'How do you like the eggs?' Beth asked. 'Don't they taste funny?'
'Taste good,' the sheriff said. 'Fine,' de Gier said. 'Excellent,' the commissaris said. 'Why, Beth?'
Beth made a face. 'Duck eggs. I bought them from Bert. He came around hawking diem. Robert's Market has been out of eggs ever since the truck turned over, so Bert can ask a price. I told him he was overcharging, and I asked him whether he had anything to do with the egg truck going off the road. He didn't like that. He slammed the door when he left. Look.'
The sheriff glanced at the door. The glass in it was cracked.
'Have it repaired, Beth. Then order more eggs and don't pay. If Bert gets disturbed tell him to talk to me. Bert hasn't got a sense of humor yet. Maybe you and I can teach him a little.'
Beth laughed, poured more coffee, and walked back to her stove.
'Now,' the sheriff said, wiping his mouth, 'I spoke to Leroux yesterday. Or maybe I should say that I listened to him. He didn't sing like a canary, but he certainly chirped like a chickadee. He didn't have much choice of course. I was holding the ax and his head was on the block. I explained that to him and he agreed in the end. And now he has a job for the rest of the winter so he doesn't lose out.'
'What did you learn, sheriff?'
'Most everything I wanted to learn. Leroux is a proper local. He knows all the concerned parties and he knows how they tie in together. He isn't a stupid man by any means. He doesn't only feel the undercurrents, he can describe what they've been doing and how they're working at this particular moment. He did some nice evasive footwork when it came to pointing the finger, but he did intimate who could perhaps have had something to do with what. And he won't testify, if he does he'll have to leave the county-maybe even the state.'
'You have conclusions?' de Gier asked.
'Yes. They're the right conclusions too.'
'Can we hear them, Jim?'
'My privilege, gentlemen.'
The sheriff spoke for quite a while, and his guests nodded and said the right words at the right moments.
'So there you are,' the sheriff said at the end. 'All the facts. All the bits and pieces fit and the picture shows a corpse in every square. It's a horrible picture and I should have completed it earlier, but I wasn't experienced enough. It's the first time I have created and used an informer. The technique is new to me. Leroux gave me the facts, but the connections and deductions are mine. How does it sound to you, sir? Does it tally with what you've been thinking?'
'Beautifully,' the commissaris said. 'What about you, sergeant?'
'Yes, sir. I worked it out after I left you yesterday afternoon. I saw the town clerk, as you did, and found that young Symons is related to Janet Wash. I would agree with the sheriff that our drunken Bostonian friend probably knows nothing about the murders. He hasn't been anywhere near Jameson for the last five years.'
The sheriff's uniform creaked as he stretched. 'And we also know why young Symons' father, Symons the Second, couldn't sell to his sister Janet. She would have nothing to do with him anymore. If he telephoned her she banged the phone down, and when he wrote she returned the letters unopened. Black sheep, bah bah! But that was silly of her. He was only trying to sell her his share of the Cape Orca land, and she could have bought the land with the general's money. And a lot of people would still be alive today. However, Symons the Second lost patience and sold the land to an agency, and the agency cut it into parcels and sold the parcels to whoever wanted them. Meanwhile Janet stayed in her huff. Perhaps she didn't care so much at that stage. It was only when houses were built and people began to mill about that she realized what she had lost.'
'And Astrinsky?' the commissaris asked.
The sheriff smiled coldly. 'That's a different kettle of fish altogether, sir. A kettle I'd like to keep my hands out of. Land deals are often linked with corruption. There are persistent rumors in the state that some high official tipped off Astrinsky about a land deal, the sale of a large tract of virgin forest. Astrinsky bought the land cheap from the state and sold at some huge profit to a commercial party, a paper mill or a sawmill. Some of the profit found its way back to the official. All parties were supposed to be happy. But other officials, who got nothing, got wise and threatened to raise a stink. And they were brought to heel by a snort from very high up. General Wash was a super big shot, with friends and relations in the government. I would say that Astrinsky ran to the general and was saved in the nick of time. Janet knew what her husband had done for Astrinsky; one hand washes the other. But I'm not getting into any of that, sir. I'm only a minisheriff in a minicounty in a corner of nowhere. As I explained to the sergeant this morning, I am not ambitious, and not suicidal either.'
The commissaris nodded. 'I see. So Astrinsky covered up for Janet and probably made no profit. He is a suspect, but not a prime subject. I've met and studied the man twice, and I don't believe that he would have followed Davidson into the woods and stolen his matches, or that he would have ripped the plastic foam out of Mary Brewer's boat and replaced the bulkheads, or that he would have sneaked up on his friend and fellow Crustacean Opdijk and pushed him over the cliff. Leroux said Astrinsky was not a sporty type at all. Did Astrinsky ever do any boating?'
'No, sir. He headed the prize committee whenever there was a race, and he delivered the speech, but he was never seen on the water.'
The commissaris waved his coffee spoon. 'Away with him then. Now it's the sergeant's turn, I think. De Gier, what happened after you left the town clerk's office?'
'I drove back to the cape, sir. I shouldn't have because the snow was getting worse, but I wanted to be on the actual territory where the crimes had taken place while I thought of my possible conclusions. All I managed to do was wreck the sheriff's Dodge and stumble into Reggie's cabin. Reggie offered drinks and had too many himself. The alcohol released whatever is torturing him and his behavior became notably bizarre. He wasn't just drunk.'
The commissaris' hands kneaded his thighs while he listened to the rest of the tale. 'I see. So Madelin saved you in a way. You're sure that he would have become violent?' 'Yes, sir. I was just another woodchuck to him.'
'So the man isn't right in the head. No murderer is, of course. Janet must be very odd too to go to such immense trouble to obtain some land. The taboo on killing is the heaviest rule our systems of justice apply, and she broke the taboo so easily. But only because her own insanity linked up with Reggie's. A little like Hitler meeting Himmler. Hitler painted post cards and Himmler raised chickens, I believe. Together they caused the holocaust. Janet and Reggie never even gave their victims a chance. They were picked off one by one, at the lady's convenience.' He looked at the sheriff. 'Perhaps the sergeant was right when he told me in Boston that your scene, your peacetime scene that is, is somewhat rougher than what we are used to.'
'Scene,' the sheriff said. 'Yes, sir, it's rough. But it goes with the mood of the country. We haven't been civilized very long and we still acknowledge every man's right to carry arms. And we have strict ideas about property, exaggerated ideas perhaps, so they can be perverted easily. It's lawful here to shoot a burglar through the head.'
The commissaris felt his impeccably shaved chin. 'Yes, another type of society altogether perhaps. I saw a license plate on a car yesterday, not from this state I think. It had a slogan printed into the metal: LIVE FREE OR DIE. 1 was most impressed. 1 hope you don't think I was criticizing. We've gone too soft on our side of the ocean. The big wars started in Europe and when we choked on our viciousness we had to yell for help, which you provided, thank heaven. Still, I would hate to see the people of Amsterdam wear six guns on their belts.'
'Our license plates just say VACATIONLAND, sir.' The sheriff had sharpened a match and was poking it around between his strong teeth. He took the match out of his mouth and studied it. 'We are still where we were, gentlemen. I don't see that there's anything we can do now. We may have managed to reconstruct the various events, but there's no proof. There are no witnesses. Jeremy saw Janet drive her car at him, but he'll never say so in court-he won't even say so to us. If I remember my lessons correctly we should now start to work on our remaining suspects- interrogate them, manipulate them, and so forth. Given time they may break down and not only confess but produce sufficient circumstantial evidence so that we won't look foolish in court. This state has some very smart lawyers. At this point the D.A. wouldn't even bother to listen to me.'
'We could get at Reggie,' de Gier said.
'We could, and he would tell us about his woodchucks and azaleas and white pine reserve while he basks in Janet's motherly warmth. We might try to keep Janet away from him and pour him full of bourbon, but I'm not sure
