husband was up to.

  “So, what would you like for breakfast?” he asked Caitlin as soon as her mother was gone.

  “Pancakes!” the daughter exclaimed.

  “Pancakes it is,” the man said and got up. He threw a glare at the front picture of the newspaper and felt another thrill run through his body. The article stated that the police didn’t know how she died yet.

  “Do I have to go to Granny’s today, Dad?” Caitlin asked.

  The man sighed. It was the same every morning. Always asking if she had to go. Of course she had to go. Her parents worked and she was out of school. What did she expect? Sometimes, she could annoy him immensely.

  “Yes,” he said. “You have to go to Granny’s. Just like yesterday and the day before that.”

  “That was the weekend, Dad, don’t you remember?” Caitlin laughed. “I was home. Don’t you remember?”

  The man growled. He didn’t. And he didn’t care either. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to Granny’s while I go to work. Now, eat.”

  He placed the pancakes in front of her and she dug in. The man closed his eyes and shook his head. There were days it was hard for him to keep calm and collected when he needed to. But he had to. He was finally getting what he had dreamed of all of his life and nothing was going to stop him. Killing that woman had made him feel whole again. Made him feel like he had a purpose, finally a meaning to his life. But he was beginning to crave more. He could feel how every fiber of his body wanted more.
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  And it was going to get what it wanted. Soon. Very soon.

  14

  July 1977

  Violet ran to her room crying. She couldn’t believe her father and how ridiculous he was being. Didn’t he understand anything? Didn’t he know anything about her?

  She threw herself on her bed and cried into a pillow.

  The prospect of having to spend the rest of her life on the farm or getting married to some farmer and working for him, was unbearable. But she also knew that even if she was defiant and said no to her father, he was capable of stopping her from going. He was in charge of her, and right now, he had the power to pull her out of school and have her work full time on the farm. He could take away all her books and make her work so hard she would soon become as illiterate and ignorant as her brothers were.

  “God, please make him change his mind, please God.”

  Violet sobbed and hid her face in the pillow, when the door to her room opened and someone entered. The door was closed again and someone approached her. Violet let go of her pillow and looked up into the worried eyes of Conan.

  “What on earth would make you cry like this, luv?”

  Violet sniffled and sat up. “My father.”

  “Ah, the pleasures of having family members. What has he done now?” Conan sat on the edge of the bed. Violet wiped her tears with another loud sob. She spoke in between breaths.

  “He’s just so…he’s so…old-fashioned.”

  Conan chuckled. “As fathers often tend to be.”

  Violet growled. She didn’t like him defending her father. “If my mom was here, it would all be different,” she said, looking at the only picture she had of her late mother.

  “I am sure it would, luv. But she is not. Now tell me what your father said that made you cry like that,” Conan said.

  He took her hand in his and removed a lock of hair from her face. “Now don’t cry like that, luv. It makes your face swollen and red. Gives you wrinkles too, I have heard.”

  “He doesn’t want me to go away to school. He wants me to stay here at the farm and work for the rest of my life.”

  Violet cried even harder when she spoke the words. She put her head on Conan’s shoulder. He caressed her cheek.

  “Oh, my,” he said. “Such sorrow in those beautiful eyes.”

  Violet sniffled. She liked when he called her eyes beautiful. No one else ever told her she was pretty. “Oh, what shall I do?”

  “I…I must say, I don’t know.”

  Violet lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him. Tears were still streaming across her cheeks. Conan wiped them away with his thumb. Then he caressed her hair, leaned forward, and kissed her lips.

  At first, Violet gasped in surprise, but she realized she had liked it and took the initiative for the next kiss. She closed her eyes and tasted his exotic lips and smells, while drifting away from all of her problems and concerns. Being with Conan always made her feel so happy, so loved. She felt his hand on her thigh, crawling up under her dress, then grabbing her panties and pulling them down. She gasped again, and then pulled away.

  Conan was smiling.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered, while pressing her down on the bed. “Conan is going to be very gentle with you. Conan is going to be real gentle.”

  15

  July 2015

  “Something is wrong here,” I said from behind the newspaper.

  Morten was sitting in front of me, reading another section of the local paper. Just like at home on our island, the locals were very supportive of the local paper and the hotel where we stayed of course subscribed to it and had it lying out for the guests every morning. I really enjoyed that. But this morning, I didn’t enjoy what I read very much.

  “What’s that?” Morten said, sounding very uninterested.

  I pulled the paper down so I could look at him. I was still sore from the hike the day before and really looking forward to a day at the ocean with a good big Irish lunch somewhere, or dinner, as one of the locals had told us they called it. It was supposedly the biggest meal of the day for an Irishman, and I was really looking forward to trying it.

  “This article,” I said, and put my finger on the photo of Bridget Callaghan, the thirty-six year-old woman from Enniskerry that I had found in the river the day before.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Morten asked, still while reading the Champions League soccer results. His favorite team, Manchester United, had taken a beating from Real Madrid the night before.

  “Everything,” I said.

  Morten sighed and looked up. He gave me that look.

  “I know. I know,” I said. “I’ve got to let it go. But this…it’s just not right. I mean, try and read it.”

  I pushed the article towards him. He shook his head. “I think I’ll be better off letting you tell me what is wrong with it.”

  “It’s missing the important part,” I said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “The part about the rose,” I said. “Nowhere in this entire article does it say that she had a rose between her teeth. Everything else, they tell us. Like that she was a florist, she was single, she grew up here in Enniskerry with her mother, who raised her alone, even what school she went to. But the part about the rose? Simply left out.”

  Finally, I seemed to have caught Morten’s attention. “That is strange,” he said. Then he shrugged. “But, who knows? Maybe the reporter didn’t find it relevant enough to put in.”

  “How could she not find it relevant?” I asked. “It’s the most important part. I mean, if she was killed and this guy ever strikes again, how will people know it’s the same guy if they don’t know about the rose? If there’s a guy out there obsessed with flowers or roses, how will people notice and tell the police if they haven’t been told about it? How will anyone know if he has done anything like this before?”

  Morten sighed and rubbed his chin. “I don’t know, Emma. Do we even know that she was murdered? We’re on vacation here, remember? I took time off to be with you and to get away from police work. I don’t want to be dragged into it on my break.”

  I leaned back in my chair and drank my orange juice. “You’re right,” I said, as I put the glass down. “The police must deal with this on their own. So, what time do you think we should leave?”

  “I was thinking we should drive down to Greystones. It takes about nineteen minutes. I spoke to Bradan, you know, the guy who works in the lobby and asked him where we should go. He said the South Beach in Greystones is a broad sandy beach about one kilometer long. It is a Blue Flag Beach, and receives many visitors and tourists, mainly in the summer. There is also a castle and a chapel down there that, according to him, are worth a visit. There is also a cliff-walk that you can take that ends up in Bray.”

  “You promised me no more walking,” I exclaimed, while my eyes once again met those of Bridget Callaghan on the front page. I couldn’t believe they would leave such an important detail out of the article. Why was that? Didn’t they know? Did they leave it out on purpose for some reason? But why? Something wasn’t right here. I kept wondering what the red rose reminded me of, but still hadn’t figured it out. I wasn’t sure I could just let it go like Morten wanted me to. It wasn’t that easy when you had been face to face with a victim like that. Call me crazy, but I kind of felt like I owed it to her to figure out who had done this to her.

  “Shall we say we leave in about half an hour?” Morten said.

  16

  July 2015

  >Are you awake? <

  Fiona Delaney received the Facebook message on her phone. She had just woken up, even though it was in the middle of the day. Fiona yawned and stretched before she went to the kitchen to make the coffee that she depended strongly on to get her through the rest of the day. She scratched her hair and sipped the coffee while opening the message on the phone. It was from him. Fiona felt a tickling sensation in her stomach and a smile spread on her face. Even though she had never met him in
real life, she still got so excited every time he wrote to her.

  They had met on a dating site. Fiona signed up last year, but until now hadn’t had much luck with the guys she met there. Still, it was her best chance of meeting someone the way her life was right now. Working night shifts at the hospital made it hard to meet new people. And even though she was only twenty-two, she still found no joy in going out at night on the weekends to meet someone in a pub. She had tried that way too many times and never with a great outcome. The men she met there were always drunk and would leave the next morning without ever calling her back. No, Fiona was done with the one-night stands. She was sick of hooking up with these low-life types that just wanted to get her into bed with them. She wanted more. She wanted the whole Monty. Kids and everything. Maybe a house in the countryside. Animals and children playing in the courtyard. She was ready to settle down. This time, she wanted it to be right, so that was why she had signed up for the dating site. Her best friend Mona had met Davin in the same way and they were getting married in two months. Why not try it? Fiona had thought. She knew she wanted all they had. She looked for companionship, preferably in a relationship that would last a lifetime. And this time, it felt right. This guy simply felt right. Everything about him did. They had been writing to each other for weeks back and forth on Facebook or by text and she felt like she knew him very well, even though they had never met. At least she knew what his interests were and knew they had a lot in common. Plus, he lived in Enniskerry just like her, and that was a big plus. He wasn’t one of the locals; he had just moved here a few months ago for a new job, and that was an even bigger plus.