Tumbleweed (5 page)

"So what will you do now?" the commissaris said.

The two policemen got up and began to walk to the door.

"Watch him," the older officer said. "If he spends ten thousand dollars on a whore he isn't a very good security risk."

"Who is?" the commissaris asked.

"He didn't do it," Grijpstra said.

"No," de Gier said.

They had a long drive, three hours to the north and nearly three hours to the south, they were almost back in Amsterdam.

"Nice chap," Grijpstra was saying, "a happy man. Happy in his job, happily married."

"Sickening, isn't it?" de Gier asked

"No. Why? Men should be happy."

"It isn't natural."

"Perhaps not," Grijpstra agreed, "but it is nice to see an exception, to actually meet one in the flesh. I really liked the man."

"But it was a wasted trip," de Gier said moodily, trying to overtake a large truck which was wavering slightly.

"He is asleep. Honk your horn."

De Gier honked. A hand appeared from the cabin's window and waved them on.

"Saved his life," Grijpstra said. "Must have been driving for more than his legal eight hours. You could stop him and ask him to produce his logbook."

"No," de Gier said, "this is an unmarked car, you have been in uniform too long."

"Right," Grijpstra said. "Let's sum up. We went to see Maria van Buren's former husband. He married her in
, ten years ago, when she was twenty-four. They spent a year on the island together and came to Holland. He took her to the North where he got a job as a director of a textile factory. She was bored. She liked him, and she liked pottering about in the garden, and she did a bit of sailing on the lakes and she visited the islands, but she was bored all the same. He didn't have much time to spend on her so she took to sailing by herself. She was often gone for the day. She started staying away for the nights as well. She spent an occasional weekend in Amsterdam by herself. He objected and they were divorced. No children. He married again, six years ago and he is happy. His new wife is nice, we met her. We saw the children, a toddler and a baby. Nice children. He used to pay alimony but she wrote to him and told him he didn't have to send her money so he stopped. That was three years ago. He hasn't seen her since they were divorced. And most important of all, he has an alibi. He couldn't have been in Amsterdam on Saturday, or on Friday, or on Sunday. He wasn't there so he didn't kill her. He didn't have any reason to kill her either. And he seemed genuinely sorry that she had been murdered. I believed him. Didn't you?"

"Sure," de Gier said. "I believed him, and I never believe an ex-husband when his former wife has been murdered. Husbands and ex-husbands are always prime suspects in a murder case."

"Yes," Grijpstra said heavily. "So what else did this prime suspect tell us?"

"That she comes from a good family,
high society. Her father is an important businessman. He is still alive, so is her mother. She has several sisters, all beauties. They sent her to Holland and she went to high school here and spent a few years at a university, studying Dutch literature. We'll have to ask the Curacao police to find out what they can. That'll be easy, we can get them on the Telex and we can phone. I have telephoned to
before, there's only a few minutes' delay."

"So what else?"

"Nothing else," de Gier said. "We have wasted a day."

"It's impossible to waste a day," Grijpstra said. "We did something, didn't we?"

"We could have stayed home," de Gier said. "It's nice to stay at home. I could have read a book on the balcony of my flat. It has been a beautiful sunny day. I could have talked to my cat and I could have gone to a nursery. I want some more plants on my balcony."

"Plants," Grijpstra said. "I spoke to the doctor before we left. He checked those weeds with his friend. You know what they were?"

"No. You know I don't know what they were."

"One was belladonna, one was deadly nightshade, and the third was datura or thorn apple."

"So?"

"Poisonous. All three of them. And they are used by sorcerers."

"Botanists," de Gier said. "I told you we would become botanists."

"Not botanists," Grijpstra said. "We'll have to become sorcerers."

5

T
HAT SAME EVENING, CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT, A LARGE BLACK sedate car was heading for Amsterdam, forty-five minutes away from The Hague, where it had spent an hour parked in front of the Belgian embassy.

The commissaris was asleep on the back seat, his frail body slumped against Grijpstra. Grijpstra was awake and moodily contemplating the dark fields flashing past and remembering the evening's long fruitless conversation, and de Gier and the constable-driver were whispering to each other on the front seat.

"I can't keep my eyes open," the young constable whispered to de Gier. "It's hopeless, I am no good as a driver. I have put in my fourth application for a transfer but it will be refused again for the commissaris seems to like me. I have almost killed him and myself and people in other cars, I have driven the car off the road half a dozen times, I have fallen asleep waiting for traffic lights to change color but he won't give in. He says I'll get used to it. I'll never get used to it. The sound of an engine makes me sleepy, I get sleepy as soon as I turn the starter key. And I am sleepy now."

"Shall I hit you in the face?" de Gier asked.

"Won't help. I only stay awake when somebody talks to me. Tell me a story, sergeant."

"A story?" de Gier asked. "What sort of story?"

"Anything," the constable said, "but try and make it a good story. You investigate crimes, don't you? You should know lots of good stories. Or you can talk football to me. I am serious, you know. I am falling asleep; I have been on duty since seven o'clock this morning."

"Some driver," de Gier said.

"I told you I shouldn't be a driver. Now will you tell me a story or do you prefer me to smash up the car? We are doing exactly a hundred kilometers an hour and it is a heavy car. She'll probably bounce off the steel rail on our left and turn over a few times. The passenger on the front seat always gets hurt worst."

"Why didn't you sleep in the car while you were waiting for us at the embassy?"

"I tried, but I can't sleep when the car is stationary. It's the combination of movement and the sound of the engine that gets me. Look at my eyelids, they are half down. I can't control the muscles."

De Gier sighed. "Once upon a time, some ten years ago, two years after I had become a uniformed constable doing street duty, we had a murderer in the inner city."

"That's it," the constable said, "go on. I am listening."

"We never saw him but we found his tracks and there were witnesses and gradually we built up a picture of what the murderer was supposed to look like, but it was difficult for he only killed late at night, in dark narrow alleys where nobody lives. The alleys are only alive during the day when the merchants move their stocks in and out of their warehouses; at night nobody goes there except cheap prostitutes and their clients. The few people who claimed to have caught a glimpse of the killer gave strange descriptions. This murderer didn't have teeth like you or me but fangs. He didn't walk, he bounced, with great leaping strides, and he had long black hair and a thick curly beard and bloodshot small eyes, and he dressed in a long black duffelcoat with a hood. Are you listening?"

"Sure, sure," the constable at the wheel said. "Go on, sergeant."

"He only killed women and we used to find the corpses in the morning. He had torn them apart and their limbs were scattered all over the alleys. We found out that he would climb the gables of the warehouses and flatten himself on a windowsill so that he would be no more than a black blob and when the women walked underneath him he would jump them. Sometimes he would throttle them and sometimes he would bite right through their necks, tearing the veins and the muscles."

"Jesus," the constable muttered.

"Yes," de Gier said, speaking in a very low whisper, almost hissing the words, "in those days we had real crimes. But it got too bad, one night the murderer killed two women and the commissaris decided to go all out and catch him."

"You said you found his tracks," the constable whispered. "What did you find? Footprints? Fingerprints?"

"He wore gloves," de Gier said, "but we did find his footprints where he had walked through the blood of his victims. We decided that he was a very big man, well over six feet tall and powerfully built. And we always found peanut shells."

"Peanut shells?"

"Yes. We also found the empty paper bags. It seemed he lived on peanuts for we would find as many as six bags in one spot where he would have been waiting for some time. The bags were traced to the Chinese quarter, where there were a lot of unemployed people at that time. The Chinese bought cheap peanuts in bulk and roasted them and then sold them on the street for next to nothing."

"So the commissaris decided to catch him, hey?" the constable said. "Which commissaris? Our commissaris?"

"The very man," de Gier said, turning around to look at the back seat where the commissaris was snoring gently, supported by Grijpstra's arm.

"What did he do?" the constable asked.

"He mobilized the entire police force. We had some six hundred men in the old city that night. Everybody had to come, even useless types like clerks and subinspectors and drivers. We had been properly armed for the occasion and all the constables had carbines. The sergeants and adjutants carried submachine guns and hand grenades and I was in charge of three men who knew how to fight with a flame thrower. The mounted men came with us and their horses were snorting all around. Behind us we could hear the motor cops, they still had Harley Davidsons in those days, and the engines, in first gear, growled. The armored cars of the military police had come out as well and their metal tracks grinding over the cobblestones caused sparks which lit up the alleys; the half-tracks looked very spectacular and the moonlight made the helmets of the drivers glint. We had a general warrant and had been given keys to all the ware-houses and the detectives who were following us searched every building, every house. The boats of the State Water Police had joined us too, they were blocking the canals in case the killer should try to escape us in the water. We could hear their diesel engines idling as we were sneaking through the narrow streets on our thick rubber soles."

"So?" the constable whispered.

"It was the biggest operation I have been part of," de Gier said, "and it went on all night but we never had a glance of him. He must have stayed in his lair, sharpening his fangs with a file and doing physical exercises to keep fit."

"Some story," the constable said in a loud voice.

"Shhh, you'll wake up the commissaris," de Gier whispered. "I haven't finished yet. The commissaris was frustrated of course, but he didn't give in. He never does. He locked himself into his room for two days and thought and nobody was allowed to disturb him, not even his pet driver whom he was very fond of. And after two days he came out with a plan."

"A plan," the constable repeated.

"A psychological plan. He called Grijpstra and myself and three other men and told Grijpstra that he would have to go into the inner city by himself that night. Grijpstra did. We followed him, of course, but at a distance. Grijpstra had been given a large paper bag of the very best freshly roasted peanuts and we were all carrying bags as well, to give to Grijpstra in case he shouldn't have enough. The commissaris had told him that he should be eating peanuts all the time and talk to himself. He had to say, 'marvelous peanuts these' and 'very fresh, these peanuts, nice and crackly' and 'boy! I have never eaten such delicious peanuts in all my life.'"

"Peanuts," the constable repeated in a suspicious voice.

"Peanuts. Grijpstra had eaten four bags of peanuts and just started on his fifth when the killer rushed him. All we saw was a dark shadow flashing past. He tried to hit Grijpstra in the neck and to grab the bag at the same time but Grijpstra was alert and sidestepped and tripped him up. We were all on him at the same time and we threw a net over him, a special net which the commissaris had ordered from a firm which makes nets for catching sharks. It was a terrible fight and he nearly got away but we did manage to subdue him. Even Grijpstra helped although he was suffering from shock and full of peanuts and finally we overpowered the killer."

"Who was he?" the constable asked.

"I'll tell you some other time," de Gier said, changing his voice to normal. "You can drop me off here, I live in this street. You actually managed to reach Amsterdam. Congratulations."

The car stopped and the commissaris woke up. "Are you getting out, de Gier?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. I live here."

"Why don't you come home with me, you and Grijpstra. I live close by and you can walk home afterwards and Grijpstra can take a taxi. We'll have a drop of brandy and discuss what we should do tomorrow."

"Sir," de Gier said and got back in the car.

His mood improved when the commissaris raised his glass. The brandy smelled good, very good, and the commissaris was charming. He had apologized for keeping them so late and had flattered the two detectives by saying that he was enjoying working with them. He had gone to the kitchen and filled two bowls with chips and he had given Grijpstra the best chair in the room.

"Now," the commissaris said, "we don't seem to have achieved much tonight. It was clear that Mr. Wauters, our Belgian diplomat friend, wasn't prepared to tell us more than he had to. It was also clear that he didn't have an alibi."

De Gier took another sip and made the brandy roll on his tongue. He saw the noncommittal face of the diplomat again. The diplomat had been very polite. He had spent Saturday night in his bachelor flat, by himself. He had watched a little TV and gone to sleep early. He hadn't left his flat, he hadn't gone to Amsterdam, and he hadn't killed Mrs. van Buren.

"He admitted that Maria van Buren was his mistress," the commissaris said, "and he admitted that he paid her a monthly sum. He wouldn't say how much. He knew, he said, that she had other friends but he had always pretended not to know. An arrangement between her and him. Very convenient. Live and let live. Avoid costly confrontations. A true diplomat."

"He didn't seem sorry she had died," de Gier said.

"Yes," the commissaris said, "that's an important observation. I noted the same reaction when I saw the American colonel this morning. The colonel was relieved, and so was Mr. Wauters. They saw the woman regularly, they went there to see her on their own accord, they spent money on her, a lot of money in the colonel's case and possibly also in the diplomat's case, but they were relieved to hear that they wouldn't have to go to see her again."

"Strange," Grijpstra said.

"A witch," de Gier said.

"Beg pardon?" the commissaris asked.

"A witch, sir. She cultivated funny plants, we mentioned it in our report and the doctor confirmed that the plants we found in her houseboat were poisonous. Belladonna and nightshade and something else, I forgot the name."

"Ah yes," the commissaris said, "I saw the report. Herbs. The third was thorn apple. Herbs are a craze nowadays, everybody cultivates them. But people cultivate them for their kitchens and for medicinal purposes. Nobody would cultivate poisonous plants."

"Mrs. van Buren did," Grijpstra said.

"You are suggesting that she was brewing poisons?" the commissaris said, looking at de Gier, "brews which she made her victims drink and which paralyzed their will power in some way so that they were forced to come back to her?"

De Gier didn't answer.

"Could be," the commissaris said. "Maybe she cast a spell on them. Perhaps the spell consisted of her own sexual power and whatever she made them drink or eat or smoke. Or perhaps she burned a powder and they inhaled the poison.

The one force would enhance the other and they would only be satisfied if they got the two together. But it is far-fetched. It's romantic, of course."

"De Gier is very romantic," Grijpstra said.

The commissaris chuckled and refilled their glasses. "Your health, gentlemen." They drank.