annoyed with you.'
'Didn't she overreact?' de Gier asked. 'I mean, really. It was the wrong night for her to sleep over. It was my island. I do pay rent, you know. Am I right?'
Grijpstra laughed.
'What's funny?'
'That you're asking me about what is right.'
They rowed back to Jeremy Island again, quietly, oars wrapped in towels so they wouldn't splash. De Gier remembered the detail from a boy's pirate book.
'Pirates have towels?' Grijpstra asked.
De Gier had also brought sleeping bags, coffee in a thermos, a jar of olives, peanut butter and hot sauce sandwiches.
'Pirates eat peanut butter and hot sauce?' Grijpstra asked.
De Gier set his alarm for four o'clock, daybreak. The avengers would be ready to catch Lorraine as soon as she beached her kayak, greedy to collect shiny trash, but first the avengers would rest. De Gier snored as soon as he had zipped himself into his sleeping bag. Grijpstra, slapping mosquitoes, wandered about the island. The sea was calm, the moon bright in a clear sky. Grijpstra rowed the dinghy, thinking bugs would bother him less on the water. A bald-headed harbor seal, taking a breather after a spell of night fishing, showed up too close to the dinghy and, in its hurry to get away, flopped over backward in fear. Grijpstra shushed the seal, and ravens, flapping between the islands' treetops, croaked warnings at the human intrusion. Another dark head floated close by, a woolly head. A woolly seal? There were probably different kinds of seals around. Grijpstra remembered de Gier talking about a gray seal, with a long head like a horse. This seal's head was round, with furry ears that stood up straight. Grijpstra marveled at the swimming animal's self-reliant composure. The day before, while Grijpstra was sitting quietly below the pagoda, a large rabbit had calmly hopped by his feet. Rabbits, Grijpstra thought, have their separate reality. So would woolly headed round-eared seals. This one was steering a straight course for Jeremy Island. Grijpstra, curious, pulled on the dinghy's oars, quickly overtaking the animal. He reached Jeremy Island's beach, clambered out of the dinghy, half-pulled, half-carried it ashore, and hid it behind moss covered rocks. He turned to watch the round-eared woolly headed seal walk out of the water, change into the bear he had been from the start. Mr. Bear, a large purplish black male specimen, crashed about between bushes, then slowly eased away into what had to be a hole in the hillside. Once inside he grunted, sighed, began to gnaw on something.
A bone snapped.
Grijpstra hesitated. Maybe Mr. Bear was eating a deer. Deer could swim out to the islands, die, become carrion, attract scavengers. Bears can smell rotting bodies miles away. Grijpstra noticed a stench. The body had to have been buried there, and Mr. Bear had dug it up.
'Mr. Bear!'
Mr. Bear emerged from the hole, stood seven feet tall, wanted to know what he could do for Grijpstra.
Grijpstra was sorry, he couldn't let Mr. Bear eat Lorraine. Lorraine was evidence. The hole in the hillside was a tunnel. In the tunnel would be a grave, dug by Flash and Bad George.
'Mr. Bear!' Grijpstra shouted, hoping to wake de Gier some few hundred yards away. Grijpstra thrashed the bushes with a branch he had picked up. The branch snapped. He picked up another. 'Mr. Bear!'
Animals, when faced by humans, are supposed to turn and run. They're supposed to know the universal line of command. First there is the Lord of Creation, then there's the Little Lord of Creation presented with the universe and all things nonhuman that that universe contains. Mr. Bear should present himself to serve the Little Lord. But Mr. Bear hadn't been reading his scriptures lately. Grijpstra hadn't either but he remembered Sunday school well enough. Grijpstra was disappointed at Mr. Bear's ignorance of the creation's order. He frantically waved his branch of peace.
Mr. Bear lumbered closer, drooling, growling, shaking long-nailed paws. His long snout gaped and showed big yellow teeth. He lolled a long pink wet tongue.
Grijpstra, feeling tired, sat down on a stump. This was like the storm at sea again, low tide sucking up currents, the void about to swallow his puny existence. Grijpstra remembered Ishmael's dream set in the airport restroom. He would like to argue with Saint Peter about things that unavoidably happen, unwilled by anything, whether divine or human. Grijpstra had been trying to do a good job, trying to make things happen just a little better for all parties concerned when mindless chance interfered again.
Very well. So there was only the meaningless moment.
Mr. Bear shuffled closer, on large soundless feet, stood up again, displayed matted fur covering his belly, raised his cheeks to bare chunky molars and wet canines, showed the whites of his eyes, which peered down on each side of a long drooling snout. The bear raised his arms, ready to come down on Grijpstra's shoulders.
On fear's far side all is friendliness again. 'How are you doing, Mr. Bear?' Grijpstra asked.
The bear dropped its cheeks, snorted indifferently, turned, ambled off to the beach, splashed away, sank slowly until only his round furry head sat on the surface. The head, propelled by paddling feet below, floated off easily.
This was the moment to casually light the fat smelly type of cigar Nellie objected to, but Grijpstra wasn't carrying any.
Grijpstra entered the tunnel and saw a neat grave-sized hole.
The body had been covered with rocks, which now lay about. Maybe the bear intended toput them backafter eating, to keep the competition away-foxes, raccoons maybe, coyotes, any of the predators Grijpstra had seen in the wildlife poster in Perkins' Sports Store window on Main Street.
Former Adjutant-Detective Grijpstra was somewhat used to corpses, and could diagnose their condition tentatively, while waiting for the pathologist's ultimate verdict. He mumbled through his handkerchief pressed against mouth and nose. 'Female,' Grijpstra whispered, shining his flashlight. 'Caucasian,' Grijpstra said. 'Young adult. White-blond gossamer hair.' He lifted a few strands with a twig. De Gier had said that. Lorraine with the gossamer Scandinavian hair. Grijpstra checked the remains of a foot, determining it to be slender.
Mission accomplished. Correction. Almost accomplished. Step Two? Assist the murderer's escape.
Grijpstra ran about, thrashing through ferns and tall weeds. He yelled De Gier's name. De Gier showed up. De Gier was also yelling. 'Hey!'
Grijpstra said no, he was not crazy. Come and look what he'd found.
They entered the tunnel. Grijpstra's flashlight shone brightly.
They exited the tunnel. De Gier staggered across the beach before vomiting between rocks covered with slimy seaweed.
'Yes,' de Gier said.
'Lorraine?'
'Lorraine,' de Gier said. He almost fell into Grijpstra's arms. 'You know?'
'What?'
'You know,' de Gier said, 'I was sure I didn't do this. I thought it was something cooked up to hurt me.' He turned, bent down again, splashed water on his face. 'I was being clever. I thought I had reached an important point in my training, that I didn't have time to deal with people holding me back. So I got you to take care of it while I carried on regardless.'
'Right,' Grijpstra said kindly. 'Prince Holy quests while Flatfoot slogs.'
De Gier breathed deeply. 'You think I'm an asshole.'
'Oh yes,' Grijpstra said kindly.
'There was more,' de Gier said. 'I missed you. I thought it would be nice to show you what I was doing here.' He grimaced sadly. 'As you said, Henk: showing off to Older Brother.' De Gier pointed at the tunnel. 'So I did kill her after all. I was too drunk to remember.'
The incoming tide had almost floated the dinghy that Grijpstra had left on the beach. De Gier boarded it nimbly. Grijpstra wanted to get in too but the dinghy, forced into sudden speed by de Gier's powerful oar strokes, slipped from under Grijpstra's hands.
Grijpstra watched the dinghy get smaller as it left the channel between the islands, then reach the open ocean, an immense flat expanse, where it became a dot, then nothing.
