The Maine Massacre

11

"Very good of you, Sheriff," the Commissaris said and feasted his eyes on the table offering a profusion of choice in a strange assortment of bowls and covered-up dishes. "Can I look?"

"Go ahead, sir."

The commissaris lifted lids. "Sausages, mmm! Bacon, a-ha! An omelet, splendid! The sergeant was telling me about your home-baked bread. Is that it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Came out very well, didn't it? Looks like the bread I buy from the Jewish baker on Sundays. Still warm, just like yours. You know, sheriff, the Dutch have never learned that breakfast is the one important meal in the day. We try to get by on stale bread that never had any taste in the first place, and maybe some jam, and a cup of weak tea. And sometimes porridge, bah! Disgusting, absolutely. My sister has retained the habit, of course."

"Go ahead, sir. It'll get cold."

The sergeant cut bread and the sheriff served. The commissaris began to eat.

"Amazing," the commissaris said some time later. "I didn't know I could eat that much. The stew was delicious. Lamb stew, wasn't it?"

"Yes sir, a dog got the lamb and we got the dog. The lamb was our prize. The subject gave it to us. I had it slaughtered and we kept it in the freezer. It's about finished now, but we'll have a deer next. The pay is poor, but we still manage to live well, thanks to the prisoners mostly. They keep the greenhouse going, and we have clams from the beach and there's a vegetable garden. The old sheriff was very good at organizing, and I'm planning to continue the tradition. The deputies are married and have their own homes, but I have to live in the jailhouse."

The meal was over and an old man came from the jail to clear the table. He poured more coffee.

"Shall I do the dishes now, sheriff?"

"No, later. I'll call you, Mac."

The old man nodded and went back into the jail. The heavy door closed behind him.

"What is he in for, sheriff?"

"For nothing in particular, sir. We picked him up because he was drunk and wandering around. He didn't want to go home. Mac lives by himself and he's out of firewood. I don't have too many prisoners just now. When I get some I'll make them cut a few cords for Mac. Then he'll want to go home again. He's one of the town drunks, okay for the first two weeks of the month, but when they drink their way through the welfare check they become a nuisance."

"And Mac makes himself useful here?"

"Oh yes, he likes being told what to do, like most of us. In a way that's why you're here, sir. To tell me what to do. The sergeant may have told you that homicide isn't really the sheriff's business, but it seems we've got ourselves into the situation now and I'll have to go on."

"But you are doing very well, sheriff. We aren't, I am afraid. We must be a burden to you, what with our inexperience and clumsiness. The Dodge is stuck on the estate again. We had to go back and fetch the station wagon and it isn't even snowing."

"I am not doing so well, sir, and I feel guilty about having given so little protection to the sergeant. My trouble is that I'm new too and the deputies aren't trained for this type of investigation. My chief deputy is showing signs of panic already, and the other two are young, converted rowdies who were hired because of their availability. They are good at fistfights and racing around with the siren going, but this thing is quite beyond their capacities."

The commissaris cleaned his mouth with his handkerchief and lit a cigar. "A homicide investigation has simple rules, sheriff, and I am sure you know them all. Name the suspects and question them and sniff about for information. Follow up any clue and try to fit it into a theory. If a clue doesn't fit, discard the theory. As I happened to be here I've taken the opportunity to talk to some of the people who seem to be involved with Cape Orca. That location is the center of it all, don't you agree?"

"Yes, sir."

"So who do we have? My dear sister, Suzanne, who prattles on and on but has never really lived here and knows nothing. Even so she did manage to tell me something last night. I'll bring that up later. Then there is Mrs. Wash and her gentleman-servant, Reggie. Then we have Michael Astrinsky, and last but not least Jeremy, the friendly hermit. The BMF gang is in and out of the whole unfortunate business too, but they are posing certain problems. I can't fit them in at all. Can you, sheriff?"

"They do consider the cape their private property, sir."

The commissaris raised a thin finger. "True. That's the part I can fully understand. When I was a boy I grew up in a small town near some woods. The woods were private property, but the owner lived somewhere else and he never showed up. I knew every tree in those woods. I even named some of them. There was the camel, for instance, a tree with an enormous branch growing a few feet above the ground. I would sit on that branch for hours and have all sorts of adventures. And there was another tree, a log really, quite dead, that was the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros was my dearest friend for many years. It was a strangely shaped log, very fat, resting on broken-off branches and with a big sort of head. It really looked like a rhino. It took me into the jungle. I fought black warriors who attacked from all sides. It was great, sheriff, absolutely great!"

The sheriff grinned.

"You understand that sort of thing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. But then the woods were sold and cut down, and I hated the men working there. I saw the camel and the rhino die and disappear. The rhino was just burned. The wood was too punky to serve any useful purpose. It was very sad. I was ten years old then, but I would have killed the laborers if I had been able to. The BMF gang may have similar feelings about their cape, and when the retired people came and built their homes and spoiled the landscape…"

"We know the gang got rid of two of the occupants, sir."

"Yes, but there may have been other reasons. The sergeant has reported fully to me. Captain Schwartz was a Nazi, and Nazi ideas will provoke strong reactions in many minds. Paul Ranee was a dying man, miserably alive because of medical care. Some people believe that the old should be allowed to die, happily if possible. I've met the fox once and I must say I was rather impressed by him."

The sheriff nodded. "He is very much together, sir."

The commissaris looked surprised. 'Together?"

The sheriff gestured. "Well organized, sir, practical, a tight person, no holes."

"Ah, I see. Together, eh? That's a good word."

"And immoral," de Gier said. "He suggested to his girlfriend that she work in a porno studio at two hundred dollars a day. He killed a man in a provoked gang fight. He left the corpse of his own friend in a New York slum street. He likes to experiment."

"What?" the sheriff asked. "Did Madelin tell you all that? Is she the girlfriend who was supposed to do the porno work?"

"Yes."

The sheriff shook his head. "Madelin isn't the fox's girlfriend. I've seen them together but not in that way. I know she has lovers, university students who come up for the weekend. Her father has been complaining about that. But Madelin is on her own."

"Her car registration is BMF ZERO," de Gier said.

The commissaris waved his cigar excitedly. The sheriff smiled. The commissaris looked very neat in his old-fashioned three-piece suit, carefully knotted tie, and gold watchchain.

"There we have it!" the commissaris said. "The inconsistency that has been bothering me. Or fascinating me. First it was the name of the gang and their insistence on adding 'bad' to the other word. And now Madelin stresses the mystery by adding 'zero.' Zero means nothing. We have been suspecting all along, and so we should perhaps, that the motive behind the killings was greed. Confucius, I believe, once said that the ordinary man acts because he thinks his act will be profitable; the superior man, however, acts because he minks his act is right. But what on earth is 'right'? I've often been tempted to think that right equals nothing. Perhaps 'nothing' is the ultimate wisdom. Now zero means absolute nothing and the idea it symbolizes is a void, an absolute void." He looked up. "I am sorry, am I talking rubbish?"

"No, sir," the sheriff said. "I am not qualified to say so, but I don't think you are. I remember that zero did strange things to equations. I saw that when I was trying to get some credits in mathematics. Please go on, sir."

"Exactly. So perhaps, but this is far out of course, far out, I picked up that expression here, an Americanism no doubt. As I was saying, it could be that the BMF gang has hit on the idea that 'nothing' is an interesting concept. They might be motivated in conducting experiments for no acceptable reason at all, certainly not for profit. The sergeant told me this morning what Madelin gave him in the way of information. The business about the deed and so forth. But I also saw something else. Something in the way the sergeant was set up-that's a correct expression, isn't it?-set up for the love rendezvous and perhaps for the warning shot in her driveway. Then there is the painting of death in the room where she seduced him. All these details. Very clever, and immoral perhaps, as the sergeant suggested. Amoral perhaps, no morals at all. Yes?"

"Yes, sir. Perhaps."

"Of course, just a theory, no certainty here at all. But perhaps we can imagine that the gang murdered all these people as another experiment, as a macabre joke, to prove to themselves, or to us, to authority, that immoral behavior is just as valid, or acceptable, as moral behavior."

"Yes," the sheriff said. "It's possible, and it would be my luck to run across that sort of thing in Woodcock County, Maine. An intellectual gang. Both the fox and Albert have degrees and Madelin has a super-degree and is still studying. And Tom is an original, and an ingenious, as they say there. I saw him in the public library the other day. He was taking out the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe and a manual on jungle warfare."

"Ingenious intellectuals, sheriff. Well, you won't be bored. Neither will the gang be bored. Which may be a good thing. Organized life in what we call civilized countries can be very boring. All adventure has gone, even the holidays are without surprises, programmed into every possible detail. So the adventurous, the unusual, the creative, the originals will try to make things happen and, expectably, may break the law in the process."

The sheriff grinned. The commissaris suddenly looked sad. "So, as I was saying, this gang will stop at nothing, or try to go beyond nothing. That would be an almost mystic endeavor. But I am probably carried away by my own rambling mind. The gang is also friendly, helpful even. The fox got our cars unstuck. There was chanting and flute playing in Robert's Market. And lovemaking in the Astrinsky parlor. Facts hard to rhyme with a bullet snipping off the tail on the sergeant's hat."

"So they may go free after all, sir?"

"Possibly."

The sheriff cleared his throat. "When you mentioned the suspects just now you included your sister's name, sir. Suzanne Opdijk."

"Yes indeed. I mentioned her first. I would consider her a good suspect in the case of her husband's death. I've listened to her for hours on end, and it is quite obvious that she couldn't stand Opdijk. He was stronger than she. He dominated Suzanne, frustrated her. He controlled the money, drove the car, got about, was sociable and happy in his way, while she had to stay home and try to live in a dream. She didn't want the dream, she wanted the reality that was shadowed in her dream. All she wanted was to go back to Holland. Opdijk wouldn't even discuss that possibility. So one day he is standing on die ice, close to the cliff, and she goes out and pushes him. Not at all unlikely. I am sure she can be vicious when cornered and she must have felt very cornered. But if she did push him she will never admit to having done so and we would have to produce witnesses. No witnesses have come forward."

"But she's your sister, sir."

"If we create justice we must make it universal. There can't be exceptions. She is my sister but she is still a prime suspect, but only in the case of Opdijk's death. I can't see her sneaking around the other houses and taking plastic foam out of a boat, or firing a rifle, or enticing a man to go out into the woods with her. But she did have a motive to kill her husband, a very strong motive I would say."

"Yes, sir, and Janet Wash?"

The commissaris looked at the tip of his cigar. "Well, why not? She owns the rest of Cape Orca and she may have wanted to own all of it, although she didn't seem to be that type of woman to me. She was complaining that the upkeep of the house and the land gave her too much work. She is an old woman in spite of her beauty. I could suspect her more easily if she were young, in the strength of her life."

"Reggie?"

The commissaris nodded. 'There's an inconsistency there too. A young man spending all his time in the service of an older woman. Would he be well paid, do you think, sheriff?"

The sheriff shook his head. "I don't know. I can't check with the bank, although I might try. I know the manager, not too well though. But Reggie doesn't strike me as being very interested in money. The few times I've met him he only talked trees and shrubs. He's a dedicated gardener. The azalea gardens he made are beautiful. Even I can see that, and I know some of the men who work on the Wash's property in summer, Leroux, for instance. I have him in jail now. They all say that Reggie has done good work on the cape."

"But he was a guerrilla fighter in Vietnam. Perhaps he likes violence. Did Reggie make that sort of impression on you, sergeant?"

"No, sir. He seemed very quiet and well behaved."

"Jeremy," the sheriff said.

"Jeremy is a hermit and he doesn't like people bustling about. He shifted his cabin to the other side of the island. He may also be a violent man since he carries a revolver and has a rifle in his cabin. Not an ordinary rifle-I saw quite a big clip on it."

"That island is a fortress, sir. I've sailed around it. Jeremy's dogs followed my boat, running along the island's shore. The raven was out, and even the seals seemed interested in my movements."

"Paranoid?" de Gier asked.

"Yes, but perhaps he has a reason to be paranoid."

"The man is not insane," the commissaris said quietly. "I wouldn't even call him a dreamer. A practical man who has reasons behind whatever he does. Good reasons."

"That leaves us with Michael Astrinsky, sir."

"Another prime suspect, sheriff. And he left for the Bahamas the minute he saw the sergeant and myself sniffing about."

The sheriff got up. "I did some thinking last night, sir. About Astrinsky among others." He checked his watch. "I'll phone Bern. She has a little traveling agency, sells tickets for Enterprise Airlines from her restaurant. I'll give her a ring."

He dialed. "Beth?

"Sheriff here. Listen, Beth, you sold a ticket to Astrinsky the other day. Where to?

"Boston? Open return? Good. What's that?"

The sheriff found a pad and a pencil. "Yes. Thank you, Beth.

"Michael Astrinsky didn't go to the Bahamas. He's in Boston. Beth booked him into the Fosterhouse Hotel."

"A lie," the commissaris said. "Lies are what we have been looking for. Can I trouble you for another cup of coffee, sheriff?"

The sheriff poured and the commissaris stirred his cup triumphantly. "You did excellent thinking last night, sheriff. Can you come up with a reason why Astrinsky would have lied about the destination of his trip?"

"Yes, sir. Astrinsky is holding the land he bought from the murdered people's estates for a third party. Madelin told the sergeant as much, although her information wasn't definite. But you and the sergeant had marched into his office, introducing yourselves as police officers. I would deduct, from his behavior and the information his daughter supplied, plus the facts the cape is giving us, that Astrinsky is no longer interested in protecting the real owner of the land. He knows that we can find out whose name the deeds are now registered in. I obtained that information yesterday from the town clerk. The name on the deeds is Michael Astrinsky. But if Astrinsky forces the real owner to register the deeds, then Astrinsky is cleared, not all the way but part of the way. His behavior is still suspicious. He may not be the killer, but maybe he's working with the killer."

"We know where Astrinsky is, sheriff. If you like I can go to Boston, or the sergeant can go. The sergeant has some experience in following people. He can shave off his mustache and wear different clothes."

"My mustache?" De Gier asked.

"Why not, sergeant. Your trip was financed by the exchange fund. Shaving your mustache off would be a way to show your appreciation for the fund."

The sheriff stared at the wall. He got up, and felt a knot in the paneling.

"What do you think, sheriff?"

"It would be a long shot, sir. Astrinsky has probably seen the third party already. But perhaps he'll see him again. I don't want to waste your or the sergeant's time."

The commissaris got up too. "You can think about it, sheriff. I confess that I didn't want to get into this case at first, but its many aspects have been changing my mind. I'm certainly quite willing now. And the sergeant has his duty to consider, and the police fund that has been financed by taxpayers' money. Your taxpayers and ours. Let's be off, sergeant. Madelin will be waiting for us. Perhaps we can find that unfortunate lady's boat."

The sheriff hadn't been listening. "You mentioned that your sister had given you some information, sir."

"Ah yes. It may be nothing, but there is a lie involved, so it could possibly be of interest. When the sergeant and I had drinks at the Wash mansion, Mrs. Wash told us that Reggie had overturned her station wagon some time ago. But my sister tells a different story altogether. She claims that she was in her garden when she saw Jeremy coming ashore, accompanied by a dog. At about the same time she saw the Wash station wagon driving along with Janet Wash at the wheel. She didn't see anybody else in the car. The trees obscured her view, but she heard a commotion and went to the end of her garden to get a better look. There had been an accident. I asked Suzanne to take me to the exact place from where she had seen the accident and she also walked me to the spot where the event took place. There's some considerable distance so she can't have had a really close look, and as I said, mere are a lot of trees in the way. What happened was that the wagon slipped and careened off the road. It turned over several times until it was stopped by some alders. Suzanne did see that Jeremy ran to the wreck and helped Janet to free herself. There seemed to be nothing wrong with Janet. And Suzanne, being what she is, remembered that she had a roast in the oven and returned to the safety of her home."

The sheriff thought. "I see, sir. I see the lie. Reggie wasn't involved. Right. But I don't see that the lie fits in with any of our possible theories. Perhaps Janet didn't want to admit to being a bad driver and blamed Reggie. Was Reggie present when Janet told you that he had wrecked the car?"

"Yes, sheriff."

The sheriff scratched his chin. "A strange relationship indeed."

"Very," the commissaris said brightly. "Thank you for a truly marvelous breakfast, sheriff. I won't forget that lamb stew."

The sheriff smiled. "You're welcome, sir. Come again. Any time."