The Maine Massacre

18

The Opduks' station wagon ground slowly ahead, whining in first gear. The commissaris was driving. De Gier sat huddled in his fur-lined coat.

"You look like a polar traveler, sergeant, an unhappy polar traveler. Aren't the hounds pulling the sleigh fast enough? The sawmill should be at the end of this road. We'll arrive in a minute."

The sergeant blew some thin smoke out of the collar of Opdijk's garment. "1 am not unhappy, sir, I am trying to figure out what we were doing on the island. Jeremy gave you no answers; he only confirmed that his dog died. You surmised that correctly, I should have thought of the possibility, but I didn't. I have been thinking about little else than the Cape Orca murders. The dead dog seems no part of them. You think Janet Wash ran the dog down on purpose, sir?"

"Here we are, sergeant. There's smoke coming out of that big shed. Our friend is in."

"And he didn't give you the correct name of the gambler. I'm sure he was only play-acting, yet you seemed pleased enough with his answer, or nonanswer."

"Out," the commissaris said and opened his door. "You've been my student long enough, sergeant. Why ask if you can find out by using the brain you keep in that handsome head of yours? The answers are clear enough. I can see them, so why shouldn't you? I haven't been hiding any of the information that came my way, and I trust you have given me all of yours. The encounter we had on the island was the result of an attack based on our combined knowledge. Good day, sir. I hope you can spare us a little of your valuable time."

The fox was waiting for them on the path to his shed. Albert had come out of the shed too, carrying some boards that he lowered carefully onto the trailer attached to the fox's jeep. The fox shook hands.

"We've met before," the sergeant said. "You pulled us out of the snow."

The fox grinned. "We've met a number of times, sergeant, directly and indirectly. We made you as welcome as we could, circumstances and existing limitations providing. Will you be leaving soon?"

"I think so."

"A pity. I was thinking of making you an honorary member of my organization, such as it is these days. Would you and your friend come in? The mill isn't too comfortable, but it'll be a little warmer than out here. I have two barrel stoves going, but one wall is open so that we can pull the saw logs in. Most of the heat goes straight out again. Albert, you're coming in too?"

Albert came, smiled at de Gier, and shook the commissaris' hand. "1 hear you're a police commissioner from Europe."

"I was," the commissaris said, "and very likely I'll be one again, but here I am trying my hand at being a private detective."

"You find the activity worthwhile?"

"Yes, thank you, very."

The fox took his woolen hat off and poured coffee from a jug standing on a hot plate in a comer of the mill. Most of the shed was taken up by an old truck engine powering a circular saw and the machinery required to maneuver the logs into position. The engine was going, forcing them to shout, and the fox switched it off. "Drop of brandy in your coffee? It's a nasty day. A bit of brandy makes a difference."

"Thank you."

They raised their mugs and sipped. The fox dug about in his curly hair, which had flattened under his hat; only the two tufts near his ears stood up. His long face with the tilted eyes looked expectantly at the commissaris.

"You deserve your name," the commissaris said.

"I hope so. I've spent some time observing the way a fox lives. There are several around here, and they hunt close to the mill sometimes. Yesterday one of them got my rooster. 1 saw him coming and shouted, but he never wavered. He knows I won't shoot him, so he comes by daylight. The neighbor's chickens disappeared during the night. The fox opened the latch of the barn door."

Albert laughed. "Don't exaggerate. Your stories are getting too good. A fox doesn't open a latch, the raccoons do that."

"Excuse me," the commissaris said. "What's a raccoon again? Some sort of bear?"

"Yes, they look like bears, but I don't know if they belong to the bear family. They're small. Here, the sergeant's hat is made of a raccoon skin."

"Ah yes. I had forgotten. Go on with your story please."

"Story? Oh, the fox getting at my neighbor's chickens with the help of a raccoon, that's right. The fox must have gotten a raccoon to open the latch of the barn door for him, and then he shared the chickens with his friend afterward. A fox is a leader, of course. He initiates the action, delegates what he can't do himself, and shares the benefits." The fox laughed. "Some animals are smart. Do you know what we call policemen in the States, gentlemen?"

The commissaris shook his head.

"Pigs. All of us have qualities of animals. So have the police. The police like to wallow in dirt, and they'll gobble up anything that falls on the side. They get fat and eventually they get slaughtered, but there are always new pigs. Pigs are very fertile."

The commissaris sipped his coffee.

"You don't agree, sir?"

"Perhaps. Your statement is a little too general I think. Tell me, Mr. Fox, when you started your gang, the BMF gang I believe it is called, what sort of a gang was it? In its initial stage I mean."

The fox looked at Albert. "What were we like, Albert?'

"Like we are now. I don't think we've changed much. But the trimmings were different. I remember I had a black leather jacket with a white skull and bones painted on the back and I wore a chain round my neck. I used to like to wear dark glasses and I tried to ride a motorcycle, but I wasn't very good at it then. I fell off a couple of times. You had some special army helmet, and Tom and Gerard and the others sported little leather caps. We would ride our motorcycles in formation, and we sometimes went to Bangor and the Canadian cities and drank a lot of beer and we had some good fights."

"Hell's Angels," the commissaris said and smiled. "We have them in Amsterdam. It's a popular type of manifestation. Must have been with us for twenty years, longer maybe. The black leather clothes and the dark glasses are universal properties of that type of gang. You know what they always reminded me of?"

"No."

"Of us, of the police, of the strong arm of the police. A darker more romantic version but essentially the same. That hypothesis was confirmed later when I learned that the beatniks, the flower people, the hippies, and their latter-day varieties use Hell's Angels to do police work at their rallies. I watched young men with bare chests and black leather jackets and the other customary paraphernalia, the SS helmets and so forth, ride their motorcycles to keep the thoroughfares open. I even saw them beat up offenders, youngsters who climbed fences or got annoyingly drunk. A most interesting discovery. Rebels have rules and appoint police to enforce their rules. It is true that the police terrorize and are aggressive, but it is also true that the police keep order. Humanity, in whatever society, has an inborn need for order. It cannot function in anarchy."

The fox had been listening carefully. He toasted the commissaris with his mug.

"Do you agree, Mr. Fox?"

The tilting eyes gleamed. "You are talking about humanity."

"I am, sir."

"But perhaps humanity doesn't matter so much," the fox said. "Perhaps we overemphasize our importance. I've spent time in the woods, the wild woods. There weren't any humans about. Ail I saw were trees and plants and animals and insects. The woods are quiet and beautiful, and there's no police force. There are no rules, no morals. I don't see jack rabbits riding cruisers, or jays in stiff hats, or squirrels hanging around in helicopters to see if everything is the way they think it should be. It's the way it should be, without any interference at all."

The commissaris held up his mug.

"More coffee, more brandy, or both?"

"More brandy. Thank you. Very good brandy. Did you stop to think what would happen if humanity ignored its rules, starting tomorrow, for instance?"

"Yes," the fox said. "There would be anarchy, as you said just now. A terrific mess. Just like the woods would be if you suddenly drove a million animals into one area. The clever and the strong would eat the stupid and the weak. There would be an orgy of killing, but not for too long. Disaster would change into balance. In a few years the woods would be quiet and beautiful again."

The fox sipped from his enamel mug. "And if there were no interference from us, if the superrace, the humans, would have the grace to disappear, the beauty of the woods would spread. The trees would push over die cities, very quickly, more quickly than you would expect. There's a road in the back of this sawmill. It was a first-grade hard-topped road two years ago, but when it was short-circuited by the new highway and forgotten, the woods moved in and covered it up. There are cedars growing through the broken tar now, and moss and wildflowers between the cedars' roots. Two years. In ten years New York City would be overgrown. I would like to be a witness to that process."

"You would be among the dead, Mr. Fox."

The fox nodded. "I would be. But would that matter?"

The commissaris' eyes twinkled briefly. He had remembered the plane landing on Jeremy's Island and recalled his fear. "It wouldn't matter to you, would it, Mr. Fox?"

The fox smiled back. "Oh, it would undoubtedly. I scare easy, but we are discussing a theory. The point is that my death, which would be part of the extinction of our species, may not be all that important."

The commissaris drank his brandy. De Gier moved uneasily. There was no breakthrough yet. He wished the commissaris would reach out more openly and wondered whether he could help.

The fox had moved too, but the commissaris sat very quietly, his whole attitude suggesting that he was very much at ease and had nothing in mind. Except sipping a little more brandy perhaps.

The fox tugged at his hair. "You came to ask questions? I hear you visited Jeremy earlier on today."

The commissaris looked over the rim of his mug. "News travels quickly in Woodcock County, Mr. Fox."

The fox shrugged. "I have a CB radio in my jeep. I heard Madelin talk to the old guy who runs the airstrip. You asked Jeremy questions?"

"Yes."

"Did he answer?"

"In a way."

The fox jumped up, clapped his hands, laughed, and sat down again. "In a way!"

De Gier laughed too. It was done now. He got up, stretched, and wandered over to Albert, who reached for the brandy bottle. Albert grinned back at him and poured. The fox was still talking.

"Jeremy is my local sage. I used to go over to the island and I would ask him questions, but he never answered. He would talk about other things instead, different things altogether. Tell me stories, jokes, anything. But he never seemed to hear what I asked. Then later, maybe the next day, I would think about what he had said and find. that he had answered. Very funny, and annoying too. He plays around, and very seriously, once you get a feeling as to what he is doing. But go ahead, you can ask me questions now. I may want to try to imitate Jeremy's method, but I won't be as good at it as he is."

"You try, and I'll try," the commissaris said goodhumoredly.

The fox was on his feet again. "One moment, before you go ahead I want to ask a question too. How does your quest go? Can you point at anyone yet?"

The commissaris shook his head. "I am a foreign visitor to your great country, Mr. Fox. I wouldn't point a finger at anyone, but your sheriff will I think, and I would imagine that we don't have to wait long now."

"You hear that, Albert?" the fox asked. "My sheriff. Your sheriff too. Our public servant, if only he would remember."

"Oh, he does, Mr. Fox. I have had the pleasure of being able to observe the sheriff, and so has the sergeant here. We are quite impressed. And so should you be. To consider authority as the enemy isn't always wise, and perhaps even… yes… childish. But no matter. It is my turn now, and here is my question. How did you manage to send off Captain Schwartz? I believe you admitted being instrumental in his departure, but I didn't hear how you forced him to remove himself, and I am interested."

The fox ran his fingers over a freshly cut board. "Okay, if you want to know I'll tell you, but you'll only get my side of the experiment. You should ask the captain too. But then his side might be confused. They say he's crazy, which, unfortunately, may be true. If it is true my experiment is all balled up. I was hoping that he'd turn out to be intelligent."

"He wasn't?"

"Perhaps not. But he was a Nazi, and still is I'm sure. I did some reading at college about what the Nazis call their philosophy. There was a lot of hogwash in their literature, but they also talked about the right of the strong, which interested me, of course. Like what I saw in the woods- the clever and the strong eat the stupid and the weak. The superrace. And when you have a superrace you have an underrace. You can either destroy or use the underrace. But the Nazi books were too crude somehow. They said something, but they didn't say it right. And I knew I couldn't just learn from books, I would have to find some direct learning, mouth-to-mouth stuff, and do some experimenting. And here was a real-life Nazi, an officer. I had another angle too. My father was shot by the Nazis. According to what I've been told, he was caught by an SS patrol and the Germans didn't feel like being bothered by prisoners that day. Maybe they were short of manpower or maybe they didn't have time, I don't know. Anyway, they lined up their catch and machine-gunned them from the rear."

The fox was on his feet, talking almost eagerly.

"Yes?"

"So here we have Captain Schwartz. It was only afterward that I found out that he'd never been a fighting man. He was only a clerk captain, doing paperwork behind the lines in Korea. Rather a mousy man, but all I had. And he does walk around in a U.S. uniform with the proper insignia taken off and replaced by a red armband with a black swastika. He has a portrait of Hitler in his hall, and he plays records of German war songs. I went to see him and took a hand gun, a Magnum, a heavy gun. He wouldn't let me in, but I kicked the door out of his hands and let myself in. He went for the telephone, but I beat him to it and threw the telephone through his window. The window was closed. There was a bit of a mess. I wanted to show him that I was the stronger party, you see."

"Obviously."

The fox grinned. "Quite."

"Did you manhandle the captain?"

"No, that wasn't necessary. I sat down and made him sit down opposite me, and I asked him about his philosophy and about what he was trying to do. He didn't answer. Then I put my gun on the table. I told him I would leave the room and that he could shoot me in the back. I even cocked the gun for him as it has a heavy trigger. I also told him that if he didn't shoot me, I would come back into the room again to collect my gun. I didn't say I would kill him or harm him in any way."

"You're still with us, Mr. Fox."

"Sure. He did nothing. The experiment fell flat. He wouldn't even answer the simplest questions."

"You had some revenge, Mr. Fox. Did you tell him about what happened to your father?"

"No. I didn't have revenge in mind. But you're right in a way. It was good to see mm fidget and listen to his teeth chatter. He left Cape Orca the next day. His son or somebody came and sold the house."

"Thank you," the commissaris said. "Very good of you to confide in me."

"Confide?" the fox asked. "I did more than that. You are working for the sheriff and I've just made a confession. According to local rules my behavior was criminal. You can have me arrested."

The commissaris put his mug down and nodded when Albert held up the bottle. "Just a drop, please. No, Mr. Fox. There's no call for your suggestion. If you hadn't known that I wouldn't pass on your information you wouldn't have given it to me. But I'd like to know a little more. Madelin told the sergeant and the sergeant told me that you took your disciples, or fellow students, to a slum in New York once and fought a local gang. One of your mates got a knife in his chest and died. You yourself knifed and killed a member of the opposing gang. Is that correct?"

"That's correct."

"Why did you go that far?"

The fox took a moment and grinned slyly. "Go all the way to New York, you mean? But what else could I do? We're out in the sticks here, on the edge of the country. Canada starts across the hills and it's all sticks up there too, for hundreds of miles. We're backward country people. Some of us read books and so did I, but books are theory. I learned how to saw lumber from books, but I couldn't cut a board properly until an old sawyer came along and taught me. In New York we could be shown what our thoughts look like in action."

"Gerard died."

"He didn't have to go to New York. It was his decision. Mine was my own. I could have died too, but the knife flew his way."

"The suggestion was yours."

"Yes, oh yes."

"Here's my question. Do you have any feelings about your friend's death now?"

"No."

"No feelings at all?"

"If I have any I have good feelings. Gerard tried. So did we. We are still trying. There are more people out here trying. Jeremy. Madelin. Tom of Robert's Market. And a few others, out in the woods, or on the islands. Not too many fortunately, we don't want to crowd each other. I've been back to New York since the gang fight. I hung around and looked at people. I spent a lot of time, days on end, mostly in the subway stations. I must have seen a million people. And none of them seemed alive. They were all very busy, running in circles, like the chipmunk my mother had in a cage. I let him out and he ran into the woods, but he ran in circles. He was crazy. A raccoon got him, a slow old raccoon. The chipmunk was a good meal for the raccoon, his last meal, for my neighbor bashed his head in with the butt of his gun. The raccoon wasn't worth a shell."

The commissaris nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mr. Fox. Thank you very much. For the brandy and your good words." The commissaris got up. The sergeant followed suit.

"You don't want to know about who I killed on Cape Orca?"

"I know who you killed, Mr. Fox."

"Who?"

"An old man by the name of Ranee. Paul Ranee."

"Yes, I did."

"I think I can see why you killed him. And you got rid of Captain Schwartz."

"I didn't kill any of the others?"

"No, Mr. Fox."

The fox and Albert were operating the mill again when the station wagon drove away.

"We've been very clever, sergeant," the commissaris said and shifted the car into second gear. "But we are still nowhere. To know the suspect's identity is one thing, to lay charges, as the sheriff says, is another. I'll have to think of a plan, and it should be better than the plan that has occurred to me. I don't like that plan at all, but it may be our only possibility."

"You might tell me what you have in mind, sir."

The commissaris stared ahead.

"Sir?"

A thin hand patted the sergeant's knee. "Find your own answers, sergeant. You have the training and you have the intelligence."

"When will it be, sir?"

"Tomorrow I think. Shall I drop you off at the jailhouse?"

"Yes, sir. I think I'll be going for a drive."

"The snooping and searching are over, sergeant."

"Just a drive, sir. The landscape is beautiful, and we may be leaving soon."

The wagon followed a long row of full-grown cedars. A flock of startlingly blue birds wheeled toward them. The bay glittered on the horizon, and the sun was setting behind a snow-covered hill, bright orange in its last low rays.

"Yes," the commissaris said. "I wonder where Mr. Fox will go from here."

"Will he have to go much further, sir?"

"I would think so, sergeant, but he is on the right track. A dangerous track though. Let's hope he won't die too soon or lose his mind."

"Are you on that track, sir?"

The commissaris grinned. "Didn't you know, Rinus? And so are you. You've been on it for some time. You should recognize the view. The track leads uphill. Uphill tracks usually offer good views after a while."