Lowee wiped his hands on his apron and smiled.
“Needa nightcap?” he queried. “And whadda you done wiv da kid?”
“You mean Vledder?”
“Yeah, youse like Siamese.”
DeKok smiled.
“It’s his fiancée’s birthday. He wanted to be with her.”
“Dat’s awrite. Ya gotta make time for love …” Lowee did not finish. “Youse know somethin’ about Archie, yet?”
DeKok made an apologetic gesture.
“Not much. I’m afraid the boy is mixed up in some dirty business.”
“What kinda binis?”
DeKok did not answer at once. He looked a bit wounded.
“Isn’t it about time you pour?” he asked pleasantly.
Lowee blushed. He dove under the counter and reached for the special bottle he kept just for DeKok. In no time at all he had poured cognac into two snifters. DeKok watched with interest. Cognac, he felt, was the only drink that could possibly have been created by the gods. The “nectar” that the gods drank on Mt. Olympus must have been cognac.
He lifted one of the glasses and took a careful sip. He savored the taste as the liquid seeped down to his stomach. Then he replaced the glass.
“Have you heard anything about a kidnapping?” he asked casually.
The barkeeper looked surprised.
“A kidnapping?”
“Yes.”
“Cmon’ Archie ain’t messed aroun’ widdat?”
DeKok lifted his glass and nodded slowly.
“I have a number of reasons to suspect he was. You see, the guy you sent to see me, Kees Wallen, told me Archie was toting around a big roll of money. He had enough to pay cash for one of Wallen’s boats, an old cabin cruiser.”
“Whadda ’e want widdat?”
DeKok took another sip.
“A good question—what would he do with it? I found the boat along the Amstel. It had new brass padlocks and a space had been made inside with a cot and a chemical toilet.”
The little barkeeper panted.
“To stow somebody?”
“Clearly.”
Little Lowee lowered his head. The announcement had touched him deeply.
“Stupid Archie,” he sighed. After a while he looked up. “I godda tell ya. Archie ain’t gotta brains ta do nuttin like hold somebody fa ransome. Nossir he couldn do it.”
DeKok drained his glass.
“It doesn’t sound likely, does it. I wonder whether someone used him. Who knows what they promised the boy—money, protection, fast cars, girls.” He paused and gave Lowee an intense look. “I don’t want you to mention the kidnapping to anybody, for the time being.”
“Of course not,” promised Lowee, loyally.
“You see,” continued DeKok, “we need to find the brains behind this. We need to identify the possible victim, as well.”
“If somethin’ comes my way?”
DeKok smiled.
“You know how I appreciate your cooperation. You could, for instance, ask around to see who might have been doing some remodeling on a boat.”
“Onna boat they was gonna use?”
“Exactly.”
“Archie musta done it ’isself. Go take a look at Fat Nellie’s place. He done A-one carpentry.”
DeKok accepted a second glass of cognac.
“Has Handsome Karl gone to see Fat Nellie?”
Lowee grimaced.
“Handsome Karl and Fat Nellie?”
DeKok nodded.
“He told me he had lived with her for about a year, some time ago. Then I told him to go visit her. She needed a friend.”
Little Lowee grinned.
“Karl ain’t gonna show ’is face there. He ain’t crazy. Nellie put ’er scissors inn ’is back one time. Ain’t nothin’ to say she won’t do ’im in!”
“What made her stab him?”
“Wadda ya expeck? Karl was tryin’ ta strangle ’er wid a scarf.”
13
DeKok looked shocked.
“Strangled … with a scarf?”
“Yep, ’at he brought along ’isself.”
“I never knew.”
The small barkeeper shook his head nonchalantly.
“Nobody said nuttin’. Why go to da cops aboudit? Karl wore dem scissors inna cab alla way to da doc. He was awrite after coupla days. When he come around, Nell and me, we tole ’im to buzz off for good, geddit?”
DeKok nodded his understanding.
“He took off for The Hague.”
Little Lowee frowned.
“Da Hague? Whadda ya mean, Da Hague?”
DeKok waved his hand about.
“He told me he had been picked up by the police in The Hague for a break-in in a villa. Apparently he did a few months in jail there.”
Lowee looked pensive and shook his head.
“You an’ da kid better check widdacops inna Hague. Karl gots pals in high places—bin caretakin’ for some rich buzzard. Da rich guy hadda house and a lotta land in Ireland. Karl was lookin’ out for it.”
DeKok could not resist a laugh.
“Karl guarding other peoples’ property. That, my friend, is like a lion herding zebras,” he snickered.
Lowee laughed, too.
“But it musta been a bust, or ’e wouldna come back so soon.”
“Is he still around?”
Lowee shrugged.
“I ain’t seen hide or hair—ain’t heard nuttin’.”
“How did you get in contact with Karl?”
“Years ago, or now?”
“When you sent him to me.”
Lowee looked at the snifters, noticed they were empty, and poured generous measures again.
“Karl come in here, sudden like an’ he wanna know have I seen Archie. So I tells Karl, Archie gone widdout a trace. I tole him you was on da case an’ you hadna gon nowheres. Then Karl sounds sorta scared. He says Archie bin spillin’ about a stiff an’ where to plant it.”
DeKok nodded.
“That’s what he told me. That’s why you sent him to me?”
“Yessir.”
DeKok sipped his cognac in silence. Then he stared into the glass for a long time. Lowee also seemed to be lost in thought. He absent-mindedly filled some orders for the waitress.
Finally DeKok broke the silence.
“That rich, eh, guy in Ireland? Do you have a name?”
Little Lowee spread his hands.
“No idear.”
“Can you find out?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I gotta think who tol’ me about Karl and Ireland.” He wiped the top of the bar. “Why don’t you ax Karl?”
“I don’t know where to find him.”
“I’ll put out a coupla feelers.”
DeKok drank the rest of his drink in one swallow and slipped off the stool. As he stood on the floor he spoke again.
“While you’re asking around, ask Tattoo Peter and his cronies whether they’ve put a sort of knight’s sword in red and blue on somebody’s arm or leg.”
Lowee looked scandalized.
“Hey. You da dick!”
DeKok did not answer. He waved goodbye and left.
Early, at least an hour before he expected Vledder, DeKok was at his desk. He wanted to organize his thoughts. He placed a legal pad in front of him on the desk. It was a gesture of bravura. Since Marlies van Haesbergen appeared in the detective room he’d felt drawn into a vortex. There had been, he thought, strange developments, contradictory developments.
The decision to accept Marlies’ account as accurate was a stretch. Ever since he’d doubted himself. What had happened to Vreeden? Was he still alive or dead?
The casual attitude of the unpleasant Mr. Grauw, Vreeden’s co-director, was surprising. More surprising was his offer of Mr. Vreeden’s phone number in the Bahamas. Vledder had reached a man who said he was Vreeden. If that were the case, why would anyone want to kill Marlies? Did she become a threat because she let it be known she intended to
go there? Who would be threatened by her appearance there? In any event how would Vreeden have gotten into the Bahamas without his passport? Or was the man in the Bahamas an impostor? If so, who was he? Does Grauw know?
Something else plagued DeKok. Even the wealthy, powerful Mr. Vreeden was only mortal. If he had exchanged the temporal for the eternal, why hide it? Even if he died from some dread disease would it be reason to keep the police out of it? On the other hand, if Paul Vreeden was murdered, the killer would wish to get rid of the corpse. Could he conclude the murderer was eliminating evidence?
“DeKok!”
The startled old man looked up and saw the laughing face of Vledder.
“What’s going on?” he asked, confused and irritated.
“You’re getting old.”
“Now tell me something I don’t know.”
“You were talking to yourself.”
DeKok smiled self-consciously.
“I was thinking. I just didn’t realize I was thinking out loud.”
Vledder pointed at the legal pad.
“What do you want with that?”
“I’m putting my thoughts on paper.”
Vledder grinned.
“I never knew you had such clean thoughts, the paper is still pristine.”
DeKok tore off the first, blank sheet, crumpled it, and tossed it in the wastebasket. He slid the note pad into a drawer.
“You’re pretty sharp this morning,” he said. “The birthday party must have been a success.”
He stood up and walked over to where he kept his coat and hat.
Vledder followed.
“Are we off already?”
“Yes.”
“Where to?”
“Amersfoort. I want to ask Xaveria Breerode if she wants to make a phone call for us.”
On Precious Lady Square in Amersfoort stands Precious Lady Church. The church is an imposing structure, nearly three hundred feet tall. Vledder parked the police VW and turned off the ignition. He looked at the surroundings.
“Does she live here?”
DeKok pointed.
“We have a bit farther to go. She’s on Precious Lady Street, just past the Lamme Goetsack.”
Vledder laughed.
“Whatever is the Lamme Goetsack?
“A kind of bistro, actually, very nice. It is named after the rotund friend of Tijil Uilenspiegel. You may recall Tijil Uilenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, by Richard Strauss. Uilenspiegel was a renowned trickster in sixteenth century Flanders. The bistro is one of the few places Xaveria and Paul Vreeden frequented.
“You’re well informed.”
“The study of history is never a waste. You know, people who do not understand their history are doomed to repeat it.”
“Spare me the lecture. I meant, how do you know about Xaveria and the restaurant?”
“Last night, rather late, I called the Amersfoort police.”
Vledder looked up.
“Did they know about Xaveria Breerode?”
DeKok nodded.
“She has no criminal background, if that’s what you mean. The watch commander, though, recalled her name. It seems a former colleague of his, a private detective, was very interested in her.”
“Who was his client?”
“Our Amersfoort colleague also wanted to know.”
“And?”
“It was a notary.”
Vledder wrinkled his nose.
“A notary … a lawyer? What kind of lawyer?”
“That’s something the private detective did not reveal.”
“When would a notary require the services of a private eye?”
“Usually the private detective would act as a representative, for example, assisting a wealthy individual who is contemplating a will or—”
Vledder interrupted enthusiastically.
“One who wants to check on the character and activities of, say, a beneficiary?”
DeKok nodded. Vledder remained silent. Suddenly he banged the steering wheel with his fist.
“No, it would be too coincidental,” he exclaimed.
“What are you thinking?” demanded DeKok.
“Well,” said Vledder, hesitantly, “what if Vreeden was the one who had Meturovski check her out. As in-house counsel, Meturovski would be both a solicitor and a notary. He would handle wills as a matter of course.”
That was as far as he got. DeKok suddenly pushed his head down below the level of the dashboard.
“Quiet,” he hissed, “I don’t want him to see us.”
“Who?”
“Gerard Grauw. He just came out of Precious Lady Street with a briefcase in his hand.”
Xaveria Breerode, dressed in a diaphanous lace dressing gown, looked at the inspectors with large eyes.
“A phone call? For this you came all the way from Amsterdam to Amersfoort?” She smiled her disbelief. “And whom do you want me to call?”
DeKok did not take his eyes off her face.
“Paul Vreeden,” he said evenly.
Her face lit up.
“You know where he is?”
DeKok did not answer. He pulled a piece of paper out of the breast pocket of his jacket. He gave it to her.
“This is the telephone number of a Hotel Out Island Inn. It’s near the beach, in Georgetown, in the Bahamas.”
“And Paul is there?”
DeKok shook his head, no.
“We only suspect he’s there.” He pointed at Vledder, “My colleague called the number yesterday and talked to a man who identified himself as Mr. Vreeden. The man spoke in a candid, relaxed manner.” He smiled a bashful smile. “However we do not know Mr. Vreeden’s voice. We haven’t sufficient, ahem, unusual details or intimacies to trip up an imposter.”
Xaveria looked furious.
“But I do know … unusual details and intimacies? Is that it?”
DeKok spread his hands.
“We assume so, yes, but please do not mistake our intentions. We also assume the phone call is as important to you as it may be to us. I take it you are still very much concerned about Mr. Vreeden?”
Her beautiful almond eyes narrowed.
“Of course I am.”
DeKok gave her his most winning smile.
“Then … why don’t you call him?”
She looked from DeKok to Vledder and back again.
“And you want to be present?”
DeKok nodded emphatically.
“You must understand we are also concerned.”
Xaveria sighed deeply. She pushed a hassock over and took a bizarre looking telephone from a fragile little table. The phone was alight with green onyx. She placed the instrument on her knees and started to dial.
DeKok looked around the room. The room was decorated in a subtle, distinctly Asian style, with lamps on the walls and Chinese screens. He changed his position. Because of an enormous mirror he could look into the bedroom and at the unmade bed. Although he saw no evidence of it, he wondered if Gerard Grauw had spent the night in the bed.
He had the feeling of being sucked again into a vortex. His search for the missing managing director propelled him into a muddy whirlpool of lechery and crime. It was a paralyzing feeling.
Xaveria’s conversation was like background noise. Although he was right next to her, she seemed far away. The sound passed by him like the rustling of the wind in the trees. Only after she had finished and hung up the receiver, did he look at her. She was suddenly very pale, he noticed. She had dark circles under her eyes, and drops of perspiration beaded her forehead.
“Mr. Vreeden,” she said hoarsely, “is no longer in the hotel. A few hours ago he left for an undetermined destination and left no forwarding address.”
DeKok remained emotionless.
“This is what I feared,” he said softly. “We will have to send a photo of Mr. Vreeden to the police in Georgetown. Just to be sure. They can show it to the hotel personnel. Do you have a picture we may borrow?”
Xaveria
slumped down. She barely responded, as though she had become a timid little bird.
DeKok leaned over, took the telephone from her lap, and replaced it on the table. Then he pulled a second hassock closer and sat down across from her.
“Now you know how very concerned we are. Mr. Vreeden’s departure appeared precipitous.” His voice sounded friendly and solicitous. “We’re looking for an explanation.”
Xaveria nodded submissively.
“Of course.”
“Was Mr. Vreeden in good health?”
“How do you mean?”
“Did he suffer from some kind of malady—fears, anxieties, depression—did he see a doctor?”
For a moment the woman closed her eyes.
“Paul sometimes had chest pains. Last year he had a mild heart attack. The doctor advised him to take it easier. Paul had a regimen of diet and exercise for weight loss and to lower his blood pressure. He had hypertension. Dr. Haanstra in Amsterdam is his physician and prescribes for him.”
“Did he not have a doctor in Bergen?”
She shook her head.
“He didn’t want to bother. He has a phone number for emergencies, but it was easier to see the doctor in Amsterdam. He could consult him during office hours.”
“And he did?”
“Certainly.”
DeKok stared in front of him thoughtfully. Suddenly a spark—he flashed back to the previous night at Little Lowee’s.
“Have you ever been to Ireland?” he asked.
Xaveria looked surprised.
“At Thundering Heights?”
DeKok bit his lower lip. The question had been an impulse. The answer baffled him. For a moment his heart seemed to skip a beat. He regained his poise.
“Is that the name of the property?” he asked casually.
Xaveria nodded.
“It’s a bit raw and wild and there are a lot of storms. It’s near the coast in the south of Ireland. Paul bought it last spring, for us. He was so looking forward to lightening his workload at the firm.” Her face fell. “It seems an unreachable dream for the time being. The inside of the mansion has been sadly neglected. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
DeKok and Variations on Murder Page 10