DeKok and Murder by Melody

by A. C. Baantjer

DeKok smiled.

  “Perhaps he should have gone to amateur night, too.”

  Little Lowee nodded his head.

  “Not even—the stage, whatever. I tole him so. I got some contacts by da artists. But Jean-Paul dint feel like it. He just wanna get rid of them melodies in his head. That’s all.”

  “Did they bother him?”

  “Whadda ye mean?”

  “Physically, or mentally. Did they cause headaches, migraines. Did they make him sad or depressed?”

  Lowee shook his head.

  “Nossir. It was the friend usta be real down. But I never notice Jean-Paul. He was real cheerful when he was here, anyways.” He paused, then added: “He usta say he be awake nights. He wake up, you knows, but couldn’t a slept again. Dem melodies just kept him awake.”

  DeKok nodded slowly.

  “What a shame. That boy should have found someone to help him develop his gifts.”

  Little Lowee poured again. Thoughtfully they sipped.

  “I set him up with Willy Haarveld,” said Lowee casually. “He’s in da business, so to speak. Manages an orchestra and gotta bunch of singers onna contract. He’s gotta group, too.”

  DeKok frowned.

  “Willy Haarveld … wasn’t he involved in some scandal, not too long ago?”

  Lowee nodded.

  “Somebody tried to pop him, ambushed him.”

  “Where was that?”

  The small barkeeper waved vaguely.

  “Near his house in Laren,” he grinned. “And that ain’t da first time somebody tried to whack ’im. He’s not always whadda you call legit. If you ain’t kosher you runs risks.”

  “And you set up a meeting between that boy and a man like that?” censored DeKok.

  Little Lowee looked offended.

  “Where else I’m gonna send ‘im?”

  From Rear Fort Canal they crossed through Old Acquaintance Alley to Front Fort Canal. It was more back street. Here and there a prostitute leaned against her door. Most looked listless. The stream of clients had thinned

  considerably.

  Vledder glanced aside.

  “Do you completely reject the theory of gang intimidation?”

  DeKok nodded.

  “I dismissed it.”

  “Why not?” Drug kingpins order tortures, rapes, and executions all the time.

  “Sure, if it nets results.”

  “Look, it makes sense. Maybe the results they wanted are the rumors we know have taken hold in the neighborhoods.”

  “That’s exactly why it does not make sense,” DeKok slowed down and turned toward Vledder. “Why would big dealers risk these two murders? Barely four percent of all users manage to kick the habit permanently. It makes more sense to develop aggressive distribution plans, among the schools, for instance. That way their clientele increases exponentially, more than offsetting their losses without the risk. Sure they aren’t bothered by brutality, but most are smart businessmen.”

  Vledder grinned.

  “Sounds like you’re connected.”

  Eventually they reached Warmoes Street and entered the old station house.

  Meindert Post, the tall Urker watch commander, waved them closer to the barrier.

  “Mina Lyons has been here,” he roared in his quarterdeck voice. “She wants you to come over as soon as possible.”

  DeKok lifted an eyebrow, waiting for clarification.

  “What’s up?” asked Vledder.

  Post glanced at his notes.

  “Somebody ransacked the rooms of those two boys that were killed. They even tore up the pillows and the mattresses.”

  7

  Mrs. Lyons, the tawny rooming house keeper, pointed sadly around her.

  “Just look,” she whined, “it’s horrible. Look at the mess. Hundreds of guilders in damage.” She looked at DeKok, “Who’s going to pay for that?”

  DeKok ignored the question. The police did not have the funds for that kind of thing.

  “Did you see them?”

  “Who?”

  “The men who did this, of course,” he said impatiently.

  Mrs. Lyons nodded vigorously, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  “Yes, they came to the kitchen door. Two men. They told me they’d heard I had rooms to let and they were interested … if the rooms were to their liking.”

  “Then what?”

  “I showed them the rooms.”

  “Those were the rooms rented by Bavel and Stappert?”

  The boardinghouse keeper looked surprised.

  “Of course, they were available.”

  “Mina, their belongings were still in the rooms! And what about the police tape? Did you ignore that as well?”

  Mrs. Lyons pressed her lips together in a tight line.

  “You can’t expect me to keep rooms vacant until the family finally gets around to removing their stuff.”

  DeKok did not like that answer. He gave her a hard look.

  “They hardly had the time, besides, the rent is paid until the end of the month, correct?”

  She snorted.

  “If they don’t show up today, I’ll throw their stuff in the street.”

  DeKok sighed. He knew Mina well. There was no use arguing with her when she was ranting. With a tired gesture he pointed at the mutilated mattresses.

  “Did that happen while you were here?”

  Mina Lyons shook her head. Red spots of anger appeared on her cheeks.

  “I would have ripped their throats out,” she screamed. “No, the phone rang and I had to answer it. I left them alone—just a few minutes. When I came back, I found this.”

  “Where are your guests now?”

  “They’re out of here.”

  DeKok nodded to himself.

  “Did you ever see them before? Were they locals?”

  “No.”

  “Would you recognize them, if you saw them again?”

  The landlady stared at the mess.

  “One of them, for sure,” she said after a brief hesitation. “He was tall and gaunt, with a narrow face. I’d recognize him out of thousands. He got his accent in The Hague. He did the talking. The other one just looked around, a real sneaky sort of guy.”

  “What ages?”

  “Late twenties.”

  DeKok rubbed his chin, a pensive look on his face.

  “You have any idea what they might have been looking for?”

  Mrs. Lyons nodded at the empty cupboards, the destroyed books, the rolled-up carpet.

  “Heroin, what else?”

  Vledder and DeKok walked along Prince Henry Quay, past old Saint Nicholas Church. The church had seen better days. It was near Central Station.

  To their left, farther along the Seadike, they saw groups of drug dealers. Bored, silent men, loitered in small groups. The plywood covered windows behind them made an ominous backdrop. The men blended into the decaying facade, carrying death with them. Every once in a while they called out to each other in raw tones.

  The two inspectors passed the intersection in silence. Through St. Olof Alley they returned to Warmoes Street.

  Vledder was the one to break the silence.

  “Do you really think they were looking for heroin?”

  DeKok shrugged.

  “For Mina it’s a reasonable assumption. As addicts, our two boys must have done some dealing as well. That’s almost a given. It’s not unlikely they had a few grams, maybe even more, hidden somewhere. Someone, maybe previous customers, would have known about a stash.”

  “The buzzards gathered after they died?”

  “Exactly.”

  Vledder shook his head. His face showed irritation.

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Not completely. I have some reservations. Someone who has finally kicked the habit would want to get all the way away from the drugs and the culture.” DeKok grinned sardonically. “After all a reformed alcoholic doesn’t keep liquor around.”

  Vledder chewed his l
ower lip.

  “So, there was nothing to score.”

  “No.”

  The younger inspector threw up his hands in a gesture of bewilderment.

  “Okay, so what were they looking for?”

  DeKok gave his colleague a measured look.

  “If we knew that, Dick Vledder, we’d be a lot closer to a solution.

  It was strangely quiet in the lobby of the station house. DeKok glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly one thirty in the morning. Until recently the lobby had an almost cozy atmosphere around this time. Uncle Jacob used to visit around that time. He’d sit on the bench against the wall, playing one tune after another on a battered accordion, until he fell asleep over his instrument. With his long gray hair, moustache, and beard he looked distinguished, even in his sleep. The watch commander waked him gently toward dawn and offered him a mug of coffee. Uncle Jacob would slurp the coffee and, then, disappear with his accordion into the breaking day. Nobody ever knew where he went.

  A few weeks ago he did not appear. A prostitute came, instead, to report that there was an old man in the middle of the pavement in Cow Street.

  The watch commander sent out two constables to have a look. They found Uncle Jacob, soaking wet and dead. They found his accordion a few meters down the road in the portico of a store.

  When the morgue attendants lifted the body on the stretcher, one of the constables folded the old man’s hands on his chest. The cop gently placed the accordion at Jacob’s feet.

  The next morning DeKok learned about the incident. A few days later DeKok and the watch commander stood at his grave and learned for the first time that Uncle Jacob’s real name was actually Petrus Sogeler.

  DeKok recalled it now with nostalgia. He had met and known a great many unique characters in his long career. He had loved most of them.

  He glanced at the desk. Warmoes Street Station was still laid out in the old fashioned way. It was like an old movie set. The lobby was divided by a railing, a barrier that split the space in two halves. In the center of the railing was a slightly elevated desk behind which the watch commander held his post. In the United States he would be a desk sergeant, reflected DeKok. To one side of the desk was a door that allowed officers and other authorized persons into the rest of the station. Comfortable benches and a coffee machine covered the walls in the public part of the space.

  DeKok mused how different Warmoes Street was from modern station houses. They usually had more like a foyer, cramped, narrow lobby. The police were separated from the public by bullet-proof Plexiglas, with small openings to make conversation possible between the people on either side of the barrier. They were designed like some banks. In many station houses a citizen could never penetrate unhindered all the way to the bullet-proof glass. The front doors opened electronically. Visitors had to prove they needed to enter by speaking into an impersonal loudspeaker mounted in the outside wall.

  DeKok thoroughly disapproved. Like a church, a police station should be accessible to all. It was not just a traffic hub for law enforcement. It was, above all, a refuge for people seeking help.

  DeKok looked at the watch commander. Meindert Post had been replaced by Jan Kuster, a solid, amiable southerner from the province of Brabant. Brabant and Limburg were the only two provinces in the Netherlands that still celebrated Carnival. Their beer was world famous. Kuster was completely at home in lively Amsterdam. He beckoned to the two inspectors.

  “There’s a guy who has been waiting for you for almost an hour. I sent him upstairs. I was going to send him away, but Meindert told me you would still be back.”

  DeKok nodded.

  “What sort of man?”

  Kuster pulled a face.

  “Looks like a bottom feeder. Rich clothes, but no taste. Uses more perfume than a brothel. Not my type.”

  DeKok laughed.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Of course, I do. His name is Haarveld, Willy Haarveld.”

  DeKok looked at his visitor after he had invited him to sit down next to his desk. Kuster was right. Willy Haarveld was all flash. His clothes were couture, but unmatched. He’d combined canary yellow trousers topped by an aubergine jacket. An embroidered shirt without tie, showed under the jacket. Willy wore a large platinum ring set with diamonds, vulgar and ostentatious. His musky, cloyingly sweet, perfume overtook the room.

  DeKok sighed and sank down in his own chair. He observed the other’s face with a sharp look. Willy had full, sensuous lips over a weak chin, and a round, fleshy nose. His bleached, lacquered hair framed a face unmistakably made-up. The combination was revolting. DeKok’s face and voice were neutral, as he spoke.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait,” began DeKok, “We weren’t expecting you.”

  Haarveld shook his head in dismissal.

  “I had hoped to meet you. The officer downstairs said you were definitely coming back.” He stretched out a hand to the inspector. “You, eh, you’re Inspector DeKok, aren’t you?”

  DeKok nodded.

  “With kay-oh-kay … at your service.”

  It sounded mocking.

  Willy Haarveld smiled politely.

  “I’ve been told that you are in charge of the case concerning those two boys.”

  “Which boys?”

  “It’s about the ones who were strangled yesterday. It’s all over the papers. They lived in the same boardinghouse.”

  DeKok nodded, not committing himself.

  “We’re handling the case,” he merely said.

  Haarveld coughed, a timid, discrete little cough, as if to ask for attention.

  “Do you know anything about the perpetrator?”

  “No.”

  “Is there a connection between the two murders?”

  DeKok grinned.

  “There could be. Are you a reporter?”

  “No, no,” said the visitor hastily. “No, I’m interested, that’s all.”

  DeKok smiled grimly.

  “Very well,” he said, “I always feel better when I do the questioning. What is your interest?”

  Haarveld moved in his chair.

  “That is to say …” he played with the embroidered frill on his shirt. “I think I may have met one of the boys, at one time or another.”

  “Where?”

  “In my house, in Laren.”

  “When?”

  Haarveld grinned nervously.

  “A few weeks ago, I think. I don’t remember the exact date. I am a very busy man, you see. I’m an impresario, a promoter, if you will. I organize stage plays, launch cabaret groups, arrange shows for orchestras and other artists. My clients are under contract and they have to work. If I cannot find them work, they don’t eat.” He fell silent and took a deep breath. “I also consider it part of my job to make sure each performer has a good repertoire.” He raised both hands in the air. “Fresh material is key. So I’m always on the look-out for new texts, songs, melodies, you understand?”

  DeKok leaned forward.

  “And in that context you’ve met one of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  The impresario made an apologetic gesture.

  “That,” he said, “I don’t know. We might have been introduced—I certainly did not write his name down. An acquaintance of mine called him ‘Mr. Melody.’ My friend knew I was always looking for new talent; he sent the boy over to see me.”

  “And?”

  “What do you mean?”

  DeKok did not change his demeanor.

  “Did you work out an agreement? Did Mr. Melody have material that appealed to you?”

  Haarveld hesitated over his answer. He raised both hands in front of his face and brought his fingertips together in a studied gesture.

  “He was a strange boy … man, I should say,” he answered softly. “Difficult to understand. He did not know a single note of music, did not play a single instrument, but he said he had melodies in his head. I laughed at him and said that mel
odies in his head were useless to me. Then he said: ‘If you can get them out, you’ll make a fortune.’”

  “And did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Make a fortune?”

  Haarveld was now clearly irritated.

  “Have you ever been able to get a fortune out of somebody’s head?”

  DeKok shook his head calmly.

  “No, but I’m not an impresario.”

  It sounded sarcastic. The old inspector had not yet overcome his distaste for the visitor. Not to mention, the heavy perfume lined his nostrils and reddened his eyes. He fell back in his chair and yawned openly.

  “I still do not understand,” he said slowly, “why you wanted to see me at this time of the night.”

  With a sudden motion, Haarveld sat up straight in his chair.

  “To disassociate myself.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I want nothing to do with the whole mess. I know so well how cops think. You find out the boy visited Laren, you’re knocking on my door.”

  DeKok’s eyebrows took on a life of their own. They actually rippled across his forehead. Vledder watched with fascination the effect on Haarveld. But for once, DeKok’s eyebrow gymnastics had no effect. Haarveld was too occupied with himself to pay attention to anyone in his surroundings.

  For the first time Vledder felt DeKok was actually aware of what happened on his face. Always, the extraordinary behavior of DeKok’s eyebrows seemed involuntary. DeKok was generally unaware but, this time, he waited for the effect. Vledder waited. But DeKok calmly posed the next question as if there had been no hesitation at all.

  “Sounds like guilt to me. Well, did you do it?” asked DeKok.

  Haarveld’s face grew scarlet and he began to sweat, streaking his makeup and turning it chalky.

  “No,” he cried out. He made a high-pitched, nasal protest. “No, I did not do it. I had nothing to do with it. Do you hear me? I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Then why should you be worried about it?” asked DeKok calmly.

  Haarveld let out a deep, theatrical sigh.

  “I’m well aware of my own reputation,” he said with a studied weariness. “I know people judge me. They gossip. They speculate. It’s open season—I’m not exactly irreproachable.” It was difficult to tell whether he was