asked.
The lieutenant agreed. He talked for a while, after ordering Heineken Export. He frowned while he toasted them. He suggested that maybe city detectives should alert Rural Law Enforcement before meddling with a local suspect. He suggested that maybe city detectives, if they didn't want to attract notice, shouldn't drive a brand-new compact, of such a poisonous green color, that a Rijks-politie helicopter, checking traffic on the Al motorway, could identify the car at once.
'Baldert contacted you?' de Gier asked, peering at the lieutenant across the foam of his beer.
'We had no idea Baldert was your suspect,' Grijpstra said. 'The Amsterdam chief-constable sometimes plays golf here. To us, Baldert is an expert. We were told to research whether, and how, a golf ball can kill. Our commander in chief recommended…'
The lieutenant wasn't pacified yet. He accused his guests of being secretive busybodies. Referring to higher authority could not be considered as an excuse. Besides, if the chief of the Amsterdam police didn't trust local judgment, he could tell local judgment that to its face. To send sneaky types in a bright green toy compact…
'I like this place,' de Gier said, looking around him. 'The low solid beams, the antique tool collection displayed on the walls, the history embodied in these ancient surroundings.' He looked at the lieutenant. 'You know I exist in a concrete apartment?'
'Why would Baldert inform you about our visit?' Grijpstra asked.
The lieutenant shrugged. 'The asshole feels guilty. He was brought up with narrow values. This is still the Bible Belt here.'
'But did Baldert actually kill the baron?'
'I think the baron killed himself,' the lieutenant said. 'You know the definition of intelligence? Making optimal use of a given set of circumstances? Baron Hilger van Hopper went even further. He actually manipulated-' He looked at de Gier. 'Do you know how difficult it is to manipulate circumstances?'
'Very tricky,' de Gier admitted.
'Almost impossible,' the lieutenant said. 'Things happen. The best thing we can do is happen along as best we can. But the baron set up that perverted wedding.' He moodily stirred his stewed eels.
'Did Baldert want to kill the baron?' Grijpstra asked.
The lieutenant nodded. 'That's the whole thing. The baron holds a huge mortgage on Baldert's golf club. Baldert is late with two or three payments, the baron forecloses. We have a recession going on. The bank won't refinance.'
'And the guy is gay,' de Gier said. 'Is that what you mean by the baron setting himself up? He intended to drive Baldert crazy with jealousy?' De Gier also stirred his stewed eel moodily. 'This is getting complicated. A master-servant relationship. A gay relationship. And all of it twisted.'
'How sick can we get?' Grijpstra asked.
'The baron wasn't feeling well,' the lieutenant said.
'So you treated the case as a potential murder?'
The lieutenant mentioned availability of key ingredients: ample motivation, opportunity, Baldert's presenting himself all the time, getting in the way, saying it wasn't his fault, lying. He was taking practice shots. There was a ball there. No, there wasn't. Well maybe there was.
'Okay,' Grijpstra said. 'So champion Baldert aimed a murderous golf ball at his former master's head and missed and felt guilty, either about aiming or missing, or both, but why do you suppose that we knew anything about that? Had we known, we would have come to see you, but the chief-constable said…'
'We were set up too,' de Gier said. 'You see, our own chief, who is working on a case in New York, has us researching the concept of driving a golf ball as a means of effecting death. Neither the adjutant nor I play golf. The Amsterdam chief-constable is the only golfer we know. Maybe our own chief knew that. Maybe he also knew of our chief-constable's being concerned about this murder in Crailo. Maybe our chief planned this, steering us toward the chief-constable. Now the chief-constable directs us toward his own golf club, the Crailo Club, and sets us up to stumble into your case, to bring about a fresh approach. Maybe our own chief, chief of detectives, a sly old mouse, tried to kill two birds with one goddamn stone…'
'…with one goddamn golf ball,' Grijpstra said, 'and here you apprehend us, goofing around your Mister Bad Conscience '
The lieutenant, drinking more beer, picked up on Bad Conscience. He was, somewhat incoherently, but staying within certain limits, talking about how bad guys get caught. Bad guys want to get caught and therefore deliberately trip themselves up, and all law enforcement has to do is pick the suckers up, handcuff the suspects, take them to trial. The only reason that law enforcement works is because of suspects tripping themselves. But Baldert had tripped himself up twice. Baldert's fate would therefore be the ultimate horror. No human punishment for the baron killer. Limbo forever. Baldert in purgatory.
De Gier reminded the lieutenant of basic police law. 'We, the police, are required to do our utmost to restore the citizens' peace of mind. We are supposed to work toward mutual benefit. The law actually says so. We are supposed to take care of the needy: emotionally, physically, whatever is needed. If Baldert wants to regain his peace of mind by getting arrested you might…'
The lieutenant poured more beer.
Grijpstra, in between drinking more beer, saw a way out. There were the circumstances. Baldert kept providing incriminating evidence. Yes, suspect admitted to organizing the plastic wind-up duck race. Why? Because it would attract all the partying guests down to the pond. From there they couldn't see Baldert swinging his club. Yes, it was ridiculous for Baldert, the golf club's owner and manager, and the organizer of the so-called wedding party, to practice his drive at that moment. Yes, the hundred-yard distance between Baldert swinging his club and the baron lolling in his chair in the pavilion would enable the ball to arrive at killing speed. Yes, Baldert was gay. Yes, the baron was gay. Yes, the baron and Baldert went back a long way, to glorious army days. Yes, the baron was known to sit in the cane chair in the pavilion, drinking and smoking and sniffing, until he fell over. Yes, Baldert missed him on purpose, just by a few inches, to shock the baron into sudden death.
'If that isn't cold-blooded planning,' Grijpstra said, 'if that isn't premeditated first-class murder.
The lieutenant, drinking more beer, doubted the underlying strength of his case. Baldert's championship shot had missed. He didn't know about missing. Didn't murder require hitting?
'Attempted murder?' Grijpstra pleaded.
The lieutenant wouldn't risk that. He hated being made a fool of in court.
'Poor Baldert,' Grijpstra said.
De Gier shook his head. 'The way that poor devil kept offering me his wrists for handcuffs.'
Grijpstra wouldn't give up yet. 'The autopsy didn't help? Would you tell us about that?'
The lieutenant wished for nothing more than a chance to share that experience. Somehow he hadn't gotten to see an autopsy until Baron Hilger van Hopper's emaciated corpse was stretched out on the morgue table in the nearby city of Bussum. He ordered more stewed eels. The waitress served, making a bit of a mess, because she looked the other way as she dug about the seemingly writhing bodies.
Grijpstra, who had phoned Nellie with a request to freeze his portion of the mussel soup, liked seafood. He didn't mind so much that the stewed eels seemed to be moving about in 'their juice.' That's what de Gier was saying. De Gier was fond of seafood too but the eels looked strange.
'Their juice,' the lieutenant laughed. He sucked up a fat piece. 'Delicious,' the lieutenant said. 'You know how come they grow so nicely in these parts? You'll never guess. It's because we have fur farms nearby. As there is no market for the fur-bearing animals' carcasses the waste product gets dumped into the sea around here. Eels thrive on carrion.'
'The autopsy?' Grijpstra asked.
The lieutenant described how a small circular saw had cut into the baron's skull, and how long knives cut out the dead man's entrails.
De Gier gently pushed his plate away.
'The autopsy's result?' Grijpstra asked. 'Any signs of severe bruising? Broken ribs?'
Not a sign, the lieutenant said. If there had been a ball whizzing by, and he personally believed there had been, it traveled clear through the open pavilion.
Grijpstra sighed. 'So what did Baron Hilger van Hopper die of?'
The pathologist's verdict had been 'depletion of all life systems due to total physical exhaustion, due again to
