Janwillem De Wetering - Just a Corpse at Twilight

"There's the Coast Guard," de Gier said. "They have huge helicopters. One of them landed on Jeremy Island. There, see the white pines on the west side, there's a flat area there. The pilots like that spot. This big ponderous giant chopper sets herself down and opens her slit and out pop five fat babies in orange zipper suits. The littlest carries the biggest basket and it's filled with burgers and fries and chips and cheezies and fritters and jerkies and any soda-pop known to modern man. The zipper suits sit around the basket and grab and tear and crackle and bubble it all inside and slip back into the slit and offthey go again. If they'd just walked inland a few yards or so they would have seen pot plants everywhere."

"Leave a mess, these grabbers and rearers and cracklers and bubblers?"

"Those zipper suits don't bend easily," de Gier said. "Hard to pick up things that get scattered about.

"Lorraine used to." De Gier looked guilty. "She couldn't stand litter. She'd kayak out of her way for miles to pick up a can glittering on a beach, or a bit of silver paper. She'd collect everything else too. She always carried garbage bags to stow things away in."

"Right," Grijpstra said.

They sat quietly. Bats squeaked. Crickets set up a wave of silver sound that subsided slowly. A sea duck quacked.

"Let me see if I got this now," Grijpstra said. "Fishermen grow marijuana on the islands; the sheriffcondones that provided nobody squeals about what he is bringing in in bulk from abroad. Bildah Farnsworth builds houses for part payment in unregistered cash. Aki reluctantly spies on behalf ofpimply-faced DEAers but she did her job the other day so she can relax now. Hairy Harry keeps going."

"Hairy Harry has got it made," de Gier said.

"Except for the usual money problem," Grijpstra said. "He launders one hundred thousand dollars via his house but the flow keeps flowing. Every time he fills up an eighteen-wheel truck he makes… what… ?"

"Too much," de Gier said. "Hairy Harry is exceptional. He did manage to sink some of his loot into his house. Most people here are too tight for that. Nobody here likes to show wealth. All Billy Boy ever spends is enough to buy new tires for the little old truck he keeps behind his trailer."

"Too much cash for the sheriff to ever get rid of," Grijpstra said. "Twice too much when he brings in cocaine."

"Keeps adding up," de Gier said. "Drug dealers who have it together eventually tend to choke on their millions." He touched Grijpstra's hand. "A well-known problem."

"The sheriff must have bad dreams," Grijpstra said. "I have a new nightmare now-I'm wading through banknotes, getting in deeper slowly. A new kind of sinking dream. Unnerving."

"With me it's stuff," de Gier said. "I have all these vehicles and boats and airplanes and I forget where I leave them and they have to get their oil changed. Embarrassment ofriches, here…"De Gier brightened up. "I have another example, relevant to our case. Did you see that yacht in Jameson Harbor? The Macho Bandido? Some foreign alleged cocaine exporter bought it at the boat show in Portland. Paid cash. A million, a million and a half. Computerized, a cabin you can't imagine. The vessel was built somewhere around here. There are some of the best boat builders in the world on the New England coast. Maybe forty men worked on that yacht, all experts, so this guy plunks down his bag of soiled bank notes and sails away with his dopey friends, muy macho, 'to explore the Maine coast.' Hard to believe that they made it all the way up here. Very treacherous coast, you know." He waved at the view. "Looks fine, eh? Calm sea, lovely islands, but you have to watch it. People don't realize that."

"My dear chap," Grijpstra said. "The currents, the tides, the shoals, the waves, the goddamn wildlife that clowns around…"

"Ah yes," de Gier said. "Sorry, Henk. So this dealer and his mates eventually bungle the yacht into the harbor here… three fellows and a woman. They hang around for a bit, don't even have enough sense to ask if they can use a mooring. Just dump the anchor on a short cable that keeps dragging the boat's nose down at high tide. Do some partying aboard, finally go ashore in their brand new rubber boat, use their cellular phone to get a rental company to drop offa Cadillac, have themselves chauffeured away. Left the rubber boat, left the yacht, glad to be rid of it probably. They must have had some scary moments out on the Bay of Fundy- they took offin the car, that's a week ago, and haven't been seen since."

"I saw Macho Bandido," Grijpstra said, "from the restaurant. It was at a mooring and Little Max was swabbing the deck. The jib used to be all screwed up on that line that connects the bow sprit to the mast top. It looks nice now."

De Gier laughed. "Of course, the new owners take good care of it. The fishermen wanted to lengthen that anchor cable but Hairy Harry wouldn't let them. Some fishermen were talking on the radio just now. Last night, somehow, that cable managed to snap and the yacht managed to float out to sea where Harry happened to be, out on his own time, on a powerboat privately owned by Bildah Farnsworth, who happened to be on his boat too, and together they salvaged an abandoned vessel."

"And they get to keep a million dollars' worth of yacht?"

"Yessir," de Gier said. "Such is the law. It's also the law oflife. Once you're rich you get to have it all. Once you're in the middle you dwindle. Once you're poor you lose what's left."

"Four people on Macho Bandido originally?"

"I never saw any of them," de Gier said. "The limo picked them up at night, Beth saw it leave. Aki noticed the crew a few times earlier, grocery shopping, having a meal at the restaurant. Aki said they were well-groomed Latino types and the woman looked like a white model out of Vogue."

Grijpstra's eyes didn't seem to be focusing.

"You okay?" de Gier asked.

"Too much going on here," Grijpstra said. He checked his watch. "Mind if I borrow the dinghy and the Ford product?"

"Not much to do in Jameson at midnight," de Gier said.

"And some quarters."

"Nellie'll be asleep."

"No," Grijpstra said. "It'll be six A.M. in Amsterdam. I promised I would phone early mornings.

"Aren't you getting tired listening to this?" Katrien asked, about to play the tape again. "This must be the fourth time. Doesn't it get repetitive?"

The commissaris sat in the bath, slowly hitting the water's surface with his flat hands. Smick, smeck.

"But that's what detectives do," Katrien said, "isn't it? Go through the same thing again and again?"

"Not unless they're dense," the commissaris said. "But I wasn't there, Katrien, and I can't ask direct questions." He laughed. "But Grijpstra is answering them anyway." He looked up. "Don't you think?"

"Playing games again," Katrien said. "Who is dense here, Jan? Don't you know that Grijpstra is talking to you? He would never report to Nellie. She says so. He might tell her afterward but not while the case is going on." She bent over and squeezed her husband's hand. "Not like you."

"So he knows I'm listening in?"

"Of course."

"But he isn't looking for guidance?"

"Of course he is, Jan."

"Nah," the commissaris said. He pushed a button in the air. "Would you mind?"

The tape ran. "HenkieLuwie," Nellie said, "listen, really, I don't mind, but we must be honest with each other. Just tell me about this hula hoop woman-Akipappapalo, is it? Tell me, what did you guys do that night in Boston?"

"Nellie, please," Grijpstra said. "I needed information. The woman is a dyke, I'm an old fat guy now. What could have happened?"

"Did you have separate rooms?"

The commissaris made his finger spin a circle in air. Katrien fast-forwarded the tape. "Birds," Grijpstra said, "ravens, they still have ravens here, and eagles, with a six-foot wingspan. They must have pulled Beth's father out of his Packard…"