Death of a Siren Read online

  “He’ll find a place for us,” my guide assured me, nodding at a small man, dressed in a white shirt and trousers, who was hurrying toward us.

  “Good evening, sir,” said the man in slow but careful English. “You are the friend of Sergeant López, no?”

  I nodded.

  “And you wish to eat?”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Of course!” He then disappeared into the crowd, only to return almost immediately and lead us to the open side overlooking the dark water, where a new table and chairs were being set up under one of the lanterns. “A waiter will be with you very soon.” He disappeared again.

  “Do you see, sir, you’re a very important person here at Wreck Bay.” As Rojas said it, he looked as if he were about to burst into one of his incomprehensible fits of laughter. Somehow he managed to control himself.

  “As I reminded you on my boat, Seaman Rojas, we’re both in the same position. You, therefore, must also be a very important person. And remember, important persons make big, easy targets when the shooting starts.”

  This time he did laugh, confident now that it was permitted. Then, after thinking about what I’d said, he stopped laughing so hard.

  While we were waiting for our meal, Thompson, the American with the big schooner and the big mouth, showed up, a big glass of rum in his hand. He was wearing the same jeans I’d seen him in before, but now he had a flowered sport shirt on. Even in the Galápagos, people dress up when they go out on the town. “Why, it’s the American who works for Sergeant López!”

  “Hi,” I replied, looking up at him and almost shouting to be heard over the combo. I can’t say he was drunk, but he didn’t look totally sober, either.

  Thompson looked pointedly at Rojas, and the young sailor started to stand to give him his chair. “Stay where you are, Rojas,” I said. “Our food’ll soon be here. I’ll get our host to find us another chair.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Thompson as I stood to flag down the owner, “I’ve just got a couple questions.”

  “Shoot!”

  “What’s the real story on the governor?” he demanded. “These people seem to tell you more than they’re willing to tell me.” From the expression on his face he took being left out as a personal insult.

  “The real story is that he was a sad case. He couldn’t stand this place and wanted to go home.”

  “Then he really did kill himself?”

  “That’s what they say. I haven’t seen the body or talked to his valet, but I did meet him once, and I believe it.”

  The combo finished the tune it was playing with a crash and fell momentarily silent.

  “Who’s in charge around here now?”

  “The naval commandant. He always has been, as I understand it. The governor was just window dressing.”

  “What about López?”

  “That’s a good question. They say it’s complicated, something about who knows who back on the mainland, in the capital.”

  Thompson had the bad habit of looking at you as if you were an idiot when you told him something he didn’t like or understand. But I decided to overlook this shortcoming.

  “Why are you really here?” he continued, his expression as suspicious as it was harsh.

  “I’m an adventurer, a traveler, just like you. I set out for Tahiti, and this is as far as I’ve gotten.”

  “Why’s an American working for López?”

  “Because he’s made it worth my while. You don’t like him?”

  “No, and I don’t trust him, either. He’s trouble for us. Where is he, by the way?”

  “I’d like to know that myself. Has he given you any trouble?” I asked, my interest growing.

  The American frowned, then took another belt of his rum. “Not so far, but I can feel it coming.”

  “Are you doing something he won’t like?”

  “Just taking in the sights. Like you. You sure you’re on the right side?”

  “Of what?”

  “There’s a war coming, pal. You with us, or are you one of those Bund Krauts who run off to the woods on the weekends so they can shout ‘Sieg Heil’ at each other?”

  I’d known one or two New World Nazis, but I wasn’t one of them, and this guy was beginning to get on my nerves. I started to tell him to go to hell—worse, actually—but then remembered what Rojas had said about his being seen surveying various islands and collecting rocks.

  Collecting rocks, I thought. Perhaps the very rocks I’d seen at the castle. And Thompson had been seen at the castle the very day the baroness was killed. Thompson and Becker. Both had been at the castle that day, and both were now wandering around, looking for something. I might learn more from Thompson if I was more polite than he was. I just had to give it a little time. “Bob, no matter what my last name is, I’m an American and on the side of the United States. López asked me to help him solve these murders because I speak German and he doesn’t and all the victims and most of the suspects are Germans.” There was no reason to add that López was forcing me to do the work, and it didn’t seem the right time to tell him he was now at the top of the list of suspects, even though he wasn’t German. At least not as far as I could see.

  “You just remember whose side you’re on,” he said. He downed a mouthful of rum, nodded, and sauntered away in the direction of the bar.

  “Finally,” sighed Rojas as our food arrived.

  17

  I was up early the next morning. Rojas and I had work to do. I looked over the stern at the rudder and noticed a school of minnows fluttering around and nibbling at the greenery growing on Pegasus’s bottom. I was going to have to take time soon to scrub the hull as best I could. Eventually I’d have to somehow haul the boat to give it a good cleaning.

  I stripped, then looked out over the bay. There were undoubtedly sharks out there, at least one, but I was able to convince myself that they only attack at night. I quickly plunged over the side into the cool, blue water and scrubbed myself from top to bottom. I floated for a few minutes, enjoying the sense of freedom and weightlessness. I then hauled myself up the swim ladder, dried, and dressed. By the time I reached the pier, my assistant was already waiting there.

  The previous evening, after Thompson finished evaluating my loyalty, Rojas and I had decided that now was the time to track down the Crazy German. I wanted to do it before López showed up and told us not to.

  “You find out anything useful?” I asked as I tied the dinghy to the pier.

  “The name of a man who can tell us how to find the Crazy German.”

  “What about López?” It’s not that I wanted to find him at the moment. Or him to find me. I just wanted to know where he was.

  “Nobody seems to know, sir.”

  I looked around the anchorage. “The gunboat’s still here, so he must still be on Santa Cruz.”

  “Not necessarily, sir. He has another launch that he uses from time to time. He keeps it at the governor’s mansion. His office is there, on the first floor in the back, where all the official records are stored.”

  I looked at him a moment. I already knew about the sergeant’s office, but this was the first I’d heard about the launch. I wondered if the seaman had failed to mention it in the past because he wanted to hide it from me or just because I’d never asked. I wondered what else I should know but didn’t. I wondered if my feelings of isolation were leading to an excess of paranoia.

  “Walk over to naval headquarters and call the governor’s mansion. Find out if the launch is still there. For that matter, find out if López is there.”

  I watched Rojas walk across the sand to the stone headquarters, then turned my attention to the morning soccer game in the plaza. Six boys in all, none older than about ten as far as I could tell, were yelling, waving, weaving, and dancing around the open sand while passersby were forced to weave and dance to keep out of their way. One, the smallest player, put in everything he had and gave the ball a mighty kick. The ball rocketed forward and
sailed through the goal, which was marked on the sand. I clapped along with all the players. Then, without warning, they started doing somersaults, although some had a little trouble getting over. I clapped again, not at all certain I could still do a respectable somersault.

  I watched them rolling around in the damp sand and thought back to being a kid and to the freedom from reality that kids enjoy. Whatever their future, they were able to concentrate on what was important now—kicking the ball and doing somersaults. I mourned the freedom I’d lost over the years.

  Rojas returned a few minutes later. “The launch isn’t there, sir. Neither is the sergeant.”

  “OK. Let’s get some food, and then we’ll go find the Crazy German.”

  “I’ve eaten, sir.”

  “I’m sure you can choke down a cup of coffee.”

  “Galápagos coffee is very good, don’t you think?”

  The breakfast crowd at the Miramar was small and muted. While we waited for my food and Rojas’s coffee to appear, I started my Spanish lessons by holding up a knife. “What’s this?”

  “Un cuchillo.”

  “Cuchillo.” I tried it several times, then went on to fork and spoon and cup and plate. By the time I’d finished counting out the money to pay our bill, we’d also gone over the words for eggs, pork, bread, and oranges.

  It didn’t take us long to find Humberto, the butcher who Rojas had been told knew how to find the Crazy German. When we arrived at his small shop on one of the settlement’s sandy alleys, we found him hard at work gutting and bleeding a pig that hung from the ceiling. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Humberto wasn’t totally sane himself. Or sober for that matter, even though the sun was still low in the sky. His directions were a little cloudy.

  I wondered if maybe I should’ve taken Ana’s advice and asked her to show us the way, but I was in a hurry and also a little worried about putting her in danger. She might be a modern woman, but I wasn’t sure I was a totally modern man. Without Ana to help us, however, we were far from certain we really knew where we were going when we set off down the path Humberto told us to follow inland.

  The hike was damn unpleasant. While the land behind Wreck Bay did slowly rise, it failed to achieve the lushness of the highlands of Floreana, and the paper-thin rubber soles of my shoes did nothing to protect my feet from the sharp stones. We marched under the powerful equatorial sun, attacked by swarms of hunger-maddened horseflies. With the exception of the flies and a few alert, clever little lizards, we saw few signs of animal life. Not even a feral goat or one of the huge land tortoises that everybody kept telling me to look for. Most of the time we were guessing where we were going. Fortunately we stumbled across one or two small, sun-dried farms whose lethargic owners directed us.

  We found the Crazy German in an incredibly filthy, tumbledown hovel that was protected from the sun by two or three stunted, half-dead trees under which a few scrawny goats were tethered. Off to one side a small vegetable garden wilted while several dozen chickens wandered aimlessly, pecking at the sand and rocks. I can’t imagine what the goats and chickens ever found to eat. Our host, a shriveled, bent old man dressed in a pair of tattered shorts and nothing else, was standing in the doorway. He shouted something in Spanish.

  “He wants to know what we want,” translated Rojas.

  I answered in German that I wanted to ask him about a rumor I’d heard. I made no mention of working for López, since he seemed the sort who might not like the sergeant.

  “What rumor?” he continued in German.

  “About a man who lives someplace in the islands and is hiding from the Nazis.”

  I figured he’d deny any knowledge of such a thing, but he didn’t. Instead, a grimace appeared on his face, a grimace that I later realized was a smile. “Are you a German? Do you now live here?”

  “I’m an American. I’m just visiting.”

  “Come. Yes, come,” he said, nodding and beckoning us forward. “I’m cooking my stew for dinner. I will tell you about that man, just as I told the other German a few weeks ago.”

  Becker, I thought. Who else?

  He led us through his one-room shack—a table with two chairs, a filthy bed, a pair of trousers, two ragbag shirts hanging on rusty nails, and three chickens patrolling the dirt floor—and then out the back. There he had another table and a rough stone hearth. I glanced at Rojas, who looked as wilted as the vegetables. “May we have some water?”

  “Of course,” he replied. He grabbed a food-encrusted tea cup that was decorated with some sort of flower pattern and had no handle, and dipped it in a water-filled oil drum. He offered the cup to me, but I nodded toward my assistant. Rojas accepted the cup and looked at it with distaste. But he was as parched as I was, so, with what was clearly an exercise of will, he drank it. The German refilled the cup and passed it to me, and I followed Rojas’s example, closing my eyes and hoping for the best.

  “Now let me tell you about that man,” said the Crazy German as he stirred the unsavory-looking contents of an iron pot hanging over the half-dead fire.

  “Yes,” I said, “please do.” I spotted a small area of shade right up next to the side of the shack and edged into it.

  “He’s a Jew and a Communist, and the Nazi thugs were out to kill him because they believed he was a leader of those who wanted to end the Nazis. Because they thought he was important, a very senior SS Gruppenführer was put in charge of capturing him and learning what he knew. You know the SS? The Schutzstaffel? Hard men. Vicious men. Killers and torturers. Yes? Well, this man we’re talking about was no fool, and he managed to kill the Gruppenführer before the Gruppenführer was able to capture him. Right there in the center of Munich. He did it with a hunting rifle. From the roof of a building. The Gruppenführer was a favorite of Hitler’s, so Himmler, the head of the SS, swore to catch him. The man escaped from Germany and ended up here. Himmler somehow learned that he might be here, but he’s not sure so the man continues to hide. Few of us know who he is or where he is, but he’s here.”

  “Do you know this man? Have you ever seen him?”

  “He’s here somewhere.”

  “What did you tell the other German who came to visit you?”

  “Just what I’m telling you.” He then leaned over the pot of stew, hawked, and spat into it. Several times. “That improves the flavor. Stay and have some with me.”

  “Do you know who the other German is who asked you about this?”

  “Yes. A Nazi. Are you?”

  “No. I’m an American. If the other German is a Nazi, why did you tell him about this man?”

  “Because I’m afraid of the SS. If I cooperate maybe they’ll leave me alone. Why do you look for the man who killed the SS Gruppenführer?”

  “I’m not looking for him. I want to find the other German. Was he looking for the man who killed the SS officer?”

  “The Nazi?”

  “If that’s what he is.”

  “No. He was just walking around, looking at the rocks. I told him about the man who killed the Gruppenführer. He is here, someplace. Please stay and have dinner with me. People tell me my stew is excellent.”

  “That would be an honor and a pleasure, but we must get back to Wreck Bay. This business about the governor is causing confusion.”

  “What about the governor?”

  “He killed himself a few days ago.”

  “Nobody ever tells me anything.”

  The hike back to Wreck Bay was just as brutal as the trip out. As we cursed and flailed wildly at the hungry flies, I explained to Rojas what the Crazy German had said.

  “Do you believe him, sir? Perhaps there’s a reason he’s called crazy.”

  “I don’t know.”

  When we reached Wreck Bay I returned immediately to Pegasus so I could strip and plunge once more into the heavenly cool water. The result was a near miracle. The massive welts left by the flies no longer itched maddeningly, although they did sting a little. I pulled myself up the swim ladder,
rinsed off in freshwater, and settled down in the cockpit to enjoy a lukewarm beer while I air-dried in the evening light.

  Everywhere I looked in Las Encantadas there were people who had, or thought they had, at least one good reason to kill the baroness. I had far too many suspects with good motives. I also had two suspects, Becker and Thompson, who were seen at the castle the day of the murder but who lacked any obvious motive. Except possibly inflamed passion. The baroness seemed to have a powerful effect on everybody she met, although different men seemed to see very different things in her. Or could politics have been a factor? Could Becker really be an SS officer and the baroness an enemy of the German state?

  I dressed and rowed in to the dock, where Rojas was waiting for me. I’d considered giving him the night off and going out to dinner by myself, but decided against it. Anyway, he didn’t seem to have the slightest objection to our joint dining expeditions. We went back to the Miramar. It was crowded, but it was also early so the crowd wasn’t as thick, or as drunk. After García, the patrón, had seated us and a waiter had taken our order for beers, I settled back to listen to the combo.

  “Fritz, they tell me you’re becoming a regular here.”

  I almost jumped out of my chair, then turned and found López looking down at me, a beer bottle in one hand.

  “I’ve been working hard for you, Sergeant.”

  “So I hear,” said López as he glared at Rojas. “Seaman, leave us for a few minutes. When you see me leave you may return.”

  Rojas leapt out of the chair and disappeared in the direction of the bar.

  “Do you have a name for me, Fritz? Somebody I can send to the mainland?”

  “I’ve got half a dozen, but I can’t prove any of them guilty.”

  “Is that really important in the situation you’re in?”

  “Even in this situation I’d like to finger the guilty party.”