“In the early hours of this morning,” the announcer intoned, “a macabre discovery was made behind Le Garage Herchuelz in the industrial zone of Tipaerui Valley. It was the corpse of Bismarck, the million-franc dog — with a knife plunged brutally into his heart!”
Angelina Tama gasped as a closeup on the screen showed the handle of an enormous butcher knife protruding from the brown and black pelt on the dog’s ribs. Dried brown blood matted most of the dog’s side.
The leathery face of Inspector Opuu replaced the dog. Scowling, he recounted how Bismarck had been discovered missing the day before. So far, he said, in spite of all their efforts, the police had no leads to the instigator of this cowardly crime.
The inspector was replaced by a wan Marcel-Pierre Blanchard, who was shown pointing out Bismarck’s kennel and who then told in a halting voice how he had been summoned to identify the remains of his canine companion.
Next came the director of customs at Faaa International Airport. “We feel certain,” he said, “that this horrible crime was committed in order to expedite the smuggling of a major shipment of illicit substances through our airport in the relatively near future. We have, therefore, doubled our scrutiny of all incoming flights and taken other security measures that I am not at liberty to reveal. I will tell you this, however: Nothing will enter our island via Faaa International!”
“To conclude,” murmured the announcer, “here are some pictures of the martyred Bismarck undergoing his training in New Zealand, as well as—”
Alexandre Tama clicked off the television. “Time for coffee,” he said, rising to his feet. “But first, perhaps, a little bit of cheese.”
“Oh, Alexandre, I do hope you’ll catch the killers of that poor dog!”
“We will, chérie, we will,” promised the chief of police.
The door to Alexandre Tama’s office opened and a large brown and black German shepherd padded through silently. He walked to the center of the room, where he sat on his haunches and fixed his liquid brown eyes unblinkingly on the Commissaire de Police.
“What the devil is this?” cried the nonplussed Tama at the open doorway.
Inspector Opuu’s head appeared around the side of the door. “Meet Bismarck. He wanted to come and thank you in person.”
“Opuu, get the devil in here and explain yourself!”
The normally dour Tuamotuan was grinning broadly as he entered the room, followed closely by the dog’s handler, Marcel-Pierre Blanchard.
“Hrmph! So it all worked out, did it?” Pushing aside the paperwork that littered his desk, Tama regarded the still motionless dog with curiosity.
“Like a charm,” burbled Inspector Opuu enthusiastically. “We put a discreet surveillance on all three suspects, with more on de Gaumont than the other two. Yesterday afternoon, just before dusk, de Gaumont left the house in Mamao he shares with his present girlfriend and drove off to the house of his other girlfriend.”
The Commissaire shook his head. “And the rest of the world thinks we Tahitians have nothing but sex on our minds. We’ve got nothing on these Europeans!”
The inspector nodded sardonically. “Girlfriends sometimes serve more purposes than one. De Gaumont went into her house and when he came out five minutes later, guess what he had?”
“Our friend Bismarck here?”
“Absolutely. They got in his car and drove out to Papara.”
“Papara?” muttered Tama. “Let me guess. The Surf Club? They have a whole bunch of great big surfboards locked up on their beach in some sort of burglar-proof contraption, as I recall.”
“Right again. We had a terrible time following him through the rush-hour traffic but we managed. When we finally got to the Surf Club, de Gaumont got out of the car with the dog and, bold as you please, walked the dog three or four times back and forth past all the surfboards that had been locked up for the night. These are all the professional models, three or four yards long, nothing at all like the little Styrofoam ones you see kids on the road carrying under their arms.”
Squinting quizzically at the inspector, Tama pursed his lips. “Tell me this, Opuu: Why the devil didn’t you just arrest him the moment he appeared with the dog — as you were supposed to do?”
“So he could get a one-month suspended sentence for stealing a dog?” retorted the inspector hotly. “If it even turned out to be the right dog? With a couple of kilos of coke in his hands, though, it’d be a different story — four or five years of real prison time. And anyway, where could he go with the dog on an island as small as this? We could always step in and arrest him any time we wanted to.”
“I see. So what happened at the Surf Club?”
“Nothing at all. The dog completely ignored every surfboard in sight. So they got back in the car and drove back to town — and right on through to the other side.”
“Hmmm. To the Yacht Club in Arue, perhaps?”
“Yes indeed. They have the same sort of heavy-duty cage with all sorts of boards locked up in it as the Surf Club. It was dark by the time we got there. De Gaumont got out of his car with the dog, nodded to a couple of people who were having drinks on the terrace, then walked right over to that spot by the boat slips where all the members’ boards are chained together for the night.”
“Yes. And then?”
“And then he and Bismarck just walked up and down past the surfboards two or three times until the dog started getting excited and began pawing and rubbing his nose against one of the boards. A bright red one at least four yards long with a blue and yellow tiki painted on it — not very well. Obviously an amateur job.”
“So then de Gaumont got out his chain cutters and pipe cutters and—”
“At the Yacht Club? Even de Gaumont isn’t that crazy — he’d have been mobbed. He put the dog back in the car, went to the bar, and made a few phone calls, then ordered dinner and sat back to wait. He really is a cool customer.”
“And eventually the present-day owner of the surfboard showed up?”
“Exactly. A Frenchwoman I’ve never seen before. She says, incidentally, that she bought it from a Tahitian, who bought it from a Chinese, who bought it from a—” Opuu waved his hand dismissively. “Anyway, de Gaumont bought her a beer, haggled with her for a little while, then wrote out a check — and drove off with her surfboard attached to the top of his car.”
“And with you in hot pursuit. Excellent, Opuu, really excellent. Then what?”
“Then it was back to the girlfriend’s who’d been keeping the dog for him. A little while later we heard hammering and power-saw sounds coming from the backyard. So we walked around the house and arrested them just as they were pulling the bag of coke from inside the board.”
Alexandre Tama stared at Opuu in frank admiration. “Wonderful, Opuu. You should be sitting here instead of me. And it really was coke?”
“Oh yes, the Brigade des Stupes is analyzing it right now. A little less than two kilograms.”
Tama rose to his feet and moved around the desk. He patted the top of Bismarck’s head with a massive hand. “And Bismarck here — did our friend de Gaumont admit stealing him?”