The commissaris stepped out of his boots and began to rummage about. It didn't take long. He came back. 'These boots fit. What do you think about the coat, sergeant? Not that it matters, I'll take it anyway.'
'Yes,' the sergeant said. 'Very nice.' It was a hooded navy coat, heavily lined. The commissaris' thin, small face peeped out of the hood. The sergeant looked away.
'All right. How do I look? I wasn't so nice to you just now. You can tell me the truth, Rinus. How do I look? You can laugh too if you like. I am sure I look perfectly ridiculous.'
'You look like a movie star, sir.'
'A comic character. A Marx Brother? Chaplin? My favorite? Buster Keaton?'
'No, sir.'
'Who? Be honest, Rinus. You may not have another chance for a while.'
'Walt Disney character, sir. Out of Snow White.'
'A dwarf? Smiley? Grumpy? The fellow who sneezes?'
'Dopey, sir.'
The commissaris clapped his hands. There were just the two of them between die racks. The girl was waiting behind the counter for them to come out.
'Exactly. Well seen, sergeant. That's exactly how I feel and no doubt how I look. We are always the projection of what we think. Dopey. Here I am, with the puzzle of a lifetime staring me in the face. How many corpses? I made notes last night. If I read them I'll remember again. Five, I believe. This is America. Do you know that we get one real corpse every two months in Amsterdam? The others are accidents, suicides. These corpses are part of some web, a spider's web, with threads going everywhere, probably right into this store. But they are transparent and thin, although not quite invisible, I am sure. We'll find them if we apply the usual tested methods and persevere. And then there is this incredibly beautiful setting. I am not just referring to the landscape, sergeant. There's far more to it. You should have seen the car that picked me up yesterday, an elegant car. Who says there is no elegance in America? We've been misinformed. I have been anyway. Perhaps you know more, you read a great deal. What am I telling you anyway? You were flown in on a special jet. Did you see the two men who passed us in the street just now? They had guns on their belts, big revolvers. It's lawful here to carry arms. Even the police don't show their arms anymore in Amsterdam. Our pistols are hidden under tunics and coats. If you touch your gun, sergeant, you are expected to write a report and I have to countersign it.'
'Yes, sir.'
'All very well, of course. Our society functions in a way. But I have been thinking about other societies, and their possibilities, and here we seem to have die superb example of everything we haven't got. A bay. Hills. Mountains even. Gun-toters. Corpses. Lawmen in outdated uniforms. And you, of all people to pop up here, in that hat.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And I have to sell a house. There's nothing I can do here, sergeant, and there's nothing I will do either. I'll sell the house and go back and see what Grijpstra has been doing. A corpse in the canal, no doubt, some young man who uses drugs and had an argument with a friend and they poked at each other with knives. No identification, so we'll search about for a week and get a dozen well-trained detectives on the job and turn up all sorts of other misdemeanors that will interest other specialists. And meanwhile this has been going on here. Five corpses. Or six? I forget.'
'One of them is your brother-in-law, sir.'
The commissaris stopped waving his arms. 'Yes, sergeant, thank you. I hardly knew the man, of course, and I suspect that my sister is quite pleased about the whole thing, since she can go back to Holland now. If I can sell the house. I'll pay that young lady and we can go and have coffee and see the real estate agent. You'll have to carry your coat. Didn't you bring any warm clothes at all?'
'No, sir. I don't have any. Just a short coat. I never had a hat.'
'Neither did I. I always hated winter sports, but this is different.'
The commissaris paid and the girl took de Gier's coat. 'I'll drop it off at the jailhouse on my way home.'
'You know I stay here, miss?'
She smiled. 'Aren't you staying with the sheriff?'
'Yes.'
'Are you Canadian? I thought I heard you speak Canadian just now, when you were between the racks.'
'No, miss, we spoke Dutch. We are from the Netherlands, in Europe.'
'I don't know languages. We only hear Canadian here.'
'Don't Canadians speak English?'
'Some do I believe, but not here they don't.'
'French Canadian,' the commissaris said when they had arrived at Beth's Diner and were eating cream pie near a large square cookstove in the middle of the small restaurant.
'That's right, sir. I helped arrest a French Canadian yesterday, on the way from the airstrip. Speeding, drunken driving, and theft of the car. The suspect harassed the sheriff, but he was only charged with speeding. The other charges somehow disappeared. The sheriff said that the suspect wouldn't be able to pay the fines and released him on bail.'
'Don't they jail suspects for car theft?'
'May have been joy-riding, sir. The car belonged to a friend.'
The commissaris didn't seem eager to leave the warm room and he ordered more pie and coffee.
'That sheriff, sergeant. Tell me about him. Did you get close to him at all? He showed you that file. That would be an act of trust. Did you make any contact?'
'He made the contact, sir. He wanted to know what I was doing here and he used liquor to make me open up. I didn't mind-the liquor was whiskey, a very good brand, and I have nothing to hide. I don't think I convinced him; I am sure that he still thinks that I came in on the Orca angle. He must be supposing that your sister told you that she thought her husband was murdered and that you rushed out here to see for yourself and that you got the proper authorities to back you up. I came as a bodyguard and to be of help perhaps, a liaison between you and him. He asked me questions and I answered them truthfully. He knows that I work for the Amsterdam murder brigade and that you are a division chief, specialize in homicide, and are my direct boss. So…'
'So he talked too. Well, tell me what he told you, any detail, anything. My interest is theoretical, of course. Did the two of you get drunk?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well,' the commissaris said an hour later. 'Maybe there is something you can do, but I don't see where I fit in. I don't have a general who makes telephone calls on my behalf. Was the name Astrinsky mentioned at all?'
'Not last night, sir, but I saw a plane land, a very small plane, earlier on today, on an island just off Cape Orca. The jailhouse is on a hill and has a good view of the bay. I asked about the plane and the sheriff said that it belongs to Michael Astrinsky, the real estate agent here, and is often flown by his daughter, Madelin. She is friendly with a man who lives on that island. The man is old, used to be a New York businessman, and has been living here twenty years. Madelin sometimes flies in supplies. The man on the island is called Jeremy, and the island is called Jeremy's Island. He lives like a hermit, but he has some contact with the town.'
'I saw that island, sergeant, from my bedroom window. Very beautiful, especially at night. I saw no lights, but there is a jetty. A hermit, you say. I've always wanted to meet a hermit. I could go and see him. Try to see him. Maybe he doesn't want visitors.'
The commissaris asked for the bill and Beth brought more coffee. The two hunters who had flown in with the commissaris came in, sat down at the same table, and talked. Beth sat down and talked too. The commissaris said something pleasant about the large woodstove and Beth, a big-breasted woman in a tight sweater, took him by the hand and showed him the stove, explaining its various functions. The stove didn't just give warmth and cook food, it also baked bread, dried socks, and had what Beth called a waiting area for simmering soups and boiling water. The hunters joined the audience and everybody learned about what to use for firewood and what not, unless there was nothing else. Pine crackles, Beth said, and spruce pops, and alder bums too fast and gives so much heat that the stove may come apart. Birch, that's what should be used, and maple. Oak? the hunters asked. Yes, oak, but oak is expensive. Beech is even more expensive. There was more coffee again, and finally the commissaris was allowed to pay.
'Why don't we stay here?' the commissaris asked when they were back on Main Street. 'That came to half of
