'Information as to Jo Termeer's whereabouts on June Fourth this year.'
Cardozo straightened up. 'We've already done that, remember. You asked Peter?'
'Phone Peter now,' Grijpstra said. 'Peter will know where to locate Eugene. Phone Eugene and tell him you want to meet him in Vondel Park. Today. At sunset.'
'You want ME to tell YOU about my good friend Jo Termeer?' Eugene asked. 'A storm trooper interviews a FAIRY? Are you going to BEAT me?'
Cardozo and Eugene strolled along Vondel Park's main path. Evening fell.
Cardozo fell too, because Eugene had hooked his foot behind Cardozo's leg and put his hand against Cardozo's chest. Eugene's leg pulled, Eugene's hand pushed.
Cardozo fell, head over heels. Cardozo stood.
Eugene and Cardozo laughed. They were two karate students exercising in Amterdam's most beautiful park, between ponds where exotic ducks floated about slowly, giant carp patroled leisurely and cranes stood on one leg under ornamental shade trees.
Eugene, being the winner, shook hands with Cardozo, who was the loser.
Eugene's hand squeezed painfully. Cardozo's thumb pressed the back of Eugene's hand. Cardozo moved his other hand under Eugene's elbow. Cardozo pushed Eugene's elbow up and Eugene's hand down.
Eugene yelled and sobbed.
'Swan-wrist hold,' Cardozo said. 'I could have broken your arm. You want that? You don't want that.' Cardozo smiled. 'Now tell me everything about Jo Termeer.'
Cardozo fell again, because Eugene had hooked his foot behind Cardozo's leg again and put his hand again Cardozo's chest again. Leg pulled, hand pushed.
This time the falling Cardozo pulled Eugene's arm while he kicked Eugene's knee. Cardozo jumped up again, Eugene groveled in the gravel.
'Baboon's knee,' Cardozo said.
'Don't you two lads have anything better to do?' asked an elderly lady. She helped Eugene up. 'You two go and study Rudolf Steiner.'
'Yes, ma'am,' Cardozo and Eugene said.
'But for now you can help me feed the carp.'
The elderly lady, Eugene and Cardozo fed a long stale baguette of French bread, which the lady broke into small pieces, to the giant fish of Southern Pond. Greedy ducks standing on racing carp approached at speed. The ducks held out their wings to keep their balance. As the carp stopped to feed, some ducks kept going and crashed into the pond's raised shore. Other ducks fell sideways, tumbling, like long-lost friends meeting, into each other's wings. Other ducks managed to hold on, making their steeds flap muscular fish tails to free themselves.
'You two behave now,' the elderly lady said. 'I can't be everywhere to save you poor fellows.'
Eugene and Simon sat on a bench and rolled cigarettes.
'Tell me all about Jo Termeer,' Cardozo said.
'Say 'please'?' Eugene asked.
Cardozo offered a light. 'Say 'thank you.''
Cardozo's report, delivered to the commissaris as soon as he and de Gier got off their KLM Boeing, stated that, about a year ago, Eugene had linked up with Jo Termeer and Peter in a Long Leyden Transverse Street gay bar.
The three pals wined and dined together and shared holidays abroad. Peter liked to go steady. Jo liked to cruise. Peter had an even temper. Jo was highly strung.
Jo, Eugene stated, had become impossible to be with after his interview with the commissaris. He didn't show up at the hair salon much and neglected his duties at Warmoes Street Precinct. He hung about the apartment. Then, when he heard that the commissaris had gone to New York, Jo began to drink heavily and to stay out nights.
As to where Jo was on June 4, the day of Bert Termeer's death: Eugene was told Jo was walking about the Ardennes Mountains region alone. Neither he nor Peter had heard from Jo for a few days, there were no calls or postcards and Jo had brought back no mementos from his foreign journey.
Interesting fact: Jo, while on holiday on the French Riviera, about a year ago, with Peter and Eugene, had said he'd lost his passport and obtained a new one at the Dutch Consulate in Marseilles.
When asked why he was so forthcoming Eugene stated that he and Peter had changed their minds, that they now thought that solving Jo's problem would be a good thing for all parties concerned.
Chapter 25
Two days after the commissaris's return, Jo Termeer was arrested after having been thrown out of the Warmoes Street Precinct, Amsterdam, three times within three hours.
Jo worked out of the Warmoes Street Precinct when he did duty as a reserve constable-first-class. The sergeant was disappointed to see Jo, whom he knew as a reliable and capable colleague, turn up drunk and disorderly.
Jo, dressed in a torn-up black leather suit and muddy boots, wearing a tattered leather gun belt and carrying a wooden copy of a riot gun in a strangely shaped holster, kept bothering the sergeant.
The first time Jo came in, the sergeant tried to treat the matter as a joke. His colleague must have been playing charades at a party. 'Great act, Jo, you go home now.' Jo laughed and left. When, a few minutes later, Jo staggered into the precinct, the sergeant had him removed by force. The third time Jo stumbled into the precinct he was arrested on a drunk charge and locked up.
When Jo's cell door was unlocked the next morning he wouldn't leave. The desk-sergeant remembered that Jo had been a pupil of Adjutant Grijpstra.
Jo wouldn't talk to Grijpstra at first but Grijpstra managed to cajole/threaten him into his Fiat Panda and took him home to Outfield where Peter cleaned him up.
The commissaris telephoned Peter that afternoon and asked him to bring Jo and Eugene to his house on Queens Avenue at nine that evening.
Cane chairs had been arranged on the veranda. Five chairs formed a crescent, opposite two chairs that faced each other.
Katrien put coffee on and cut up cake before leaving the house to visit with the neighbors.
The commissaris had the center seat, between Grijpstra and de Gier. Cardozo and Eugene sat on the end chairs.
Jo Termeer, wearing the same neat clothes as when he confronted the commissaris previously, sat facing Peter.
In spite of the formal setting everyone seemed relaxed, even jolly. The sky was clear, a breeze cooled the garden after a fairly hot day. Willow trees intertwined their branches on the street side. Their foliage screened the garden from cars swooshing by and the clatter of electric streetcars that liked ringing their bells.
'Is this a trial?' Jo asked before sitting down.
The commissaris said it could be, if Jo would like that.
'Are you the prosecutor, Peter?' Jo asked.
Peter said he would play any part that was required.
Jo told Grijpstra that he would prefer to be tried in a courtroom, with real judges in robes and lawyers and armed guards. Grijpstra explained that that would be difficult to arrange 'for lack of reasonable cause.'
'You know that, don't you, Jo?' the commissaris asked. 'I've checked your file. You passed your criminal law examination with honors.' The commissaris smiled his appreciation. 'Now you tell me what the police could come up with to sustain a charge that earlier this month you killed your Uncle Bert in Central Park in New York.'
Jo, elbows on knees, chin on hands, spoke to the floorboards of the commissaris's veranda. 'Surely someone saw me dragging Uncle Bert into those azalea bushes?' He looked up anxiously. 'You did check with that sergeant?'
'Hurrell?' the commissaris said. 'Yes, I did. Sergeant Earl Hurrell says no one saw you near the scene of the
