"Gerard died."
"He didn't have to go to New York. It was his decision. Mine was my own. I could have died too, but the knife flew his way."
"The suggestion was yours."
"Yes, oh yes."
"Here's my question. Do you have any feelings about your friend's death now?"
"No."
"No feelings at all?"
"If I have any I have good feelings. Gerard tried. So did we. We are still trying. There are more people out here trying. Jeremy. Madelin. Tom of Robert's Market. And a few others, out in the woods, or on the islands. Not too many fortunately, we don't want to crowd each other. I've been back to New York since the gang fight. I hung around and looked at people. I spent a lot of time, days on end, mostly in the subway stations. I must have seen a million people. And none of them seemed alive. They were all very busy, running in circles, like the chipmunk my mother had in a cage. I let him out and he ran into the woods, but he ran in circles. He was crazy. A raccoon got him, a slow old raccoon. The chipmunk was a good meal for the raccoon, his last meal, for my neighbor bashed his head in with the butt of his gun. The raccoon wasn't worth a shell."
The commissaris nodded solemnly. "Yes, Mr. Fox. Thank you very much. For the brandy and your good words." The commissaris got up. The sergeant followed suit.
"You don't want to know about who I killed on Cape Orca?"
"I know who you killed, Mr. Fox."
"Who?"
"An old man by the name of Ranee. Paul Ranee."
"Yes, I did."
"I think I can see why you killed him. And you got rid of Captain Schwartz."
"I didn't kill any of the others?"
"No, Mr. Fox."
The fox and Albert were operating the mill again when the station wagon drove away.
"We've been very clever, sergeant," the commissaris said and shifted the car into second gear. "But we are still nowhere. To know the suspect's identity is one thing, to lay charges, as the sheriff says, is another. I'll have to think of a plan, and it should be better than the plan that has occurred to me. I don't like that plan at all, but it may be our only possibility."
"You might tell me what you have in mind, sir."
The commissaris stared ahead.
"Sir?"
A thin hand patted the sergeant's knee. "Find your own answers, sergeant. You have the training and you have the intelligence."
"When will it be, sir?"
"Tomorrow I think. Shall I drop you off at the jailhouse?"
"Yes, sir. I think I'll be going for a drive."
"The snooping and searching are over, sergeant."
"Just a drive, sir. The landscape is beautiful, and we may be leaving soon."
The wagon followed a long row of full-grown cedars. A flock of startlingly blue birds wheeled toward them. The bay glittered on the horizon, and the sun was setting behind a snow-covered hill, bright orange in its last low rays.
"Yes," the commissaris said. "I wonder where Mr. Fox will go from here."
"Will he have to go much further, sir?"
"I would think so, sergeant, but he is on the right track. A dangerous track though. Let's hope he won't die too soon or lose his mind."
"Are you on that track, sir?"
The commissaris grinned. "Didn't you know, Rinus? And so are you. You've been on it for some time. You should recognize the view. The track leads uphill. Uphill tracks usually offer good views after a while."
19
The blue Dodge was parked at the side of the road leading into Cape Orca. De Gier sat behind the wheel. He was mumbling to himself in a reassuring manner. It was cold in the car and the BMF brandy had worn off. He had a slight headache and a slight thirst.
"It is not really complicated," he said in a sudden loud voice. "It just seems complicated. They have told the truth but not all of the truth. He knows by now, and I should know. Point is that I don't, not quite. No."
He stubbed out his cigarette, lit another, then cleaned the windshield with his free hand. He had a clear view of the bay and the white expanse helped to steady his thoughts. Surely the commissaris had worked out the solution. But only after he had seen the BMF gang and after he had spoken with Jeremy. De Gier was ready to disregard the BMF gang. The householders of Cape Orca's shore had been removed out of greed. Somebody wanted their land and their houses, but only to destroy them. The prime interest had been for the land, and still was. Counting in the island. Jeremy knew his island was wanted, for he had gone to a great deal of trouble to protect himself. The island was a fortress and its owner walked about armed, accompanied by fierce dogs and an all-seeing bird. Jeremy was friendly with the BMF gang, another point to consider. And the gang, although quite prepared to kill, would only kill if violence fitted into their experiments. The fox had turned out to be a curious man, not a greedy man. The behavior of a group is determined by the behavior of its leader. Albert, Tom, and Madelin were individualists but also active members of the gang. De Gier sighed. He was pleased that Madelin could be discarded as a suspect for a number of reasons. What reasons? But he shook his head and forced his mind to return to its original subject. The murders. Madelin was out.
So who was in? Not Jeremy-the man was on the defensive. But there might be a motive in his case. Jeremy fancied himself a hermit, and hermits don't like neighbors who sail around the bay and operate chain saws and make themselves obnoxious in a number of irritating ways. But would Jeremy, the not unfriendly hermit, kill his neighbors? No.
"Right," de Gier said pleasantly. Very good. Not Jeremy. Besides, Jeremy was a victim himself. Janet Wash, not Reggie, had steered the station wagon in such an aggressive manner that Osiris, the hermit's companion at that moment and his most ferocious dog, had attacked the wagon and got himself killed in the process.
De Gier's fist banged the steering wheel. But why, oh why, oh triple why, had Jeremy assisted the lady in escaping from her car wreck and why hadn't he denounced her to the sheriff? If she tried to kill him once she might try to kill him again, and Jeremy, although an original man, a negative original man, didn't seem to be interested in getting killed. And why had Janet said that Reggie drove the car?
Just a minute, not everything at once. He had a headache, he was tired, and he wasn't particularly clever. Easy does it. Nice short connecting lines, lines he could control. What, for instance, was the exact relationship between Janet Wash and Reggie. The man was her servant, her retainer, but there might be more to it. If Janet was the guilty party, not only in the attempted murder of Jeremy but also in the completed murders of her neighbors, she wouldn't have committed her crimes herself. She was, after all, a lady, an elderly lady, some sixty years old. Reggie has better qualifications. An ex-Vietnam warrior, highly trained. Had she paid him? No, surely not. Reggie might be a killer, but not a paid killer. A gentleman. So what then? Was he her lover?
De Gier had met several gigolos, and consulted his memory. Gigolos don't split wood-they wouldn't even grow an azalea garden. They might water the azaleas on a sunny afternoon, but that would be all. Five minutes with the watering can and back to the porch and a Tom Collins, to be sucked through a straw.
The lady and her knight in shining armor. More like it. And a touch of mother-and-son. Sick, undoubtedly, but not sexy sick. A platonic relationship with the knight/son protecting and serving the lady/mother. Taking the blame for the station wagon accident so that the bad men can't harm the exalted female deity.