The Sergeant's Cat

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

“This is like Nazi Germany,” Hubert said, lugging bags filled with soil, or sinking more lilies in the pond. “Much beauty was created there before the Power showed its true face.”

  Imbeciles we were, knowing full well what was impelling us but never pausing to reflect.

  Hubert developed some muscle and I lost a large number of pounds. We heard Dad laugh and Monica titter from the seclusion of the back porch. Except for the howling and hissing of the pets, working conditions were most pleasant. Hubert wanted to hurry, while I preferred to slow down; the status quo seemed to suit me fine.

  Dad didn’t want to give in, but he was sorely tempted. The seduction took a month. Meanwhile, the garden developed nicely. Hubert egged Monica on. Autumn was on its way, and we were chopping wood for the open fire by then. Monica finally managed to convince Dad of her sincere longing for his elderly caresses. The merriment on the porch gave way to deep sighs. Then they became absent, for Dad preferred the privacy of his city apartment. Sin shies away from an audience. Dad died in secret, and Monica’s panic made her run away, leaving her telltale bag that invited the Murder Brigade into my office.

  “So your father had an affair with the young lady,” Adju­tant Grijpstra said. “I can’t say the situation is too clear to me, but I think we have bothered you enough for today.” He left, followed by the impeccably attired sergeant, who turned in the doorway to scan me with his steady gaze. Today. The word they left hung heavily between my walls. There was always tomor­row, as they intended me to understand. The suspicion, the charge in the sergeant’s gaze, was clear enough. I understood that he almost understood my motivation. For look here, some­thing was wrong, although the facts still underlined my inno­cence. Monica was Hubert’s girlfriend. Hubert was gay. Monica was most attractive and I was not. Dad’s death transferred all his property to me. The case smelled foully on all sides, but the catchers of ghouls were short of proof, as long as my resistance lasted. Cops catch the wicked, but their power is restricted, and it doesn’t often happen that they meet the perpetrators while they’re actually doing wrong. Their main task is preventive; they are around and they stay around, making sure you won’t ever forget their presence. And while they’re around, the sinner may weaken.

  Grijpstra and de Gier visited me twice again; afterward they stayed away. Insufficiency of proof—and what did they care anyway? Detectives of the Murder Brigade are always ankle-deep in a quagmire of sticky evil; they could put up with the little I was adding. Whenever they visited, they allowed me to talk and observed me meanwhile, informing me wordlessly that they thought I was a slimy example of everything they abhorred. As if I needed their quiet attack. Of criticism I had a sufficiency and it was all my own. Their pointing fingers were visible, es­pecially the adjutant’s stubby index, and it hurt me that this paternal figure refused to show the slightest understanding.

  Fine. Dad’s dead, the company is mine. Hubert showed up the very next day to remind me of my promise, and I made him a director. Monica appeared and lay down on the visitor’s couch. I tried to convince them that some patience might be better, but Hubert called me “comrade” and Monica became erotic.

  I knew then I would have to be rid of them; the friendship, if our connection was ever friendly, reminded me of what we had done wrong together. How does one remove nasty people? For once and for all? A good beginning is half the work?

  To separate myself from Hubert was easy enough. Hubert always underestimated me, a mistake that has terminated many a criminal mind. When you grow up together, there’s enough opportunity to weigh the other. He should have remembered that my PhD was cum laude, that I never lose a game of chess, and that in confrontations I always slide out unscratched in the end.

  What was Hubert’s weakness? Which circumstances needed to be combined? I had money, Hubert hadn’t. Hubert had expensive tastes, and his worst was his longing for rough male company. He liked to be around motorcyclists with bulg­ing biceps. Bullies can be bought, especially when they’re on expensive drugs, and I found just the type in a junkies’ café, who, in spite of his lack of brain, further reduced by addiction, did grasp fairly quickly what I wanted of him. I didn’t tell him that Hubert’s skull was thin and that, as a kid, he almost died because he fell off his bike and cracked his head. I did mention that Hubert liked to be hurt, especially on the head, if possible with a chain.

  Hubert does get rather drunk at times. I took him along to the miserable quarters where the leather boys hang out and in­troduced him to my burly acquaintance. I gave money to the tough. “Have a good time, boys; you’ll get along well.” Amaz­ing how easy it all is. Hubert was found in the morning, dying from a fractured skull; he had been nicely arranged between two piles of garbage. He mumbled as he died. A prayer? The alley is called Prayer Without End, for it’s circular and bites its own tail.

  Monica was a little trickier, but as Hubert used to say, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I knew her inside out and her weak spot was obvious. Monica was allergic to monosodium glutamate, the taste-improver professional cooks use so that they can serve appetizing leftovers. The chemical also tenderizes meat. MSG never fails to upset Monica’s stomach. It also makes her dizzy, and when she consumes a lot, she’s apt to faint.

  I bought a little bright red can filled with MSG.

  With Hubert gone, his share in Monica became mine, too. Our more intimate relationship brought along more duties. She asked for presents, and I bought her an Italian sports car with a long dainty nose. Monica liked to race in traffic. As she was a good driver, my hope wasn’t fullfilled too soon. I was in a hurry; hence the can of the weakener of Monica’s defenses.

  Monica was vain.

  All factors were available, and the day came that they would connect. We were on holiday in Paris, and I took her to a three-star restaurant, close to the circular road that spans the inner city. Monica just loved to race that highway, all day if need be, and she would change lanes, with inches to spare from the others’ fenders.

  During the day I was friendly enough and for dinner or­dered her favorite delicacy, a filet mignon topped with rare mushrooms. “What’s wrong with your hair, dear?” I asked, just when she was ready to dig in.

  “Doesn’t it look right?”

  “No, it’s all blown about. You look ridiculous, you know.”

  She repaired to the rest room to see if I was right, and I sprinkled the glutamate on her little steak, pressing it in with my fork so that the white flakes wouldn’t show. Monica returned, ate the filet mignon, and got irritated by my sarcastic remarks. Monica hardly ever lost her temper, but she was sensitive to criticism if it referred to her grammar. Never having been to school much, she expressed herself poorly. I said that it was very nice if a woman was attractive, but that beauty was only skin-deep and that a man did appreciate intelligence after a while. She became furious and left. I had placed the car keys on the table so that she could grab them as she stalked out. We were staying in a hotel around the corner; she knew where she could locate me once her anger passed. I got up, shouted another in­sult, sat down, and ordered cognac. She must have been squashed while I was on my second refreshment. The gendarmes showed me later how the accident must have taken place. “Ma­dame was speeding.” Well over a hundred, they thought; apparently, experts can determine speed from measuring tire tracks. They were short and cut through the railing that supposedly protects the highway. Monica’s car made quick work of it and then flew down, landing eventually on a crossing and a Parisian in a Renault, father of four kids, on his way home after working late in his office.

  That nice, dead, harmless monsieur got to be too much for me; he appears in all my dreams and keeps asking whether I couldn’t have arranged my personal problem a little better. “Four little children, Monsieur!” I might have taken them into consideration. Who would look after them, hein? My dream demon isn’t angry; he just inquires politely.

  Dad’s pets pursu
e me, too. The dog is off his food and suffers from a neurotic itch, and the cat waits for me, in hidden corners, to leap out and hiss and claw. That cat used to be my pal once; she would bring me crumpled papers and expect me to throw them and then would bring them back. Siamese cats do that, if they truly like you. I need medication to fall asleep, and instead of resting, I then keep murdering my father and my friends. Each night they die again, out of breath, clutching their broken heads, flattened in a wrecked sports car, and the French office worker keeps returning to tell me about his starv­ing kids.

  Adjutant Grijpstra left me his visiting card, with the request to call him if something cropped up. Very well, something has. I won’t disturb you personally, Adjutant, although your private number is printed on your card, but it’s evening now and I imagine your wife has just brought you your coffee and you’re about to watch a nature film on TV. I’ll call your communica­tions room. The officers who will take care of my conclusion will deliver this note.

  report of the communications room, police headquarters, amsterdam

  —January, 198–. Time: 19:37 hours.

  Dialogue as taped:

  “Hello, the police?”

  “Listen. My name is Peter Habbema and I’m phoning from my office, Habbema and Son Inc., Emperor’s Canal 610. I’m going to . . . eh . . . shoot myself.”

  “Don’t do that, sir.”

  “What was that?”

  (repeat)

  “Don’t do that? Come on, Officer. This is a neat city.

  Garbage has to be cleared away.”

  “Mr. Habbema . . .”

  “No, just a minute, please. There’s a letter all ready for you, addressed to your detectives. I’ve left nothing out. Motivation. Why it’s gotten as far as this. Complete. Crime and punishment. All I have to do now is pull this little trigger.” (clicking sound)

  “What’s this now? Just a click? Aha, I see it. Safety is still on, I’m never handy with technical stuff. This way now, up she goes, and ready to fire. See this? The red dot is visible. There we go.”

  (sound of a shot)

  report of a patrol car. Number 6-7. Time: 19:54 hours . . . and we found the lifeless body of a male. Letter present . . .

  Houseful of Mussels

  “One dead professor,” the girl op­erator at Amsterdam Municipal Police Headquarters said into the telephone. “Nice job for you, Adjutant. Close by, too. A five-minute walk.”

  Grijpstra was still trying to claw through the fog of deep sleep. “Whuh?”

  “Where? Okay. He lives—eh, lived, isn’t it sad, poor chap—at 143, Leyden Quay. Isn’t that close?”

  “Yuh.”

  “Are you asleep, Adjutant? It isn’t eleven yet.”

  “I’ve been up and about all day,” Grijpstra said. “Off duty now. Tired. Phone Sergeant de Gier. He’s on duty.”

  “He’s there now, Adjutant. The commissaris says you’ll have to go, too, because of the corpse being a professor. Makes it more involved, don’t you agree?”

  “Nuh.” Grijpstra replaced the phone. He looked, unhap­pily, first at his three-piece dark blue suit, then at his pistol belt, before putting it all on. He pushed an almost toothless comb through short white bristly hairs that kept standing up as he stared at them in the mirror. “What’s up?” he asked his heavy image. “Suicide? That’d be better.”

  He repeated the thought as he strolled under elm trees that answered by rustling their leaves in the soft warm breeze. Ducks, hoping to be fed and talked to, followed alongside, paddling furiously in the canal. Professors overthink, Grijpstra thought. They know the world is about to fade or fold. They’re too intelligent; they can figure out the future. They anticipate this environment’s total destruction. Can’t bear their insight—I’ll confirm that in my report, which de Gier can then type out and sign on my behalf. Meanwhile, I will be in bed again, enjoying the oblivion due to me because of higher status and rank.

  He stumbled and almost fell, tripping over a mostly-dachshund, squatting unobtrusively in weeds. “Oops.” The dog yapped kindly. They walked on together to the dead man’s house, marked as such from afar by the sweeping blue lights of two patrol cars. A crowd had gathered, lusting for blood. “Away,” Grijpstra said, pushing through slowly. Constables guarding a mighty oak door saluted smartly.

  “Suicide?” Grijpstra asked cheerfully.

  “Murder.”

  Grijpstra frowned. “How so?”

  “We found no weapon. Subject was shot in the forehead. A neighbor lady heard the shot and telephoned at once. Ten thirty p.m. this happened. We arrived at ten thirty-five.”

  “Were you expecting the mishap?” Grijpstra kept frowning. “Patrol cars are supposed to be slow. Did anyone see anyone leave?”

  “No.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “The neighbor lady had a duplicate key, Adjutant.”

  “No crying wife or live-in love?”

  “Just a million mussels, Adjutant,” the constable said. “In aquariums. All over. Even in the bathrooms. And this ghastly green light, and little bubbly tubes, and pumps that thump and suck, and the mussels opening and closing, yawning and gaping. Scary. Yeech.”

  “Mussels,” Grijpstra said. “Right. Just what I expected. My sergeant is in here?”

  “Yes, Adjutant.”

  “And the technical gents?”

  “On the way, I’m sure.”

  Grijpstra read a name, hand-lettered nicely on the door’s gleaming green surface: hans stroom.

  “A mussel professor,” said the policeman who talked. The policeman who didn’t nodded.

  “Mussels have been getting pricey lately,” Grijpstra said.

  “That’s logical,” the policeman who didn’t talk said. “Once the elite get into something, the price goes up, right? Musselologists must be earning a fortune.”

  The door wasn’t closed. De Gier was waiting in the hall. Sergeant Rinus de Gier was a tall man, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped. He wore tailor-made jeans and jackets that he cheered up with multicolored silk scarves. His curly hair shone softly and his huge handlebar mustache was carefully brushed. High cheekbones pushed his kind brown eyes upward. His age was hard to guess, although he knew it to be close to forty. Grijpstra was close to fifty, also from the down side. De Gier didn’t have a female friend at the moment; Grijpstra was sepa­rated. De Gier was reputedly still searching for happiness. Grijps­tra reputedly no longer cared.

  “So?” Grijpstra asked.

  “So,” de Gier said, “our man is dead. The doctor will con­firm his total absence.” He pointed.

  Grijpstra walked through the indicated door and bowed down. “Oh, dear.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Nicely laid out. On his back. Mouth closed. Eyes open.” He raised his voice to make himself heard, for the water pumps bubbled loudly. He also raised his hands, as if to protect himself from the green light illuminating the aquariums’ wavy water.

  “Makes the little fellows grow,” de Gier said. “Stimulates plant life—maybe the mussels eat the algae? Our professor is an oceanographer. This is a mussel farm, government funded. He lived here, sharing his life with the black-and-blue chappies.”

  “TV?” Grijpstra asked, indicating a screen.

  “A computer monitor. Must have been working with it. Those figures seem to be some mussel-food formula.”

  Grijpstra sat down on a yellow plastic case. “Tell me more.”

  “The neighbor lady was here when I arrived. She phoned the police when she heard the shot, then came to visit. An older lady—the professor’s present state upset her, so she went home to take half an overdose of Valium.”

  “A suspect?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “But she had a key.”

  “So that she can take care of the place when the professor has to leave. She feeds the mu
ssels, checks temperatures, oxygen, whatever. She gets paid for her troubles.”

  “Nice-looking laddie,” Grijpstra said, bending down to­ward the corpse. “Good beard. Great tan. Athletic.”

  “A scuba diver,” de Gier said, opening up a cupboard. “See the equipment? I checked his passport—it’s on the desk over there. He’d reached the age of thirty-nine. Unmarried. Lives alone, according to the neighbor, but he does have girlfriends, two, both his assistants, one junior colleague and a much-better-looking student.

  “Who exactly?”

  De Gier checked his notes. “Bakini Khan, late twenties, and Truus Vermuul, a lady of uncertain age. I got addresses.” He tapped the notebook. “Phone numbers, too. Both of them live in the area.”

  “Listen here,” Grijpstra said. “This will be simple.” He scratched his chin. “Just before the shot there was an argument. Someone heard it.”

  “Nobody heard an argument,” de Gier said. “The neigh­bors on the other side are on holiday, and my witness is some­what deaf. She did hear the shot. She also heard the front door slam. I agree with you, though. This student, Bakini, is probably exotically attractive.” He pointed at the corpse. “This professor used his chance. They lusted together. Bakini wants to transform the emotion into love. The professor seems to love mussels bet­ter. Bakini now hates the forever-opening-and-closing little beasts. She makes her friend a proposition he couldn’t possibly refuse, yet he did. So he died.”

  Grijpstra squatted. “Classical, don’t you think? A truly mur­derous wound, Sergeant—I haven’t seen one in a long while. It’s all automatic these days. Remember the Chinese last week, with the sixteen wounds? Half an Uzi’s clip, fired at random. This is professional. I like this better.”

  De Gier squatted, too. “Bull’s-eye, all right. First prize. I say, do you think he looks like a professor?”

  “More like a pirate,” Grijpstra agreed. “Including the golden earring. Dashing, very. Women like pimps and pirates better. They help themselves and run off smiling. Women like that, you know, but they get them later.”