Misfortune (and Gouda)

by Pierce, Blake

  “Flushed out?”

  “Yes, clean water is pumped in from the IJsselmeer, the large bay to the east of Amsterdam. This causes currents that sweep dirty canal water all the way through the city to locks on the other side, were garbage is netted and scooped up. This happens three times a week. Last night was one of those times. That was why you saw a cup moving with the current.”

  London was intrigued by what she was hearing.

  “So that’s also why there’s no current this morning,” she said.

  “Correct,” the kapitein said. “Those currents only happen during the scheduled pumping procedures. But what has this got to do with the murder?”

  That’s a good question, London thought, pausing to think it over.

  Her gut was telling her that the current mattered a great deal.

  But why?

  She suddenly flashed back to the conversation between Bob and Mr. Tedrow about Mr. Tedrow’s case of writer’s block, and his problem with moving a dead body in his book.

  “Strictly speaking, nobody is supposed to move the body,” he’d said.

  “It just … well, moves.”

  Bob had suggested some phenomenon like a mudslide or an avalanche.

  London felt as though a major piece of the puzzle was falling into place.

  As the boat approached its destination, London saw that the narrow dock with the rowboats was cordoned off with police tape. Claes pulled his boat up near the dock and stopped the engine.

  “I guess you will not get a very close look,” Claes said.

  London had a tingling feeling that she wasn’t going to need one.

  “Let’s just stay right here a minute,” she said to Claes.

  Claes kept the Jonge Gouda motionless in the water. As London gazed at the boat where she and Sir Reggie had found the body, she remembered what Surveillant Dijkstra had said about what these boats were for. Clients who didn’t like to be recognized in the Rosse Buurt would use them to arrive here furtively by night. Pier Dekker was one of those clients, and the boat he’d been found in was apparently his own.

  Claes asked London, “Are you getting any ideas?”

  “Maybe so,” London said. “Last night the Hoofdinspecteur wouldn’t tell me his own theories. But I think I have a fair idea of what he was thinking. He thought maybe Dekker had been killed right there in his boat. Either that, or someone killed him nearby and put him into his boat. But now I’m considering another possibility …”

  “Of course!” Claes exclaimed. “Last night’s current might have brought the boat here, body and all!”

  London nodded and said, “If so, maybe the victim wasn’t killed near here at all. He might have been killed elsewhere in Amsterdam.”

  She gasped at the realization of what that might mean. If Dekker had been murdered somewhere else, that opened up a lot more possible scenarios and provided a lot more possible suspects. But then she realized she was overlooking something important.

  “There’s one problem with my theory,” she told Kapitein Claes. “The boat was chained to the dock when I found the body. It couldn’t very well have floated here from somewhere else and chained itself to the dock.”

  “No, I don’t suppose so,” Claes said, scratching his head.

  Then another object caught her eye—a long pole with a hook on it that was fastened to the embankment wall alongside the dock.

  “What is that pole for?” London asked Claes.

  “Well, these rowboats have a way of slipping away from you by accident, sometimes when you’re trying to climb into them. It often happens. That pole is there to pull back boats when they get away. The canal is very narrow here, and the boats are always pretty easy to reach.”

  With a chuckle, Claes added, “It is easier than jumping into the canal and swimming to fetch them.”

  London’s mind was buzzing now.

  She said, “So if someone knew the boat with the dead body was going to float toward this part of the canal, they could have waited here and used the pole to bring it up against the dock and chain it up. That way they could have made it look like the victim had been killed near here, when he had really been killed elsewhere.”

  “The question is,” Claes said, “where did the boat come from?”

  “And where was the victim killed?” London added.

  “Yes, those are big questions,” Claes said, gazing along the canal thoughtfully. “You have noticed, surely, that Amsterdam’s canals form quite an intricate web.”

  London pondered over the possibilities for a moment. Then a thought occurred to her.

  “What if the victim were killed somewhere near the Rijksmuseum?” she asked.

  Claes’s eyebrows jumped with interest.

  “Yes, if his body was put into a boat last night in the canal nearest the museum, it would certainly have floated here.”

  London paused to analyze this idea.

  She said, “But why wouldn’t the killer have just rowed the boat here?”

  Claes scoffed.

  “And risk being seen rowing the whole way? It would be much safer to just cover up the body and let the boat go. Then if nobody took notice of it, he could intercept it here, pull it in, and chain it up.”

  “That’s right,” London said. “So when I found the body, the police naturally assumed the victim had been killed near here.

  “It is not a bad theory,” Kapitein Claes said.

  Thoughts rattled noisily through London’s head.

  Not a bad theory, maybe, she thought.

  But that was all it was, a theory. There were still a lot of pieces of the puzzle to fill in. But London had an idea of who else might help her do that.

  “Let’s go to the Rijksmuseum,” London said to Kapitein Claes.

  He revved up the motor, and the Jonge Gouda was on its way again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  As the boat cruised through the narrow canals, Sir Reggie stood up on the prow, obviously enjoying the ride. The gray day hadn’t darkened the little dog’s spirits at all.

  London was, on the other hand, feeling some apprehension. Even if that grand museum held answers to her questions, how could she get to that information? Did she really expect to find out things that the police hadn’t even discovered?

  She knew she had to keep trying. After thinking hard for a moment, London decided who she wanted to talk to first.

  She took out her cellphone and called the Rijksmuseum and asked to speak to one of their docents. “Her name is Helga something … Helga van den Heuvel, I believe.”

  “I’ll see if she’s available,” the receptionist said.

  In a few moments, a woman’s voice replied in Dutch.

  “This is Helga van den Heuvel. How may I help you?”

  London replied in Dutch, “My name is London Rose. We met yesterday. I brought an American tour group to the museum.”

  There was a brief silence, then Helga said, “Yes, I remember.”

  “I wondered if we could meet somewhere and talk.”

  “I suppose we could. I have a break coming up. Would you care to meet me at the museum’s cafe?”

  “I have my dog with me today,” London replied. “Perhaps we could meet at one of the entrances in the passageway that runs beneath the museum.”

  “May I ask what this is about?”

  London heard an understandable note of skepticism in Helga’s voice. She figured it was best to be as forthright as possible.

  “This is about the death of one of your conservators, the one my group met yesterday. Pier Dekker.”

  Helga fell silent. For a moment, London wondered whether she might have hung up.

  “Yes, that was a terrible thing,” Helga finally said. “Such a shock to everybody here. Naturally, the police came to the museum and asked everyone on the staff many questions. I am afraid I had no choice but to mention the little altercation Meneer Dekker had with one member of your group. I’m sorry if that has led to any trouble for you.”<
br />
  “That’s not why I’m calling. You see …”

  London paused, then gulped hard and continued, “I’m the one who found the victim’s body last night in the Rosse Buurt.”

  Helga fell silent again.

  Is she going to refuse to talk to me? London wondered. Does she think that I might be involved in the murder?

  Instead, Helga asked, “How soon can you be here?”

  “In just a few minutes.”

  “I will wait for you at the entrance.”

  Helga ended the call without another word.

  The boat was now approaching the majestic museum building and Kapitein Claes pulled up to a dock alongside the embankment. A variety of small boats were chained up there, ranging from inboard motorboats like the Jonge Gouda to rowboats like the one in which she and Sir Reggie had found Pier Dekker’s body.

  Kapitein Claes commented, “Maybe the murder victim normally kept his rowboat on this very dock.”

  London nodded in agreement.

  “He worked in the museum,” she said. “So, this would have been very convenient for him. He could have come straight here after a day’s work. He could have rowed from here to De Wallen whenever he wanted to visit the Rosse Buurt.”

  “Except for last night,” Claes said.

  “No, last night someone might have killed him—strangled him—right here on this very dock, then sent the boat adrift knowing perfectly well where it would wind up.”

  As she said the words aloud, London realized that she and the kapitein were making a lot of assumptions. Still, that scenario made more sense than anything else she could imagine right now.

  Kapitein Claes helped London and Sir Reggie out of the boat and onto the dock.

  “Would you like me to wait here for you?” he asked.

  London thought for a moment.

  “No, I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” she said. “I’m very grateful for the help you’ve given me already. You’ve been very kind.”

  She paid him the taxi fare and added, “Thank you so much.”

  “I’m very glad to do what I can,” Claes said with a tip of his cap. “Good luck with your case. If I can help in any other way, you know how to reach me.”

  Claes started up the engine and waved as he pulled away from the dock.

  London and Sir Reggie climbed a small flight of concrete steps to the embankment walkway and walked straight to the Rijksmuseum. They entered the elaborate tunnel that passed straight through the building, which was bustling as usual with pedestrians and bicyclists.

  The docent was waiting for them outside one of the tunnel’s entrances to the museum. Dressed in a simple and rather severe pantsuit, the tall, shorthaired woman was an imposing figure.

  “I am sorry we have to meet again under such circumstances,” Helga said, shaking London’s hand.

  “I’m sorry too,” London said.

  “Come, let’s walk over to the Rijksmuseumtuinen,” Helga said. “We can talk better there.”

  As they walked out of the bustling tunnel, Helga glanced down at Sir Reggie.

  “Your dog is very small,” she said, a bit contemptuously.

  “His name is Sir Reggie,” London said.

  Helga nodded without commenting further.

  At that moment, Sir Reggie let out a peculiar little growl.

  He doesn’t like her either.

  London, Helga, and Sir Reggie continued walking into the spacious and beautiful Rijksmuseumtuinen, the museum gardens with mazes of paths, arches, sculptures, and various flowers in bloom. Even an enormous chessboard with oversized pieces was spread out on the pavement.

  Helga led London and Sir Reggie to a circular fountain, where they all sat down on a bench.

  “How exactly can I help you?” Helga asked.

  London thought for a moment.

  Where to begin? she wondered.

  There were so many unanswered questions. Would this woman be likely to know anything about the conservator’s boat and where it was usually docked?

  But something else had been nagging at London—something that seemed irrelevant, but that she sensed was somehow very important.

  She blurted out the question.

  “Have you noticed anything odd about one of your Van Gogh paintings? The Tulips, I mean.”

  The effect was startling.

  Helga sat bolt upright, as if she’d received an electric shock.

  “Please explain,” Helga snapped.

  London hesitated. How much detail did she want to get into? Did she have to mention Cyrus Bannister, or would that just cause him more trouble?

  She chose her words carefully—and a bit evasively.

  “Yesterday … there seemed to be something odd about that painting. Especially thick strokes on one of the tulips.”

  Helga was glaring at London now.

  “There’s nothing unusual about that,” she said. “I explained that Van Gogh often used thick brushstrokes and even sometimes squeezed paint straight out of the tube onto the canvas.”

  London felt a tingle from head to foot.

  She remembered something Cyrus had said a little while ago.

  “Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe my eyes were fooling me.”

  But now London felt sure that Cyrus’s eyes hadn’t been fooling him. Judging from Helga’s reaction, Cyrus seemed to have observed something very real. But what was it, and what does it mean? Had the conservator done a clumsy restoration job on a priceless masterpiece? Had he failed to fix it properly?

  Trying to tread carefully, London said to Helga, “As I understand it … the Tulips is a very early Van Gogh work. He was still painting in a realistic style. He wasn’t using thick paint or brushstrokes then.”

  Helga didn’t reply, just sat there glaring at London.

  “And besides …” London began.

  “Well?” Helga said, her eyes narrowing grimly.

  London was starting to feel a bit frightened now. Was it her imagination, or had the afternoon sky actually darkened as they sat there talking? She glanced around and realized that there was nobody else nearby. She more than half wanted to scoop up Sir Reggie right now and walk away from here without saying another word.

  But I’ve really got to know.

  “Today that tulip didn’t look the same,” she told the docent. “Not thickly painted, I mean. It looked smooth and realistic, just like the rest of the painting.”

  Helga’s already pale face went white with anger and alarm.

  “What are you suggesting?” she demanded.

  “I’m not suggesting anything,” London said, since she still had no idea why the change might be so important. “I was hoping you could explain it to me.”

  Helga leaned toward London menacingly.

  “Does anybody else know about this?” she hissed.

  London gulped hard. Should she mention Cyrus now? Should she tell Helga that he was the one who had noticed the difference?

  No, I shouldn’t.

  London had a terrible gut feeling that she’d told Helga too much already.

  “Never mind,” she said, rising from the bench and picking up Sir Reggie. “It was nothing. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

  But Helga leaped to her feet and grabbed London by the arm.

  Towering over her, the conservator said, “You will not leave here. Not until you tell me.”

  London gasped with horror as she felt Helga’s strong fingers dig painfully into her arm.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  As London tried to pull away from Helga’s grip, she heard the woman cry out in surprise. Sir Reggie was still in London’s arms, and he had sunk his teeth into Helga’s hand. For a moment London was almost free.

  Then the attacking woman swatted the little dog away, and he fell to the ground with a yelp.

  “Sir Reggie,” London gasped, struggling to see if her precious sidekick was all right. But her assailant grabbed each of her arms with strong hands and shook
her.

  “Who have you talked to?” Helga demanded in Dutch.

  London was relieved to hear Sir Reggie barking fiercely as he darted around the docent’s feet. But then Helga began to kick at the dog to keep him from biting her ankles and London was as frightened for Sir Reggie as she was for herself. She didn’t doubt that the woman would gladly crush the tiny animal underfoot.

  But she couldn’t get free of Helga’s grip.

  Suddenly there was a swarm of movement and the hands on her arms let go.

  Two men seemed to appear out of nowhere and pulled Helga away from London.

  “Who are you?” Helga yelled. “Let go of me! I’ll call the police.”

  But at that moment, Hoofdinspecteur Braam himself came riding toward them on his bicycle. The policeman seemed to be all elbows and knees as he peddled to her rescue, but he was a most welcome sight to London.

  He shouted at the woman, “Helga van den Heuvel, you are under arrest.

  London realized that the men holding Helga were plainclothes policemen. With a sigh of relief, she collapsed back onto the bench where they’d been sitting. Sir Reggie jumped up into her lap and bared his teeth at everybody else in sight.

  “Whatever for?” Helga shouted back at Braam as the two policemen began to put her into handcuffs.

  “To begin with, for blackmail,” Braam said. “And I believe also for murder.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Helga said.

  “Oh, I am sure you do,” Braam scoffed.

  London felt dazed now, but not totally surprised by the policemen’s arrival. After all, she’d been aware of being watched ever since she’d left the Nachtmusik. And now she was glad she’d been followed. She didn’t know what Helga might have done to her—and to Sir Reggie—if the policemen hadn’t shown up.

  “You can’t prove any of this,” Helga hissed at Braam, her hands now cuffed behind her back.

  “Your bank statements offer most of the proof we need,” Braam said. “Or are you going to deny that you received some highly suspicious payments directly from the murder victim?”