Grijpstra sang 'When the Saints Go Marching In.'
De Gier reached for his trumpet and played the phrase on his instrument. He put the trumpet back.
Grijpstra explained what he knew of the case so far.
'Jo Termeer mentioned that tune?' De Gier stretched his foot toward the cat who rolled over on her back expecting a massage. 'How did Jo know the Saints were marching while Uncle Bert was dying? Jo wasn't there, he was here, cutting hair in this very suburb, in Outfield.'
Tabriz meowed pleasurably, but loudly, while her master's toes kneaded her bare belly. De Gier kneeled next to the cat. He circled Tabriz's mouth with thumb and index finger, and tightened his grip rhythmically. Tabriz meowing became structured into a musical 'wah-wah-wah.'
'I spent most of the afternoon questioning Jo Termeer,' de Gier said. 'If I am collaborating on this case I would like to be properly briefed. I wasn't told about the Saints. I could have caught Termeer in a contradiction.'
He frowned at Grijpstra.
'Termeer's information is based on double hearsay,' Grijpstra said. 'Uncle Bert's neighbor, landlord and part-time help, Charlie, told Jo that the song was being played when Uncle Bert was seen last. Charlie was told by passersby who were there at the time. Charlie is no witness either.'
'Did neighbor Charlie interview possible witnesses to Uncle's death?' de Gier asked.
'Musical saints supposedly marched,' Grijpstra said. 'Not only that, an elderly couple was seen-foreign tourists-pointing out an alleged corpse to a mounted policeman.' Grijpstra shook his head. 'A policewoman, I should say.'
'Aha aha,' de Gier said, 'all news to me, friend. So you kept the information hidden so as to hear from me what Jo would come up with when I questioned him.'
'Jo Termeer didn't mention an elderly tourist couple? Middle class? Foreign?'
'No,' de Gier said. 'Young Termeer reported he called at the Central Park Precinct and saw the desk- sergeant. The cop only knew about a dead derelict, found under a filthy blanket, a homeless person dressed in rags, and told complainant that an investigation was in progress.'
'Embarrassment of corpses?' Grijpstra asked. 'America the violent? Dead bodies galore?'
'Same body,' de Gier said. 'Charlie had identified the corpse as his dead neighbor. Termeer also saw a Sergeant Hurrell at Central Park Precinct. There 'was the language barrier again. Hurrell may have said that he would keep Termeer informed.'
'No sense,' Grijpstra said sadly. 'It never makes sense. It never will either, unless we attempt to put it there. Show me your flimsy construction of how the facts we have determined might possibly connect.'
'I don't construct in my free time,' de Gier said. 'It should be your free time too. Why bother me? Bother Nellie. Paint dead ducks in your empty apartment. Go home and play your drums.'
In order to placate de Gier, Grijpstra recited his newly found, improved, partly stolen and combined poetry.
'Pure emptiness illuminated by the void's divine glow, or is it a cold absence of necessities lit meaninglessly by a dim bulb suspended from a peeling ceiling?
I flee either choice and wait, in wet slashing darkness, at an alien bus stop, where my soul glows red in sinful flashes.'
De Gier made Tabriz do more 'wah-wah-wah.' After that he applauded.
'I wasn't going to the whores,' Grijpstra said.
'You were coming to me,' de Gier said. 'To try and fill your void with meaningless work.' He smiled forgivingly. 'Okay. I will humor you.'
While making his report de Gier used the singsong of his native Rotterdam dialect which never failed to make Grijpstra crack up. 'Please,' sobbed Grijpstra. 'Cut it out. Can't you speak like real people?'
Tabriz got hiccups and had to be picked up, turned over and shaken gently.
Seriousness returned.
De Gier reported, using the proper Amsterdam dialect, that Reserve Constable-First-Class Jo Termeer, during the course of an in-depth interrogation ordered by the commissaris, had made a good impression.
'Define good,' Grijpstra told de Gier.
De Gier explained that Termeer seemed modest, polite, reliable, concise in stating his complaint. Not a dumb fellow by any definition. Perhaps lacking in education. 'Like yourself,' de Gier said. 'Talented, diligent, but not somebody who questions reality.'
Grijpstra recognized the type. 'No quest. Energy spent on artful hobbies. Termeer is into Sunday painting? Dabbles in music perhaps?'
De Gier found and consulted his notebook. 'Critical viewing of movies.'
'Ah,' Grijpstra said. 'What kind of movies?'
'Action and bizarre.'
'What kind of action?' Grijpstra asked.
'Fighting movies.'
'What kind of bizarre?'
'Don't know,' de Gier said.
'You didn't pursue that query?'
De Gier shook his head. 'Jo likes movies set in Australia.'
'Bizarre Australian movies?'
De Gier nodded. 'And futuristic.'
'Bizarre Australian futuristic action movies,'
Grijp-stra summarized.
'That's it,' de Gier said.
'Sexual preference?'
'Movie?'
'Termeer,' Grijpstra said.
'Right, homosexual, lives with a colleague called Peter.'
'Did you meet with Peter?'
De Gier, after the interrogation of complainant Jo Termeer at police headquarters, had driven over to Outfield, picked up Peter at the hair-care salon and interviewed Jo's partner in a nearby cafe.
'Direction of interview?' Grijpstra asked.
'Straightforward,' de Gier said. 'I told Peter that we were analyzing a complaint and checking some background.'
'Showed your police I.D.?'
'Sure. Of course.'
'Describe subject.'
De Gier described Peter as a slender, active, intelligent forty-year-old black male. Fashionably dressed.
'Overdressed?'
'No.'
'Mannerisms?'
'Effeminate?' de Gier asked. 'No.'
'How black?'
'Midnight black.'
'Made a good impression?' Grijpstra said. 'Right?
You liked Peter.'
'Yes,' de Gier said. 'Sure.'
'Believable?'
'That's right.'
'You discussed your admiration for black jazz with Peter?'
'I did not,' de Gier said.
'And friend Peter thinks that Termeer is right to consult the Amsterdam Murder Brigade re the possible criminal nature of his uncle's death?'
