Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness

by David Casarett

  One was a death certificate. As she’d expected, it had little information. Doctors hardly ever took the time to fill them in correctly. Just the patient’s name, and his age, and his diagnosis: cardiac arrest. That’s all.

  The second page was the other thing that she’d hoped to find: a marriage certificate. Someone had known that they needed a copy to release the body and—better—had made sure to keep it in the chart. You couldn’t trust doctors, but the clerks, at least, were reliable.

  This was interesting. It was a marriage certificate dated… January 24, 2009. Several years ago. So what did that mean for the man that the corporal saw with the woman just three months ago? If this couple had been married for almost a decade, had she married two men?

  She shook her head in confusion. But there wasn’t time to figure this out now. The medical records clerk was watching her curiously, and she’d be hard-pressed to explain her interest in this marriage certificate if he were to ask. Hopefully he wouldn’t.

  There was just one more piece of information she needed. One more… clue. There it was. Anchan Pibul. That was the wife’s name.

  And an odd name it was, too. Anchan meant “peaflower,” a local plant that was used to make tea. Ladarat had even enjoyed iced butterfly peaflower tea at her cousin’s tea shop. It was a bright, iridescent blue color that didn’t seem natural at all, but which supposedly had health properties of anti-aging. It also turned your lips blue in a way that Ladarat had to assume had nothing whatsoever to do with long life. And this particular Peaflower did not seem to be offering her husbands any sort of health benefits whatsoever.

  Ladarat thanked the patient medical records clerk and made her way back to her office. Down the long, dim hallway, she found herself thinking about this woman. What was motivating her? Why would someone do what she’d done? Or what she might have done?

  There was one person she knew who could help her answer these essential questions. One person who, Ladarat had always thought, knew more about the way that people think than anyone she’d ever met. Her cousin was a successful businesswoman not simply because she had a good head for business but because she had finely tuned sense of people. Particularly for the sorts of motivations that many people kept hidden.

  She would go to see her cousin that morning and ask for her advice. That was the logical thing to do, was it not? If you had a difficult case involving ethics, you would call on a nurse ethicist. And if you had a difficult case involving people’s more… nefarious impulses, who better to ask than someone who runs a highly successful business that exploits those impulses?

  But what of the policies that needed to be reviewed? There were still many—most—that she hadn’t yet examined. How could she take a morning off work when there was so much to do?

  Perhaps she could take them home? She would bring a stack with her, and she could sit in her garden to do them. After a dinner of tom yum gung—spicy prawn soup without the coconut milk. A little like hot and sour soup. Such a meal would prepare her for a late session of policy reviews. It would help her to concentrate, would it not?

  Ladarat was pondering the intellectual focusing powers of tom yum gung as she reached her plain wooden door. That door identified her as “Ladarat Patalung, Nurse Ethicist.” She was very proud of that door. It was better than a diploma, in a way. Because it reminded her every day of what she’d accomplished.

  And she needed those reminders, she knew. Somboon always said she lacked confidence, and she supposed that was true. So it was good to have a reminder that she had accomplished something. That she was… someone. Ladarat knew that when she stood in front of her door. But unfortunately she did not spend all of her time in front of that door. Although sometimes she wished she could.

  Today was not one of those days. Her nameplate was there, as it always was. But today there was a white envelope peeking out from under the door. Ladarat picked it up gingerly with her thumb and forefinger, with much the same sense of queasiness that one might pick a slug off one’s Siam tulips.

  Opening the single folded piece of paper, Ladarat realized that it was a note from Khun Tippawan. As she knew it would be, the note was written in a careful hand on stationery “From the desk of Tippawan Taksin.” Oh dear.

  This was the way that Khun Tippawan operated. She had a unique… gift for being invisible. When was the last time Ladarat had seen her? She couldn’t remember. She would just leave notes and send texts. Like some… poltergeist? Was that the word?

  Ladarat smiled. Her boss was a phi tai hong. A vengeful ghost. But her smile faded as she read the brief note.

  “I came to check on your progress in reviewing policies but was disappointed to find that you were not yet here. Perhaps you have finished all your reviews? Or perhaps you are not taking your work as an ethicist seriously?”

  Oh dear. Ladarat knew that she had read through at most 10 percent of the policies she needed to review. The rest would take the better part of the coming week.

  And what did Khun Tippawan mean about her not taking her ethicist responsibilities seriously? Ladarat’s stomach gave a lurch as she read that. How could Khun Tippawan think such a thing?

  Of course she took her responsibilities seriously. Did anyone doubt her commitment? Anyone, that is, except Khun Tippawan? They did not. Ladarat was certain of that. The ICU director himself came to her office to ask for her advice. Certainly that was a vote of confidence.

  And yet, her primary obligation was to the hospital. That was certainly true. To Sriphat Hospital, and of course to their patients. So perhaps it was wrong to use her time in any other way?

  So as she stood outside her door, staring at the reminder that she was a “nurse ethicist,” Ladarat was forced to admit that Khun Tippawan was correct. Her door told her exactly what she was. That door did not announce her identity as a detective. Or as a doctor. Or—most certainly—as a cook. No, it proclaimed to all the world that she was a nurse ethicist.

  So that’s what she would be this morning. She would walk into her office—the office of Sriphat Hospital’s one and only nurse ethicist—and she would review as many hospital policies as a dedicated nurse ethicist possibly could.

  THE AMERICANS’ STRANGE DESIRE FOR CONTROL

  That firm resolve lasted until eleven thirty, when her assistant, Sisithorn Wichasak, came to get her for lunch. Ladarat looked up to find the girl peering through the door, her head protruding from the right-hand edge. Perched there, with only her head visible, she looked a little like a puppet.

  She really was pretty, but in an awkward way. Admittedly, her oversize glasses and oversize feet didn’t help. The glasses, in particular, gave the impression that she hadn’t quite grown up yet.

  And in some ways, perhaps, she hadn’t. She was so serious, for instance. Like a child memorizing her lines for a school play in which she would impress everyone. She reminded Ladarat of herself, twenty years ago. Hoping that if she worked hard enough, and attended to every detail, success would come to her naturally.

  And like Ladarat herself had always been, Sisithorn was a good listener. And a good watcher. She often noticed things that others didn’t. She would have been very good at finding hidden elephants.

  “You work too much, Khun,” Sisithorn said suddenly. “You need to take a break and clear your head. So you can be more… effective.” She knew, somehow, that would be the argument that would be most likely to have an impact. The promise that a rest now would make her more effective this afternoon. Very wise for someone so young.

  But no. She had too much to do. “I don’t have the time,” she said. “For me to go down to the dining room, and to take the time for lunch…” The hospital was counting on her. She knew that. To spare even a half hour wasn’t right.

  But Sisithorn was nodding. “I knew you would say that. That’s why I brought your lunch to you.”

  And she piled through the door, bearing plastic bags that she unceremoniously set down on Ladarat’s little desk. Without waiting for permi
ssion, Sisithorn began to unwrap and open Styrofoam containers. There was tom yum gung—the spicy prawn soup that was to have helped her be productive tonight. And gang keow wan, classic Thai green curry that would probably be a little too spicy for Ladarat.

  Ladarat sighed, pushing the pile of guidelines away from her. These would wait.

  “So tell me,” Sisithorn said, “about the American man. Will he survive?” She helped herself to the curry.

  “It is bad luck to speculate about such things,” Ladarat told her, a little more severely than she’d intended.

  She tried a couple of spoonfuls of the soup. Ahh, very good. Just spicy enough, and sour enough to make your mouth water.

  “Besides,” she said more softly, “it is impossible to know such a thing so soon. Instead, the real question we should be asking right now is…”

  “How to help the family,” Sisithorn said promptly.

  “Exactly so. We cannot do anything more to help the man, Mr. Fuller. But we can certainly help his family.”

  “But what sort of help do they need?” the girl asked. “Of course we should make them comfortable, as guests. But they are waiting, the same as us. Surely we can’t help prepare them for his death, because we don’t know if he will live or not. So what can we do?”

  Sisithorn wasn’t being argumentative, Ladarat knew. She was genuinely confused. She sighed. So clever, but she couldn’t put herself in the position of other people. She couldn’t experience true compassion.

  “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. They are in a strange place, with no one they know,” she explained patiently.

  Sisithorn nodded uncertainly.

  “Imagine… Imagine you are in… Chicago. And you are with a loved one who is very sick and in the hospital. You don’t know anybody else. And you don’t speak the language. You have no idea what is happening. What would you want? What would help you?”

  “Gang keow wan?” She smiled.

  Thinking back on her year in Chicago, and the sterile hospital cafeteria with its casseroles and meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Ladarat had to smile, too. A little gang keow wan would have made her year much more bearable.

  “But what else?”

  “Ah, I would want… someone to talk to.”

  “But not just anyone, yes? You would want…”

  “A friend.”

  Ladarat nodded. “Exactly so. You would want a friend.”

  Sisithorn thought about that for a full minute as she progressed from the curry to the soup.

  “But how do we find them a friend?” she asked finally. “Much less a friend who is an American like them?”

  “We don’t find them a friend, exactly. No one can do that. But we can visit often. We can help them get their questions answered. Americans, remember, want to be in control. They want information. They want people to be telling them what is going on.”

  “Even if there is nothing they can do?”

  “Especially then.”

  “That is… strange.”

  Ladarat shrugged. “Perhaps. But it is normal for them, just as it is normal for us to defer to the physician. Anyway,” she concluded, “we do what they expect. What they need. We help them get information. And slowly they will come to appreciate having us there. We still won’t be friends, but we will be helpful in that way.”

  “I see,” Sisithorn said, smiling as if to say she most certainly didn’t see. But that was all right. She would take her assistant with her to see the Fullers after lunch.

  They talked about other things—the other patients and issues and, of course, the inspections, until finally, triumphantly, Sisithorn unpacked the last item from the plastic bag at her elbow. Proudly, but nervously, she unwrapped her offering. She held out a small package, wrapped in a banana leaf.

  Ladarat’s favorite: kanom maprao. A soft, fantastically rich coconut cake made with coconut milk and shaved coconut. More like custard, it was creamy and sweet with clumps of coconut that would surprise you.

  “I know you like this,” Sisithorn said simply.

  “Thank you, you are most kind.” She took one of the three pieces and Sisithorn took the second. That was very thoughtful. And perceptive. How had Sisithorn known that the cake was her favorite sweet? Ladarat couldn’t remember ever discussing such a thing. Yet Sisithorn must have paid attention. She must have noticed. She was indeed very good at noticing things.

  Ladarat had observed that talent in the past. Like when that Frenchman last month was confused and disoriented, it was Sisithorn, and not Ladarat or even the doctors, who noticed that he got worse whenever his girlfriend came to visit. (It turned out that she’d been bringing him heroin that he’d inject into his legs.)

  “I’m so glad you like them. Please, have the last one,” the girl said.

  “No, thank you. You should have it.”

  “No, I insist.” She wrapped it up and pushed it across the desk, smiling shyly. “Or then you should save it. It will keep.”

  Ladarat agreed that it would. And she thought that it would be exactly what she’d need later in the afternoon, as she was struggling to finish reviewing all of the hospital guidelines.

  “So now we’ll go see the American family. We will do our best to make sure their questions are answered.”

  “And Kate and I will be… like friends,” Sisithorn added.

  TOMORROW IS NOT USUALLY ANOTHER DAY

  That was perhaps easier said than done. Mrs. Kate Fuller was not in her room, and so they went looking for her in the ICU, where they found her with her husband’s parents in the waiting room. As it had been yesterday, the waiting room was almost empty. And the mysterious man, she noted, was nowhere to be seen.

  Truth be told, Ladarat was relieved that the man had not made an appearance. She had too much on her mind, and too much to be nervous about already. Like this meeting with the Fullers. She would address the problem of the mysterious man tomorrow. Now, she needed to focus all of her attention on what was likely to be a very difficult conversation.

  The Fullers had colonized the corner of the waiting room that was nearest to the double sliding doors that led to the ICU, and they had completely rearranged it. They’d brought two rows of six connected seats together in a “V” that provided them with a little private seating area, but which effectively reduced the seating available for others. It was not a crisis, as Sisithorn would say, since there were still seats available. And few people. But it was not polite. And Sisithorn looked genuinely surprised. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something as they approached the group, but Ladarat reminded her that the Americans had different customs.

  “In America,” she said preemptively, “such behavior is not unusual. Americans will often rearrange the world to suit themselves.”

  Sisithorn nodded uncertainly.

  As they drew closer, she could see that the elder Mr. Fuller was reviewing a pile of papers that he held on his lap. He seemed to be trying to sort them, imposing some sort of order. His organizational efforts puzzled her, though. As she got close enough, she saw that they were all in Thai. Could he read Thai? She doubted it. And yet he was shuffling the papers into an order that must have made sense to him.

  Sisithorn was hanging back, perhaps drawing some of the same conclusions. And presumably, she was also confused by those conclusions. But no matter. This, at least, was something they could help with.

  The two women looked up as they approached and offered passable wais—Kate seated in her wheelchair, and Mrs. Fuller standing to greet them. Mr. Fuller barely looked up and offered them something that—charitably—might be counted as a nod.

  It was Kate who explained that her father-in-law was trying to make sense of Andrew’s medical charts. She didn’t need to explain that those notes were entirely in Thai. The elder Mr. Fuller’s frustrated expression and the vigor with which he was shuffling papers made that abundantly clear.

  After introductions, it was her assistant, much to Ladarat’s surprise, who broke the s
ilence.

  “Has there been any change?” Sisithorn was looking at the elder Mr. Fuller, as if she was trying to engage him as the most important person there. That was clever. Very clever. Although Ladarat would have preferred it if her assistant had allowed her to speak first. That would have been more proper.

  The elder Mr. Fuller shook his head and continued shuffling papers. But then he paused, looking up and seeing them, it seemed, for the first time. That was when he turned to Sisithorn, handing her the top paper in the stack.

  “Can you read this?”

  Sisithorn paused for a moment, her mouth open in an “O” of surprise. Then she smiled a thin, brittle smile that was perhaps best translated as: Yim mee lessanai, the sort of smile that hides wicked thoughts.

  Or more specifically: “I’m an assistant nurse ethicist at one of the best hospitals in Thailand and you’re asking me if I can read?”

  So Ladarat interjected, before they could get off on the wrong foot. She was the one in charge, after all, and she shot Sisithorn a reproving glance.

  “We’re not doctors,” she said. “So we may not be able to explain what everything means. But we could translate, if that would help?”

  Mr. Fuller nodded. “They’re giving us an official summary translation later today, but I thought… well… I thought that there might be more detail here.”

  So Sisithorn and Ladarat joined the three in the little “V” that the Americans had created. Mr. and Mrs. Fuller sat on one side, and Sisithorn and Ladarat on the other, with Kate in her wheelchair in the opening between them, closing the triangle. Sisithorn and Ladarat took the pile of papers between them and shuffled the pages into some semblance of chronological order. As they did, Mr. Fuller took out a yellow legal pad, and turned to a fresh page.

  Oh dear. What if she said something that Khun Suphit, the director, would object to? What if she made a mistake?

  “We can translate,” Ladarat offered, “but we can’t tell you what some of these things mean. Their… significance.”