The Axe Factor: A Jimm Juree Mystery (Jimm Juree Mysteries) (22 page)

“And I’m supposed to be the paranoid one.”

“Not at all. Why didn’t he phone to invite you? Or send another text?”

“Perhaps he did. Let’s see,” I said, searching around for my phone. “Perhaps that’s exactly why he left the note—because he wasn’t able to get my attention on my cell. Where is the bloody thing?”

Sticky Rice looked up with that familiar, Sim-cards-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression. I’d seen it too often to ignore it.

“Dog, if you ate my phone,” I said, “I’m going to deworm you twice a day till it comes out.”

He crawled under the table.

“Chom, have you got your phone with you?”

“Yes.”

“Call me.”

Chompu obliged, but “Mamma Mia” did not ring out from Sticky’s belly.

“Then he’s buried it,” I said. “The runt. But that’s it. That’s exactly why Conrad couldn’t get through. Okay, I’m not playing anymore. It’s all quite simple. There is no missing person. His wife ran off with a younger man. He’s cool about it. There’s nothing suspicious about him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare dinner before my date.”

I stomped off toward the kitchen with the wind buffeting me left and right like a dim sum in a pinball machine. Chompu held his ground, and as I discovered later, that was the moment a nefarious plot was hatched in my absence. According to my policeman, he had heard a commotion in the bougainvilleas beside the cabin and Grandad Jah emerged from the bush doing the Saint Vitus’ dance, slapping his bare head, stamping his feet. Red ants were very fond of bougainvilleas. His arrival on the veranda was greeted by a distant roll of thunder and a slither of lightning that snaked across the sky.

“It’s coming,” he said. “It’s going to be a big one.”

“Have you been hiding in the bushes listening to our conversation?” Chompu asked.

“Yes.”

“Very well.”

“The girl can’t see what’s clearly there in front of her face. Love does that to women. It turns them into bigger idiots than they already are. I suggest we set up a surveillance operation. Here’s what we’ll do…”

“I’m the policeman,” said Chompu.

“Have you got a plan?”

“I don’t even have a crime.”

“Prevention’s better than cure, young fellow.”

14.

Don’t Screw Up

(self-assembled furniture instructions)

Translation of Grandad Jah’s Surveillance Operation Notes

Hypotheses

1. Conrad Coralbank killed his wife.

2. The Burmese servants were in on it.

Supporting Facts

i.   The note inviting Jimm for her date had to have been delivered by someone else. If Coralbank went to the trouble of setting up this alibi, he wouldn’t risk being seen putting the note on the door. The maid or her brother wouldn’t have been noticed. Nobody looks twice at Burmese.

ii.  The Burmese were complicit in the dispatch of the wife’s body.

3. They plan to make Jimm their next victim.

Supporting Facts

i.   A rich guy who could get himself any woman he wants is seducing a plain girl that he can’t possibly find attractive. So there has to be another reason. As he is a crazed killer, there is no need for motive beyond blood lust. I know these types.

ii.  He’s established an elaborate alibi.

iii. He collects weapons.

Methodology

The young fellow was right. We don’t have any concrete evidence of a crime. So we need to play along and let them make the mistakes. For that, we need more warm bodies on the ground. Reluctantly, as time was pressing, I called my good-for-nothing grandson, Arny, who was off with his old lady. Also, I had no choice but to recruit Kow.

Coralbank will be picking up Jimm on the main road, which is why he had arranged to meet her out of sight at the top of the lane. We do not alert her that we are observing as she may spill the beans to her “lover.” The policeman will follow at a safe distance to make sure Coralbank takes her to the house. With a storm coming, it should be overcast at six p.m. Kow will approach the property from the bottom of the hill at Coralbank’s land and establish a beachhead with a view of the house from the grounds. He will be equipped with a cell phone. I will be at the top of the hill near the gate, ready to enter the property over the wall when Kow gives the word (map attached). As Arny is next to useless in combat situations, he will be based at the resort where he will answer the telephone and make us sandwiches for when it’s all over.

N.B. Killers prefer to torment their victims. We will catch him in the act, hopefully before he’s murdered my granddaughter.

It was five. I’d prepared dinner and taken the dogs on a blustery walk along what was left of the beach. Mair’s salted potato plantation was already under water. The sky was invigorating, charcoal gray with spits of lightning. Whatever was on its way would be a classic. Our gulf, geographically speaking, was a paddling pool with no extreme underground activity, so the worst we could expect was a lashing. No waves had ever exceeded four meters, and that had been way out at sea.

I was in my room preparing my wardrobe for the night. I wanted something sheer and playful that could slip off one shoulder as we lay in bed laughing about Ed’s theory that Conrad had killed his wife. We’d reach a peak of mirth when I added Chom’s “perfect alibi” theory for my own demise. Conrad would be excited by all this talk of murder and roll onto me, rip off my chemise, and we’d make love through the night. The only obstacle I could see in this pleasurable night was the maid. I’d make sure the house was locked and bolted before we retired to the bedroom.

It occurred to me that I didn’t have a silk chemise so I put my white cotton singlet in my overnight bag and opted for jeans and a T-shirt for the journey over there. He’d seen everything already, so there was no need to be mysterious. The rain had started to blow against my window, so I knew I’d be soaked before I made it to the end of the lane. I took my pink plastic poncho from the closet. I was way too early. I looked at myself in the mirror and decided a touch of lipstick wouldn’t come amiss. I didn’t have any, so I put on the cape, pulled up the hood, and went down to the shop. The moisture in the air took my breath away. Mair was counting the forty-seven
baht
she’d made for the day. The sign beside the till—a legacy from the previous owners—in Thai said NO CHANGE
GIVEN. The English said NO CHANCE, which I supposed wasn’t so far wrong.

“Mair,” I said, taking her hand.

“Yes, Davinda.”

“I forgive you.”

“Oh? And what have I done now?”

“I forgive you for turning my upbringing into a New Age experiment.”

“That’s sweet of you, darling. If it ever bothers you again, you should consider what you’d be like today if I hadn’t taken charge of your upbringing.”

I needed to sit outside under the canopy on the concrete bench at the concrete table to consider such a thing. The sky was heavy. There were lumps of salt in the wind. The sea, silent for so many months, was growling from the depths of its belly. Nature was in control again. If Mair hadn’t taken charge…? I gave it thought. I wouldn’t have been here for sure. Captain Kow wouldn’t have fathered me. I wouldn’t have been an outcast at school. Wouldn’t have found solace in the English language. Wouldn’t have gone to Australia and learned how to drink wine directly from a box. Wouldn’t have become a journalist. Probably wouldn’t have eaten so much at the urging of a mother who considered trimness a sin. Damn it. I would have become a Thai Airways flight attendant. I’d be groomed and polite and neat and married to a pilot.

I was awakened from that nightmare by the
beep-beep
of a motorcycle horn. I looked up to see Nurse Da ride up the curb and under the canopy beside me. Her white uniform seemed preserved beneath a transparent cape, but her hair had been plastered flat by the rain. She switched off her engine.

“Don’t you answer your cell phone anymore?” she asked.

“My dog buried it. What’s up?”

“Dr. Somluk, she’s back.”

“Well, that’s … I suppose it’s good news as long as she recognizes how much trouble she’s put everyone through. I’m relieved. Is she okay?”

“Seems to be.”

“Seems? You haven’t seen her?”

“I just got back from a couple of naughty days with Gogo. She texted. She wants to see both of us.”

“She wants to see me? Why?”

“I’ve been texting her about you and your help from the beginning. Keeping her up on the news. I suppose she wants to—you know—thank you or something. Give you an exclusive story? I don’t know.”

“When?”

“Now. Have you got a few minutes?”

I looked at my wrist, where I used to wear a watch before I became unemployed.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Five-thirty.”

I wasn’t meeting Conrad till seven-thirty. I had time.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“She said she’d meet you at the health center.”

That was a few minutes down the road.

“I can see her,” I said.

“Great. Give her my love.”

“You aren’t coming?”

“Nah. I said I’d see her tomorrow. All I’m fit for at the moment is bed. That man of mine is an animal, Jimm. I’ve had barely an hour’s sleep in the last twenty-four.”

She blushed.

“Wait!” I said. “You haven’t been working for twenty-four hours?”

“That’s right. I took compassionate leave. With no doctor in residence, I had to shut the clinic.”

“Then … why…?”

“The uniform?”

“Yes.”

“He’s a devil, isn’t he?”

I got it. I had to confess a fat man with a nurse uniform fetish wasn’t what I’d call the optimum life partner, but who was I to complain?

The health center was only five minutes from the resort, but the rain was coming down in carafes. I didn’t want to make the trip twice, so I went back to my cabin to put on my lipstick. Mair had already shut the shop when I got back to the car park, and I didn’t see anyone else. I shrouded myself in my poncho and cycled down to the intersection. There was already a three-centimeter top layer of water on the road flowing toward the sea. I hoped the lipstick was waterproof. I was the only one silly enough to be on the road. I’d never been that fond of cycling in the rain in Chiang Mai, but it was one of the few thrills down on the Gulf, so I’d learned to see it as a hobby. That and hanging up damp laundry.

The gate to the health center was open as usual, but the clinic appeared to be locked up and dark, as were the rooms at the back. The only light pushed through the rain from the road out front. I parked the bicycle around the side and walked up the concrete steps. The center was blocked at street level by a line of bushes. I sat on the top step and watched the rain gush in parallel lines from the corrugated roof. And I wondered whether Dr. Somluk might be hiding somewhere in the shadows, still afraid of the boogie men. But after five minutes she still hadn’t emerged, and I was wondering whether to go home.

Then a truck, an old beaten-up Datsun with a clunky exhaust pipe, drove into the compound at speed, did a noisy U-turn on the wet gravel and stopped just below my perch. The driver’s window squeaked slowly down. I was as surprised to see the woman sitting there as I was to see the smile on her face.

“Dr. June?”

“Hello, Jimm,” she shouted above the storm. “Hop in.”

“I’m here to meet—”

“I know. She’s with me. We’ve got a lot to tell you.”

The passenger door swung open. All I could think about was not being late to meet Conrad.

“Come on,” she said. “The rain’s getting in.”

“I have a date,” I shouted as I walked down the steps.

“What time?” she asked.

“Seven-thirty.”

She looked at her watch.

“Oh, no problem,” she said. “Somluk and I just need to clear a few things up, and I’ll have you back with your lover long before then.”

I stepped out into the rain and ran for the open door. The seat was already soaked, so I didn’t bother to take off my cape. I had to slam the door three times before it would close properly. Dr. June smiled at me again, then gunned the engine.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“In a safe place. At the hospital.”

She pulled out into the road without stopping at the entrance. We kicked up a wall of water.

“I have to apologize to you,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes. I was extremely rude to you when you came to the hospital.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Yes you had. But there was a reason, you see? Somluk and I didn’t know who to trust. Back then I didn’t realize you’d been helping us. I was afraid you might have been one of them. Somluk will explain it all. We really need your help.”

She rested her gear hand on my thigh, and I felt a jolt of unease. She was driving faster than the conditions warranted.

“Nice truck,” I said, looking for a seat belt that didn’t appear to be there.

“Hospital maintenance.” She laughed. “It was the first piece of shit I could find the key for. I’m sure this thing causes half the accidents we treat in Emergency.”

She was chatty and friendly all the way to the hospital. A different person. But still she wouldn’t answer any of my questions about Dr. Somluk.

“I think she’d like to tell you all this herself” was all I got.

We entered the hospital through the rear gate and parked away from the car park under a sprawling duck-foot tree. The sun had yet to go down behind the mountains of Phato, but it might as well have been midnight. The clouds were black. We ran together to the door of the administration building, which was unlit. Not even a light on the porch. Inside, all the office doors were closed apart from that of Dr. June.

“Dr. Somluk,” she called out. “Jimm’s here.”

There was no reply. She waited till we were inside her office before she turned on the light. There was nobody in the room, although on the coffee table in front of the small couch were two used coffee cups, two glasses, and half a bottle of wine.

“She must be in the bathroom,” she said. “She never could hold her wine. I do hope you won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell them what?”

“A registered doctor driving under the influence of alcohol.”