The Garden of Blue Roses

by Michael Barsa

  And my breathing.

  And the dull throb of my ever-insistent heart.

  But nothing else. No stories. No authorial voices. At last.

  Until . . .

  Until a different plot intruded—a not-so-distant cry: "Did you hear that?"

  Phil.

  Suddenly a more primal fear took over. I pictured the Italian detective picking over the scene, teams of forensic scientists in white jumpsuits and masks piecing together their own kind of story. I wiped the gun clean with the end of my blazer. What else had I touched? The drawers? The sword? I took the olive drab underwear and wiped down everything. Everything? No. I knew I was bound to miss things. I tried to find some turpentine and a match to burn away the evidence, but I saw only a fire extinguisher in the main office. Good enough, I thought. I stepped over the feet. Henri. Keith. The name didn't matter anymore. It looked like a skinny fish, the head twisted to one side, the face mercifully hidden by the office's shadows. I grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed down the entire room, letting chemicals destroy anyone else's attempt to write this past. I alone would be its jealous guardian.

  Then I wiped down the handle. I hurried away. At the bottom of the driveway I turned. I watched Phil burst out the main front door. The lights were on. They looked like shining stars. I wrapped my arms around my chest and lunged away, suddenly so very cold, an astronaut light-years from home.

  Angus and a small crew arrived early to take advantage of the morning light. The filming was almost done. All that remained was to take morning shots of the garden. And to film an introductory sequence with the program's host, Wilhelmina Cottrell. She looked even more imposing in person than on Klara's DVD—an old battle-axe with sausage legs and sharp drooping eyes.

  It was the longest day of my life. I hadn't slept at all. It took ages to find the MG. Then it wouldn't start. I nearly screamed, coaxing the thing to life. I drove to Henri's house and stumbled through those dark and unfamiliar rooms. Where would he keep it? There were flowers everywhere and expensive furniture and a startling lack of books. There were no stories here.

  Except one.

  I found it in the refrigerator, in the shadow of flavored tea bottles and hunks of local cheese. I was tempted to destroy it—burn it page-by-page—but I didn't, for I needed it: I needed the material. I slipped it inside my blazer pocket and closed the refrigerator door. I wiped down the refrigerator handle and the front door's knob as I left.

  I stopped at the Baylor's Massacre site. I tossed my shoes and blazer into the trash. By the time I got home I was delirious for lack of sleep. Somehow I inched the car back into the garage and stumbled upstairs and hid the diary inside my model Trojan Horse. Then I went to the bathroom and took several anti-inflammatories and a sleeping pill. They didn't work. I lay atop my bed and blinked at the ceiling. I watched the hours flash by on my clock. I had to ruffle the sheets at dawn to convince myself I'd slept.

  The television crew. For once I was thankful for its distraction. It was a relief from the penitentiary of my own thoughts. Everyone scurried around like black-clad ants. At one point Angus noticed me. "Would you mind holding this?" he asked. He held out a book. Ms. Cottrell's Bible. How ironic. It was the one thing I'd never believed in. Ms. Cottrell smiled as I took it. I was strangely touched. So was Klara.

  "I'm glad to see you're finally getting involved, Milo. It will do you a lot of good."

  I wished I could say the same about her. She wore a flower-print dress that hugged her hips. Already she was worrying about Henri. "He was supposed to be here hours ago," she whispered to Angus.

  "He probably forgot. Or maybe he got distracted by some wonderful perennials. You know him, always looking for something new."

  The afternoon became increasingly hectic with preparations for the supper party. I'd forgotten all about it: the dinner Klara had promised for Henri's gardening clients. Marta was like a workhorse in the kitchen—beating eggs, washing lettuce, trimming steaks. I don't think I'd ever seen her so busy. I shocked her by offering to chop onions, taking a great armload of them to the small table and cleaving them to bits. My arms and shoulders ached and my eyes dripped like a fountain, but I didn't stop until every last one was done. I stood there, crying like a babe, as Marta thanked me for being so helpful.

  I haven't cried since.

  The first guests arrived at seven o'clock. By then I was back in my room. I was staring out the window. Every criminal makes at least one mistake, I knew, and I'd just realized mine. The scissors. I'd left them on Henri's sofa. Would anybody take fingerprints? Could they connect those prints to me? I had no idea. What if someone had seen my car parked at his house? What if I'd dropped some traceable item—a library card or bookstore receipt—during my frantic scramble around Phil's office?

  There were endless ways I could be damned. But now the facts existed out there, beyond my reach, and no amount of editing could alter them. I bathed and changed clothes several times just to give my limbs something to do. For luck I pinned a submarine officer's insignia on my blazer's lapel: a gold-plated submarine flanked by dolphins, those mythical attendants to Poseidon. They were symbolic of calm smooth waters, and I closed my eyes and imagined myself floating deep beneath the ocean, the raging storms above just a murmur.

  Then they grew louder. Engines rumbled up the drive. I opened my eyes and saw them: the great Buicks and Dodges of the doddering garden set. They staggered out and pushed their trembling feathery forefingers against the doorbell. They laughed and chatted as if they'd been enjoying this one long conversation all their lives. In the meanwhile I kept waiting for more ominous noises: the scrape of a detective's shoes on the stairs or Klara's hushed voice: "He's in there."

  Mrs. Silfer was among the last to arrive. Her massive Ford rumbled to a stop in front of the garage. I watched her great bulk heave itself out of the vehicle and wobble to the door.

  The bell rang three times. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. Moments later Klara opened the door. "Elizabeth!"

  "Sorry I'm late," she huffed. "My son Todd was playing hide-and-seek in the clothes dryer. Kids these days!"

  Klara called out: "Milo! Elizabeth Silfer is here and wants to say hello!"

  I was halfway down when I overheard Klara ask Mrs. Silfer whether she'd spoken to Henri. "Not in ages," came the reply. "I thought he'd be here."

  "Me too," said Klara. "I've been waiting since morning."

  Guffaw. "Artists."

  "I tried calling his mobile phone."

  "Are you kidding me? He never answers his phone."

  I did my best to smile as Mrs. Silfer noticed me. Her eyes widened, her arms surrounded me in a pillowy embrace. I held my breath.

  "How are you?" Mrs. Silfer shrieked. "Isn't the garden awesome? Didn't I tell your sister how awesome Henri was?"

  I shrugged, still not trusting my tongue. Thankfully Mrs. Silfer didn't seem to notice. She grabbed my arm and led me into the living room, smiling and waving to the crowd. "This is Milo Crane, Klara's younger brother, he and I went to school together," she'd emphasize before turning to me and uttering the name—which I promptly forgot—of whatever dull, unremarkable-looking person was standing there. It was no wonder Henri had been a rock-star among this set. Klara was off in the corner making small-talk. To anyone else she would have seemed the picture of the perfect hostess. But to me, who knew the signs, every glance at her slender watch or the window spoke volumes.

  The dining room table had been expanded to its full length (which I'd only remembered happening once before, when Mother had displayed several of her oversized paintings for an effete New York dealer who promised to get back to her and never did). At the far end of it a group of plump, aging bachelors were heatedly discussing the aesthetic qualities of Digitariasanguinalis, or crabgrass.

  "A weed by any other name," declared one of them.

  "To hell with taxonomy," cried
another.

  "Well I for one agree it's ugly," said a third.

  "Absolutely hideous, yes," agreed a fourth.

  "Underrated, underrated in its usefulness!" said a fifth.

  With this and several other conversations going on I nearly didn't hear the telephone. I was sitting at my usual place, wondering how I'd make it through an entire supper with these people. Klara leapt out of her seat. My heart nearly leapt up with her. I glanced to my left, where an old woman in a flower-print dress was sliding awkwardly toward me along the bench, and to my right, where another was doing the same, virtually indistinguishable from the first except that her dress was one solid color and had ruffles in disconcerting places. Mrs. Silfer stood in the doorway beaming at us, a pocket camera dangling from her puffy wrist. Marta was just coming through the kitchen door with a giant soup tureen.

  Klara returned after a few minutes. She looked catatonic. "Is everything alright?" asked Mrs. Silfer. Klara's mouth began to move. But no sound emerged. I hung onto that soundlessness as if for dear life. Was it true? For a moment I had a strange sensation. That Henri really was a fictional character. That as soon as I'd left that blood-spattered room he'd dusted himself off and laughed and loped away. Mrs. Silfer guided Klara off into the living room. Everyone else fell silent. I watched Marta put down the soup and a few people cough and finger their napkins. Then Mrs. Silfer returned. She was quivering like an earthquake. She managed the following words: "I'm sorry. It's Henri. He was . . . shot. Last night. He's—oh God." She put a hand over her mouth and groaned and finally spoke the words that made it real: "He's dead."

  The room exploded with questions and shocked ejaculations, only dying in time to hear, in a faltering tone, Mrs. Silfer's next six words—the six words which were, in truth, the most bittersweet I'd heard in all my life.

  "They think it was Phil Girardi."

  Six words that I parsed all night and the following day:

  They think it was Phil Girardi.

  They think it was Phil Girardi.

  They think it was Phil Girardi.

  Were they not sure? Would they come for me yet? Had they done so already, and was all this a dream? Yes, we discovered the car, we know it was you, you're here in prison, for the murder of your parents as well as Mr. Blanc. Memories or imaginations surfaced in my mind: of that Italian detective and some other man, bald and thin, questioning me in a windowless room, playing Good Cop and Bad Cop, smoking incessantly and drinking sour coffee and hunching their shoulders as if readying themselves to fly into a rage. And my incompetent lawyer (Father's rube) picking at his fingernails, lodging an occasional dreary objection but otherwise more concerned with not missing lunch. Take the deal, he said. And save your life. My life, the one I no longer recognized, the one that Klara would memorialize in a hopelessly false and sensational book that would win her fame at last, newspaper articles, TV specials, devoted fans of her own.

  But no.

  It never happened.

  Not that way.

  Phil's trial came late in a wet and miserable autumn and lasted nearly two full weeks. The entire town turned out to witness it, and everyone had a theory as to its merits. Some opined that the evidence of motive was weak and that Phil was not a violent man. Others said it was just as obvious that Phil was guilty because it had happened in his own office, with his own gun, and he'd known and done business with the victim.

  But only one opinion mattered—that of the jury. Oddly enough, I was nearly selected for it myself. I don't know how they got my name. I've never even registered to vote. I was only spared that awkward ordeal when I described how the victim had worked for my sister in some vague capacity (so I said). Of course the police already knew this—they'd interviewed Klara shortly after the shooting—but the investigation turned up nothing. Still they had their suspicions. The Italian detective in particular seemed to wonder if I was being honest when I'd said I'd hardly known Henri. But without any solid evidence they soon focused their attentions on Phil and on a series of late payments Henri had made. Suddenly there was the foundation for another story: one of anger, revenge, a business deal gone awry. A more familiar story, perhaps, to these country police.

  The jury took four hours to acquit. It wasn't nearly as divided as the general public. When polled, they said they couldn't fathom why Phil would shoot Henri in his own office. The fire extinguisher also troubled them. Why would Phil have set it off? To remove evidence? But why not do so in a quieter way, since it was his own house anyway? It was heartening to hear such faultless logic. It actually restored a modicum of my faith in human nature. Still I couldn't help feeling a twinge of doubt. Would the police now re-open the case?

  Two weeks later they finally came to me, but it wasn't at all like I'd imagined. The Italian was no longer there. There was a shiny young detective I'd never seen and an older female partner. They sat in the living room, where Klara served them tea. "Just gathering up loose ends," they said, and began asking me about something they must have known all along—my little interview with Phil.

  Klara said nothing. If she was surprised that I'd asked Phil about Henri, she didn't show it—just sat there with her hands in her lap, occasionally offering cream or sugar or buttery Danish biscuits.

  "I just wanted to make sure Henri was legitimate," I told them. "That was my right under the will."

  "Did you harbor any ill-feelings toward the deceased?"

  This was the young detective. He must have come straight from Detective School on the first public bus. He had an earnestness that made you almost want to break down and confess, realizing he needed the help. "I hardly knew him," I said slowly, as if to a child. "That was why I was asking questions."

  "Mr. Girardi says you thought he was overcharging your sister."

  Beware the older woman, the harridan, I told myself as she leaned back into the sofa and eyed me, her chin multiplying alarmingly and her brow furrowing beneath that limp policewoman's hair. She lived for this, I could tell, but it was sad because she was no match for me either. "I've never been interested in money," I said truthfully. "Anyway Klara and I are very comfortable, and our needs are few."

  "Did you know that Mr. Blanc was accused of overcharging other clients in the past?" she croaked.

  I shook my head.

  "One of them even ended up dead," she went on.

  "Then I suppose he must have had lots of enemies," I pointed out.

  "Sort of like in your father's books?"

  I shrugged. "I'm sure it was nothing like that."

  The charade finally ended when the young detective confessed what a fan he was of Father—and how sad Father's death had made him. I nodded and said that I was sad too, but that Father would, like any author, live on in the hearts of readers like him. I smiled. In the end I wished them well. Klara and I stood in the doorway, watching them go. "You never mentioned seeing Phil," she said in a monotone.

  "I must have forgotten. We had so much else going on then."

  "Yes, we did."

  I didn't think much of this last statement until a few weeks later. Winter had arrived with a vengeance. Snow piled up everywhere. The one-year anniversary of the accident came and went, and then, just before Christmas, Henri's house and its belongings were put up for sale. Mrs. Silfer convinced Klara to go to the auction and procure some remembrances. She reluctantly agreed. I remember there was icy rain. She nearly didn't go because of it, afraid she'd be stranded somewhere. When she returned I thought she'd seen a ghost. I asked her over supper what was wrong. She became absolutely still for several seconds before excusing herself and hurrying to her room. She hadn't touched her food.

  On the following morning I saw them, in their old drawer, in their old leather case. The scissors.

  What could I say? I pulled them out of their sheath. They were smooth and worn and cut like a whisper. Everyone had their secrets. Now Klara and I did, as w
ell. We were like a secret society, bound by what we could never discuss. The Order of the Blue Rose? Father had once written a book about a band of murderers fashioning themselves after the Knights Templars, whose symbol was also a rose. These men killed innocent people as an initiation rite, a way to seal their bond. I was tempted to bring her a copy, explain how Henri's death might be our own initiation, might bring us closer even though he wasn't exactly innocent.

  But who really was? Innocent, I mean?

  For days she locked herself in her room. I began to worry. What if she never came to her senses? There was much she could do to implicate me. I saw myself as one of those grizzled murderers shuffled into a courtroom in a bright orange jumpsuit and leg irons. I'd seen such men on television, mostly from inner-city Boston. They didn't look at all like me. Still, I began having doubts.

  Finally she came down for supper again. She wouldn't even glance at me. Her face was gaunt and waxy, like she'd been suffering from the flu. She picked at her food. Then she turned her heavy eyes to me and asked: "Do you know why Henri had our scissors?"

  I looked her directly in the eye and forced myself to believe, in that moment, that I'd had absolutely nothing to do with it. It was a moment of great realization for me. One might call it an epiphany. Honesty, I saw, is just a matter of faith like anything else. That's what Father had meant by saying that life is what you imagine it to be. How do you ever really know you're telling the truth? You don't. It's merely a conviction.

  "No," I replied.

  What should I have said? That the scissors found their own way to his house? That they'd exerted a vague pull, a demand for stabbing, ever since the days when Father visited me at night? No, it was impossible. She'd never understand. I'd tried telling her when we were children, but she hadn't wanted to hear, and now she never would. Let her think she herself was responsible—she who knew Father as an author, a parent, a horribly forbidden lover, when really he was much less than anyone knew. Anyone but me, that is.