The Rattle-Rat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  Lieutenant Sudema marched next to de Gier. Both were equally tall. Grijpstra ran after them, an unacceptable situation. He pushed between the two men. "What is a sjoelke?" "An asshole," the lieutenant said. "A grabber for himself. One who never thinks of others. A sour self-spoiler. A sjoelke is a smjunt."

  De Gier looked up at the splendor of elm trees that protected the path. He pointed out a variety of natural beauty. "Great land you have here."

  "Over there is a forest of beeches," Lieutenant Sudema said. "Douwe wanted to cut the trees down. He had no need of beauty. Look there, see that oak on the meadow? That oak is dead, the cows have been ripping the bark. When there's a tree in a meadow, we take the trouble to protect it with a little fence; too much trouble for Douwe."

  Grijpstra admired a cluster of hawthorns and a moat in the shadow of alders. "Why cut beeches? Don't they hold the silence? Isn't silence healthy for the mind?"

  "You know what a foot of beech board sells for?" the lieutenant asked. "Beeches are thousand-guilder notes."

  "A little grabby?" asked de Gier. "Our Douwe?"

  "To him it was all green," Lieutenant Sudema said sadly. "But he preferred the green of money." He grinned ferociously at his joke.

  "The tax detectives," Grijpstra said brightly, for he was now enjoying the walk; his slow-moving weight kept the others back. "Did they come up with some proof of evasion?"

  "Not yet," the lieutenant said. "Good for Douwe."

  "You've changed sides?" asked de Gier.

  "Tax"—the lieutenant spat the word—"is even worse than Douwe. I don't wish tax-hounds on the worst of us." He shivered. "The country's curse."

  "Right you are," said de Gier. "They clip my wages. Forty percent it was, last month." He shook a fist. "Must I be punished because I work? Must lazy officials in The Hague fatten on the spoils of my labor? Is it my fault that bums on welfare sneer at me through cafe windows while they swill beer at my expense?"

  "You must be Frisian," the lieutenant said with pleasure.

  "I'm Frisian," Grijpstra said. "He's a mere Dutchman. I'm in charge of this case. He's a mere tourist."

  "We detest taxes here," Lieutenant Sudema said, "and we always have. We prefer to be free of the greed of others. We pay for the foolishness of the other provinces. Are they ever grateful? Sales tax! Bah! Ever try to buy a tomato in a store? I exchange mine; barter is the only decent commerce. I swap my tomatoes for sole. My brother fishes from Midlum. We keep our profits here. Gjin sales tax, nit income tax." He blew a bubble of spittle.

  "I really like your language," said de Gier. "So you nit like us?"

  "Dutchmen have to be about, too," the lieutenant admitted, "but not at our cost."

  The sheep that had been running along with them on the other side of the moat had reached a fenced bridge and now pointed their long snouts through its boards. Grijpstra touched one of the woolly faces but pulled his hand back when a coarse tongue licked his fingers. "Filthy beast."

  "Do they belong to Douwe?" de Gier asked.

  "Douwe dealt in sheep," the lieutenant said. "He used to export cows, but all cows are registered now by computers. Sheep can't be identified, they look too much alike."

  "Look at that," Grijpstra said. The mansion was worth admiring. It stared back through large clear window-eyes, gazing over a majestic lawn protected by beeches reaching out their branches. A wide flight of stone stairs flowed easily up to freshly painted, oversized doors. Red bricks framed the large open windows, three on each side, with another row on the first floor, under a thick straw roof. Intricate latticework shielded a veranda that surrounded the house, adding color from blossoming vines. A bent-over old woman was raking the shiny gravel of a path around the lawn. She looked up.

  "Good mid dei, Mem" the lieutenant said.

  The woman tried to smile. "You bring bad news, don't you, Sjurd?" Her wooden clogs scratched across the gravel as she moved away from the three men; the rake fell from her hand.

  De Gier picked up the rake. Grijpstra introduced himself and the sergeant. Mem didn't see their outstretched hands. She pushed silver hairs away from her forehead as her light brown eyes receded between tightening wrinkles. Her gnarled hands plucked at her coarse skirt. "Is Douwe deal"

  "Perhaps," Lieutenant Sudema said, but his head nodded.

  De Gier produced his handkerchief, but Mrs. Scherjoen didn't cry.

  "Colleagues from Amsterdam," the lieutenant said.

  She took them inside and offered them coffee poured from a jug that had been waiting on the stove. The kitchen was spotlessly clean under low, blackened beams. "Mind your head," Mem said, but it was too late. De Gier robbed his curls. "Did you hurt yourself?" Mem asked softly.

  "No ma'am. You have children?"

  She poured coffee. "No."

  She lifted the lid of a cookie jar. "How did it happen?"

  "A shot," Grijpstra said. "So we think. It didn't show too well."

  Mem didn't understand.

  "He was burned too," Grijpstra said, lowering his voice, smiling his apology sadly. Lieutenant Sudema touched Mrs. Scherjoen's shoulder. "Mem," the lieutenant said, "we're sorry, Mem."

  "The duvel," Mrs. Scherjoen said, "he's got him now. Douwe was always frightened of fire. He dreamed about flames that came to take him. I had to wake him up then and make him turn over, but the flames would return and he'd yell and yell. He was afraid of the devil."

  Lieutenant Sudema coughed. "Yes."

  "Thank you for the coffee," Grijpstra said from the door. "We'll come back another time—tomorrow, will that suit you? We have a few questions."

  "Gyske'U be along soon," the lieutenant said. Mrs. Scherjoen didn't hear him. Sudema got up and walked over to Grijpstra. "I'd better stay. Could you tell Gyske to hurry over? I'll join you as soon as I can, in the café perhaps. My corporal will take you there, you must be hungry."

  Grijpstra and de Gier walked back to the village.

  "Even here," Grijpstra said, waving an arm. "How can that be? Within the peace of unspoiled nature?"

  "Even here, what?"

  "The duvel," Grypstra said. "And a marriage that was no good. Couldn't Scherjoen be nice to his wife? She's a great person, it seems to me."

  De Gier studied wildflowers growing at the side of the moat.

  "I was nice to my wife," Grijpstra said. "In many marriages, at least one partner is good. She released me. Douwe could have given Mem her freedom. The bad side lets the good side go."

  De Gier ambled on.

  "Hey," Grijpstra said.

  "I'm confused," de Gier said. "Your comparison isn't clear. You mean you're a good side?"

  "Aren't I?"

  "Let's do some work," de Gier said.

  "You work," Grijpstra said. "I'll enjoy the walk."

  "I thought I was just going to be company."

  "You're here," Grijpstra said. "You can talk to me."

  "Right," de Gier said. "Douwe Scherjoen was no good. A selfish grabber. Bought and sold for cash and evaded taxes. Had his good times in Amsterdam while his wife slaved at home. A fortune in his mouth, and his wife is the maid, the gravel raker, the free help in his mansion. Douwe is too much of a skinflint to build a little fence around a glorious oak. But he did know he was bad, for the devil pursued him."

  "He dreamed about pursuing flames," Grijpstra said. "My dreams are quite pleasant."

  "Are we discussing you?" de Gier asked. "Have you been shot and soaked with gasoline and burned and made to float with the garbage? Was it your skull staring at me in the pathologist's cave?"

  "Why was so much violence applied?" Grijpstra asked. 'The war is over. You're too young, you don't remember recent history, but Frisians can be quite violent. The resistance was fiercer here than anywhere else in the country. German soldiers were often shot and burned."

  "I remember the way Douwe's skull looked at me," de Gier said. "From the hereafter. He begged me for revenge."

  "Leave the hereafter for later. We're looking for the tangible
present. What was the motive? What living entity benefits from subject's death? Who had the opportunity to knock him off? No mysticism, Sergeant."

  "The hereafter is now," de Gier said pleasantly. "Let me work from my own angle." He stopped and took a deep breath. "The air here is clear. But evil is about. The tax detectives are lurking even here, and they know something; maybe they'll tell us. We're out of our depth; if they're Frisian too, maybe they won't tell us. Everything is different here, the locals even think in another language."

  "I'm well within my depth," Grypstra said, "and I'll get into this slowly. Life is slower here." He smiled at a sheep ruminating in high grass. "I may have some lambchops soon, and Frisian fried potatoes and some of the lieutenant's fresh tomatoes. I'll find suitable quarters while you fetch the commissaris. In order to pursue our investigation properly, we'll need permission from local authority. The commissaris can call on whoever is in charge here, and then he can stay to help. He's Frisian too. Once we're both into this, the job'll be easy."

  "You don't need permission. Scherjoen was killed in Amsterdam, and we're on a warm trail. Our pursuit is proper police procedure."

  "Fetch the commissaris."

  "I'm going back and I won't return," de Gier said. "I'm no good to you here. I'm from outside."

  "All right, all right," Grijpstra said pleasantly. "You can stay around. It's always nice for somebody like me to have somebody like you around. And you can have a good time. It'll be a holiday for you."

  Evening fell slowly, and thick sunbeams crossed loosening clouds. Beech branches embraced the quiet landscape. A cow lowed sleepily, and a farmer on a slow bicycle lifted a greeting hand. Grijpstra's fingers wobbled in response.

  They reached the station. "Hello," Grijpstra said. "Corporal, if you please, would you take Mrs. Sudema to Mrs. Scherjoen and my sergeant to the dike. Our car is out there and he has to return to Amsterdam."

  "Right now?" the corporal asked. "Don't you two want dinner?"

  "The sergeant is pressed for time."

  "Not at all," de Gier said. 'Tin a tourist here. I would love some dinner."

  "Back in a moment," the corporal said. "The cafe is across the street."

  Grijpstra ordered lambchops. "For two," de Gier said.

  The corporal came back with the lieutenant.

  "Is Mem feeling a little better?" Grijpstra asked.

  "Yes, Adjutant, Gyske is taking care of her."

  "Pity she has no children."

  "Douwe was her child," Lieutenant Sudema said. "He was too jealous of competition. Amazing that she could put up with the sjmunt"

  The corporal shook his head. "They do like to be abused."

  De Gier said that women may perhaps sometimes like to be abused, but that he, for one, would never abuse them.

  Grijpstra's nostrils widened. "And Jane?"

  "Sharing is not abusing."

  Grijpstra explained the perfidy of the sergeant's plans for Jane. "But she didn't fall for it," he concluded.

  "They don't very much, nowadays," the corporal said. "It's not as easy as before."

  "I've got to do the cooking," Lieutenant Sudema said. "Gyske works half days and I work full days, and I still have to do the cooking. I rather like cooking, but there's the washing up, too, and putting the dishes away. If they gain, we lose. I can't yell at her anymore, either."

  "I never yelled at my wife," Grijpstra said. "Why should I? She was deaf, and the TV at full volume."

  "You do yell," de Gier yelled. "You yell at me. You're known as the yeller."

  Grijpstra asked the lieutenant to please ask the corporal to please take the sergeant to the dike, right now.

  De Gier had to finish his coffee.

  "Bit of a bastard," the corporal asked, steering the Land Rover along narrow dikes, "that adjutant of yours?"

  "A fine fellow," de Gier said. "But never tell him I told you that."

  "And a bit of a bastard," the corporal said. 'The lieutenant is another, but he's been easing up a lot. I can thank Gyske for that."

  "If we don't bend, they'll break us," de Gier said. 'Take that Scherjoen, for instance. He didn't want to bend."

  The corporal was taller than de Gier, and wider. His chin resembled a granite rock. "They don't just want to break us," the corporal whispered.

  "Are Frisian women more fierce than ours?"

  "I won't say more," the corporal said.

  They might be listening in."

  The Land Rover parked behind the Citroen. De Gier slid behind the sleek car's wheel, and the Citroen flashed away.

  \\ 4 /////

  THE COMMISSARIS, WANDERING ABOUT HIS ELEGANT OFFICE, was not content. A Frisian dies. In Amsterdam. What was the next move? Would he go to Friesland? Why look far away if it happened here?

  Because there was this new car and he wanted to drive along the Great Dike? He could indulge himself, but there was also the necessity to sniff about here. He could delegate the local search to his very best men and take off himself. The commissaris pushed out his thin lips. He attempted to whistle.

  "The other way round," he mumbled sadly. His best men were enjoying themselves in Ding...Dingjum. And bothering the widow. He got up and wandered over to his desk, looking for an article in the Police Gazette. "Instructions for Superior Officers." He read the relevant passage. Make sure your temperament, skills, interest, and competency fill the job. Wasn't he supposed to be good at interviewing old ladies? So why wasn't he interrogating Mrs. Scherjoen?

  His leg glowed and hurt. He rubbed the painful spot, not too hard, for that would increase the trouble. Suppose he went home and immersed his painful body in hot water spiced 37 with herbs? He might as well; maybe this wasn't a day for work.

  He limped to the corridor. The uniformed girls in the computer room looked up. "Sir," they said. "Ladies," the commissaris said. He was given a chair. He thought. The policewomen waited.

  "Douwe Scherjoen," the commissaris said.

  "Adjutant Grijpstra asked us to check him out, sir," a constable first-class said. "There's nothing on Scherjoen."

  "How good is your computer?" the commissaris asked.

  "Our computer," the constable first-class said, "knows everything."

  "So what would the computer tell us if you activated it with the key words 'Friesland' and 'crime'?"

  'Too much, sir. It would tell us about all the wrongdoings of all the Frisians, it would go on forever."

  "And what if you limited it to Frisian crime in Amsterdam?"

  "It would still go on and on."

  "Let's see," the commissaris said.

  The constable first-class typed in the two words. The commissaris watched the screen. A small green square trembled.

  "Well?" the commissaris asked.

  "The computer is searching, sir. It will tell us about its findings any minute now, at incredible speed."

  The little green square trembled.

  "Well?" the commissaris asked.

  The constable first-class pressed a few buttons.

  "It's broken," a constable said. The constable first-class stared at the girl. "Down," the girl said nervously. "That's what I meant. Honestly. The computer is down."

  "Not broken?" the commissaris asked.

  "Just down," the constable first-class said. "It'll be up in a second, it just fell down a little."

  "When will it be up again?"

  "It could take a while," the constable first-class said. "This does happen now and then. I'll phone and the supplier will send an engineer. He may be busy for an hour or longer— it does take longer once in a while. Maybe the terminal is down too, then we'll have to wait a little while longer."

  The commissaris was back in the corridor. He used a wall phone. "Can you find me that Frisian detective, what's his name now? Fokkema, maybe?"

  "He's in Spain sir, on holiday, with sick leave added. Detective Fokkema may be away for a while."

  "Any other personnel of Frisian origin around?"

  "I
wouldn't know, sir, did you try the computer?"

  The commissaris was back in his room. He thought. Frisian. Frisian what? By happenstance a Frisian cop sees something, and a Frisian park official sees something too?

  He picked up the phone.

  "Please, dear, Constable First-Class Algra of the Red District Station, and afterward I'd like to speak to Chief Wiarda of Municipal Parks."

  His secretary couldn't find either party; Algra had gone off somewhere and Wiarda hadn't yet returned.

  They won't know anything either, the commissaris thought; he thought a little further. Frisian convicts, locked up in jail somewhere? Who could locate Frisian convicts? The computer? Hurriedly he changed thoughts. The new thoughts were pushed back by something else again, burped up from memory. "Jelle Troelstra," his memory kept repeating.

  "Who?" the commissaris asked.

  "You know," his memory insisted.

  "I don't."

  "SS?" his memory asked.

  Right, the commissaris thought, for now he did remember. A limping SS man at large. In 1945, that was a long time back now. Troelstra had fought on the Eastern Front, had been released from duty because of serious wounds, had returned to Friesland just before the liberation, and was wanted afterward by the Dutch police on charges of treason. Traitor Troelstra. The suspect didn't want to be shot, so he hid with relatives, and was seen by neighbors. The neighbors alerted the local police, and Troelstra fled to Amsterdam, where he hid again, this time in a girlfriend's house, at the Old Side Alley. Tired of being hunted, Troelstra asked the girlfriend to phone the police to tell them that he would be ending his life, but would like to talk to someone first, a qualified authority preferably. The commissaris was an assistant inspector at the time and answered the call in person. He took a streetcar. The girlfriend opened the door. Jelle was in bed, with a German pistol in his hand. Jelle Troelstra, ex-hero. The commissaris nodded. Not a bad chap at all, rather an idealist, but on the wrong side, of course. Misdirected loyalty. Hitler, a devil masquerading as an angel, Troelstra saw that now. And subject hadn't committed atrocities, because he was a decent fellow, quite incapable of evil deed.

  He listened to Troelstra in those late days of 1945, and encouraged him somewhat, telling him he wouldn't be shot, that he might still live a useful life and that the punishment would be bearable, since subject was turning himself in. Self-confessed traitors were sent to the colonies then, to New Guinea, the enormous island in Indonesia's utmost East, a Dutch possession still, and much in need of roads. Subject would have served there and been returned in due course.