The Maine Massacre (23 page)

There was still Astrinsky, of course, but de Gier refused to think about Astrinsky. The realtor would fit in later. Right now he had a headache and he had thought enough. The car picked up speed as his foot came down. One last look at Cape Orca and he would drive back to the jailhouse and enjoy supper and have an early night. The commissaris would be coming in the morning and they would have a grand counsel. A sign flashed past, a square yellow sign on a white stick. There was one word on the sign: HILL.

"Too fast," de Gier said and touched the brake gently. The car was skidding. He pressed the brake hard and the car turned around, then around again. De Gier sang. The theme of "Straight, No Chaser." He hummed it over and over as the car made several full turns. He saw the tree coming and he felt the car turn over. For a few seconds the Dodge rode on the edge of its roof, then it fell on its side and rested against the tree. De Gier stopped humming. He turned the key and the engine cut off. It was quiet on the road. A bird screamed further down in a ravine. He could hear a brook gurgle under the ice.

"Shit!" de Gier said. He used the English word. It seemed more appropriate than its Dutch translation. He was upside-down, held by the safety belt. He began to move about carefully and managed to unlock the belt. The driver's door was closed, probably forever, but the passenger door still worked.

He walked down the rest of the hill until he saw a light shimmering through the snow-covered evergreens. He found a path leading to a cabin. He knocked on the door.

"Come in."

"Ah, it's you," Reggie said. "Out for a walk?"

"I just busted the sheriff's department's brand-new Dodge," de Gier said.

"You did?"

"I did."

"Well, come in. An open door is the last thing we want at this time of the year. You aren't worried about the car, are you? That car is insured. Who cares about a police car anyway? To them a car is just wheels. If the wheels go they get other wheels. They waste the taxpayer's money, we pay them to waste it, and everybody is happy. Sit down. Drink?"

"Yes," de Gier said. He knew he should have refused. The fox's brandy was still in his blood. He shouldn't have driven the Dodge. He thought of the excuses. The commissaris had played along with the fox, accepted the suspect's brandy to make him talk. De Gier had played along with the commissaris, but he also liked to drink. He could have left the brandy in the enamel mug. He could have pretended to drink, taken little sips, spat some back. But he had drunk it all. Technically he had caused a total loss while under the influence, although he would never be charged. Technically the insurance company wouldn't have to pay, but it would.

Reggie poured bourbon, a big glass. "On the rocks?"

"Please."

"What are you driving around the cape for? It's dark."

"Lost my way. I was trying to get out."

Reggie grinned. He looked the perfect country gentleman, in his tweed jacket and sturdy trousers. The cabin was rough but comfortable. The fire in the big fieldstone fireplace crackled. The cabin's paneling was old, showing the dull shine of pine that has matured for a hundred years, a deep orange, almost reddish, shine. There were good thick rugs on the floor, and the low bed in the rear of the cabin was covered with sheepskins. The only decorations, hanging from hooks on the low, handhewn tamarack beams, were tools and weapons. A rifle, a shotgun, a bow and arrows, a crossbow, several axes with delicately curved handles, a machete in a gray green canvas sheath, a blowpipe.

De Gier pointed at the blowpipe. "A trophy from the jungle?"

"Sure. The mountain people use them in Vietnam. They tried to teach me, but the poison worried me. I did better with the bow and arrows. The crossbow is American. I've used it on the woodchucks a few times, but it can't beat my squirrel rifle. Come here. I'll show you my real trophies."

De Gier got up and looked out a side window. The view was a small yard with a high fence around it. Reggie picked up a flashlight and pressed it against the glass. "See?"

De Gier saw a tableau made out of barn boards, framed neatly by weathered two-by-fours. The tableau grinned at him out of many small dark eyes. Small skulls, white in the light of the torch.

"Count them."

Rows of ten, five down. Five full rows and the sixth row had only four skulls.

"Fifty-four of the little bastards, and room for another forty-six. When I fill it up I'll start a new one."

De Gier felt Reggie breathing next to him. Reggie's breath was short and sharp, the breath of a man in anger, or in heat.

"Took me a few years to catch fifty-four of them, but I'm getting clever at it now. Woodchucks are the worst threat on the estate. They tunnel and dig, interfere with the roots, and eat the shoots. I had to start the azalea gardens twice over. You hear that?
Twice.
They ate all the little plants. They would sit up and whistle at me. I swear they even waved their filthy little paws. I always shoot them in the chest. Doesn't do to damage the skull. I need the skulls. But I don't have too much time, and they get busy when I'm busy. In the spring when the garden needs my time. But I get them all the same. Now they rest. They're in their holes, fast asleep. If I know where the holes are I can dynamite them out, but I don't want to do that. I need their skulls. Dynamite blows them to bits, and the bits are deep down in the earth. Another drink?"

"Sure," de Gier said. "Please."

Reggie poured the drink and pulled out the drawer of a bureau next to his bed. "Here, this is the map. See?"

He was whispering hoarsely. His finger pointed at certain areas. The map showed Cape Orca and Jeremy's Island. It had been drawn by hand, very carefully, and colored in several shades of green and brown. Its different hieroglyphics indicated trees and plants and grass. Reggie was explaining, still in the same hoarse whisper, "This isn't a garden, this is an
estate.
Not as big as the estate the Rockefellers donated to Maine further down the coast, but more beautiful. More love has gone into it, more work.
My
love. Here are the azalea gardens. I know every plant. There are the cedar trees, and here is the white pine reserve. I've cleaned the reserve myself, I do it every year. I rake and rake, and when I don't want to disturb the pine needles I go down on my hands and knees and I crawl around with a plastic pail and I fill the pail with twigs. The reserve needs a golden carpet and the needles are gold when the sun touches them. And it needs clean moss so that the gold shows up better. I rake the moss with a bamboo comb and sometimes with my fingers. The white pine reserve covers an acre. It takes me weeks to go through it. A few weeks, every spring. The others won't do it. They don't care, they're clumsy. Leroux is good, but only when he can mow the lawn and sit on a tractor. Some of the local girls are good at picking the dead leaves off the azaleas. But they don't see details. And they don't care about the woodchucks destroying their work. They think the woodchucks are cute.
Cute.
The bloody little bastards. They are bastards, you hear? With their big gnawing teeth and their sharp beady eyes. They never miss a shoot or a bud. There are others. The geese eat the rhododendron flowers, pick them off. They rob an eight-foot bush in a few minutes. They'll jump for the high buds, but I shot the geese a long time ago, every single one of them. The geese are big and clumsy. The woodchucks are quick, and their colors blend with the landscape. Another forty-six and then another hundred. I'll kill them all."

The hoarse whisper had become a hiss. "You hear me?"

"Yes," de Gier said.

Reggie's voice became calmer, but his breathing was still disturbed. He had switched off the torch and was warming his back at the fire. "Sit down, be my guest. Yes, the woodchucks. I can't stand them. Janet hates them too. Tell me, where did your accident happen?"

"Not too far from here."

"Did you go off the road?"

"No, a tree stopped me."

"Didn't damage the tree, did you?" The voice dropped down again. Reggie's eyes were bloodshot and vicious. His hands moved nervously, and his lips trembled. De Gier was working out a defense. He didn't feel too sure that he could use strategy. He had drunk too much to react quickly. He would have to be alert to determine the point where Reggie would become violent. De Gier moved under a beam that held an ax resting on two pegs. He should be able to swing the back of the ax against the man's temple, but the cabin was small and cramped. If he missed, Reggie would run him down.

"Hello? You there, Reggie?"

Reggie breathed in deeply and seemed to make an effort to control himself. He walked to the door. "Evening, Madelin. A sociable evening indeed. Come in. Have you visited Janet? She said she was having an early night tonight."

"No, Reggie, I've come for the sergeant. I saw his car. Are you all right, sergeant?"

"Yes, I am fine. The car isn't."

"No. I've just had a look at it. I'm glad you aren't hurt. The sheriff has been trying to raise you on the radio. I heard him on my CB. But you didn't answer."

De Gier put his glass down. "Thank you, Reggie, but I'll have to go now."

"You fool," Madelin said. "That was the last place in the world you should have gone to. Did you drink a lot?"

"Yes."

"Was he drinking with you?"

"Yes."

"He always goes bananas when he drinks unless Janet is around. Did he show you his skulls?"

"Yes."

"Did you notice anything?"

"Yes, he began to speak in a funny whispering way and his breathing became heavy and torturous."

"I know. He did that once when I was in his cabin, but Albert and Tom were with me and he doesn't see us as a threat. He's psychotic. Maybe all professional soldiers are, but Reggie is
very
psychotic. You know what he specialized in when he was in Vietnam?"

They were in Madelin's car, almost out of the estate. De Gier was glad he didn't have to watch the road. It was snowing heavily and the wind drove the snowflakes into the windscreen. The car was going dead slow. When it skidded, just as they reached the main road, Madelin let go of the wheel. "That's what you should have done, sergeant. But you were going fast I suppose. If you let go of the wheel the car will steady itself again. Did you slam on the brakes?"

"Yes."

"It's hard not to slam the brakes on when you're in a skid, but when you do the car becomes a sleigh and you lose all control."

"Yes," de Gier said. "I am an idiot. What did Reggie do in Vietnam?"

"He told me once, at a cocktail party at Janet's place. He and his buddies, four of them in all, sought out Vietcong camps. They would arm themselves with knives, a small mortar, and light machine guns. Reggie would kill the guard. It was very important to kill the guard. If he couldn't do it they would go back into the jungle again and call the whole thing off. But if Reggie could get his knife into the guard the four men would spread out and lire their machine guns, at a height of about a foot, horizontally. They would strafe and spray until they were out of ammunition. The Vietcong slept a foot off the ground. Next they would lob mortar shells into the camp. And then they would run off and meet in some prearranged place. His buddies got killed and Reggie trained new buddies and went on. He survived and then the war was over. Now it's woodchucks."

"And retired old people on the Cape Orca shore."

"Indeed, sergeant."

"You might have told me."

Madelin laughed. "No. You had to find out. But you stumbled into it, didn't you? You
crashed
into it."

"I did."

"You don't have some clever excuse? Why don't you tell me that you knew all along and that your accident tonight was a clever rase."

"No, I was just blundering along."

She stopped the car. "I love you, sergeant. You're forty-one years old, you need half glasses to read the small print, and you're not intelligent. Kiss me."

She waited for him to make the move. He did. He was a little slow. His neck hurt.

"Hmmmm," Madelin said. "That was good. Do it

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"I want to feel your teeth."

He sat back. "My teeth?"

"Yes," Madelin said. "You have nice teeth, but they do protrude a little. That's why I was so worried when I saw the wreck of the Dodge and the lights of Reggie's cabin."

"For God's sake," de Gier said and felt his teeth. "You don't mean that I look like a woodchuck, do you? I've never seen a woodchuck. Some sort of rodent?"

She let herself fall over sideways, twisted, and looked up from his lap. "Yes. Some sort of rodent. Big and handsome. With wide shoulders and curly brown hair and a big beautiful mustache. Not so clever but very genuine. I love you, sergeant."

20

I
AM SORRY," THE SHERIFF SAID, "BUT I'LL HAVE TO TAKE you out for breakfast. The old man in jail doesn't feel well, and I'm low on energy myself. We really have a need for a matron. I wish I had the courage to tell that to the selectmen. Do you mind going out for breakfast?"

De Gier was facing the mirror and had just raised his upper lip. "A rodent!" he muttered. "The girl is quite mad. My teem aren't
that
long. And they don't protrude
that
much!"

"Pardon?" the sheriff asked, settling himself a little more comfortably on the sergeant's bed.

"Nothing, just muttering."

The sheriff watched the sergeant manipulate his can of shaving cream. "You aren't doing that right, you know. Don't you have ready-made foam in Europe?"

"We do," de Gier said, "but I've never used it."

The sheriff sat up. "Don't just take a quarter of an inch. Go on, let it whoosh out. Be a devil! You're in America now, and where there's wealth there's waste. Take a handful and plaster it all over your face. Go on!"

The sergeant shaved and the sheriff watched as he continued, "Do you know why I'm low on energy? No? I'll tell you. I'm weak because I used my brain all night, a most unusual activity these days. I haven't used my brain since I left the university."

De Gier wiped his face clean and turned around. "University?"

"Sure. I have lots of qualifications. I'm the most overqualified official this county has ever hired. I could be a real cop in a real city, but I haven't learned to be ambitious yet. The splendor of the big time frightens me. Or maybe the big assholes taking care of big crime haven't impressed me. They don't take care of crime anyway, they just find ways of living with it, or off it. Anyway, I thought last night. With some success, I think. I know it all now, or most of it. What I don't know doesn't matter. You've figured it out too, haven't you?"

De Gier was splashing on the after shave. "No. I can't fit in Astrinsky. Madelin goes free, you agree to that point?"

The sheriff smiled, then giggled. "Of course, can't haul in my colleague's girlfriend, can I? You spent some time with her last night again?"

"Not too much. She gave me a lift back here. I am very sorry about the Dodge, Jim."

"That's okay. The tow truck should be on its way to collect the wreck now. I didn't want to bother you last night. You looked a little tired and beat-up. Did me accident have anything to do with the investigation?"

"No, just with my bad driving."

The sheriff shrugged. "The Dodge was a good car, but that model is too small for police work out here. I should be able to screw a better replacement out of the authorities. Don't give it another thought, sergeant. We need good wheels. The hell with their penny-pinching. So what did you turn up last night?"

"Same as what you turned up. You spoke to Leroux, didn't you?"

"I sure did. We can discuss it all a little later. Your chief should be here any minute now. Why don't we go down?"

De Gier was adjusting his silk scarf. He got it right, but then it slipped down too far. He clicked his tongue irritably and started all over again. The sheriff watched him patiently.

"Are you done now? It looks very elegant like that."

The commissaris' station wagon turned into the yard as the sheriff and de Gier came out of the jailhouse.

"Morning," the commissaris said. "How good of you to ask me again. I forgot to tell Suzanne and she was boiling porridge, but I got away. Same sort of porridge my mother used to make."

"You didn't care for your mother's porridge, sir?"

"Didn't care?" the commissaris asked in a high voice. "Yagh! Aren't we going in, sheriff?"

"No, sir. I thought I'd take the two of you out to Bern's. She knows we're coming. I telephoned."

The commissaris stopped frowning. "Beth's! Good!" He rubbed his mittens together. "Ha!"

Beth served and the three men ate. There were home-fried potatoes and sausages and three eggs each.

"How do you like the eggs?" Beth asked. "Don't they taste funny?"

'Taste good," the sheriff said. "Fine," de Gier said. "Excellent," the commissaris said. "Why, Beth?"

Beth made a face. "Duck eggs. I bought them from Bert. He came around hawking diem. Robert's Market has been out of eggs ever since the truck turned over, so Bert can ask a price. I told him he was overcharging, and I asked him whether he had anything to do with the egg truck going off the road. He didn't like that. He slammed the door when he left. Look."

The sheriff glanced at the door. The glass in it was cracked.

"Have it repaired, Beth. Then order more eggs and don't pay. If Bert gets disturbed tell him to talk to me. Bert hasn't got a sense of humor yet. Maybe you and I can teach him a little."

Beth laughed, poured more coffee, and walked back to her stove.

"Now," the sheriff said, wiping his mouth, "I spoke to Leroux yesterday. Or maybe I should say that I listened to him. He didn't sing like a canary, but he certainly chirped like a chickadee. He didn't have much choice of course. I was holding the ax and his head was on the block. I explained that to him and he agreed in the end. And now he has a job for the rest of the winter so he doesn't lose out."

"What did you learn, sheriff?"

"Most everything I wanted to learn. Leroux is a proper local. He knows all the concerned parties and he knows how they tie in together. He isn't a stupid man by any means. He doesn't only feel the undercurrents, he can describe what they've been doing and how they're working at this particular moment. He did some nice evasive footwork when it came to pointing the finger, but he did intimate who could perhaps have had something to do with what. And he won't testify, if he does he'll have to leave the county—maybe even the state."

"You have conclusions?" de Gier asked.

"Yes. They're the right conclusions too."

"Can we hear them, Jim?"

"My privilege, gentlemen."

The sheriff spoke for quite a while, and his guests nodded and said the right words at the right moments.

"So there you are," the sheriff said at the end. "All the facts. All the bits and pieces fit and the picture shows a corpse in every square. It's a horrible picture and I should have completed it earlier, but I wasn't experienced enough. It's the first time I have created and used an informer. The technique is new to me. Leroux gave me the facts, but the connections and deductions are mine. How does it sound to you, sir? Does it tally with what you've been thinking?"

"Beautifully," the commissaris said. "What about you, sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. I worked it out after I left you yesterday afternoon. I saw the town clerk, as you did, and found that young Symons is related to Janet Wash. I would agree with the sheriff that our drunken Bostonian friend probably knows nothing about the murders. He hasn't been anywhere near Jameson for the last five years."

The sheriff's uniform creaked as he stretched. "And we also know why young Symons' father, Symons the Second, couldn't sell to his sister Janet. She would have nothing to do with him anymore. If he telephoned her she banged the phone down, and when he wrote she returned the letters unopened. Black sheep, bah bah! But that was silly of her. He was only trying to sell her his share of the Cape Orca land, and she could have bought the land with the general's money. And a lot of people would still be alive today. However, Symons the Second lost patience and sold the land to an agency, and the agency cut it into parcels and sold the parcels to whoever wanted them. Meanwhile Janet stayed in her huff. Perhaps she didn't care so much at that stage. It was only when houses were built and people began to mill about that she realized what she had lost."

"And Astrinsky?" the commissaris asked.

The sheriff smiled coldly. "That's a different kettle of fish altogether, sir. A kettle I'd like to keep my hands out of. Land deals are often linked with corruption. There are persistent rumors in the state that some high official tipped off Astrinsky about a land deal, the sale of a large tract of virgin forest. Astrinsky bought the land cheap from the state and sold at some huge profit to a commercial party, a paper mill or a sawmill. Some of the profit found its way back to the official. All parties were supposed to be happy. But other officials, who got nothing, got wise and threatened to raise a stink. And they were brought to heel by a snort from very high up. General Wash was a super big shot, with friends and relations in the government. I would say that Astrinsky ran to the general and was saved in the nick of time. Janet knew what her husband had done for Astrinsky; one hand washes the other. But I'm not getting into any of that, sir. I'm only a minisheriff in a minicounty in a corner of nowhere. As I explained to the sergeant this morning, I am not ambitious, and not suicidal either."

The commissaris nodded. "I see. So Astrinsky covered up for Janet and probably made no profit. He is a suspect, but not a prime subject. I've met and studied the man twice, and I don't believe that he would have followed Davidson into the woods and stolen his matches, or that he would have ripped the plastic foam out of Mary Brewer's boat and replaced the bulkheads, or that he would have sneaked up on his friend and fellow Crustacean Opdijk and pushed him over the cliff. Leroux said Astrinsky was not a sporty type at all. Did Astrinsky ever do any boating?"

"No, sir. He headed the prize committee whenever there was a race, and he delivered the speech, but he was never seen on the water."

The commissaris waved his coffee spoon. "Away with him then. Now it's the sergeant's turn, I think. De Gier, what happened after you left the town clerk's office?"

"I drove back to the cape, sir. I shouldn't have because the snow was getting worse, but I wanted to be on the actual territory where the crimes had taken place while I thought of my possible conclusions. All I managed to do was wreck the sheriff's Dodge and stumble into Reggie's cabin. Reggie offered drinks and had too many himself. The alcohol released whatever is torturing him and his behavior became notably bizarre. He wasn't just drunk."

The commissaris' hands kneaded his thighs while he listened to the rest of the tale. "I see. So Madelin saved you in a way. You're sure that he would have become violent?" "Yes, sir. I was just another woodchuck to him."

"So the man isn't right in the head. No murderer is, of course. Janet must be very odd too to go to such immense trouble to obtain some land. The taboo on killing is the heaviest rule our systems of justice apply, and she broke the taboo so easily. But only because her own insanity linked up with Reggie's. A little like Hitler meeting Himmler. Hitler painted post cards and Himmler raised chickens, I believe. Together they caused the holocaust. Janet and Reggie never even gave their victims a chance. They were picked off one by one, at the lady's convenience." He looked at the sheriff. "Perhaps the sergeant was right when he told me in Boston that your scene, your peacetime scene that is, is somewhat rougher than what we are used to."

"Scene," the sheriff said. "Yes, sir, it's rough. But it goes with the mood of the country. We haven't been civilized very long and we still acknowledge every man's right to carry arms. And we have strict ideas about property, exaggerated ideas perhaps, so they can be perverted easily. It's lawful here to shoot a burglar through the head."

The commissaris felt his impeccably shaved chin. "Yes, another type of society altogether perhaps. I saw a license plate on a car yesterday, not from this state I think. It had a slogan printed into the metal: LIVE FREE OR DIE. 1 was most impressed. 1 hope you don't think I was criticizing. We've gone too soft on our side of the ocean. The big wars started in Europe and when we choked on our viciousness we had to yell for help, which you provided, thank heaven. Still, I would hate to see the people of Amsterdam wear six guns on their belts."

"Our
license plates just say VACATIONLAND, sir." The sheriff had sharpened a match and was poking it around between his strong teeth. He took the match out of his mouth and studied it. "We are still where we were, gentlemen. I don't see that there's anything we can do now. We may have managed to reconstruct the various events, but there's no proof. There are no witnesses. Jeremy saw Janet drive her car at him, but he'll never say so in court—he won't even say so to us. If I remember my lessons correctly we should now start to work on our remaining suspects— interrogate them, manipulate them, and so forth. Given time they may break down and not only confess but produce sufficient circumstantial evidence so that we won't look foolish in court. This state has some very smart lawyers. At this point the D.A. wouldn't even bother to listen to me."