Just a Corpse at Twilight (14 page)

"I forget sometimes," de Gier said. "Don't remind me. Go on. We're in Hawaii by Norman Rockwell."

"Norman Rockwell is no cookie-box-top-artist."

"I'm sorry."

"Okay." Grijpstra relayed the Hawaiian original scene with wide hand strokes. "Natural perfection . . . paradise . . .beaches before the oil slick. . .unsprayed fruit trees. . . straw-roofed houses with no broken toys in the yard ... outrigger sailboats with no two-stroke outboards. . . beautiful priestesses swaying around the king . . . climate . . ."

"There must still be climate."

"Bad smog in Honolulu now," Grijpstra said.

De Gier pointed at the ocean, clearly visible up till the horizon. "Nothing here."

There was the sudden roar oftwin outboards. The boat at the end of a widening wake showed no navigation lights. "Probably Hairy Harry," de Gier said. "I often hear him. He must have brought in another shipment last week. He was ferrying like crazy. He kept going out, must have been a South American vessel off the coast somewhere."

"Does he ever see you?"

"We wave."

"Ignorance breeds fear," Grijpstra said. "You have no good reason to be here. He must be dreaming up theories."

"If I were Hairy Harry," de Gier said, "I would theorize that we represent a potential competitive supplier, out of Suriname or another former Dutch colony, St. Maarten maybe, St. Eustatius, there are all those places. We're checking out the scene and will be butting in soon."

"And we're not black or Latino," Grijpstra said. "We're his own kind, white repressed puritan Protestants, his own special brand of evil, a perfect match. Must be upsetting to Hairy Harry."

"Nellie convert you to Christianity?" de Gier asked. "I'd like to be Catholic sometimes. There was an article in the
Police Gazette
I studied once, about how the Catholics die more easily." De Gier shook his head. "It even showed statistics."

"Hairy Harry blundering between fear and desire, same way as us." Grijpstra looked across the pagoda's gallery at the empty expanse ahead, streaked by long lines ofslowly moving riptides that lit up white in the moonlight, "Could there be competition here? The last inadequately patrolled United States coastal waters?"

"There's the Coast Guard," de Gier said. "They have huge helicopters. One of them landed on Jeremy Island. There, see the white pines on the west side, there's a flat area there. The pilots like that spot. This big ponderous giant chopper sets herself down and opens her slit and out pop five fat babies in orange zipper suits. The littlest carries the biggest basket and it's filled with burgers and fries and chips and cheezies and fritters and jerkies and any soda-pop known to modern man. The zipper suits sit around the basket and grab and tear and crackle and bubble it all inside and slip back into the slit and offthey go again. If they'd just walked inland a few yards or so they would have seen pot plants everywhere."

"Leave a mess, these grabbers and rearers and cracklers and bubblers?"

"Those zipper suits don't bend easily," de Gier said. "Hard to pick up things that get scattered about.

"Lorraine used to." De Gier looked guilty. "She couldn't stand litter. She'd kayak out of her way for miles to pick up a can glittering on a beach, or a bit of silver paper. She'd collect everything else too. She always carried garbage bags to stow things away in."

"Right," Grijpstra said.

They sat quietly. Bats squeaked. Crickets set up a wave of silver sound that subsided slowly. A sea duck quacked.

"Let me see if I got this now," Grijpstra said. "Fishermen grow marijuana on the islands; the sheriffcondones that provided nobody squeals about what he is bringing in in bulk from abroad. Bildah Farnsworth builds houses for part payment in unregistered cash. Aki reluctantly spies on behalf ofpimply-faced DEAers but she did her job the other day so she can relax now. Hairy Harry keeps going."

"Hairy Harry has got it made," de Gier said.

"Except for the usual money problem," Grijpstra said. "He launders one hundred thousand dollars via his house but the flow keeps flowing. Every time he fills up an eighteen-wheel truck he makes. . . what. . . ?"

"Too much," de Gier said. "Hairy Harry is exceptional. He did manage to sink some of his loot into his house. Most people here are too tight for that. Nobody here likes to show wealth. All Billy Boy ever spends is enough to buy new tires for the little old truck he keeps behind his trailer."

"Too much cash for the sheriff to ever get rid of," Grijpstra said. "Twice too much when he brings in cocaine."

"Keeps adding up," de Gier said. "Drug dealers who have it together eventually tend to choke on their millions." He touched Grijpstra's hand. "A well-known problem."

"The sheriff must have bad dreams," Grijpstra said. "I have a new nightmare now—I'm wading through banknotes, getting in deeper slowly. A new kind of sinking dream. Unnerving."

"With me it's stuff," de Gier said. "I have all these vehicles and boats and airplanes and I forget where I leave them and they have to get their oil changed. Embarrassment ofriches, here. . . ."De Gier brightened up. "I have another example, relevant to our case. Did you see that yacht in Jameson Harbor? The
Macho Bandido?
Some foreign alleged cocaine exporter bought it at the boat show in Portland. Paid cash. A million, a million and a half. Computerized, a cabin you can't imagine. The vessel was built somewhere around here. There are some of the best boat builders in the world on the New England coast. Maybe forty men worked on that yacht, all experts, so this guy plunks down his bag of soiled bank notes and sails away with his dopey friends,
muy macho,
'to explore the Maine coast.' Hard to believe that they made it all the way up here. Very treacherous coast, you know." He waved at the view. "Looks fine, eh? Calm sea, lovely islands, but you have to watch it. People don't realize that."

"My dear chap," Grijpstra said. "The currents, the tides, the shoals, the waves, the goddamn wildlife that clowns around ..."

"Ah yes," de Gier said. "Sorry, Henk. So this dealer and his mates eventually bungle the yacht into the harbor here. . . three fellows and a woman. They hang around for a bit, don't even have enough sense to ask if they can use a mooring. Just dump the anchor on a short cable that keeps dragging the boat's nose down at high tide. Do some partying aboard, finally go ashore in their brand new rubber boat, use their cellular phone to get a rental company to drop offa Cadillac, have themselves chauffeured away. Left the rubber boat, left the yacht, glad to be rid of it probably. They must have had some scary moments out on the Bay of Fundy— they took offin the car, that's a week ago, and haven't been seen since."

"I saw
Macho Bandido,"
Grijpstra said, "from the restaurant. It was at a mooring and Little Max was swabbing the deck. The jib used to be all screwed up on that line that connects the bow sprit to the mast top. It looks nice now."

De Gier laughed. "Of course, the new owners take good care of it. The fishermen wanted to lengthen that anchor cable but Hairy Harry wouldn't let them. Some fishermen were talking on the radio just now. Last night, somehow, that cable managed to snap and the yacht managed to float out to sea where Harry happened to be, out on his own time, on a powerboat privately owned by Bildah Farnsworth, who happened to be on his boat too, and together they salvaged an abandoned vessel."

"And they get to keep a million dollars' worth of yacht?"

"Yessir," de Gier said. "Such is the law. It's also the law oflife. Once you're rich you get to have it all. Once you're in the middle you dwindle. Once you're poor you lose what's left."

"Four people on
Macho Bandido
originally?"

"I never saw any of them," de Gier said. "The limo picked them up at night, Beth saw it leave. Aki noticed the crew a few times earlier, grocery shopping, having a meal at the restaurant. Aki said they were well-groomed Latino types and the woman looked like a white model out of
Vogue."

Grijpstra's eyes didn't seem to be focusing.

"You okay?" de Gier asked.

"Too much going on here," Grijpstra said. He checked his watch. "Mind if I borrow the dinghy and the Ford product?"

"Not much to do in Jameson at midnight," de Gier said.

"And some quarters."

"Nellie'll be asleep."

"No," Grijpstra said. "It'll be six A.M. in Amsterdam. I promised I would phone early mornings.

Chapter 12

"Aren't you getting tired listening to this?" Katrien asked, about to play the tape again. "This must be the fourth time. Doesn't it get repetitive?"

The commissaris sat in the bath, slowly hitting the water's surface with his flat hands.
Smick, smeck.

"But that's what detectives do," Katrien said, "isn't it? Go through the same thing again and again?"

"Not unless they're dense," the commissaris said. "But I wasn't there, Katrien, and I can't ask direct questions." He laughed. "But Grijpstra is answering them anyway." He looked up. "Don't you think?"

"Playing games again," Katrien said. "Who is dense here, Jan? Don't you know that Grijpstra is talking to you? He would never report to Nellie. She says so. He might tell her afterward but not while the case is going on." She bent over and squeezed her husband's hand. "Not like you."

"So he knows I'm listening in?"

"Of course."

"But he isn't looking for guidance?"

"Of course he is, Jan."

"Nah," the commissaris said. He pushed a button in the air. "Would you mind?"

The tape ran. "HenkieLuwie," Nellie said, "listen, really, I don't mind, but we must be honest with each other. Just tell me about this hula hoop woman—Akipappapalo, is it? Tell me, what did you guys do that night in Boston?"

"Nellie, please," Grijpstra said. "I needed information. The woman is a dyke, I'm an old fat guy now. What could have happened?"

"Did you have separate rooms?"

The commissaris made his finger spin a circle in air. Katrien fast-forwarded the tape. "Birds," Grijpstra said, "ravens, they still have ravens here, and eagles, with a six-foot wingspan. They must have pulled Beth's father out of his Packard . . ."

The commissaris waved imperiously. The recorder clicked off. "That's it," the commissaris said, "that's what Grijpstra has to follow up on. See what I mean? If only I could tell him. And it's so easy. He has that Ishmael, the pilot with his aircraft." He began to hit the bathwater again.

Smick. Smeck.

"Don't do that," Katrien said. "You can be very irritating, Jan. I've just sponged the floor."

Smick. Smack.

"I'll turn on the cold water."

"De Gier would catch on," the commissaris said, "but he's into philosophy again. Clogs his mind. And Grijpstra is slow,
slow"

"You think de Gier will kill himself once he's sure he really kicked a pregnant woman to death?" Katrien asked as she helped the commissaris to get out of his bath.

The commissaris kept shaking his head.

"Jan! You have arthritis, not Parkinson's."

"Hmmm?"

"Will de Gier kill himself?"

"If subjects keep talking about it they may do it in the end," the commissaris said. "There's some conclusive statistical evidence I believe."

"Oh dear . . ." She dropped the towel.

"Like Jeremy," the commissaris said. "I like that. Once the situation is terminal, once /decide the situation is terminal, not some goddamn doctor, eh?" He nestled into the towel that she held up again. "And then, on that mysterious coast, where everything still happens, the last unpolluted water on earth, with loons escorting the boat, and an eagle above me, Katrien, to row myself into nothing at all, some quiet spot between ledges, behind a hilly island with dead trees on it, and cormorants in the branches, drying their spread-out wings. . ."

"And then the angel comes down and gently teleports you through Limbo but you manage to withstand all self-seeking temptations until you change into pure light?" Katrien asked, rubbing him dry. "You'd have to use a gun. You don't just evaporate, you know. A gun is messy."

"I can buy a gun there," the commissaris said. "On Main Street. Perkins' Sports Store. America recognizes a man's right to carry arms."

"I was talking about de Gier," Katrien said.

He kissed her. "The ego tends to discuss itself, Katrien."

Chapter 13

There were ravens in the sky around the Tailorcraft, circling and soaring in quiet splendor, not going down to check out carrion below.

"The gulls?" Grijpstra asked.

Ishmael handled his controls obediently, making the little plane follow two black-winged gulls. The birds weren't scavenging but were picking up mussels, dropping them to break their shells to get at the juicy meat inside.

Tension rose as Ishmael spotted an eagle, and managed to fly alongside the huge bird for a while. The eagle majestically dipped and raised its wings, showing the large white finger feathers at their ends. The eagle led the plane to a fish-filled cove where it harassed a smaller bird, an osprey, until the fish hawk dropped the mackerel it had just grabbed and the eagle caught the shiny prey neatly.

"Nothing dead here," Ishmael said. "Didn't you say that your dead object had to be fairly close to Squid Island? Okay if I turn back a bit again?"

Grijpstra saw Squid Island below, Bar Island next to it, and then Jeremy's island, with the remains of a cabin and what looked like broken sun panels in a frame on posts. Ishmael circled slowly. "Jeremy had set up his own electricity source. Got himself a computer and a printer."

"Writing something?" Grijpstra asked.

"I found a title and some disconnected notes."

"What was the title?"

"AfterZen"
Ishmael said. "Jeremy studied Buddhism once but he said you don't carry a boat after it has taken you to the other shore."

"Clever hermit," Grijpstra said. "Now, if local people were burying a corpse, and they didn't have much time, you think they would dig deep?"

Ishmael thought so. A shallow grave wouldn't just attract birds, but animals as well. Raccoons are good diggers. "If it were me I would dig down six feet, and top it with some good-sized rocks."