Death of a Siren Read online

  Feeling a surge of relief, I looked around my new haven at the rocky beach and the green-gray tangle of thirsty scrub. Then I looked up and spotted the castle. It was perched on a rise some distance back from the water and appeared to be built of the same black and brown volcanic stone that surrounded it. It didn’t appear outlandishly large—not a great deal larger than a three-car garage—but it was striking, in part because it was there in the middle of nowhere and in part because it had a square tower of two or three stories in one corner.

  A powerful sense of unreality and foreboding settled over me as I prepared to go ashore, a foreboding overwhelmed by my craving for a glass of clean, clear, fresh water.

  3

  I sat in the absolute dark of the cellar, half mad from the pain in my head and nauseated by the smell of my vomit. Fortunately there wasn’t much, since I hadn’t eaten much that morning. I cursed myself and my stupidity for a few minutes. What did the lunatic with the metal mouth have in mind for me? Why hadn’t he already killed me if that was the plan? There was no question about one thing—given the chance, I’d kill the bastard. At the very first opportunity.

  Trying to think more positively, I pointed out to myself that at least my prison was cool and dry. Bone-dry, in fact. I started exploring using my hands—and my nose. I found several sacks of what had to be potatoes, a mesh bag filled with cabbages, and a variety of other sacks and boxes. Shelves of cans and glass canning jars lined the walls. Sensing salvation, at least in the short term, I knelt next to one of the shelves, grabbed the first jar my hand brushed, and shook it. I could feel a sloshing. Sloshing meant liquid. In a near fury of thirst, I popped the top off the jar and smelled the sharp tang of pickling juice. I set disappointment aside and tried another jar on the next shelf down. Again, sloshing. I opened the top and was rewarded with a fruity, slightly sweet smell. The smell wasn’t familiar, but it did seem promising, so I dipped my finger in and tasted it.

  Not bad, not bad at all. Not too sweet, a little tangy, and very refreshing. I lifted the jar to my lips and drank the nectar of what I later learned was preserved cactus hips. Refreshed and encouraged, I continued on and found all sorts of preserved fruits—some familiar, some not—along with a row of sauerkraut. I passed on the kraut.

  I sat back, almost totally revived, and tried to turn my thoughts to the big picture. Whatever my future held, I wouldn’t starve right away. But what about the long term? I crawled over to where I thought the trapdoor was. I crouched and then stood carefully, my hands above my head, until I touched the door. It felt just as solid as before. With a grunt, and some sharp complaints from my bruised legs, I shoved up, and again achieved nothing.

  With no way to free myself, my thoughts turned to less attractive topics, like what Uncle Alf was thinking about me. Alf’s my only living relative, my parents and younger sister all having died during the influenza epidemic of 1918. I’d managed to avoid their fate by mere luck. Alf, I always figured, had survived because he was a merchant marine officer and had been at sea almost continuously for three years. When my parents died, Alf and Lisl, his wife, had for all intents and purposes adopted me. Because Alf was still at sea a lot, it was Lisl who kept me on the straight and narrow and made sure I paid attention at school.

  When Alf finally came ashore and had time for such things, we became very close. Almost father and son. Alf taught me to sail, and he taught me the basics of navigation. Alf had also infected me with the dream of sailing around the world. Pegasus was Alf’s boat, and when Lisl died the boat became the most important thing in his life. Except maybe me. And I’d repaid his kindness by stealing it from him. He’d been out of town when I realized that I had to get out of town myself. I stole his boat and left a short letter that explained nothing. If I’d told him everything, he might not have believed it. If he had believed it, he probably would have started making noise about it and found himself as dead as some people wanted me to be.

  It was quiet in the hole. And dark. And the air was thickening. I crouched and pounded with my fist on the trapdoor. Somebody above pounded back with something that sounded as if it would hurt.

  “Shut up.” In German.

  Resigned for the time being, I began to doze off. Aside from Alf there really wasn’t anybody else I’d left behind who mattered, except Erin. And, as much as it still hurt to admit it, she was a lost cause.

  I had a thing for Erin, and she had one for me. Under other circumstances we’d have married at least two years ago and I’d be a happy father back in Manhattan. But our romance was doomed from the start. Her father, Sergeant McGrath, was one of the top officers in my Hell’s Kitchen precinct. Yes, I am, or was, a New York cop. The good sergeant’s entire life and being were centered on that precinct house and everything that went on in it. Especially the stuff nobody wanted to talk about. There was, of course, a captain in charge of the precinct and a couple of lieutenants, but McGrath was the real boss. To complete the picture, every other cop in the precinct, except me, was Irish, like Sergeant McGrath. I was “the Dutchman.” I was tolerated but never really accepted or trusted. As for McGrath, he didn’t even tolerate me. He hated all Dutchmen, even more than he hated the English. After a couple shots of Irish whiskey he’d invariably launch into a rant about the Germans gassing the Allied trenches during the Great War. He insisted he’d been there, although I never saw any proof of that. Whatever the reason for his hatred of Dutchmen, both Erin and I were afraid to defy him. The sergeant could be violent. He’d never hesitated to rough up citizens of all but the loftiest status and even other officers who irritated him. He’d been furious when I managed to get promoted to detective, and he’d made it all too clear that he didn’t want a Dutchman in his family.

  I awoke to a loud banging and scraping over my head as whatever had been used to hold the trapdoor down was dragged away. A blast of bright light blinded me. “Come out of there, shithead,” commanded my jailer.

  Dazed, I looked up into the early afternoon light. “Where’s the ladder, Ritter?” asked another voice—one I didn’t recognize—in German.

  “Outside, where it belongs,” snapped the familiar voice. “Get your ass out there. Now!”

  I managed to drag myself up and out and found a committee of three waiting for me. There was Metal-Mouth, who I now assumed was named Ritter, and a smaller and considerably younger German speaker who I guessed was Ernst. Standing beside them was an Ecuadorean in a wrinkled gray uniform with a revolver holstered at his side and a worried expression on his face. He was average height, much like me, and strongly built—stocky but not really fat. He had a weathered, well-used face that suggested he might be past middle age. At first I assumed he was a soldier or policeman, but there were no insignias or marks of rank or authority on his uniform. He could just as well have been an armed automobile mechanic. Except, of course, I damn well knew he was a soldier or policeman. The situation required it, and his black, rock-hard eyes confirmed it.

  “Shithead,” snarled Ritter as he stepped toward me, swinging the butt of the gun toward my face.

  “That’ll be enough, Dr. Ritter,” said the Ecuadorean in English, in a quiet voice that belied the searing command reflected in his eyes. By now, his expression had changed from worry to irritation. “If you’re charging this man with a crime, then he’s my prisoner. Under my control.”

  I stared at Metal-Mouth and tensed, ready to kill him right then and there if I could. But I couldn’t, not with him holding a shotgun and the Ecuadorean carrying a revolver. I struggled to play it smart, to get my fury under control

  “Oh for God’s sake, Ritter,” whined Ernst in German. “Do what he says. Otherwise he’ll make very big trouble for us. We should have killed and buried this animal before we radioed for the sergeant.” As Ernst spoke, the Ecuadorean looked at him with interest, but his expression suggested a total lack of understanding.

  Ritter lowered the gun while I studied Ernst more carefully. He was definitely smaller and younger than Ritter,
but he had the same exhausted, almost dominated look about him. And, I thought, once he’d been almost pretty.

  “Thank you,” said the uniformed Ecuadorean, again in English. “Do you speak Spanish?” he asked, his eyes still hard.

  “No, sir,” I replied, having learned from an early age to be polite to cops I didn’t know. “Only English and some German.”

  “Very well. We’ll continue in English. I’m Sergeant López. I’m what you might call the chief of police under the governor of these islands. Who are you?”

  “My name is Frederick Freiman. I’m an American citizen; my passport is on my boat, which is anchored in the cove.”

  “Yes, I saw your boat. What are you doing in the Galápagos?”

  “I was headed from Panama to Tahiti when my engine failed. The wind and the currents did the rest.”

  “Your boat has NEW YORK painted on its stern.”

  “Yes, I started in New York.”

  “I see. It has happened before. Dr. Ritter here says he came upon you bending over the bloody body of Ilse von Arndt. Did you kill Miss von Arndt?”

  “Baroness von Arndt,” snapped Ritter.

  “Of course, Doctor,” agreed López without turning to look at the German.

  “No, sir, I did not,” I replied, thinking this sergeant was one to get right to the point. “I came up from the beach and found her lying on the floor, already dead. Her blood was bone-dry.”

  López stepped back and looked me over from head to foot. “Is this how you first saw him, Dr. Ritter?” he asked. “Dressed in these same clothes?”

  “I found him just as he is, bent over the body of our dear baroness,” replied Ritter. Then turning to Ernst, he mumbled in German that López was just another Latin dummy. López didn’t appear to notice the aside, although his lip curled ever so slightly. If I hadn’t been staring right at him I would never have noticed. And I didn’t, at the time, attach any significance to it. My head still hurt too much to permit any but the most basic thoughts and emotions. “And I will testify,” shouted Ritter in English. “I will testify.”

  “And I also,” seconded Ernst.

  López turned and looked out into the living room, at the body. He then turned back and looked at us. “Do you recognize that ax?” he asked Ritter.

  “Of course, it is the baroness’s. Ours. We use it all the time.”

  “Very well,” said López after a long pause. “This is a serious charge. I’ll take Mr. Freiman back with me in the gunboat to Wreck Bay. The governor will wish to see him. I’ll also take the baroness back with me.”

  “Must you?” whined Ernst. “We demand that we be allowed to bury her right here.”

  For a second, López looked as if he might hit the little German, but he restrained himself and wiped his hand across his face as if he were tired. Probably tired of Ernst. “We’ll take the baroness to the fish cannery so they can keep her in their cold room. I want Dr. Menéndez to examine her.”

  Ritter looked as if he was about to join the argument, but didn’t.

  “You two may help the sailors wrap the body, and then have Sofía clean up the mess.”

  It was only then that I noticed the tiny Ecuadorean woman standing in the corner, half hidden behind the stove. I also spotted the glance of utter contempt that Ernst tossed in her direction.

  “You can’t take this charge seriously,” I sputtered, losing control for a minute as Sergeant López led me out of the kitchen into the living room. “It’s insane.” Any faint hope I’d had that this was an honest, rational, and competent cop began to melt. I started to demand that he do a proper investigation but then thought better of it, realizing that any professional suggestions might lead to matters I had no desire to discuss. I wondered what sort of jail he ran and just how desperate he was for a quick confession that would allow him to close the case. I also had a sneaking suspicion there might not be a defense lawyer within a thousand miles. I paused for a moment and stared down at the body and its surroundings. The sofa and table were there, as were several other chairs, and the beer bottles were where they had been, but the collection of rocks was gone. My mind noted the fact, but once again it didn’t register until much later.

  “The governor will decide that. Come.”

  “He should be in chains,” snarled Ritter as the gun in his hands drifted higher.

  “He will be, in due course, Doctor,” said López, picking up a battered briefcase I hadn’t spotted before and turning to go. As I followed the sergeant out the door, I noticed that Ritter was grinding his teeth and still clutching the gun while Ernst smiled smugly.

  “We’ll go aboard your boat to get your passport,” announced López as we reached the beach. A large gray rowboat was waiting there, its two oarsmen lying on their backs on the rocky sand. We pulled out to Pegasus, and I climbed aboard. The sergeant followed me and sent the boat back to the gunboat to collect two more sailors to help move the baroness’s body. While I retrieved my documents from under the navigation table, López looked around.

  “Your engine is a mess,” he remarked. “Do you have a pistol somewhere to go with the rifle I see on that bulkhead?”

  “I do,” I admitted.

  “Let me see it.”

  I dug it out and handed it to him. He studied it for several minutes, then handed it back to me. “We’ll leave them here where they’ll be safe.”

  “OK.”

  “Your name is Frederick.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do people call you Fritz?”

  “Some do,” I admitted, even though I tried to avoid the nickname. I was an American, and Fred was an American name. Fritz wasn’t. It was the sort of thing some Irish Mick might call me after too many beers.

  “Good. I’ll call you Fritz.”

  Whether or not I like the name, I didn’t like the way López said it. There was a sneer in his voice if not on his face. It was his way of putting me down or perhaps establishing that he had total control over me. Control to the point that he would be the one to decide what name I would answer to.

  I was beginning to feel as if I were with Alice in Wonderland. Was this cop hopelessly crazy or hopelessly crooked or what? He certainly wasn’t the sort of cop I’d expect to run across on an island chain dropped out in the middle of nowhere and inhabited by a couple hundred impoverished fishermen and small farmers. Along with a pack of very strange Krauts. But then what sort of cop would you expect to find in a place like this? And maybe he wasn’t even a cop. Where was his badge?

  With me following, López climbed back up into the cockpit and lit a cigar. We sat for some time, not speaking. “Are you going to throw me in jail?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a jail. I just have an office in the governor’s mansion and a little room there that I live in. When I do have a troublemaker, I turn him over to the navy. The commandant has a few cells.” He again lapsed into silence.

  The rowboat finally pulled away from the shore. It was badly overloaded with four live sailors and one dead baroness wrapped in canvas. Once clear of the beach, it turned and headed out toward the small, gray navy gunboat that was anchored maybe fifty yards away from Pegasus.

  “Sergeant,” I said very carefully, “my boat isn’t anchored in a very safe position. If the wind shifts to the south, it may be driven up on the rocks. Would you allow the gunboat to tow it to a safer location?”

  He looked at me a moment. “A very prudent suggestion, Fritz. I see no problem. And I’ll leave a sailor here to keep an eye on it until you return. You don’t have much food left, but I’m sure Ritter will feed him if I tell him to. They, Ritter and Ernst, are afraid of me.”

  Without further explanation, López left me aboard Pegasus and dropped off a sailor on the beach to retrieve my dinghy and guard Pegasus. He then had himself rowed to the eighty-foot gunboat. While the frigate birds drifted through the cloudless sky, watching us and occasionally diving to steal some morsel from the much smaller seagulls, Pegasus was towed to a safer
location. The beat-up gunboat came alongside again, and I pulled myself aboard. Within a few minutes we were out in open water, headed north toward the islands’ administrative center at Wreck Bay, twenty-five miles away. From the sound of the engines, and the clouds of black smoke that trailed astern, I was pretty sure the gunboat’s propulsion system was in only marginally better condition than Pegasus’s.

  4

  “Sergeant López,” I remarked an hour later, after a late lunch onboard the gunboat of rice, beans, and fried plantains had restored some of my confidence, “do you think I killed that woman?”

  He looked at me, then smiled with his lips curled ever so slightly. “No, of course not. If you had you’d be as bloody as she is.”

  “Is that it?” I couldn’t restrain myself. “Is that the extent of your investigation?”

  He laughed. “You’re a spunky fellow! You aren’t a policeman by any chance, are you? Your passport says you’re a businessman.”

  I gasped internally, hoping the paleness I felt within wasn’t visible without. “No, I was in the construction business, but now I’m just a sailor. A nosy sailor who worries that he’s getting railroaded. You know what that means?”

  “I do, and you aren’t. What I know about the murder of the Baroness von Arndt is this: She was killed by a hatchet blow to the right side of her head. The attacker was behind her, based on where the hatchet handle was pointed, suggesting that the attacker was right-handed. There were no bloody footprints, suggesting that the attacker pushed his victim forward as, or just after, he struck. Footprints or not, the attacker was probably sprayed with some blood. There were no fingerprints I could find pressed into the dried blood and few surfaces in the room from which I might recover any, including the handle of the hatchet. The murder undoubtedly occurred during the night and right where you found the body. The woman and her love slaves were not popular among either the Ecuadoreans or the foreigners who’ve settled in our islands the last five or ten years. And it’s always possible that Dr. Menéndez may be able to add something. Perhaps the baroness was with child. Who knows? Is there anything I’ve overlooked?”