The Sergeant's Cat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “Love-related,” de Gier said. “So you think so, too. This corpse abused a vengeful woman.”

  “Are the sleuths done sleuthing?” a gentleman asked, lean­ing through the open door. “Can my colleagues and I now apply science?”

  “We left some fingerprints,” de Gier said, “but we haven’t found the cartridge yet.”

  The gentleman found the cartridge. “Thirty-eight caliber.”

  “A ladylike weapon.” De Gier rubbed his hands. “Can be hidden in a handbag. Coming, Adjutant? We can phone from the pub.”

  “Just a minute,” Grijpstra said. “You, sir. That’s a Polaroid, right? One gruesome photograph, please, of this gruesome corpse. Don’t spare us the blood.”

  A flashbulb popped. The snapshot became more detailed as they watched. “Nice,” Grijpstra said. “Blood coming out of his nostrils and mouth. Just what I wanted.”

  •

  Grijpstra used the café’s telephone while de Gier sipped coffee and drew diagonal lines on a napkin. Line 1: a dead pro­fessor. Line 2: a million mussels. Line 3: two unknown female suspects. The gun didn’t deserve a line of its own—it was merely the extension of a killing arm. What else?

  “Miss Khan,” Grijpstra asked the mouthpiece in his hand. “I’m sorry to bother you this late. This is the police, Adjutant Grijpstra, Murder Brigade. Something quite unpleasant has hap­pened and my sergeant and I would like to call on you, yes? . . . Right now? That’s nice.”

  “That’s nice,” Grijpstra said half a minute later. “No coffee for me? Then I’ll have yours. Thank you—very nice coffee. The nice lady’s nice street address is just around the nice corner. We can walk. Nice weather outside. Ha-ha.”

  “Like your job, do you?” de Gier asked grimly.

  “No,” Grijpstra said.

  “I was thinking again,” de Gier said. “Did you notice the hard yellow plastic boxes at the professor’s?”

  “I sat on one, didn’t I?” Grijpstra asked. “So what? So nothing.”

  “Those boxes didn’t look right,” de Gier said. “I thought. A hard commercial color amid all those soft greens and blues.”

  Grijpstra pushed the empty coffee cup away. “You see col­ors? I am the artist.”

  “You are?” de Gier asked. “Maybe you should paint those mussels. The pure white sands, those swaying dark shapes. And then those ugly yellow boxes, with Chinese characters stamped on their sides. And the neighbor lady says the professor had just returned from Taiwan.”

  “The boxes are connected?”

  “The boxes are contrasted,” de Gier explained. “Crime is associated with contrasts. Remember the junkie driving the Rolls-Royce? Remember the classy lady running barefoot around the queen’s palace? Our best cases of that year.”

  “Boxes?” Grijpstra repeated.

  “Never mind.” De Gier paid for the coffee.

  Grijpstra mumbled as they walked. “Hi,” de Gier said to the mostly-dachshund. The doggie wagged its tail. “Friend of ours?” de Gier asked.

  Grijpstra nodded. “You know what we are? I wonder about that at times, now that I’m older and more aware. We’re ghouls. And we like it. Just now, when I spoke to the nice lady on the phone? I was scaring the nice lady.”

  “I heard you,” de Gier said, stooping down to pet the dog. “‘The Murder Brigade’; ‘something very unpleasant has hap­pened.’”

  “We’re werewolves,” Grijpstra said sadly, “creeping around being weird, to freak out nice ladies.”

  “So she is innocent?” de Gier asked.

  “Of course,” Grijpstra said. “Why would a lovely young lady shoot her very own lover/teacher? Because of the horrible spell that he cast on her? She wasn’t getting straight A’s anymore because she refused to humble her tender spirit, because she wouldn’t give in to his lustful whipping and sexy kicking?”

  “Right,” de Gier said. “My idea entirely. Perhaps she did do away with him, but she can be excused. I didn’t like the chap myself. Sinister, rather. If anyone is to blame, it’s us. Corruption and liberal laws have weakened the police so that the citizens increasingly rely on self-defense. She knew that her situation could only worsen if she called us. So she shot him herself.”

  Grijpstra tripped. “Damn dog.” He wagged his finger. “What’s with you? Your bladder too small? Stop squatting in front of my foot. Get lost.” The mostly-dachshund limped. Grijpstra picked it up, felt the sore paw, scratched the dog’s neck, and put it down again.

  “Faker,” de Gier said gruffly. The little dog grinned.

  “Ugly yellow boxes,” de Gier said. “Subdivided inside, with spirals everywhere. What for?”

  Grijpstra rang a bell. The door clicked open. Dainty naked brown feet appeared on a steep staircase, lengthening into slim ankles and long legs. A young woman presented herself. She would be in her early twenties. She had doe eyes and long black hair, cascading down her slender shoulders. A sarong of batik cloth was wrapped around her body.

  The detectives showed their IDs, which she carefully stud­ied.

  I do sometimes like my work, de Gier thought as he fol­lowed Bakini up the stairs. Crime is usually unattractive. Sus­pects mess up society and we hold our noses and are forever trying to arrange things neatly, making it worse. We deal with monstrosities spawned by perversity, but there’s always the ex­ception. Now look at this. A graceful suspect, descending from an Oriental heaven. Aren’t our private surroundings projections of ourselves? Well? What about these tasteful rooms?

  “Tea?” Bakini asked sweetly. She poured from a red copper kettle into little cups without handles. “No sugar or milk, I’m afraid, but they would only spoil the jasmine fragrance. Would you mind taking a cushion and sitting on the floor? I don’t have chairs.”

  She doesn’t even want to know what’s up, de Gier thought. A truly polite spirit. The quiet acceptance emanating from Far Eastern philosophical solutions. Here we come clodhopping in, intending to misuse her for our egotistic goals. Wouldn’t we like to clap her in irons and drag her to our lair? She knows it, but she keeps quiet, nicely. Good strategy—true kindness is a most fearsome weapon. He sniffed at the incense that reached him from an altar on a low table, next to an aquarium where mussels quietly opened and closed. Bakini had seated herself, tucking her legs under her, hiding them under a fold of her sarong.

  “Good tea,” Grijpstra said.

  “I love your rooms,” de Gier said, trying to copy the all-encompassing smile of the little Buddha statue on the table.

  Bakini smiled back.

  “Professor Hans Stroom?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Is he dead?”

  “He is,” de Gier said. “Shot through the head.”

  Bakini looked at him calmly.

  There we go again, de Gier thought. Easterners have a bet­ter way of reacting. I cringe when bad news hits me, but she sits up straight. I flap my hands; she folds them. My eyes go wide; she almost closes hers. It all goes with the smell of the incense, the bubbling of the water pump.

  Grijpstra made an effort to keep looking stern. Now what? the adjutant thought. We can’t relax. “Were you born here?” he asked.

  “I was born in your former South American colony, Suriname,” Bakini said softly. “My forefathers were indentured laborers from Pakistan. I knew the professor well. I worked at his mussel station on the coast and assisted with the experiments here at his home. We traveled together—earlier this year we were in Karachi.”

  “Not in Taiwan?”

  “No, Truus went to Taiwan. We do a lot of traveling in our department.”

  Grijpstra cleared his throat. “You’re very calm. Don’t you want to know how your teacher was murdered?”

  “Yes.” Bakini’s voice vibrated slightly. De Gier apologized to himself for feeling a pleasurable shiver down his spine.

  Bakini bowed her head.
“Death is part of life. Scientists especially should accept that. Life and death flow from each other. It would be unthinkable to hold on to either.”

  “Why did the professor travel?” de Gier asked, trying to keep his voice flat and cold.

  “We visited mussel farms mostly.”

  “Were you here all night?”

  “Yes.”

  “You spoke to him?”

  “By telephone.” She nodded. “He wanted me to come over, but I said it was no use.”

  “An affair?” de Gier asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When did it stop?”

  “Yesterday,” Bakini said quietly. She rose in one supple movement, without touching the floor with her hands. “More tea?” She poured it into the little cups, respectfully held up by the detectives. “I broke up with Hans because I thought he had become too greedy. Scientists should serve society. Our world is three-fourths water. The oceans could feed all of humanity if they were managed properly, but we selfishly rob and steal, pol­lute, don’t replace what we take out. Less food is available each day. But scientists could reverse the process.”

  “Didn’t the professor share your ideals?” de Gier asked.

  “No.” Bakini replaced the teapot daintily. “Hans was paid quite well as a university professor, about the maximum income that this rich country can provide, but he still had to be a busi­nessman, too, buying cheap mussel seed from Karachi and selling it here through his own company at a huge profit. When he and Truus came back from Taiwan, he brought plastic starting boxes developed by Chinese mussel breeders. He had taken out a sub­license for Western Europe and was about to have them man­ufactured here.”

  “For private profit?” de Gier asked. “And that tainted the relationship? Would you continue as his student?”

  “Oh, yes,” Bakini said. “I do want my degree. He will continue to teach me.”

  “He’s dead,” Grijpstra said.

  “I rather doubt,” Bakini said, “the linear essence of time. Much that he showed me will continue to work.”

  De Gier looked up. “I keep forgetting to ask you. Are you a good shot?”

  She smiled. “Yes, I think so.”

  “With a pistol?”

  “A spear gun.” Her hand swept up and indicated an array of long metal arrows decoratively arranged on the wall. The gun itself was on the floor, looking deadly and in good order.

  “What time did Hans phone you?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Ten o’clock.” She arranged a strand of hair on her temple. “I remember because I was going to watch a nature program on TV. I didn’t, after all. I sat here instead.”

  “You had a feeling?” de Gier asked.

  “I felt something was very wrong,” Bakini said, “but I had no idea what.”

  Grijpstra dramatically produced the Polaroid picture. She took it from him and reverently pressed it to her forehead, saying something in a singsong voice.

  “Beg pardon?” de Gier asked.

  “I wished him a good journey.”

  De Gier shifted to ease a cramp in his leg. “You know,” he said slowly, “in some countries crimes against the people are punishable by death. What sort of fish do you shoot when you’re out hunting?”

  “Sharks,” Bakini said. “I shouldn’t, perhaps, but I like the challenge.”

  “Wasn’t Hans a shark?”

  “The tribal laws of the Netherlands,” Bakini said, “disap­prove of doing away with our own species. My own law is to wait, once I’ve legally done all I can.”

  “She didn’t have to wait long,” Grijpstra said when they were back in the street. “Nice lady, but I’m glad I’m no shark.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Hello?” Grijpstra asked, thumping de Gier’s arm. “Hello? Shall we tackle the other one now? Call first? But the cafés around here will be closed by now.”

  De Gier checked his notepad. “Let’s ambush the lady.”

  Dr. Truus Vermuul’s apartment occupied the top floor of a restored little gabled house in a fashionable mews.

  “Both suspects live within a ten-minute walk of the dead man’s house,” Grijpstra remarked. “A coincidence, perhaps?”

  “For sure.” De Gier rang the bell. “Did she do it?”

  “You were right about the boxes,” Grijpstra said. “Did she?”

  De Gier shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so. I’m not going to arrest Bakini. What’s the penalty again for assisting a criminal to escape?”

  “Go away,” the woman yelled at the top of the stairs. “I don’t want to believe in Krishna. Piss off or I’ll pour this boiling oil on your heads.”

  “Police, ma’am,” Grijpstra shouted, waving his card.

  “The other chap, too? He looks like a Krishna.”

  “Are you?” Grijpstra asked de Gier. “Do you want to save the lovely lady?”

  “I wouldn’t save you,” de Gier yelled, “if you begged me on your knees.”

  Grijpstra was halfway up the stairs. De Gier bounded past him, heading for the pot she was holding. “It’s all right,” Truus said grumpily. “I’m boiling up a mess of mussels, a new recipe. What’s wrong?”

  “Professor Hans Stroom got himself shot dead tonight,” Grijpstra panted. “We’re making inquiries. Can I sit down?”

  “Do you have a warrant?” Truus asked. She was a big woman, in her forties, amply proportioned. Her large, bulging blue eyes weren’t focusing too well.

  “I can get a warrant,” de Gier said. “Back in a jiffy.”

  She waved him to a straight-backed chair at the bare table under a high white ceiling. The fairly large room was lit by fluorescent tubes.

  “Shot?” Truus said. “You’re kidding. I saw Hans today at the university. Who would shoot that fool?”

  De Gier asked if he could use the phone. “You guys know anything more about the cartridge?”

  “Can’t be sure,” the ballistics voice said. “Probably a Walther PPK. We have the slug, too—dug it out of the skull. All the nasty little gunmen have PPKs now. The weapon is in vogue. You can buy Walthers through the coffee shops where pot is supplied. Someone must have brought in a truckload of the suckers.”

  “A Walther PPK,” de Gier said to Grijpstra. “Fits in a lady’s handbag.”

  Truus had sat down, too. “Are you planning to blame this on me?” she asked. “Are you mad? Hans and I are friends. We’ve just been to Taiwan together.”

  “You don’t look sad,” Grijpstra said.

  “Should I?” She hit the table with the flat of her hand. “We’ll have a new professor tomorrow. There are plenty of professor-men around. Shooting them doesn’t help.”

  “Friends?” de Gier said. “You were friends, you said.”

  She pulled up a shoulder. “Friends . . . okay . . . but I wouldn’t shoot him. I wouldn’t get his job anyway. The uni­versity uses women only for menial work.”

  It became quiet in the cool room. Truus fetched plates and forks from a cupboard. “Some mussels, boys? May as well make yourselves useful. I’m trying out new recipes, to advertise our clammy friends. I have white Beaujolais, too—not too clever a wine, but it’s got a good wallop afterward.”

  “Just mussels,” Grijpstra said.

  She filled her own glass. De Gier gestured his refusal of the wine. He dug into the mussels. “Terrific.”

  Truus tasted the Beaujolais. “So is this. You sure now? You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “You live here alone?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Hurrah.” She held up her glass. “To old Hans. Sure I live alone. I don’t need you get-in-the-ways here. Polluters of the good planet. Multipliers of the bad seeds. Away with all men. We’ll clone ourselves soon. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Can I hide somewhere and watch?” de Gier asked.

&
nbsp; She reached for the bottle. “No pornography, please. Clon­ing is clean fun. Every time the body gets old, the clone will replace it. Throw the old body out.”

  “Where was your body at ten thirty tonight?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Right here.” She peered owlishly at her glass while the fluid level rose. “Cooking the old mussels.” The bottle was empty. “Excuse me.” She fetched another. The corkscrew didn’t work too well. She impatiently slammed the cork into the bottle.

  “Do you eat all your mussels yourself?” de Gier asked.

  “I sell them to a deli further down the alley,” Truus said. “Making a bit on the side. I learned that from Hans, I did. But he did it bigger. Yah-hoo, boys.” She drank.

  Grijpstra pushed the Polaroid photo of the corpse across the table. She looked at it. “Well, well.” She pointed at stacked yellow mussel boxes in a corner of the room. “What’s to become of those now, eh? His nice new line of merchandise?”

  “Now, my dear,” Grijpstra said, “who might have wanted to shoot your superior? Why don’t you tell us?”

  “Might?” Truus asked. “And have? And wanted? And shoot? A lot of verbs you have there. The Chinese maybe?”

  “Please,” Grijpstra said. “Do we have to go that far? And there are so many of them. Why the Chinese, dear?”

  “Don’t dear me,” Truus bellowed, hitting the table with both fists, making the dishes and her glass hop around. “Those mussel boxes are good business. They’ll sell themselves. By the hundred thousand. The Chinese were crazy to sign their rights away for all of Western Europe. They must have realized it by now, so they came over, and plop?” She winked. “Eh?”

  “That’s heroin,” de Gier said. “Not mussel boxes. You got yourself mixed up.”

  “Yes?” The wink became more obvious. “More mussels, my boy? Mind if I drink by myself? There we go.” She stared ahead glassily, drops gleaming on her chin.

  Grijpstra leaned over to de Gier. “I think our hostess is nervous,” he said loudly. “Why? No alibi perhaps?”

  “I don’t need an alibi,” Truus burst out happily. “It’s nice to have one, but there’s no need, really. Not if I didn’t do it. I live here. This is where I can be, as much as I like.”