The Sergeant's Cat Read online

  Grijpstra picked up the book and put it back on the shelf.

  “You like that passage?”

  “Adjutant,” Ravelaar said, exercising supreme effort to be­come calm. “Adjutant, you will agree that this is a comical mo­ment. To me it is the best scene in my most favorite tale.”

  “Not funny,” de Gier said, “not in this context.”

  “Not even,” Ravelaar asked, “when a real little devil flies into the sky, straight from Alicia’s house of horror?”

  “No,” Grijpstra said.

  Ravelaar’s thin eyebrows danced in indignation. “Please. Don’t tell me you don’t appreciate what went on here. It all fits in nicely. Alicia’s threatening presence becoming larger and larger, her kicking me out first. There goes Ravelaar, and all her subconscious animals laughed, and then her own wickedness took over, in the shape of Mighty Max, and then justice came about, and then, ha-ha . . . excuse me . . . there goes Max?” Rav­elaar tittered expectantly. “No . . . ?”

  “No,” de Gier said. “Are you crazy?”

  Ravelaar sat down. “No.” He grabbed the bottle and re­filled his jar. He drank.

  De Gier checked the books on the shelf. His forefinger followed an orderly row of leather-bound volumes that con­tained a complete series of articles on the application of tax laws. “Your specialty, I presume?”

  “Yes,” Ravelaar said. “My profession. I deal in justice.”

  “So you aren’t crazy?” Grijpstra asked.

  Ravelaar massaged the smile off his face. “No. Not nor­mally, and circumstances will excuse my present state of mind. You can forget that line of thought. Madness presupposes being able to prove that subject is a danger to others or himself. There are other conditions, too. An irregular life? I’m as regular as they come. Irresponsible behavior? I’ve always been known to pay my bills.”

  “Max died painfully,” de Gier said.

  “Good.” Ravelaar grinned. “That hairy horror has pestered me for years. You try and prune roses while a snarling and claw­ing varmint prepares his attack behind a bush. You take pleasure in neatly raked gravel when Misery Max translates your labors into the preparation of a giant litterbox. I ate stale bread; Mouthy Max lived on salmon and smoked eel.” The jenever bottle gur­gled angrily.

  “So much for Max,” Grijpstra said. “Your wife was blasted into death by an exploding cannon shell. Parts of her are still stuck to the mansion’s living-room ceiling. How about that, sir? Are we having justice again?”

  Ravelaar’s fingertips tried to knead his drink’s container.

  “We could become technical,” Grijpstra said. “A cannon shell in a magnificent mansion?”

  Ravelaar smiled stiffly. “Good question. I’ve been asking that myself. I came up with an answer. Alicia was neurotic. She collected like a magpie. There was no end to her greed for gleaming objects. She haunted the flea markets and secondhand stores. She was particularly fond of brass. Some hooligan sold her a live cannon-shell casing. She happily displayed it on the mantelpiece.”

  “Where it exploded?” Grijpstra asked.

  Ravelaar waved impatiently. “Wait. I am not done yet. Alicia liked to polish her wonderful possessions. She bought pol­ish by the drum. Polish, polish, polish.” He laughed, while both his hands rubbed air.

  Everyone stared at each other.

  “I see,” Grijpstra said.

  “But do you understand what you see?”

  “Not quite,” Grijpstra said. “Maybe it’ll come to me after a while. Meanwhile could you tell me how old you are?”

  Ravelaar got up. “Sixty-four springs have passed me by.”

  “Can you explain to me what you do for a living?”

  Ravelaar bowed. “With pleasure. The office that will retire me next week fights the Tax Audit Bureau on behalf of clients. I am their most respected and underpaid slave. Senior inspectors, however, tend to accept my suggestions. If not, they know they’ll be cruelly defeated. I prepare my cases carefully, approach slyly, my attack is lethal. I will miss making mincemeat out of them.”

  “Try us,” Grijpstra said.

  Ravelaar rubbed his hands, then winked.

  “Let’s go,” de Gier said.

  “One more little question,” Grijpstra said at the door.

  “I knew you would do that,” Ravelaar said. “All authorities are trained the same way. Cajole suspect into dropping his de­fense, then strike.” He caressed Grijpstra’s arm. “Go on, Adju­tant, let’s have your unexpected sudden trip-up.”

  Grijpstra led the way down the little building’s steep stairs. Outside, he looked around. “You take care of the park your­self?”

  Ravelaar bowed. “Alicia wouldn’t spend money on up­keep. This is a perfect example of the garden art of yesteryear, conceived by masters, kept up by humble me.”

  “So why,” Grijpstra asked, “stop short of the pond?”

  “That dirty swamp?”

  “Yes, now maybe,” de Gier said, “because you paid it no attention. If you had, you could be keeping great crested grebes, cormorants, swans—growing water lilies in between the waving reeds.”

  Ravelaar looked unhappy. “I don’t care for water.”

  The three of them stepped back as an ambulance, the patrol car, and fire trucks drove past them toward the gates.

  “The property borders the river,” de Gier said.

  “The river can’t reach me,” Ravelaar said, “and the pond I will fill in. Never mind the hellish dreams . . .”

  “Drowning dreams?” Grijpstra asked kindly.

  Ravelaar shivered.

  “Chilly?” de Gier asked. “Better get back inside. We will be seeing you again, no doubt.”

  •

  “Here you are again,” Ravelaar said, “two disturbers of the Sunday peace.” He held up a crystal flask, pointed at long-stemmed goblets.

  The detectives declined.

  “It’s all yours now?” Grijpstra asked.

  “There were never any children,” Ravelaar said.

  “All yours,” de Gier said. “The mansion is being worked on already; then there’s the park, the Mercedes, a million guil­ders invested by your wife in a mutual fund.”

  “Another half million,” Grijpstra said, “in life insurance. Unusual, rather. Husband collects on dead wife?”

  “I had the mutual clause inserted,” Ravelaar said, “to raise the policy’s sense of justice. In my modern view, both marriage partners have equal emotional worth. In case of death, the sur­viving party has her or his anguish tempered with cash.”

  “You’ve manipulated yourself into a position of perfect freedom,” Grijpstra said, looking out of the apartment’s win­dow. He smiled. “Luxury, beauty, solitude, no low-level wor­ries.”

  Ravelaar smiled, too. “I like you, sir. You may not be too far removed from my level of perception. There’s still a bit of a gap, but I see a willingness to close it. Can’t say as much for your uncouth friend.”

  “You’re my top suspect,” de Gier said sharply.

  “See?” Ravelaar shouted. He leered at Grijpstra. “I’ve met your henchman’s type before, in the Audit Bureau. Ea­ger nincompoops who never fail to come in from the wrong angle.” He glared at de Gier. “You really see a chance to blame me for that mishap? You can’t even think of charging me with murder here. The facts and circumstances do not add up to a criminal situation. I’ll review your so-called case for you, once and for all. My deceased wife, Alicia, unwittingly purchases a live cannon shell in another hopeless attempt to complete her magpie’s collection of gleaming objects. The shell somehow explodes. All by itself. I wasn’t even anywhere close. My visits to the main house were both rare and brief. How could I have noticed a live shell among all those shiny whatevers?”

  “Watch this,” de Gier said. He held an invisible object between
his legs and moved his free hand in a rubbing manner.

  “Are you masturbating?” Ravelaar asked.

  “The sergeant is polishing an Oerlikon shell,” Grijpstra said. “The faster and the longer he rubs, the more heat is gen­erated. The temperature within the shell rises to the danger point.”

  De Gier stopped smiling. “Kaboom?” he asked softly. “A neurotic lady venting her frustrated energy on an explosive phal­lic object?”

  Ravelaar studied the glowing fluid in his goblet.

  “Polish, polish, polish,” de Gier said.

  Ravelaar nodded. “Yes. You may have something there, Sergeant.” He smiled forgivingly. “Alicia was rather a frustrated woman. That activity you demonstrated could be sexual, yes; why not? She didn’t have any normal sexual outlets, of course.” He gestured. “Not much of a looker, you know. Short. Chubby. Thick spectacles, not much nose. Rather looked like an owl, I thought.”

  Grijpstra grimaced. “Don’t miss her much, do you now?” He opened his notebook. “We did our homework. Your re­tirement income is less than half of your salary.” He flicked a page. “Your marriage contract held you liable for half the estate’s upkeep.” He put the notebook away. “Character witnesses de­fine you as extremely stubborn, quite incapable of negotiating a better agreement with your estranged wife. You were a soldier during the war; you would know about shells.”

  “You found one at the flea market?” de Gier asked.

  “Yes?” Grijpstra asked.

  “Proof?” Ravelaar asked.

  “Arrest him, I say,” de Gier said in the car. Grijpstra grunted while admiring a flock of ducks, coming in low from across the river. A wild goose floated slowly forward between the cattails at the water’s near side. “Look,” Grijpstra said. “I think I can use that bird. Good model for my next Sunday painting.”

  “Not now,” de Gier said. “I’m working.”

  Grijpstra grinned grimly. “Work audibly, Sergeant.”

  “I say, harass the cat-killer,” de Gier said gruffly. “Keep dropping in on him from time to time. Send him official little letters, ordering him to Headquarters on a few days’ notice. Steam his brain, I say, rattle his conscience. I’ll record my cat and have a tape meow in the bushes. Loud Siamese yells? A full moon? I can get a raccoon’s tail at a furrier’s. Attach it to a line? Dangle it through the mansion’s chimney?”

  “The suspect killed his wife as well as a cat,” Grijpstra re­minded him.

  “I’m too tall,” de Gier said. “You could dress up like her, wait for a foggy night? Dance in the park? On one of those lawns?”

  Grijpstra pondered. “Nah.”

  “Got to do something.”

  “Yes,” Grijpstra said. “But your ice is too thin. Let’s stay on decent ground.”

  “Then do what?”

  “Wait,” Grijpstra said, rapping his knuckles against the Volkswagen’s roof. “Wait for nice justice.”

  Autumn came and went. Rain became sleet; sleet changed into snow. The Volkswagen’s windshield wipers protested squeakily.

  “Where?” de Gier asked.

  “Amstel Dike,” the radio answered. “Just this side of the city limits. A car slipped into the river and broke through the ice. Our wrecker hauled it out, but the driver seems to be miss­ing. Try to assist.”

  “Will do,” de Gier said. He pushed the microphone back into its clip and shook Grijpstra’s shoulder. “Are you there, Ad­jutant?”

  “Tell us?” Grijpstra asked a constable directing traffic on the dike.

  “Over there,” the constable said. “A large Mercedes skid­ded off the curve in front of that stately mansion, slithered onto the river’s ice, and sank, but we managed to retrieve it. The driver must have freed himself, but the body is still missing. See my mate walking on the ice? He could use some help.”

  Grijpstra moved along slowly, anxious not to slip. De Gier shuffled along. “Thin ice?” de Gier asked. “Last time you said it.”

  “Your turn,” the constable on the river said. “Take my broom. Sweep off the snow so that we can look through the ice.”

  De Gier swept with broad strokes.

  “There,” Grijpstra gasped.

  Ravelaar floated on his back an inch under the ice, arms spread, legs stretched out; his eyes protruded, his mouth hung open.

  “Looks crucified,” de Gier said softly. “Let’s get him out.”

  The constable had fetched a sledgehammer and was banging on the ice. Each bang produced a jerky movement in the corpse, moving it closer to the area of open water. Grijpstra and de Gier followed slowly. Grijpstra sighed. “I told you we had only to wait.”

  De Gier nodded, then stepped back as the body suddenly bobbed up, half jumped, and slid up onto the far side of the ice.

  “There goes Ravelaar,” Grijpstra said.

  The Letter in the Peppermint Jar

  That night I worked in the com­munications room, Headquarters, Amsterdam Municipal Police, at Moose Canal. I had been working there for a while, always at night, through to early morning, I liked that—nice and quiet. Calls are often bizarre: ladies who are bothered by singing mice or a retired commando lieutenant who reports that the neighbors are throwing grenades again—not that he minds much but should we have a patrol car in the neighborhood we might check it out. I could have been off sick, with pay, but I never liked playing the system for all I could get. There wasn’t much both­ering me, except a lame leg that was repairing itself and didn’t hurt that much.

  An invalid cop on active duty? Why not? It happens in the highest ranks. Our chief of detectives can’t walk without his cane, and my problem was only temporary. The commissaris suffers from chronic rheumatism, I had been shot. His rheu­matism isn’t his fault, my invalidism was caused by lack of pro­fessional know-how.

  A colleague—we call him Ketchup because things tend to get bloody when the constable is around—shot me during a bank robbery. Two unemployed Arab immigrant laborers, armed with toy guns, had held up a bank at Spui Street. I should have paid attention. I was also out of luck that day. It doesn’t do to be riding in a minibus driven by Ketchup, about to pick up some suspects at Warmoes Street Precinct, when foreign gangsters are threatening bank tellers half a kilometer away. Cops are armed with a real good handgun these days, the Walther P-5 (touch the trigger and deadly bullets fly). No safety on the weapon, we carry it loaded and ready. Ketchup aims, Ketchup fires, Ketchup hits two Arabs (lethal chest and stomach wounds) and an extra bullet pierces the muscles of my left thigh.

  Ketchup apologized, and he and Karate, his pal (the two have been palling together for years now, in a nice apartment overlooking the Amstel River, that’s okay these days), have been taking me out sailing on the Inland Sea in their yacht, and flying me over the islands in their Cessna, and taking me to dine in the better restaurants on their foreign credit cards, and relaxing me with what-not else, until I begged off. Too much hard-to-explain luxury makes me nervous. Now how can two Amster­dam street cops afford that sort of thing, eh? I did ask and Karate said he and Ketchup buy antique postage stamps as a hobby, and make a fortune that way, buying in Amsterdam, selling in the Seychelles (that’s between Africa and India, a likely location, but I know they do fly there sometimes, spending time with tax-free millionaires). Okay, we all know that the Dutch Police Force is not corrupt. Right? No protection of drug deals? No ignored arms shipments to bad-guy land? Out of our magical Amsterdam? Never.

  The term, I believe, is “denial.”

  I have no extra income myself, not so much because I be­lieve in ideals, but because I like living the simple life. In those days I rode a bicycle that I carried up three flights of stairs to my two-room apartment. I read library books and I lived on Marnix Street. Ever been there? Marnix Street resembles a long narrow gutter. It’s a dark street, even on a sunny day, but it suited my mood then. My only complaint was
that the big yellow streetcars were a bit noisy, which interfered with my piano playing. I did have a nice piano, in addition to a bed, a chair, and a table. And a planter to grow white geraniums in during summer (during wintertime they got too spindly and I would cut them down) and I owned a hundred CDs, mostly Miroslave Viteous, the way-out bass player, and my idols: Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett. Mostly somewhat difficult music.

  Uncle Franz, who dialed the emergency number that night and got me on the line, asked if I was still “spiritually subsisting in my little dark hole.” He knew that the skin graft on my thigh was doing nicely and that I worked nights in the communica­tions room.

  I became upset—this number is for emergencies only and I suspected that he was going to bother me with his philosophical monologues. But Uncle Franz said that his call constituted an emergency, although “it hadn’t happened yet.” A future emer­gency, he would have me know.

  I worried that his sobriety had come to an untimely end, that he had gotten into his favorite brand of jenever again, cold syrupy juniper-flavored gin. He assured me everything was just fine. He did talk rather slowly, but he was in his eighties then, and he had always talked slowly. The man lived like a master plays chess, planning his moves, taking his time. Uncle Franz was special, a genius. During World War II he worked in Ger­many, where he put submarines together, devising and running a faultless web of locations where parts of U-boats—that type of equipment requires a lot of parts—were assembled quickly and efficiently.

  Even during the heavy Allied bombing of all of German industry, those submarines were launched out of Hamburg once a week. Thanks to my little old uncle.

  Uncle Franz never had ideals and he was uninterested in morals. I honestly believe that he never even thought about what the Nazis wanted to achieve. Uncle Franz liked to juggle large numbers of factors, parts, techniques, play complicated games against the forces of chaos. “To order the all-prevailing mess and thereby create a working pattern that gets things done, Nephew.” The very idea made him smile. He claimed he only worked “for the hell of it,” but he also made a personal fortune. He liked to gamble, not with cards or dice, but with practical projects. “With chaos itself.”