Just a Corpse at Twilight

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  Adjutant and sergeant pursued the subject in the police headquarters' parking lot. The old watchman, in the city's uniform, sitting straight up on a stool, was enjoying the sun while listening in.

  "He don't worry much," the old watchman had said, pointing his grizzled head at the commissaris limping across to his privately owned ten-year-old dented CitroSn convertible. "State would buy him one ofthem fancy limousines like the other bigwigs drive but he don't care to spend taxpayers? money on fancy new models."

  The watchman, a constable now out of the force because of multiple shot wounds in both thighs, badly healed, didn't worry much himself, but he was always around, mathematically fitting the maximum number of cars into a fairly small space, always with freeway for emergency vehicles, giving them godspeed with his crooked smile as he held up traffic outside the gates as they flashed off, sirens screaming.

  "Maybe that's it," Grijpstra said as he watched the former constable cheerfully swinging his crippled body about. "Not to worry while giving it all you can?"

  De Gier smiled obediently. "Ah . . ."

  "Not good enough, Sergeant?"

  "Oh yes," de Gier had said. "Now tell me, Adjutant, what's this it we're supposed to give all to?"

  "It ain't there," the former constable said. "If it was I couldn't serve it, right?"

  Grijpstra made de Gier row him and two gray garbage bags filled with empty beer cans, candy bar wrappers, and other shiny garbage he had collected in Jameson earlier to Jeremy Island that night. Together they arranged the objects on a beach that would be visible from Bar Island.

  "Can't have seen us," de Gier said. "It's too hazy for one thing, but I checked the weather report and the fog will burn off later today and the night will be clear. For another thing, Aki is working through the evening at the diner. If you're right, Lorraine will be hiding underground." De Gier laughed. "The trap is sprung, Henk."

  "Good," Grijpstra said, surveying their work. "Sun rises in the east. East is over there. The first rays will light up the bait nicely. Subject of our search will see the mess. She, accompanied by Aki or not accompanied by Aki—that doesn't matter, we're not after Aki—will rush out and clean up. We grab subject. We solve our case."

  "This must be too simple," de Gier said.

  "I know," Grijpstra said. "I know I shouldn't discuss strategy with suspect. . ."

  "Suspect may be crazy too . . ."

  ". . . with possibly psychopathic suspect..."

  De Gier's flashed smile was pleasing.

  " . . but what else have we got?"

  Grijpstra sat on a rock, embracing his knees. The gigantic luminous disk of a full moon was rising behind Squid Island, filling the sky with an eerie light that made firs and pines look like black fairy-tale cutouts. The momentarily tideless sea lapped the island gently. There was no wind and the peaceful whispering and rustling sounds behind them had to be made by animal life, equally impressed with the enchantment displayed all around. A loon, floating just off Jeremy Island, chuckled, and set off a choir of coyotes on the peninsula's point nearby. A soprano coyote yipped a few times and mezzo-sopranos set up rising howls for background. The mezzos warbled while the soprano sang. The chant rose for a while, faltered suddenly, then the sounds tapered off. A little tremulous yapping again ... a long drawn-out musical sigh ... the loon's chuckle.

  Grijpstra applauded silently.

  "Never heard coyotes this close." De Gier had found an egg-shaped boulder of his own to sit on. "They don't dare usually. Maybe they can sense we won't harm them. The sheriff and Billy Boy just love to shoot them."

  "For the skins?"

  "They fly coyote tails off their cars' antennas."

  "Infrared scopes. Super rifles. Our brother sportsmen." Grijpstra growled. "I'd rather have them hunt us." He grinned. "Then turn on them."

  "Defend the little bit of nature left," de Gier said. "I would like that too. The commissaris is right. The noble final venture. Exterminate the exterminators. . . . Henk?"

  "Yes?"

  "How can Lorraine pick up beer cans if I saw her corpse?"

  "But you don't really believe that," Grijpstra said. "I'm here to prove the opposite. That's why you summoned me."

  "No . . ."

  "Okay," Grijpstra said. "Here's the other reason you summoned me—your emotional development was impeded, as you know . . ."

  De Gier gaped. He raised his voice. "I know what?"

  Grijpstra nodded. "The emotionally impeded need plenty of attention. Say I prove you did indeed kill Lorraine. Off you go, rowing into the horizon, in the two-thousand-dollar dinghy. Like the good hermit. Never to be seen again. And I'll be waving from the shore. Me, your alter ego, an essential segment of your final scene."

  De Gier grinned. "Yes, Doctor Shrinkski."

  Grijpstra grinned too.

  De Gier's smile was ghoulish white in the moonlight.

  Grijpstra shifted about on his rock. "The emotionally impeded live and die to impress the audience. But help is on the way—there's no need for you to emulate hermit Jeremy yet."

  De Gier relaxed. "Just answer the question, Henk. How can Lorraine, dead, clean up this beach here?"

  "Okay," Grijpstra said. "Why do I know that Lorraine is alive? Kathy Two is a smart dog. Smart enough to save my life. Smart enough to stay sane while living with the crazy little skippers. Explain this: Kathy Two keeps visiting Bar Island to bark at Lorraine's cabin, inviting her to come out and play."

  "You told me that," de Gier said. "So where is Lorraine? Hidden and locked up by Flash and Bad George? Who's been feeding her all week?"

  "Ever thought of tunnels?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Tunnels," de Gier said. "Fascinating. You're supposed to get sucked into them after you have a heart attack. Then you come back and tell the folks back home what death is all about. We have Lorraine crawling back out of astral tunnels now?"

  "Regular tunnels," Grijpstra said. "Tunnels of greed. Didn't you see that poster in the window at Perkins* Sports Store? Old-fashioned men in waistcoats leaning on then-spades in front of a large shed with SILVER MINE written on the roof?"

  "Wasn't that just another sham? Some rumor started to drive up the price of real estate?"

  "The men in the waistcoats didn't know that yet. They dug lots of tunnels." Grijpstra patted his boulder. "Right here, these very islands, Jeremy, Squid, and Bar. All three of them have been tunneled for silver. I asked Beth. She showed me her family album. Her uncles got duped too. They borrowed money, bought the islands, went bankrupt, sold out."

  "Flash and Bad George are feeding a chained-up Lorraine in an island tunnel?"

  "Why assume willful constraint?" Grijpstra asked. "Why would she be kept there against her will?"

  "She's cooperating?" de Gier asked. "She's out to get me? But we were having an affair, Henk. ..."

  "Did you humiliate Lorraine in any way?" Grijpstra asked.

  De Gier jumped offhis rock. He raised his voice. "We were having a good time together."

  "Aha," Grijpstra said. "Overreacting, are we? Did you, or did you not, put your loved one down in any way? Answer the question, suspect."

  The lone coyote raised her voice too, howling sadly.

  "Lorraine is a feminist," de Gier said, after the howl died down. "It's hard to share a good time with someone who keeps talking about Women and Earth, leaving no place for us suckers."

  "No," Grijpstra said. "I've had that out with Nellie. Feminists believe in equality between sexes. You always do your superior thing, just for laughs, because you're not supposed to these days. That's not funny now. It aggravates the other party. Half of mankind, kept barefoot and pregnant in kitchens."

  "Just kidding," de Gier said.

  "You kidded with Lorraine?"

  De Gier sat on his rock again.

  "Yes?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Yes," de Gier asked. "So I said something about women's tendency to invite abuse."

  "And you were serious?"

  "Takes two t
o tango," de Gier said.

  "For God's sake," Grijpstra said. "What about my Nellie? Hey? And her Gerard? The pimp? You think she liked being in that position? You're not that stupid."

  De Gier sat quietly.

  "You tell Lorraine she invites abuse, and then you kick her down some clifls."

  De Gier lifted a hand. "Lorraine is dancing around in the tunnels cackling with glee? Woman sets Man up for a change? All this was planned? And Aki is in this too? Thatfc why she wanted to drive you to Boston? To find out how much, if any, you suspected? Aki and Lorraine sharing money extorted from me by Flash and Bad George?"

  Grijpstra looked at the moon, smaller and higher now, but still luminous and powerful.

  "You can't be right," de Gier said. "There's still the corpse Flash and Bad George showed me, and I recognize corpses, no matter how befuddled I get. But if this is revenge, then Aki is in it too. And Beth. Don't underestimate Beth. That dinner party she threw for you because you had such a good time with her lover, you think that little trip just happened?"

  "Yes," Grijpstra said. "I had to change guilders into dollars and Aki wanted to go to Boston anyway to see the Hawaiian art exhibition. Beth was too busy to accompany Aki. You offered the Ford product. It all just happened."

  "No foresight?"

  "Hindsight," Grijpstra said. "Things happened and Aki happened right along."

  "To test you?"

  "Of course." Grijpstra smiled. "To test you through me. If I was an asshole too .. ."

  "Then you would have shoved Aki down some rocks offtheinterstate's shoulder. . . ."De Gier dropped his head a little sideways. "Please . . ."

  Grijpstra dropped his head a little sideways too. "Don't you see? Your general attitude toward Lorraine was abrasive, humiliating, arrogant. Aki and Beth back Lorraine. The idea was to punish men in general; you were the man in particular. Nobody knew how that was to come about, no plan had been discussed, and nothing would have happened if you hadn't been rude to Lorraine that evening, just as she was very susceptible .. . getting dark at that time . .. her period . . . very vulnerable, Rinus. You pushed, she fell, she bled, she was found by her friends..."

  De Gier gestured defensively.

  "Truth hurts," Grijpstra said. "I'm just showing you another side of the picture, a nasty side—your side was nothing to phone home about either. The locals need money for a new boat and here you are, incredibly rich, an outsider they can prey on. . . ."

  "Flash came by this morning," de Gier said. "To ask about his outstanding bills. I told him I'd only pay reasonable rates for the use of his boat and his time, and something for Bad George, say five hundred dollars in all. He said that would be fine."

  "No threats?" Grijpstra asked.

  "No."

  "No anger?"

  "Flash seemed relieved."

  "Where was Bad George?"

  "He stayed on the boat."

  "Did you ask Flash about the corpse?"

  "No," de Gier said. "But that corpse exists. I saw it. A corpse with Lorraine's hair."

  "Not her feet?"

  "Maybe not her feet."

  "There may be no grave," Grijpstra said. "But Aki is still involved and maybe Beth, and Flash wants to stay in with them. The corpse you saw was not Lorraine's."

  "You can't be sure," de Gier said.

  "Once we see a living Lorraine pick up beer cans right here in front of us, on this very beach," Grijpstra said, "we will be sure."

  "You think that's about to happen?"

  "I wouldn't be surprised."

  "So there is no corpse?" de Gier asked. "I was seeing things that night? The evil blackmailers fooled me?"

  "We're still theorizing," Grijpstra said. "You're a trained Murder Brigade detective. You claim to have seen a corpse, but you were also out of your mind. I'm proposing now that Lorraine is alive and that therefore there was no corpse."

  "If Lorraine is alive," de Gier said, "she is hiding and Aki must be feeding her. There's still that university paper Lorraine is writing on loons. She wouldn't give up on that. Those two will be out loon viewing some mornings."

  "Wouldn't you see them?"

  "I haven't been getting up early much," de Gier said. "I should have. Best time of the day. . . .

  "Drinking, smoking pot, playing CDs," Grijpstra said. "You're not getting any younger. A hermit needs his rest. So they know the spiritual seeker sleeps late?"

  "We could make sure," de Gier said, as he rowed Grijpstra back to Squid Island. "If you're right, which you still may not be, Aki and Lorraine will be watching us."

  "Here? But Squid Island is between Jeremy Island and Bar Island. They can't have seen us put out those cans and things."

  "They could see us on Squid Island," de Gier said.

  Later that night the sounds of jazz ballads composed by Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins floated from the pagoda, across the channel between Squid Island and nearby Jeremy Island. De Giei^s tall silhouette and Grijpstra's plumper form were framed in the pagoda's brightly lit windows. The silhouettes appeared to be smoking pot, making exaggerated movements as they waved their reefers.

  "I can feel binoculars aimed at us," Grijpstra said.

  De Gier fanned his burning stash of marijuana, set on a plate. "The wind is their way. I think they will smell this."

  "You think they're on the water somewhere, in their kayaks?" Grijpstra asked.

  De Gier didn't think so. Lorraine didn't see too well in the dark. Grijpstra thought that was interesting. "Night blind?"

  "Somewhat."

  "Nellie can't see well in the dark either," Grijpstra said. "She has trouble gauging depth. The evening that Lorraine came to see you she must have expected to stay the night."

  "So?"

  "That's why she was upset when you wouldn't let her, you clod," Grijpstra said, pointing an accusing finger. "Try to remember. It was getting dark when all this happened?"

  "Yes."

  "Nellie hates walking down steps in the dark. Aha." Grijpstra prodded de Gier's stomach. "Now, when you pushed her, could she have mistaken the rock she stood on for the top step of the stone stairs?"

  "Yes."

  "Good," Grijpstra said. "Better. So maybe you just put a hand on her, and as she was angry with you she stepped back, thinking there was a step there, but there wasn't. She fell, she badly scraped her skin, she bled. She shouted for help. You were listening to jazz, turning the volume up, you didn't hear her. Flash and Bad George arrived, they told you Lorraine was bleeding, in bad shape, you didn't even bother to check. Doing your shamanic shit with the record, you told Flash and George to take her to the doctor in Jameson. Lorraine got extremely annoyed with you."

  "Didn't she overreact?" de Gier asked. "I mean, really. It was the wrong night for her to sleep over. It was my island. I do pay rent, you know. Am I right?"

  Grijpstra laughed.

  "What's funny?"

  "That you're asking me about what is right."

  They rowed back to Jeremy Island again, quietly, oars wrapped in towels so they wouldn't splash. De Gier remembered the detail from a boy's pirate book.

  "Pirates have towels?" Grijpstra asked.

  De Gier had also brought sleeping bags, coffee in a thermos, a jar of olives, peanut butter and hot sauce sandwiches.

  "Pirates eat peanut butter and hot sauce?" Grijpstra asked.

  De Gier set his alarm for four o'clock, daybreak. The avengers would be ready to catch Lorraine as soon as she beached her kayak, greedy to collect shiny trash, but first the avengers would rest. De Gier snored as soon as he had zipped himself into his sleeping bag. Grijpstra, slapping mosquitoes, wandered about the island. The sea was calm, the moon bright in a clear sky. Grijpstra rowed the dinghy, thinking bugs would bother him less on the water. A bald-headed harbor seal, taking a breather after a spell of night fishing, showed up too close to the dinghy and, in its hurry to get away, flopped over backward in fear. Grijpstra shushed the seal, and ravens, flapping between the islands' treetops, cro
aked warnings at the human intrusion. Another dark head floated close by, a woolly head. A woolly seal? There were probably different kinds of seals around. Grijpstra remembered de Gier talking about a gray seal, with a long head like a horse. This seal's head was round, with furry ears that stood up straight. Grijpstra marveled at the swimming animal's self-reliant composure. The day before, while Grijpstra was sitting quietly below the pagoda, a large rabbit had calmly hopped by his feet. Rabbits, Grijpstra thought, have their separate reality. So would woolly headed round-eared seals. This one was steering a straight course for Jeremy Island. Grijpstra, curious, pulled on the dinghy's oars, quickly overtaking the animal. He reached Jeremy Island's beach, clambered out of the dinghy, half-pulled, half-carried it ashore, and hid it behind moss covered rocks. He turned to watch the round-eared woolly headed seal walk out of the water, change into the bear he had been from the start. Mr. Bear, a large purplish black male specimen, crashed about between bushes, then slowly eased away into what had to be a hole in the hillside. Once inside he grunted, sighed, began to gnaw on something.

  A bone snapped.

  Grijpstra hesitated. Maybe Mr. Bear was eating a deer. Deer could swim out to the islands, die, become carrion, attract scavengers. Bears can smell rotting bodies miles away. Grijpstra noticed a stench. The body had to have been buried there, and Mr. Bear had dug it up.

  "Mr. Bear!"

  Mr. Bear emerged from the hole, stood seven feet tall, wanted to know what he could do for Grijpstra.

  Grijpstra was sorry, he couldn't let Mr. Bear eat Lorraine. Lorraine was evidence. The hole in the hillside was a tunnel. In the tunnel would be a grave, dug by Flash and Bad George.

  "Mr. Bear!" Grijpstra shouted, hoping to wake de Gier some few hundred yards away. Grijpstra thrashed the bushes with a branch he had picked up. The branch snapped. He picked up another. "Mr. Bear!"

  Animals, when faced by humans, are supposed to turn and run. They're supposed to know the universal line of command. First there is the Lord of Creation, then there's the Little Lord of Creation presented with the universe and all things nonhuman that that universe contains. Mr. Bear should present himself to serve the Little Lord. But Mr. Bear hadn't been reading his scriptures lately. Grijpstra hadn't either but he remembered Sunday school well enough. Grijpstra was disappointed at Mr. Bear's ignorance of the creation's order. He frantically waved his branch of peace.