Just a Corpse at Twilight

Chapter 8

"Are you ready?" Katrien asked, her finger on the tape recorder that Nellie had brought in a few minutes earlier.

The commissaris, in a silk robe, exuding a pleasant fragrance of after-shave, sat in his study. A large map ofthe northern section of the Maine coast was stick-pinned to a board on his desk. His right hand, holding a sharpened pencil, hovered over the first page of a new notebook.

"I heard the tape," Katrien said. "Nellie played it for me. She asked all your questions. Don't you think Grijpstra will be annoyed if he finds out we're doing this?"

"No," the commissaris said. "I thought I would try and use Nellie-type questions but that would be complicated. I had to use my own. He answered them so he doesn't mind."

Katrien pressed the recorder's button.

"Nellie?" Grijpstra asked.

"Oh, HenkieLuwie, I'm so pleased you called. Are you all right?"

"Just dandy, dear, just dandy."

"Did you get to de Gier?"

"Yes."

"Do you miss me?"

Katrien interrupted the tape. "She had to ask that too."

"That's fine," the commissaris said, waving at the interruption as if it were a mosquito. "That's fine, dear."

Katrien pushed the recorder on again. "So how is Rinus?" Nellie asked.

"Not so good."

"Is he crazy?"

"Not now."

"You think he was crazy?"

"He's been doing this New Guinea Papuan bone-through-the-nose stuff," Grijpstra said. "But that sorcerer who taught him, that shaman he's always talking about, that fellow probably knows what he's doing by himself on his island, and de Gier's level is more like a group thing out there in the bush…"

"… under the banyan tree?" Nellie asked. "That's what Rinus said in his letters from New Guinea. Doesn't that sound romantic? I saw a banyan tree in the zoo, in the greenhouse. It's beautiful, with all those air roots…"

"… it's regular Christmas trees here…"

"… but Christmas trees are magic too, Henkie-t Luwie, we have them right here in Holland, you don't have to go all that way to.. ."

"Listen," Grijpstra said, "this is a pay phone, you have to call me back. Write this down-01 207…"

The recorder kept clicking, then came on again.

"HenkieLuwie? Isn't this horribly expensive? Are you billing de Gier?"

"Don't worry about money."

"I do worry. HenkieLuwie?"

"Yes?"

"Was de Gier crazy?"

"He could have been when he attacked subject. He has said as much."

"Does he remember kicking poor Lorraine?"

Katrien switched off. "Isn't Nellie clever?"

The commissaris waved impatiently. "The corpse, Nellie, the corpse

…"

"HenkieLuwie? Is de Gier sure he saw Lorraine's corpse?"

"Yes," Grijpstra said. "Everybody here is of some origin or other, from someplace eke I mean, and Lorraine was Swedish, and she had that hair, very fair, almost white. Angel hair?"

"You like that, Henk? I could bleach mine a bit more."

"No Nellie, please. And she had those feet."

"Swedish feet?"

"Special feet. Very slender."

"The judges liked my feet. But my breasts…"

"Regular breasts," Grijpstra said. "And the breasts were not exposed. Bad George was carrying the body rolled up in a blood-soaked blanket."

"You're sure it was blood?" Nellie asked.

"Could have been water," Grijpstra said. "It was dark, de Gier was out of his mind. They told him it was blood and he freaked out as usual. Mr. 'Murder Brigade Detective.' Tsksh. Jesus." Grijpstra snarled. "So we have recognizable hair hanging out one side of the blood-soaked blanket and recognizable bare feet hanging out the other and the body was dead."

"Wasn't de Gier too drunk to be sure?"

"No," Grijpstra said. "I do believe that angel-haired slender-footed body was dead. De Gier is too insistent. And don't forget he has seen hundreds of corpses in his time. There's something about dead bodies that makes them change into objects. Leftovers. Castofis. De Gier may have been crazy but he knows about being dead."

Katrien switched offthe recorder. "That's bad, Jan. No? I think that sounds bad."

"I'd like to hear the bad part again," the commissaris said. He was listening carefully when Katrien replayed the tape, leaning toward the recorder.

"… but he knows about being dead," Grijpstra's hoarse voice said.

"Again, Jan?" Katrien asked.

"No, just carry on, dear."

"So what are you going to do, HenkieLuwie?" Nellie asked.

"Find that corpse," Grijpstra said. "Flash and Bad George are trying some extortion. Rinus has been spending a lot ofmoney so they think he's loaded. They gave him a big bill for saving me too, left it on the doorstep of the pagoda. You should see this place, Nellie. American wealth…"

"Saved you from what?" Nellie asked shrilly.

"Oh, I started rowing to Squid Island from the wrong place and there was a bit of a wind so they came looking for me and the dog spotted me-nice dog, Nellie, we should keep a dog too."

"Puppies poop and rip up carpets," Nellie said. "What makes you think that corpse is still there? Wouldn't they have burned it? Or dumped it overboard?"

"Extortionists do not destroy the evidence implicating their victim."

"So you find Lorraine's body," Nellie said. "Then what will you do?"

"I don't know, Nellie."

"You can't help a killer to escape."

"Something else," Grijpstra said. "There's a lot of drug traffic here. Imported and locally grown."

"Not your business, huh, HenkieLuwie?"

"The sheriff's business," Grijpstra said.

"I should say so," Nellie said.

"That's not quite what I meant… Oh, by the way, Nellie, if you see the commissaris tell him that this hermit he and de Gier knew here, Jeremy, got old and sick and rowed himself into nowhere, but there's a disciple, a man called Ishmael."

"I don't like hermits, Henk. Hermits don't have enough to lose."

The commissaris winked at Katrien. She made a movement to stop the tape. He shook his head.

"Ishmael seems to be helpful," Grijpstra said. "And there's a woman who works in the restaurant here, a friend of Rinuss, who'll drive me to Boston to change my money. She's from Hawaii and she wants to go to Boston to see an exhibition of Hawaiian historical paintings.

…"

"Henk!"

"I can't drive myself," Grijpstra said, "I get too sleepy, you know that."

"How old is this Aki, Henk?"

"Thirty-ish?"

"No! From Hawaii! They all swing their hips, and they're immoral. Remember that movie? How they crawled all over the sailors? And made them stay with them and that poor captain had to go home alone?"

"Aki's gay, Nellie. She lives with Beth, Beth owns the restaurant. It's all right, Nellie."

Katrien switched off the recorder. "After that, they're fighting. Poor Nellie. She's very upset about that gorgeous Hawaiian lady, Jan." She caressed his bald head, a little heavy-handedly. "Too bad you couldn't go."