The Mind-Murders (11 page)

PART II

1

De Gier crossed the courtyard. His legs bounced, his arms swung, his chin jutted, the sun highlighted bis wavy hair. Grijpstra followed heavily, as if the tarmac stuck to his soles, as if the air was viscous, as if his blood was glue, coagulating in every artery and vein. De Gier folded himself into the Volkswagen and waited, drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel. He started the engine as Grijpstra lowered his bulk on the creaking plastic next to him. Grijpstra mumbled.

The car left the courtyard and headed for the inner city, ignoring traffic signals, swerving around jaywalking pedestrians.

"I don't know what you're saying," de Gier said, "but here's your corpse. You looked for it all weekend. You were right, after all; whatever you want will find you in due time." He patted Grijpstra's shoulder. "A solid corpse, adjutant, all ours. No manufactured case this time. We won't have to make excuses to each other and to the good citizens who obstruct our path. We can work by the book. We're following orders. Forward."

"Forward how?" Grijpstra asked and nodded at a gesticulating oversized lady on a bicycle as the car eased through a red light.

"From dream time into actuality," de Gier shouted as he made the Volkswagen shoot ahead. "A real body, quite dead but able to withstand our prodding. Facts instead of a vacuum. Cause and effect instead of conjecture on a transparent tightrope. Connecting events instead of stacking flimsy cards!"

Grijpstra mumbled on.

De Gier parked.

"We can walk from here. We even have an address. Gentleman's Market. Across the canal, see? There's the Mercedes, there's a patrol car. We have all sorts of details. A silver Mercedes with a German registration. Corpse of a forty-five-year-old man, well dressed. Isn't it unbelievable, Grijpstra, after all we've been through?"

Grijpstra grunted, spoke, and grunted again.

"What's that?"

"I'm saying," Grijpstra said in an unnecessarily loud voice, "that we are back where we started, on the Brewerscanal, with nothing in our hands. Once again we will twist misrepresented evidence and be a bother to ourselves and all those who have the misfortune to meet with us. What do we have?" He held up a finger. "A corpse, you're right. From that point on, you're wrong. The corpse was not killed, neither by itself nor by others. There are, according to the commissaris's notes, no wounds. Very likely our man died of natural causes. If we get into this, we'll stumble forever, and there'll be nothing in the end."

De Gier got out of the car, walked around it and opened the passenger door. He reached in, grabbed Grijpstra by the forearm and pulled.

"No. Fm right. We have a case. The corpse was found in the baggage compartment of a car. How did it get there?"

They crossed the nearest bridge. A male and a female constable walked toward the detectives.

"I'll tell you how it got there," Grijpstra said. "It fell in. It was still alive then. The man became unwell, the baggage compartment of the car was open, he lunged toward the car, intending to find support, he was dizzy, fainting, he tumbled into the gaping hole."

"And somebody closed the lid," de Gier said. "No, no. Murder. I tell you it's murder. We're employed by the murder brigade. This is our thing. The hunt is on. Hello, Asta, hello, Karate, where's Ketchup?"

"Do you know my name?" Asta asked.

"Ketchup is on leave," Karate said. "The weekend was too much for him. He scraped some free days together and foul-mouthed Sergeant Jurriaans. The sergeant jumped across the counter, but Ketchup was out on the street by then. He's a good runner. Look what I got in his place."

"I'm not a what," Asta said. "I'm a she. I have my rights. I didn't know you knew my name, sergeant."

"Stay away from him," Grijpstra said. "He's working, but not for long. This corpse is nothing, we'll find something else to do. We could have a late breakfast or an early lunch. Where's the dead man, constable?"

Asta stopped smiling at de Gier. "Taken away, adjutant, there were too many people around, it was causing an obstruction. It has been photographed, and the doctor was here. The ambulance took it to the morgue. The doctor thought the man may have died of natural causes. He suspected a stomach ulcer that broke and caused a bleeding."

"See?" Grijpstra asked.
"See!"
Grijpstra shouted. "Isn't that what I said just now? Let's go, sergeant. We'll visit the morgue, meet with the doctor, and have a meal. I won't waste one unnecessary minute on this routine accident."

"Let's see the car," de Gier said.

"The lid of the baggage compartment was closed," Karate said, "but not quite. The lock had been forced, you see. We have the car on the stolen list, it disappeared sometime during the night. It had been parked in front of Hotel Oberon. The owner of the car stays there. I met him this morning before we went out on patrol. A fat German, wheezing and bubbling. He told us the car cost a lot of money and that we had to drop everything and look for it."

De Gier turned to Asta. "Were you there too?"

"Yes," Asta said, "he was the same man who wouldn't pay his bill at Beelema's. Didn't we do that little job well, sergeant? There can't have been more than two minutes between your telephone call and our arrival. Wasn't it great?"

"No," Grijpstra said.

"What was wrong with the way we handled that incident, adjutant?" Asta asked.

"What? Oh, nothing. You're paid to do your job well, aren't you? I don't want this case, sergeant. It's the same thing again. I got away from it and now we're back. Beelema, I don't want to hear that name again. And that German was obnoxious, he'll still be obnoxious. I'm glad his car was stolen." He hit the trunk with his flat hand. "Is this the only damage, constable? Just a broken lock?"

"Yes."

"Pity. Thieves took the car and forced the baggage compartment. They left, either finding nothing or taking what they found. The car remained. Our fellow staggers along and falls into it. He dies."

"Who closed the lid?"

Grijpstra shrugged.

"Who cares? Some person who passed the car and didn't like the gaping rear end. He pulled the lid down without looking at the possible contents of the baggage compartment. He saw something that shouldn't be and corrected the situation. I'm like that too. Last night, on my way home, I saw the wheel of a bicycle lying in the street. Shouldn't be there, might cause an accident. I picked it up and left it with some garbage cans so that it could be picked up this morning by the collectors. There are many people like me. A passer-by who closed the lid. It was dark, the streetlights are at some distance. Did the lock work when the lid was closed?"

"It held," Karate said, "but it had been tampered with."

"How did the car get here? Did the thieves have a key?"

"No, they hot-wired the engine."

"How did you find the corpse?"

Karate took off his cap and scratched his head.

"Well?"

"I don't want to upset you, adjutant."

De Gier pushed Grijpstra gently aside. "Tell me, Karate. I'm all right this morning. It's a beautiful day. This is a nice case. I'm glad we're working together again. Tell me all you know, Karate."

Karate replaced his cap. "Very well, sergeant. Mrs. Cabbage-Tonto checked in with us this morning. She has a small dog, very small, a Chihuahua, I believe it's called. Looks like the wrong sort of mouse. The dog had to pee, she was taking it for a walk on a leash. The dog pulled her to the Mercedes, peed for a bit and started yelling or squeaking. That kind of dog doesn't bark, I believe. She dragged it away and it went on peeing and it did the other thing too, maybe it even threw up, it was in a proper state, sergeant. It wanted to get back to the car and had another fit. Mrs. Cabbage-Tonto, she claimed to know the adjutant—Sergeant Jurriaans didn't want to listen to her at first—said that she knew somebody really high up in the force and would complain, and she described the adjutant, fat man in a pinstripe suit and big cheeks, she said, so we knew it was Adjutant Grijpstra..."

"Ho!" Grijpstra said.

"Yes?" Karate asked.

"Never mind."

"Right," Karate said. "So Mrs. Cabbage-Tonto said she found the dead man. She looked into the baggage compartment. The lock closed but didn't lock, if you see what I mean, because it had been forced. The witness ran all the way to the station, dragging the dog. It had sore paws when it arrived and sort of cried. It had to stand in a tray filled with water for a while to cool its feet."

"Go on."

"The lady didn't strike us as a reliable witness, but as she knew the adjutant and our station has had trouble with the adjutant before, Sergeant Jurriaans thought we might have a look. We found the corpse all right. It looked peaceful, folded into itself, but it was covered with blood."

"Could you ascertain its identity?"

"Yes, sergeant. The doctor gave us the wallet he found in its jacket. The man is called Jim Boronski."

"A foreigner," Grijpstra said, "we don't want that, a foreign corpse isn't easy to deal with."

Karate smiled helpfully. "He was Dutch, adjutant. The wallet contained a passport. Born in Rotterdam, now residing in Colombia, South America. A businessman. He also carried a hotel key, from Hotel Oberon."

Grijpstra groaned.

"Beautiful," de Gier said. "As I thought. We can link facts already. So our man drops dead into the car of a fellow hotel guest. Continue, constable."

Karate spread bis small hands. "That's about it, sergeant. The corpse was dressed in a well-made suit of good material. Apart from the blood, it looked well-cared for. I don't recall seeing the man in this district."

Grijpstra crossed the quay, studied the green water of the canal for a while, and came back. "Very well, we'll look into this. When did you find the corpse?"

Karate produced his notebook and flipped the pages. "Here, adjutant, 10:04 this morning. The doctor took it away at 10:30, it's 12:30 now, we waited for you."

Grijpstra scribbled in his notebook. De Gier looked at Asta. He remembered Sergeant Jurriaans's tale relayed by Grijpstra. He tried to visualize her as she must have been during that adventurous night but could only see a neatly dressed constable with inordinately sparkly eyes, now smiling politely. "I wish I were a detective," she was saying. "This job is boring, bah, smelly."

De Gier peeked at the bloodstained baggage compartment of the Mercedes. "Smelly? But this is fresh."

Asta peeked too. "The corpse was fine. I meant the chicken remains earlier on. Another complaint we took care of this morning. There's a Chinese in that sidestreet over there who slaughters poultry and dumps the leftovers in the street. The garbage collectors won't pick it up and the stuff rots. The Chinese won't bag it for he says bags are too expensive. Or so he seems to say. I don't speak Chinese."

"Yes," de Gier said.

The girl stood closer. "What will you do now, sergeant? Is this a murder? Is there a killer around? Will you find him?"

"Maybe."

"You will, won't you? I hear you always find the killer."

De Gier returned her smile. "Your informants exaggerated." He looked at Grijpstra. "We've been known to fail." He touched his breast, then patted his other pockets.

The girl took a packet of cigarettes from her bag. "Would you like one?"

"No thank you. I don't smoke."

They had to step aside. Municipal workers were trying to park some road machinery and a sooty tank on wheels approached dangerously. An unmuffied engine started up and heavy drills bit into the tarmac.

Grijpstra shouted into de Gier's ear. "Let's go to the morgue and raise Cardozo. If there's any work he can do it."

De Gier shouted back. "Cardozo is sick, didn't you see the note on your desk just now?"

Grijpstra walked to the car, but had to come back to release de Gier from Asta's smile. He pushed the sergeant into a slow walk. "How sick is Cardozo?"

"Flu, may take a few days."

"Useless fellow. Who'll do the routine? That Boronski has no address here, he probably doesn't even have relatives in the city. If he had he wouldn't be staying in a hotel. We'll have to circulate his photograph, see what we can find out about him. We may have some time-consuming sleuthing to do."

"Yes," de Gier said, "but there's no hope of help in the brigade; it's holiday time and we're short-staffed."

"Get help."

"Yes, adjutant. Do you care where I get it?"

"No."

"Wait for me in the car."

Grijpstra smiled as he saw de Gier walk into a tobacconist's store. It took a while before the sergeant came back, but he wasn't smoking.

"What did you do in there?"

"I phoned, of course. I spoke with Sergeant Jurriaans. We have help. He's lending us Asta. He will order her to go home and change into civilian clothes. We are to pick her up later; I have the address."

Grijpstra snorted.
"You
pick her up. You're an idiot, Rinus, I warned you. That girl can't be more than twenty-five years old and Jurriaans is my age, in his fifties. She isn't right in the head, neither are you at this particular time. You sure you didn't buy cigarettes in that store?"