The Hollow-Eyed Angel (8 page)

"You look tired," O'Neill's voice said. "I'll drive you to the Cavendish. Tomorrow's lecture is by a bigwig from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Crime Laboratory on physical evidence relating to hit and run cases." O'Neill's elbow nudged the commissaris's arm. "I hear you have more cars in Holland now than there are in all of Africa. Five million cars in such a small country." O'Neill whistled admiringly. "Hit and run must be a common occurrence there. I'm sure your comments will be worth hearing tomorrow."

Chapter 7

                                        The query the commissaris faxed off late that afternoon from the Cavendish desk, before consuming the hotel's nouvelle cuisine dinner specials, caused surprise in Amsterdam Police Headquarters.

Detective-Constable Simon Cardozo, a curly-haired young man in a rumpled corduroy suit, brought the fax in and, when he was unable to attract attention, jumped up and down while he read its text loudly.

He shouted the word "GOLF."

Grijpstra had been practicing on a set of drums, which, for years, had been kept in his office, as Lost &Found was desperately short of space and had no idea where the set had come from. De Gier provided background on his dented mini trumpet. They were trying out a composition by the Dutch group Chazz called
Water-
straat Blue,
with a young black student detective pecking out the melody on a small Yamaha keyboard, confiscated by Cardozo from an unmusical street musician using too powerful amplification. Cardozo, it turned out soon enough, could not learn to play the instrument either.

"Golf?" Adjutant Grijpstra asked after he had studied the commissaris's note. "Are we to believe that Termeer was knocked down, maybe even killed by
a golf ball,
in a public park, for God's sake?" He studied the commissaris's note again. "And what, please, is
lacrosse?"

Cardozo knew. He had seen the game played on TV. Early Native Americans—using long-handled racketlike implements, "crosses," to hit a hard little deerskin ball— considered lacrosse as combat training. "A rough sport," Cardozo said, "with thousands of players on each side, with goals miles apart." Players got wounded, even killed. The white man changed the rules, making the game soft, with only twelve players on each side and penalties for "unnecessary roughness." But it was still a bruising sport.

"The ball," Cardozo said, "is now hard rubber."

"And it could have knocked down our man," Grijpstra said. "Oh dear."

"And what are we to do?" de Gier asked.

The commissaris's note said that they were to ask the chief-constable, who played golf, to locate an expert, and to consult with same.

Grijpstra and de Gier were received by the owner of the Crailo Golf Club, some thirty miles out of Amsterdam. Balder Gudde, former golf champion, dressed in a sky blue suit, could have modeled for a semitransparent figure in a Magritte painting.

"A good day to you," Grijpstra said, pocketing his police identification, which Baldert tried to study while he held the plastic-laminated card upside down. "Just a few questions if you please. Merely routine. My colleague and I are interested in a possible deadly impact caused by a golf ball."

"At this golf club?" Baldert asked nervously.

"Anywhere," Grijpstra said.

"Not specifically here?" Baldert asked. "No. Could have been here, though. Right? In fact, you
do
mean here." He stepped back, sideways, forward, sideways. "Out with it, Detective, are you treating me as a suspect?"

"As an expert," Grijpstra said. "This isn't our jurisdiction, sir."

From Baldert's babbling the detectives gradually understood that they were accused of looking into the death of Baron Hilger van Hopper at the Crailo Golf Club. The baron had been a star member of Baldert's establishment. He 'wasn't anymore because he had passed away, just a few weeks ago. Baldert winked, reminding the detectives jokingly—as if they didn't know all about the dead baron—that the baron had died at his own so-called wedding party.

"You don't say," Grijpstra said.

Baldert kept winking.

De Gier thought he would humor the golfer, who might suffer from a disorder. "What did the baron die of, sir?"

Baldert shrugged. Then he mimed swinging a golf club.

"Overextended himself?" Baldert asked Grijpstra. "Physical shock? A golf ball whizzing by too close for comfort?" He patted Grijpstra's arm. "But you know all that, Detective. I told the lieutenant. Want to go through all that again?"

Grijpstra checked his watch. Nellie was cooking mussel soup that evening. He liked mussel soup, especially when it was made Nellie's way, with mustard and shallots. De Gier checked his watch too. A musical group from Papua New Guinea was to perform that night at Amsterdam's Tropical Museum. Spectacular cassowary-bone-rattle percussion was their forte. The leaflet said that listeners had been known to enjoy remarkable insights.

"As you know," Baldert said in his unlikely falsetto, while waddling ahead, flapping his arms as he led the way across a field, "as you must have been told by the Rijkspolitie lieutenant, Detectives, the baron died in the pavilion over there."

"What we wanted to ask you...," Grijpstra said.

"I was practicing at the time," Baldert said. "I was a bit bored. We had over two hundred guests but they were watching plastic ducks. Way over around the pond there. A race by windup ducks. The guests were betting money. I was over there, out of sight of the guests. I may have to arrange them, but duck races bore me. The baron was too drunk and too stoned to leave the pavilion. He usually was. Maybe I had been drinking some. So I could have directed my drive toward the pavilion. Even if I did, the ball missed the baron."

Grijpstra put a heavy hand on Baldert's shoulder. "Could a golf ball driven by an expert golf player have killed this baron?"

"It didn't." Baldert's eyes bulged. "The autopsy proved that."

De Gier strolled along, his tall body at ease, but the tips of his huge mustache quivered. He kept his voice down. "But the ball you hit
could
have killed your friend?"

"Extreme wear and tear killed the baron," Baldert said. "Isn't that what the autopsy came up with? Heart? A seventy-year-old man who indulged continuously? The baron liked to dip his Cubans into a double jenever and suck the alcohol through the tobacco. His liver was bad. He was coked up too. He had sinus trouble. He had been overeating at the party. And the twins, those active fellows, his 'Javanese princes,' as he called them..."

"Twins?"

"Double gay mock marriage," Baldert said. "That's why we had the party."

De Gier nodded as if it all made perfect sense. "And

you hit that tee shot. Did anyone see you?"

Baldert, leading the way back to his office, insisted, "It didn't strike the baron."

"But if it had hit him," de Gier asked, "in the chest, for instance?"

Baldert sweated.

"Yes, Baldert?"

"Yes." The club manager was almost crying.

"That's what we are here for," Grijpstra said. "We are investigating whether a golf ball can kill a human being. So a drive would do it." He pointed. "The baron was in the pavilion. You said you were over there—at what, a hundred yards' distance? Your ball would have had enough force, you think?"

Baldert nodded. "But it missed him. Maybe it was close, whizzed by the baron, so to speak. Maybe it missed him by just a few inches."

"So much for a drive," Grijpstra said. "How about another type of shot? Like up"—the adjutant pointed at a cloud—"then down."

"Like with a mortar," de Gier said. "A howitzer."

"You mean a chip," Baldert said, "or an approach shot."

Grijpstra nodded good-humoredly. "The names don't much matter."

"No velocity that way," Baldert said. "It would have to be a drive."

"And what kind of distance would you need for a killing shot?" de Gier asked.

"Would! need?"

"Would
one
need," de Gier said, swinging an imaginary golf club himself.

Baldert was getting nervous again. "You just said it. Within a hundred yards maybe. But
I
was only taking a practice swing. I didn't know there was a ball on the ground. No idea how it got there."

They had reached Baldert's office. Baldert kept stretching out his hands towards de Gier, while he talked about the dead baron, who, he claimed, wasn't merely a financial backer. Baron Hilger van Hopper was Baldert Gudde's good friend. He showed them a large photograph, silver framed. The baron, an aristocratic figure in a gold-braided uniform, wearing a tell bearskin hat, was on a horse, held by young Baldert. Baldert was a hussar too, with a corporal's double chevron on the sleeve of his tunic.

Baldert displayed two more photographs, in a double silver frame, dominating another sideboard. The baron, now a cadaverous-looking old man, smiled down on a dark young man in a spotless white tuxedo. The young man smiled up at him. In the second photograph the scene was mirrored. The baron was the same, smiling the other way down now. The dark young man was different.

"These guys are princes?" Grijpstra asked.

Baldert guffawed.

"They are not princes?"

"Who knows?" Baldert asked. "It was a joke. The baron wanted a party."

"I wouldn't display photos of a man I tried to kill with a golf ball in my private office," Baldert said. "You can ask around. I'm a nice guy. Check my horoscope. Aquarius stands for brotherly love. I have some Capricorn aspects, too. Capricorns are loyal." He stretched his arms again, wiggled his fingers at de Gier. "But if you wish to arrest me, please go ahead." Baldert was making funny faces now, like a clown might, Grijpstra thought, even when he knows that his final and hopeless grimace will fail to lift the audience's indifference.

The detectives tried to forget Baldert's performance as they left the town of Crailo.

Grijpstra visualized mussel soup, simmering in the immediate future. De Gier composed images of a Chinese take-out meal before going to his Papuan concert. The motorway traffic headed to Amsterdam moved slowly, then came to a stop. Cars honked, and drivers got out and leaned against their vehicles. An all-terrain patrol car nosed along the emergency lane and stopped next to the detectives' Fiat. The Rijkspolitie constable at the wheel stared at de Gier, then motioned to him to lower the window.

De Gier complied. "What's up?"

"What's down?" the constable said. "An eighteen-wheeler tank truck is down. There is inflammable fluid over all six lanes of the motorway. This will take hours."

"Ah," de Gier said, planning to stick his magnetic blue revolving light to the top of their Fiat, use the siren and drive ahead on the emergency lane. "I see. Thank you."

"No," the uniformed state police constable said. "We're keeping the strip free for fire engines. You can drive back if you like. My lieutenant suggests dinner in Crailo. At the Green Herring restaurant. He'll meet you there." The constable saluted before driving off. His mate smiled widely and waved.

"This is an unmarked car," de Gier said to Grijpstra. "All our gear is hidden. Are we that obvious?"

"Never underestimate our pastoral colleagues," Grijpstra said. "Rural incest can achieve miraculous genetic results. Don't you know extrasensory perception is quite common in the country?"

Crailo is a town of few streets. The restaurant occupied a low building with wide eaves. Small gnarled trees spread their branches protectively in front of the restaurant's whitewashed walls. Flowering impatiens plants, growing from oak half-barrels on both sides of the open front door, made splashes of delicate colors.

The detectives played three-ball billiards for a while. De Gier kept scoring. Grijpstra thumped the fat end of his stick impatiently on the floor. "Go on, miss!"

"I would if I could," de Gier said before his ball went wide.

The Crailo-based Rijkspolitie lieutenant, a wide-shouldered giant wearing a blue blazer and gray slacks and a blue tie over a white shirt, presented himself. He showed his ID.

"How did your constable spot us?" de Gier asked.

"Aren't you in my territory?" the widely smiling lieutenant said. His rumbling voice and strong, perfect teeth impressed the detectives.

The lieutenant guided his guests to a round table in the rear of the room. He hovered over his guests.

"May I recommend the stewed eel," the lieutenant said as he sat down between his guests. "Your dinners are on me. French fries included. You pay for the beer.

"I caught the eel, you see," the lieutenant said as the dish was served. "I keep quite a few eel traps. I'm sorry to keep you from going home but because of that overturned truck..."

"That was true?" Grijpstra asked. "You're not just waylaying us?"

The lieutenant looked hurt.

"Maybe we should have told you ahead of time that we were going to see this golf gent, eh?" Grijpstra 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?"