The Hollow-Eyed Angel (7 page)

"No," Sara said. "She dismounted and asked him if he was okay. He said he was, and then she rode off. But he wasn't okay. Soon after that the man—Mr. Termeer— started reeling and swaying. We helped him over to a bench. The policewoman was still in view, riding about in the meadow where the people were bopping to jazz from the bandstand. When we started yelling and waving, she came back and got nasty."

"Ordered us 'on our way,'" Joop said. "We're not the kind of people that can be ordered around, you know. We complained about her. Left our card at the Park Precinct."

"Of course," Sara said, "we didn't expect to get any response."

"You didn't get the messages the NYPD left on your machine?" Grijpstra said.

Sara blushed.

"Before we went on our trip I bought a new answering machine," Joop said. "When we came home Sara pressed the wrong button and erased everything. So this gentleman—Termeer—died, did he? What of, do you know?"

"Maybe a heart attack," Grijpstra said. "The body was found in some azalea bushes, dressed in rags, partly covered by a filthy blanket. Animals had consumed some of the corpse. Mr. Termeer's dentures were found at a distance from the body." The adjutant produced the faxed NYPD report and accompanying photograph, which had come through fairly clearly. Then he folded the papers and put the photo back in his inside jacket pocket. "I don't think you want to see this."

Joop was quiet. Sara poured more coffee.

"Termeer wasn't having a heart attack," Joop said while he passed around nonpareils. "Not when we saw him. I have had two heart attacks myself. He didn't seem to have a headache, wasn't feeling his neck, there was nothing wrong with his left arm, none of the well-known symptoms. He was just dazed, but after we helped him sit down I'm sure he felt much better."

"Were there any other people around?" Grijpstra asked.

Nobody. By then, both Lakmakers stated, events in the meadow were in full swing: The balloon dinosaur was being launched, the jazz band was playing.

'"When the Saints Go Marching In,'" Joop said.

The look-alikes and wannabes were lining up for their contest. There was nobody else at the crossing where Termeer, cared for by the Lakmaker couple, was recuperating from shock.

Grijpstra seemed ready to leave the Lakmakers' residence when de Gier took over. "Why," he asked Joop, "did you pay so much attention to this, this George Bernard Shaw type?"

"You don't know about George Bernard Shaw," Joop said. "How could you, policeman? What is your rank?"

"Yes," Grijpstra looked at de Gier. "George Bernard Who?"

Grijpstra looked at Joop. "De Gier is a sergeant."

"The sergeant reads a lot," Grijpstra told Sara. "Without using dictionaries. It takes him a few years to pick up a language. He likes languages, you see."

"You graduated from a grammar school?" Joop asked de Gier. "Wouldn't that qualify you for academic study? Shouldn't you be an inspector then, or a lieutenant or something?"

It took a while for de Gier to get the witnesses to confirm that Termeer had made an extraordinary impression. It wasn't just being good Samaritans, for they weren't, both Sara and Joop admitted. In New York they had stepped over homeless people, ignored beggars, walked away from traffic accidents. And it wasn't just New York—they would do that anywhere. At the most they would "alert the authorities," but the authorities, in Termeer's case, were right there. So when Bert Termeer was sent reeling by the policewoman's horse, the couple interfered for other reasons.

"Because you were upset with the authorities?" de Gier asked.

Joop was willing to go along with that, as an easy way out, but Sara said she wanted to be honest.

The interrogation continued. Honest is nice. De Gier was smiling at Sara. He liked her.

"No," Sara confessed. Now that she was old and retired and more able to watch the human situation
as is
she no longer felt much pity. Her sense of duty was way down too. If a man gets hurt by the police there is little one can do. She did do that little, by complaining about the policewoman at the Central Park Precinct, but normally she wouldn't have done that either. Certainly not in America where she happened to be as a tourist.

So what was abnormal? Why did Sara Lakmaker involve herself with a man she had already called prophet-like, philosopher-like, Shaw- and/or Voltaire-like0...

"Who is Voltaire?" Grijpstra asked de Gier. "One of your nihilists again?"

De Gier didn't think so. "Voltaire insisted on being rich; it guaranteed his independence."

"A benevolent atheist," Joop said, "who abhorred useless punishment."

"The sergeant likes the idea of Nothing," Grijpstra told the Lakmakers. "He lives in an empty apartment and he doesn't have a car. He does buy clothes, though. Has them made. But he doesn't have many."

"Are you married?" Joop asked de Gier.

"He is not," Grijpstra said.

"Ever been married?"

"That wouldn't be consistent with his insight, would it now?" Grijpstra asked.

"You have a dog?"

"He lives with a cat," Grijpstra said.

"You really have no car?"

"Never," Grijpstra said.

"I did own an orange Deux Chevaux once," de Gier said, "but it was stolen."

"But he doesn't have a TV," Grijpstra said.

"And he doesn't talk much," Joop told his wife. "The fat policeman does that for him."

Grijpstra looked at Joop.

"Pordy," Joop said, patting his own protruding stomach. "I am sorry, policeman."

"Joop," warned Sara.

"So you like the idea of Nothing?" Joop asked de Gier. "You want to own Nothing or you want to be Nothing?"

De Gier was still chewing on his nonpareil.

"The sergeant wants to be Nothing," Grijpstra said. "But he can't tell you that because then he makes Something out of Nothing. We often discuss that apparent controversy. I always get tangled up."

"You would," Joop said.

"Joop," Sara warned.

"I'm sorry," Joop said. He smiled apologetically. "I would like to belong to Nothing too. That's why I refused to wear a star as a kid, even in spite of my parents, who said that I should, because the German Nazis were It then, and if It tells you to wear a star then you do that. But I didn't so I was Nothing, and I was playing outside, and that's why I am still Something today."

"So," de Gier said, "you felt attracted to this Bert Termeer, the man who was found in rags in Central Park, partly eaten by animals, under a filthy blanket."

"He seemed like a kind of prophet," Sara Lakmaker said.

"You like prophets?"

Sara did.

Perhaps, Grijpstra suggested on the way home to Amsterdam, with rain slapping against the windscreen, Sara had prolonged the interview because she felt attracted to handsome de Gier. Maybe Sara didn't want the sergeant to go as yet. De Gier shrugged that away. "Why not allow Mrs. Lakmaker to be nice?"

Grijpstra wouldn't do that.

Chapter 6

                                        The commissaris didn't have a good night physically, although mentally he qualified the episode as exciting. He was up a lot, with bathroom problems. He kept his headache down with the generic painkiller. He drank his cold tea, wondered whether he should disturb Room Service, emptied out the nonalcoholic contents of his small refrigerator. He did get some sleep but the long-legged streetcar driver kept appearing. In spite of what he had told Katrien, the recurring dream had definite sexual aspects, although he hardly felt aroused. The Angel of Death's hollow eye sockets might have put him off. He whimpered himself awake, tried to remember the dream's details, but they mostly slipped away. Frustrated, he found himself padding about barefoot on the thick Oriental carpet, hoping for daylight. Stopping at the suite's picture windows he could see shadowy figures moving in the park below, derelicts searching garbage cans for food. He told himself things could be worse, got back into bed and drank more soda.

He got up at nine o'clock; the "Modes of Death" lecture wasn't till eleven. The Cavendish's breakfast room was inviting enough, with a complete buffet, the fragrance of fresh rolls, a display of smoked fish, flowers everywhere, a marble fountain sprinkling in a corner, but he went out anyway, clasping his cane. A walk would do him good. He limped along, the pain in his hipbones dulled by codeine.

Thrushes sang as he found a restaurant off Madison Avenue, Le Chat Complet. He was feeling bad again. The restaurant occupied a basement with high narrow windows. Three tall black men with shaven skulls, wearing identical red jackets and red butterfly ties on impeccable white shirts, busied themselves behind the counter. They hummed as they filled orders shouted by waitresses darting about between the tables. The feet of passersby were visible in the high windows, occasionally the feet and legs of dogs. When a complete cat showed itself the cooks broke out into song.

"Le chat complet..."

There was also instrumentation: percussion on cowbells and what sounded like a sock cymbal, hidden under the counter. One of the cooks, in between breaking eggs and spearing sausages, played the xylophone on a row of labelless bottles.

The commissaris, waiting for his order of French toast and bacon, a menu item discovered during a previous visit to the USA (he also asked for fries, a potato dish he had tried to get Katrien to make, but she couldn't), compared the model in a painting with a little old lady bustling about the restaurant. The painting, three by four feet, dominated the cellar. It showed a naked black woman, in her thirties, with large firm breasts, reclining on a cane couch under palm trees. The woman was about to bite into a red apple. A black dog stared up at her. A blood red tongue lolled out of the dog's mouth. There were purple mountains in the background of the painting.

The commissaris was sure the old lady refilling coffee cups all over the restaurant was an older version of the luscious woman in the painting. Even in her white apron and red butterfly necktie she showed the same immoral attitude, an irresistible abandon, as in her earlier projection. He wondered where the painted scene was set.

"Haiti," the little old lady said when she came by to check his tea. "We from Haiti. The country.
La campagne."
She bent down to peer at his cup. "What you do to your tea?"

The painting had required all the concentration he had been able to muster for he had put both lemon and milk in his tea. The resulting fluid curdled in his mug.

"Stupide,"
the woman said. "Mamere bring you fresh tea. No charge. Because this my restaurant and you are
stupide."

The commissaris took his time over breakfast. The cellar filled up and he had to share his table. He hoped that another cat would set off the jazzy musical he had enjoyed before. No cat showed.

An unmarked police car driven by Sergeant Hurrell picked him up at the Cavendish and dropped him off at One Police Plaza in what, considering the distance and heavy traffic, seemed a surprisingly short time. Hurrell, who had guided the commissaris into the rear seat of the car, evidently wasn't looking for talkative company. He drove silently, scowling at black or turbaned cab drivers who wiggled fingers at him and smiled. Apparently there was a way for the drivers to recognize Hurrell's car as police. The commissaris cleared his throat and was about to ask for an explanation when Hurrell looked at his passenger via his mirror. "It's the type of antennae we use. Or maybe they can smell me."

In the reception hall there were speeches and coffee. The commissaris recognized colleagues from European countries. He waved and shook hands. German heels clicked. French hands flourished. A British detective chief smiled affably. Only the American hosts wore uniforms.

Dr. Russo was a handsome slim man who looked like he worked out regularly. His lecture was enthusiastic. Gory slides illustrated his subjects. The first slide showed a skull with a ragged hole in it. Russo explained that the human remnant was found in a pit dug to hold pillars that would support yet another super-tall building. The hole indicated foul play. "Someone bashed our friend," Russo said happily, "but he did so a very long time ago. My guess is four hundred years. We found other skulls nearby— keepsakes dating back to Indian executions."

There was the same picture, but now in color, and showing more detail, that the commissaris had faxed to his assistants in Amsterdam and that Adjutant Grijpstra, after deliberation, had not shown to Sara. The commissaris, studying the way the Central Park animals had consumed all of the belly, the genitals and part of the upper thighs, reflected on the unacceptability of identifying human existence with the body. Could this mess be what we are?

"Bodies definitely don't last."

He had said so aloud and an Oriental man sitting next to him, an official from Seattle, nodded agreement. "We had the same thing in a wooded area right next to a suburb. Just one night and pffftt.. .hardly enough for identification."

"Heart attack in Central Park," Dr. Russo said brighdy. "A crowd of a thousand people probably within shouting distance. This man must have fallen down and crawled about for a bit, ending up under flowering azalea bushes. There is some evidence that he was hit in the chest, possibly by a rotten branch. He was under a maple that had been struck by lightning a long time ago. A branch was torn off by strong winds that night. Subsequent research and inquiries reveal that subject was well dressed and nicely groomed when the heart attack occurred. At some time he was found and robbed, probably by homeless people, judging from the clothes swap. Maybe his feet stuck out of the bushes then. We found some signs that the body had been dragged further into the underbrush."

The pathologist clicked a dozen slides through his machine. Some slides showed the body remains from different angles. One slide focused on Termeer's beard. The dentures were shown. "Classy," Dr. Russo said. "There is gold in those dentures. They were found at some distance from the other remains."

The commissaris raised his hand. "How far away from the corpse, Doctor, please?"

Russo checked his notes. "Four feet from the body."

"Do you have prints from the robbers' feet?"

"No," Russo said. "I was hoping for that but there was too much disturbance. The animal tracks blotted out all human prints. The feeding frenzy must have made the varmints hyperactive. Pity. Human footprints can be conclusively identified." He shook his head. "But we could get no clear impressions." He looked at the commissaris. "You have a special interest, sir?"

The commissaris said he was looking into a complaint.

"I remember," Dr. Russo said. "Chief O'Neill mentioned you. You're from Amsterdam, right? Call my office anytime, we'll be happy to be of assistance. I think we can reassure your complainant that the unfortunate incident was an act of God or rather"—Dr. Russo smiled—"an unfortunate combination of a number of divine doings."

The audience laughed, like a taped background on a sitcom, the commissaris thought, as he found himself smiling assent politely.

The Seattle policeman spoke up. "Couldn't it be that whoever took the subject's clothes and possessions murdered him first?"

"Aggravated or even caused the heart attack by pushing the victim around, you suggest?" Russo said. "But there would have been no need. I can't show you all the scars of the bypass operation, because part of the chest area is missing, but the marks are there. We also have testimony from a neighbor that the subject was operated on within the last two years and told to take it easy. It seem that he did not do so. We have reports of the man running about the park."

"Thank you," the Seattle chief said.

"A subtle point," Russo said. "Morally, of course, we can argue that manhandling a dying person is a criminal act, especially when the activity involves robbing that person, but in such an instance it's hard to come up with a charge of murder."

"Suspect will say that he thought the victim was drunk," a voice said.

"Criminal negligence or recklessness," another voice said, "very hard to make that stand up in court."

"We have no suspects," a voice, which the commistsaris recognized as O'Neill's, said clearly. "Whoever robbed the victim is now hidden somewhere in a shelter. We tried but it would take too many hours to check all the homeless people in Manhattan."

"More questions?" Dr. Russo asked. "No? Then let me tell you about Maggotmaid."

"The commissaris's leg pains had come back in full strength but he forced himself to listen to Dr. Russo's lecture, knowing that the pain would be reduced to an inconsequential throb for as long as he could keep his mind focused on another subject.

The slide shown was the cover picture of the leaflet that had announced this police convention in New York. It showed the still, dead face of a young attractive woman. The slide was in full color. A white substance showed in the corners of the mouth. Spitde? No. Maggots. Russo seemed to take professional pleasure in clicking on other slides, magnifications of the whiteness. Each slide's higher magnification made clearer that the audience was looking at living matter: crawling maggots.

"The gal was found in the trunk of a brand-new Cadillac, parked in the hot sun in front of a deli."

The police chiefs listened as the pathologist enthusiastically described the smell of rotten flesh wafting steadily from the luxury automobile. The deli's owners, concerned about their business—their store window showed a display of choice meats—alerted the police. Uniformed officers forced the trunk with a crowbar.

People gasped when they saw a dead female human body, soon to be known as "Maggotmaid," stretched out in the car's ample trunk. There were no signs of violence but small pieces of broken glass and wood splinters were found in the dead woman's clothing during a painstaking investigation by forensic criminologists. Meanwhile, detectives traced the owner of the Cadillac, a vehicle with Texas license plates, to a nearby Upper West Side apartment. The subject, described by Russo as a Texan named Trevor, claimed ignorance. Yes, he vaguely knew the woman, a prostitute who could be picked up in Central Park, but he hadn't invited her to that weekend's party.

"But," the detectives said, "she was there." Splinters and glass matched a broken door inside the apartment. Trevor proposed that if Maggotmaid had been at the apartment rented in his name, a guest, friend or associate— a gate-crasher maybe?—might have brought her in. Any of Trevor's friends had access to his car keys. The keys hung in the apartment's hall. Several of his associates took turns changing the vehicle's parking spot, in obedience to alternate-side-of-the-street parking rules in the neighborhood. These associates also fed the parking meters, which would explain why the vehicle hadn't been towed away by traffic policemen. None of these associates happened to be around right then, but they did show up later. They confirmed having moved the Cadillac around and fed parking meters with coins. Nobody remembered having put Maggotmaid in the Caddy's trunk. Nobody had smelled the body. Which could be true, Dr. Russo said. Tests indicated that Maggotmaid had died during a Saturday night. She was found Wednesday afternoon, when the weather suddenly changed from fairly cool to hot. The Cadillac had been baking in the sun all that day.

"Maggotmaid died of an overdose of heroin," Russo said. "We ascertained that much. We also found that her body had penetrated a glass door in Trevor's apartment. Did she fall? Was she pushed?" He wobbled his eyebrows. "A small quantity of heroin was found in the main sitting room. There were a few grams of cannabis products here and there, and many empty bottles. Trevor claimed to have no knowledge of any drug use. Nobody came forward to admit ownership of the heroin and cannabis products."

There were questions.

No, no arrests had been made, Dr. Russo said, but the investigation was still ongoing. He checked his notes. "Under the guidance of Detective-Sergeant Earl Hurrell, assisted by Detectives-First-Class Tom Tierney and Jerry Curran."

Yes, Trevor was a suspected dealer of note, allegedly in charge of several retail salesmen who worked the park.

Had investigators come up with a theory so far? Well, it was quite simple. Maggotmaid had been brought in to entertain Trevor's guests. She overdosed and died. A dead body does little to improve a party. Trevor, or an associate, probably stoned and/or drunk, had carried the body down and dumped it in the Cadillac's trunk for the meantime. There must have been a plan to get rid of the body later, which wouldn't have been a big deal—there are the rivers, there is Central Park—but, as the partying went on, Maggotmaid was forgotten.

After the lecture the commissaris attended a luncheon offered by the NYPD to its distinguished guests and colleagues. He kept shivering through the speeches and toasts. He was reasonably sure he was running a high temperature. He felt faint. It seemed his glasses had fogged up again, which was strange for he had just blown and spat on them and rubbed them clean with his necktie.