by Milena Schaller

 

       Glenfiddich. Marina. Tradescant. They were all odd names, as though someone who hadn't ever seen real names before had rearranged a few letters and made an estimation of them, his idea of names as they should be. My eyes scanned the pages and I felt his family watching me impatiently. I could see them calculating in their heads the money they owed me, the precise minutes and dollars and cents flowing past: I was taking too long, I was supposed to know my job.  I skimmed Cecile Brunner, Konrad Henkel, Papa Meilland, and read the last phrase, a small, succinct block of text which struck me as the strangest of all: "And to Joseph, I leave my coat."

       I had heard the message on my answering machine the night before, a fast-paced and business-like message that was over in seconds. The voice was quiet, sharp, and fleeting, and I had to go back and search through it to catch the breath of a phone number. I reluctantly returned the call, and was hired before I agreed to take up the case. An unexplained and inconclusive will and 7 o'clock tomorrow on Marin -- the orange house with the redwood tree in front. I felt more than heard the click on the other end as the phone was rammed downwards, and slid my own telephone into its holder, already more than a little frustrated at my clients.

       The legality of the will was unquestioned; at the urging of his children, the old novel writer had made his will a few years ago with a trusted lawyer, and every precaution was taken. He openly showed his children the document and, since all were to receive the same amount of his money, everyone agreed that the will and the old man himself were fair. Well, besides his stubborn refusal to let them help him. And his dangerous habit of walking around early in the morning. And his inability to talk straight. His disregard for his money and his own health. How he never could move any faster. But the will, the will. No, they grudgingly admitted. The will was legal. If only he hadn't changed it. At the last minute, it was just like him, one of his whims. Now their names were gone, replaced by this gibberish, people they couldn't find. Cecile Brunner. Who's Cecile Brunner? Woman he met at the Rose Garden. Or somewhere. On the street. Always walking around. Always.

       "Do you have any thoughts as to who these people might be? Some people from his former work? Someone from college?" As I asked I saw their darkening faces, the shadow of something they hated to admit running across the three similar brows, the slightly downturned lip and lowered mouth. Their eyes shot quick sharp glances at each other, but they slowly and a tad too hesitantly shook their heads no.

       "They could be anyone. Was he part of a club, perhaps a book club? A birdwatcher? Think of anything he mentioned to you. If we can establish leads, narrow down the choices, we can find these people and carry out his wishes." I timed it perfectly. Two seconds, a slight intake of breath, and I added, "You know, he was... very old. It is possible... his mind might have been..."

       The eldest interrupted, the old man's son, a business advisor to the owner of a computer programming company who had come here specially to resolve this issue and move on.

       "No, he -- we've seen the names before." I watched his eyes. Always watch the eyes. They shifted to his siblings and theirs gave him support and a kind of disdain in the same movement. Oh, they were a proud and secretive family. "They're in his novels. At the beginning, in the dedications. All his dedications are to these people, these people we can't find. But we talked to his lawyer and he said that he can't have been senile, he can't have made up names. He wrote some of those novels thirty years ago. He's mentioned them in conversation. The lawyer refuses to go back to the original will."

       I nodded. Easy case. Three days, no more. The only thing holding this back was three sullen offspring who couldn't accept that their father might have cut them out. But I put on a careful frown and assured them I'd try my best. Well, you understand, with no leads, no ideas to follow... I tried to look accepting and open-minded. We'll see what I can do.

       Fastest I have ever left a client's house. The family was unwilling to have me there as a physical reminder of their wasted money and unruly father, and I was more than happy to leave, dragging my thick black bag behind me. I walk everywhere. Might as well. It gives me time to think and a certain sense of importance. I'm not just any old person who drives a car that nobody notices. No, I'm Detective Silvia Davies, one of those people who is brave enough to use their own legs, stride along those cement sidewalks with a glint in their eye and a jounce in their walk. At least, that's what I tell myself. I can be remarkably untruthful sometimes, especially with car insurance what it is.

*        *        *

       Four days later. I found leads, all right. I located Cecile Brunner in a rather posh neighbourhood, living in a pale pink house with peppermint red trim and a lawn with a propensity towards overly thorny rosebushes. She refused to let me talk to her, even after I tried to draw her in with promises of a mystery will and huge sums of money. She swung her blond hair out of her face and told me with hard cold eyes that she had no time; all her funds had been allocated for this year already. I watched helplessly as the pink door slammed shut before me.

       Papa Meilland? The only Meilland I could find was a college student at UC Berkeley, who turned out to be female and entirely unhelpful. She was too busy to chat and told me that she had never even heard of the books that he wrote, let alone his will.

       I checked them all, double-checked, backtracked, followed phone numbers and addresses until my head was awhirl with confused refusals and forceful rejections. Charles Austin, calculus professor who didn't return my calls and gave me erroneous office hours; Tradescant, a creepy 20-year-old who turned out to have changed his name from Josh last year anyway; Marguerite Hilling, a lab assistant who died a month ago; Glenfiddich -- oh, how helpful, a kind of Scotch whiskey; Betty Prior I couldn't find, but I did locate a Betty Priore, who told me that she "didn't like to get involved in these sorts of things";  and finally the elusive Joseph, whom of course I had no hope of finding, with or without the equally elusive coat. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. The will was filled with so many wacky names and strange requests that I couldn't even begin to work my way through it. The oddest thing is that there was not one single name that led anywhere. In a case like this, it’s normal not to be able to find about a fourth of the recipients, perhaps a few more. People die, they move on, change their names, get married. That's expected. But to have all the names be disconnected from any person, to have an entire will that leads to no one -- that is strange, and more than a little worrying. Time to change tactics.

*        *        *

       I researched his life, studying his habits and the way his mind worked. I found out from his family that he had the same routine every day, a routine they strongly disapproved of. They feared, they told me, for his health and his safety. He always got up at five o'clock, and by five-thirty a.m. was out the door, carrying a thin brown leather case with worn silver buckles that contained his latest manuscript, a few pens, and a small cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise sandwich that according to his children was bad for his heart. He walked each day to the Rose Garden, where he sat and wrote until noon, at which point he ate his lunch, wrote for another hour only, and then started back, striding about the neighbourhood and gradually making his way up the hill. He usually got home at dusk, had a small dinner, then went to bed to read. No, they didn't know what books. Why, are the books important? No. No, just curious.

       "To my sweet Afton, who was always there for me when I needed some quiet company.", "To my dearest Cecile, in memory of our happiest hours, and with hopes for many more.", "For youthful Escapade, my friend." I read the dedications to his novels with rising frustration and a sense of hopelessness. And then, not knowing what else to do, I began to read further.

       Despite my fury with him for being so cryptic and senile, despite the days I had spent trailing useless people with useless names, despite my frustration and rising anger, I found myself drawn into his novels. They were slow-paced and calm, never worrying, never turbulent. The characters were sensible but quirky and the plotlines simple. But his settings held me, fascinated, as he unfolded mountains and rich fields like flowers opening, leading me through to one final glorious blooming of words and description. And at the heart of all his best descriptions lay roses, pale pink or deep purple, tiny buds or fleshy folds that captured the rain and made droplets shine in my head as I read, or soaked up sunlight and gleamed sleek in the rays of noon. He described them with a familiarity and depth of expression that made me almost smell them. They were beautiful, his book-roses. They were beautiful, his books.

*        *        *

       The sixth day, and the family had contacted me no less than five times in the last ten hours. My head was spinning with Belinda and Pinata, with the five measly dollars the novel-writer had left to whoever Dortmund was and the insistence that his remaining retirement fund should go to a certain Liebezauber. There was nothing for it. I was going as batty as that old novel-writer and his false dedications. I had to get away from Dortmund.

       I packed my bag with all of my research for the case -- papers, references, addresses. I threw in a few pens, and put in one of the novels. I packed documents and files, I copied my computer data onto CDs and crammed them into the outside pockets. I stuffed in a picture of the old man and his children, and finished it off with a list of all successfully contacted potential recipients. Then I left the bag behind.

       I walked out of my house with no clear picture of where I was going. I live up in the hills, where the mimosa blooms and the steep winding avenues are lined with leafy trees. Bikers, sweating and straining, try to make their way up the vertical roads, and you see them sprawled against trees in their skin-tight uniforms, panting and looking like they're about to die. It's quiet and sunny most of the time, except for when the fog sweeps in suddenly and shrouds the houses in luminous light, but I've never been cold here, not even when it rains. I headed downwards, more out of habit than anything else, and when I got far enough down, I turned my head to the north and decided to go to the Rose Garden. If it was good enough for that old novel-writer, it better be good enough for me, and I told myself if I didn't find inspiration there, I'd give up the case and go back to helping old ladies find their dogs and grandchildren find their grandparents.

       I got there in the afternoon, when the sun was warm and a very faint clean breeze was blowing. I had never been there before, and it took me a while to find the garden itself. There were tennis courts and a park, and a tunnel going underneath the road filled with graffiti and bits of trash, but the Rose Garden I couldn't see. Finally I made my way to the gate and let myself in to an amphitheatre of stones and a trellis walkway. It was disappointing, to be sure. I had in my head resplendent flowers, vibrant colours, blossoming glory. What I had forgotten, or perhaps never learned, is that roses don't bloom all year round. And here I was, standing in a Rose Garden entirely without roses.

       I sat down on a stone wall, head in hands. In front of me, the dark wood of the trellis cast sharp grey shadows over the lackluster stumps of rosebushes, and the circles of stone below me blazed in the sun. A few kids argued with their parents and skipped in an ungainly manner down the steps, and from somewhere to my right I heard the shouts of tennis players missing the ball. I thought slowly through the case, tried to think like the old man, tried to twist my thoughts into the shape of his novels, his life. Imagine living, I thought, imagine living your life until one day you get too old, and your children don't understand you, they never did, and they tell you this is bad for your health, they tell you your way of living, your way of thinking, is bad for your health, and you want so badly for them to understand what life is about, what you care about. And you putter along, you continue living despite their nagging and their misguided concern, and you spend... you spend all your time at the Rose Garden, because... because it's there, no, because in a Rose Garden you can appreciate life, life slows down so you can write your novels at the speed of plants, at the speed of roses growing, and nobody minds, because everyone's here to help life slow down so they can see it better... because roses are reliable, patient, and they're what life's all about, what's that phrase, stopping to smell the roses...

       White bright letters on green chipped paint flashed before my eyes, and my head snapped back to stare ahead of me in disbelief. Beyond the stump of a rosebush coming out of a long winter, stuck into the ground, was a sign on which was painted "Joseph's Coat."

       I walked up to it and touched it, slowly, wonderingly, then turned as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw more green painted signs, more white letters, more signs stuck into earth and nailed onto trellises, all paired with stubby rosebush stumps that gleamed in the sun. Tradescant. I began to run. Marina. Papa Meilland. Dortmund, Belinda,

Pinata. Glenfiddich. Cecile Brunner. The names flashed at me, and I began to laugh, a smooth rippling laugh that unfolded like a rose and lasted for days.

*        *        *

I am writing this note because I have finished your case. I will, however, give you no people to contact, no phone numbers, and no addresses. Nor will I take any pay for my work. I suggest one thing, and one thing only; that you take the time to walk in the Rose Garden. There, among the rosebushes, you might find answers to your questions.

I remain, faithfully yours,

-- Detective Silvia Davies