The Corpse on the Dike (5 page)

The girl sniffed.

“Please tell us what you know,” the commissaris said gently.

“I’ve already told the other men,” the girl said and crumpled her handkerchief into a hard little ball. “I was worried about Tom so I went into his house and there he was, on the floor.”

“Yes. You had never been in his house before?”

“No,” Mary said suddenly and glared at the commissaris. “They used to whisper to each other over the fence and she gave him cups of tea.”

“We
didn’t
whisper,” the girl said indignantly. “We just talked and he was always very nice. We were neighbors, weren’t we, and he never did anything for himself except digging about in his garden; so why shouldn’t I make him a cup of tea sometimes?”

“Quite, quite,” the commissaris said, smiling at Mary. “Why shouldn’t she? But he never asked you in?”

“No,” the girl said.

“But that’s strange, isn’t it? You are an attractive girl and he was a young man, and you got to know each other. How long did you know him?”

“As long as I’ve lived here,” the girl said. “Three months now, I think.”

Mary laughed and the commissaris gave her a puzzled look. “Sorry,” Mary said. “I don’t want to be unpleasant but I have been wondering myself. Here they were, every afternoon, chatting away and sipping their tea and he never even thought of asking her in.”

“A very shy young man perhaps,” the commissaris said.

The girl began to cry again and de Gier felt guilty. He remembered how he had ignored her tears and stuttered questions when earlier they left the house for Wernekink’s. He had been mumbling at her instead of saying something helpful.

He remembered the lessons in police philosophy at school. It is the task of the police to actively maintain order and to assist those who are in need of help. The girl had been in need of help but he hadn’t even listened to her; he had been too busy trying to suppress his own fear and nausea. And he shuddered when he remembered coming back from the café telephone. The dike had been filled with small groups of people, clustered together in the eerie reflection of streetlights swinging in a storm that had chosen that moment to swoop down from the great inland lake. An old man had stopped him to ask what was going on in Tom Wernekink’s house. He hadn’t answered and the old man had leered at him. “A bit of work for you today, hey, state pimp? Finally have to do something in return for all that lovely tax money?” The words “state pimp” had made de Gier stop but he had forced himself to go on.

“It’s no use asking her anything, commissaris,” Mary said, “or me for that matter. We didn’t know the boy really.”

“Please sit down, ladies,” the commissaris said. Mary flopped down on the nearest chair and Evelien sat down on the edge of a couch.

But what could I have said to the girl? de Gier thought. The boy was dead, wasn’t he? He wasn’t just dead; he was rotting. Should I have said that he had passed away, gone to a better world?

“Who else lives here, madam?” the commissaris asked.

“My girlfriend,” Mary said, “Ann Helders; she isn’t here now; she’s on night duty. She’s a nurse.”

Lesbian, Grijpstra and de Gier were thinking simultaneously. It was the way Mary had said, “my girlfriend.” The words had sounded possessive and defiant. It seemed as if Mary was challenging the men. I live with a girl, so what? I am proud of it. I haven’t got a man, and I don’t want a man. Men are dirt.

The commissaris was looking at the grim expression on the woman’s face. She hasn’t discovered yet that it’s all right to be lesbian, the commissaris was thinking. She is of my generation. To be different is to be shameful. Times have changed. But we don’t catch up anymore; some ideas have seeped in too deeply—nothing can dislodge them anymore.

“I see,” the commissaris said. “Did any of you hear the shot? The man was shot, you see, and we think he was shot from the garden.”

“The garden?” Mary asked. “When was he shot? Do you know that too?”

“No,” the commissaris said. “Two days ago perhaps but we don’t know the time. We should know tomorrow when the doctor has finished his tests.”

“I didn’t hear a shot,” Mary said, “did you, Evelien?”

The girl was trying not to cry. She shook her head.

“Did you know your neighbor, Miss van Krompen?” the commissaris asked.

“Hardly. He wasn’t a talkative man. We exchanged a few words when we were both working in our gardens but that’s all. The weather, I think that’s all we ever talked about, the weather.”

“Did he have any friends?”

“Don’t think so. The Cat with Boots On sometimes came to see him. He lived farther down, on the dike. I don’t know his real name. We all call him Cat. He’s a crazy-looking man.”

“Ah,” the commissaris said, “so he did have one friend at least. Where does this Cat live?”

Mary had closed her eyes and was counting. “Seventh house on the left from here.”

“We’ll go see him later,” the commissaris said. “Is there anything else you know that you think you should tell us?”

“No,” Mary said.

The commissaris looked at Evelien. “You? Miss Dapper?”

The girl was still crying.

“Miss Dapper?”

She got up and rushed from the room.

“Hmm,” the commissaris said. I’ll make some coffee,” Mary said, “powdered coffee; it’ll only take a few minutes. Do you all take milk and sugar?”

“Please,” the three men said.

When Mary left the room Grijpstra got up and began to look at the trophies again.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” de Gier asked Grijpstra.

“What are you thinking, de Gier?” the commissaris asked softly.

“Just a combination of some half-observed facts, sir,” de Gier said.

“Go ahead.”

“Mary is a lesbian,” de Gier said. “She lives with this nurse—Ann Helders, I believe the name was. But Ann brings a friend into the house who becomes a lodger. Our young pretty lady who rushed out of the room just now. Evelien. Mary falls in love with Evelien but can’t show her love because of Ann. The result is frustration. Mary is a violent woman. Her favorite sport is pistol shooting. Violent sports are usually a release for built-up tension. The love of arms points at aggression. A violent and aggressive woman. Evelien starts flirting with the neighbor, a man. Mary doesn’t like that. The flirting goes on and on. Everyday Evelien makes tea for Tom Wernekink and gives him a cup across the fence. They drink the tea together and laugh and chat and Mary watches it all from the house and boils with fury. She can’t kill Evelien because she loves her but she can remove Tom, so one day she sneaks out into the garden next door, calls Tom and shoots him, right between the eyes.”

“As easy as that, what?” Grijpstra asked.

“Weren’t you thinking along the same lines as you were fiddling about with that cup just now?” de Gier asked.

Grijpstra grunted.

They both looked at the commissaris who had lit a small cigar and was puffing away thoughtfully. “Could be,” the commissaris said slowly. “It explains the shot between the eyes. I tried to work out the distance between pistol, and wound; tomorrow we’ll have exact figures, but I would think the distance must have been some twenty-five to thirty feet. To hit a man between the eyes, with a pistol, at that distance, is a rare feat. And Mary has won a lot of cups.”

“The psychology I put into my theory is a bit rough,” de Gier said. “There must have been more than just frustration about a few cups of tea. Maybe they aren’t being too truthful with us. Perhaps Tom Wernekink came here often and slept with the girl. Perhaps they were having a proper affair. Mary was threatening the girl and now the girl is too frightened to say anything. It could be that Mary is waving a pistol at the girl right now.”

“Go and look,” the commissaris said. “Pretend you want to help her bring in the coffee.”

De Gier got up and left the room. He found Mary peacefully engaged in the small kitchen in the back of the house.

“You carry the tray,” Mary said. “Sergeant, isn’t it? Should I call you sergeant?”

“Call me anything you like,” de Gier said.

Mary’s voice sounded fairly pleasant but when he looked at her face he saw that the muscles were working and that she was biting her thin lips.

“What do you do for a living, madam?” the commissaris asked.

“I used to teach.”

“What?”

“Mathematics at a high school.”

“So you have a degree,” the commissaris said.

“I have.”

The commissaris stirred his coffee.

“Did you win all these trophies?” Grijpstra asked.

“I did.”

“So you are a crack shot,” de Gier said. “Your neighbor was shot between the eyes, from a fair distance.”

Mary put her cup down with a bang. “Meaning what?”

“We try to apply logic when we think, madam,” the commissaris said. “Very few people could hit a man between the eyes from a distance of twenty-five or thirty feet. I have calculated a little and I think that the distance must be about that. I would have trouble to score under such circumstances and I spend a lot of time target shooting. Very few people I know can shoot well enough to equal the performance in your neighbor’s garden. You are a crack shot. You are also a mathematician.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Mary said.

“De Gier,” the commissaris said, “go next door and find out if they have succeeded in making clear plaster prints in the garden. If they have bring them here.”

“Sir,” de Gier said, and left the room.

“Now,” the commissaris said to the woman, “if you don’t mind we would like to see all your shoes.”

“Don’t you need a warrant for a request like that?” Mary asked.

“I am a commissaris; I don’t need a warrant.”

“I see,” Mary said and looked at the two men grimly.

“If you find that my shoes have left prints in the garden next door…” Mary said.

“We would have another indication.”

“Commissaris,” Mary said slowly, “I may have been in that garden quite often, for perfectly harmless reasons.”

“No,” the commissaris said, “you, and Evelien as well, have told us that your neighbor didn’t welcome visitors. He wouldn’t even allow a nice attractive young lady who obviously liked him to join him in his garden. He drank the tea she gave him but he stayed on his side of the fence. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“So why should he allow you to go into his garden? He wouldn’t, would he?”

“He wouldn’t,” Mary said. “You don’t have to go through the rigmarole of the shoes,” she added. “I admit that I have been in his garden.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. I was wondering what had happened to him and I wanted to shut up Evelien, who was moping about the house, worrying.”

“And did you see him?”

“Yes, I stood on a box and looked through the window. He was dead. Shot.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Because they would think what they are thinking now.”

“That you shot him?”

Mary nodded, her square heavy head bobbed up and down. “Exactly. And I didn’t shoot him. Why should I?”

“Jealousy, perhaps,” Grijpstra said.

Mary laughed dryly. “Why jealousy? Ann is my girlfriend, not Evelien. If the silly girl wants to play about with men that’s her business, isn’t it? And she wasn’t even successful. He would drink her tea and that was all. What was it to me?”

“You may have a great liking for Evelien,” the commissaris said. “She is a beautiful girl.”

“I already have a girlfriend, and I am happy with her and she with me. Why should I run after others?”

“I don’t know why people should do things,” the commissaris said, “the fact is that they do.”

The commissaris made a sign to Grijpstra. “Excuse me, madam,” Grijpstra said. “I’ll go tell de Gier that the prints are no longer necessary.”

“Tell me,” the commissaris said, looking over the rim of his coffee cup, “we are alone now and nobody will overhear us. Did you shoot that young man or didn’t you?”

Mary got up and rearranged the trophies on the corner table. “I did not.”

“Do you realize that we have to arrest you?” the commissaris asked pleasantly.

“By logic, yes. I agree with you that very few people would be able to aim that accurately. One in a hundred thousand perhaps.”

The fat woman looked desperate. The commissaris didn’t take his eyes off the square face opposite him. He was looking at her eyes, large pale blue eyes, slightly bulging behind the thick curved glasses of her spectacles. He wanted to tell her to relax, not to suffer more than she had to, but he couldn’t find any purpose in saying anything. Mary van Krompen’s situation was decidedly uncomfortable and there was very little he could do about it. She was upset, nervous, anxious and probably quite frightened. All he could do was try not to aggravate her any further. It would be awkward if de Gier and Grijpstra had to drag her into the police car.

“The pistol,” Mary said suddenly, “surely you have a ballistics department in your Headquarters. You have, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” the commissaris said.

“Well, they can prove that the bullet didn’t come from any of my pistols. I have two, a 7.65 and a .22. I know the bullet didn’t come from either one and your people can confirm that it didn’t.”

“Yes,” the commissaris said. “You better give me your weapons.”

Mary laughed, a harsh grating laugh. “Give me your weapons! Aren’t you afraid that the killer-woman will take a pop at you as well? I would wait a little, if I were you.”

“Wait for what?” the commissaris asked, surprised.

“For your two gorillas to arrive. That big burly fellow and the handsome charmer.”

The commissaris grinned. “Gorillas!”

Suddenly Mary laughed too. “A gorilla and a gibbon I should have said. The thin chappie looks quite agile, with his long arms and fine face. He could swing himself through the trees; it would be a dainty sight.”

Mary and the commissaris were giggling together when the two detectives returned and Grijpstra raised his eyebrows at de Gier.

“The lady wants to give us her two pistols,” the commissaris said to Grijpstra. “Go with her and collect them please, and take the ammunition as well.”

Mary kept her pistols in the drawer of her nightstand. The arms were wrapped in flannel and looked in excellent repair. “Careful,” Mary said as Grijpstra slipped them into the pockets of his jacket, “they are precision instruments, both of them, and I have spent many hours cleaning them.”