She also had bright green eyes and what seemed to be long hair pinned up in a bun. And although the resolution on Ladarat’s phone was limited, it seemed as though Peaflower had left a few wisps of hair free that tickled the back of her neck. She wore simple diamond stud earrings—just two—and a thin silver necklace.
She seemed… demure. The perfect picture of a young woman looking for a stable, solid husband to take care of, and who would take care of her in return. Not someone you would point to and say, “This woman, she is a murderess!” Not someone you would ever expect to commit a crime.
“That is amazing.” Ladarat recognized that wasn’t the most professional response, but it really was amazing. And Wipaporn didn’t seem to mind.
“I know—I’m surprised, too. It was so easy.”
But maybe too easy. “You’re sure that she’s the right woman?”
“I’ve met her before,” was all Wipaporn said. Of course, she would have seen the woman’s pictures as she arranged other meetings with other men.
“Besides,” Wipaporn said, “Who else would be so interested in Khun Wiriya?”
Ladarat thought about that question for what felt like a full minute after she’d ended the call. Who indeed?
And she was still thinking about that question twenty minutes later as she tried to go back to sleep. For a short time, she thought that a return to sleep might be possible. But now Maewfawbaahn was awake. And once he was up, there was no point in thinking about sleep.
He was half sitting like a sphinx on the pillow next to her head, staring at her with a strange and almost unworldly attention. She felt a little like how a mouse might feel, finding herself eye-to-eye with such a determined predator. The cat wouldn’t blink, and his attention didn’t waver.
It was just as well she was awake. She yawned and stretched. So much to do today. There was the coming inspection, of course. And the American. And the man in the ICU waiting room—she needed to find some plan for him before the inspectors arrived on Monday.
It was that problem more than anything else—even more than Maewfawbaahn’s unflinching stare—that convinced her she might as well get up. This was not unusual, after all. She often worked much of the weekend. Too much perhaps?
But she enjoyed her quiet time, too. Sitting in her garden, reading. Or perhaps strolling the markets by the river to hunt down the freshest mangoes and papayas and strawberries. In fact, Ladarat had thought that this might be one such weekend. Certainly she’d earned it.
And perhaps it still could be. She would go to the hospital early and do what she could. Perhaps no one would notice that she was there? Perhaps she would be able to work just half a day? Then there might be a trip to the market, and perhaps the booksellers. And perhaps a cup of tea by the Ping River.
THE POWER OF GOOD NEWS
Ladarat held that hope in her mind all the way to the hospital. And even as she walked down the still, dark basement hallway, she was imagining the market stalls piled with fresh strawberries and dragonfruit and the tiny bite-size apple bananas that were so sweet.
But that hope didn’t last long. She’d just arrived in her office and had barely put her bag in her desk drawer when the phone rang. Involuntarily she looked at her watch. Seven o’clock? Who thought she would be in her office at this hour on a Saturday?
The answer, apparently, was the ICU nurses. There’d been a “development” in the American’s case. That was all the nurse would tell her. There’d been a development and could she please come as soon as possible?
She could. Why not?
And, too, she was worried. Very worried. Any development in the American’s case was unlikely to be a good one. She ran through a list of possibilities as she made her way down the still-deserted basement hallway and pressed the elevator button. Too distracted even to wrestle over whether she should take the elevator or the stairs. So the elevator won by default. It was a relief, frankly, not to think about something for a change.
Unfortunately, choosing the quick way up six floors gave her less time to think about what might be waiting for her. Still, she knew it wasn’t that the American had died. The nurse would simply have said so. Perhaps his family was creating a disturbance? But again, she would have said that. What would be so strange—or so uncomfortable—that she wouldn’t have wanted to try to explain over the phone?
There really was only one explanation, and Ladarat had just reached that conclusion by the time she walked quickly through the waiting room. On the way, she noticed with some relief that the strange man was not there, but that was the only mental detour she had time for. A minute later, at the nurses’ station, she found the head nurse and three other nurses, clustered together with Suphit Jainukul.
They all looked up expectantly as she crossed the floor. It seemed as though they were waiting… for her. Why?
But she was pretty certain that she knew.
“The American is… awake?”
Their expressions convinced her that she was not wrong. Only the director nodded, though. The others seemed too confused to say anything. In their confusion they deferred to the director, who just smiled.
“Ah,” he said simply. “You heard.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was simple deduction. As Professor Dalrymple said, if you remove every explanation that is impossible, what remains—however unlikely—has to be the true explanation. Or words to that effect.
Then Khun Suphit beckoned to her and the two of them crossed the room to stand outside the glass door of the American’s room. His face was still very puffy, and his head was swathed in bandages, but…
“He woke up so suddenly early this morning that he pulled the breathing tube out of his trachea before anyone could react. We thought of replacing it, but he seemed to be awake and breathing on his own. We sedated him just a little so he wouldn’t struggle, but he’s starting to wake up now.” Indeed, they could see his eyes were open.
What was even more surprising was the presence of the hospital’s assistant nurse ethicist by his bedside. As they watched, Sisithorn laid a compress on his forehead and seemed to be talking to him. One could only imagine what she was saying. Whatever it was, though, seemed to calm the young American. His eyes closed and he fell asleep as they stood there. Sisithorn beckoned to another nurse who had materialized next to her and they traded places. Then she squirted some hand sanitizer from a dispenser by the door and offered a wai to both of them before rubbing the alcohol mixture into her skin.
“Ah, Khun, you have heard?”
Ladarat nodded, wondering with a small part of her brain how Sisithorn had learned about this before she did. It was not appropriate for her assistant to be called in first. Not appropriate at all.
She turned to the director, but before she could frame a question, he said that Sisithorn had been there already. She had been there, he said, just as the American began to show signs of waking up.
“So diligent,” he said, smiling. “You are fortunate indeed to have such an assistant.”
“Indeed,” was all she said.
The director smiled and nodded. “Your assistant has taken a very strong interest in this case, it seems.”
Well, there would be time to sort this out later. For now, there was only one question that needed to be asked.
“Have you told the family?”
Now the director looked sheepish. “Not yet… it’s still early. But of course we need to. It’s just that…”
“They will be surprised?”
“That, and they will think that we were stupid to be so… pessimistic just yesterday.” The director grinned in embarrassment. “Just yesterday, I said that he wouldn’t survive. And now here he is—awake.” He shook his head. “It makes us look foolish.”
What he didn’t say was potentially even worse—that he would look foolish in front of any inspectors who reviewed this case. The inspector would see what they told the family. And he would see that the doomed patient was alive no
w… That would be bad. That would be very bad.
But there was nothing to be done. And besides, what was important was that the American seemed like he might recover. So that was what she told the director.
“His family will be very pleased,” she suggested. “So pleased, that they will forget everything they’d been told.”
The good physician didn’t look convinced. Nor did Sisithorn. So Ladarat turned to her assistant. “Do you remember when you got this job?”
Sisithorn nodded respectfully, her eyes fixed on the linoleum tile beneath their feet. “Of course, Khun.”
“You said everyone had told you that you would never be hired. That there were hundreds of very strong applicants. That you wouldn’t stand a chance. Am I right?”
Sisithorn nodded. “You are right, Khun.”
“So when you found out you got the job, were you angry at the people who told you those things?”
Sisithorn shook her head.
“No, of course you weren’t. You were simply happy to have the job. That is the power of good news—it allows us to forget everything that came before.” She turned back to the director. “And that is what this family will feel. They will be so happy—and so grateful—that they will not dwell on what you’ve said in the past.”
The director smiled a genuine smile. “Well,” he said, “you know Americans. And how they think.”
The inspectors, of course, were another matter entirely. But they would cross that bridge when they came to it. In the meantime, they would need to tell the family. Ladarat was just thinking about how to do that when Sisithorn volunteered. She would go with Dr. Wattana, she said. They were here when the American woke up, so it was only right.
Dr. Wattana? It took Ladarat a moment. Ah, the ICU fellow who looked like a bespectacled stork.
Then one of the nurses was waving frantically at the director and pointing to the phone in her hand. He shrugged and thanked Sisithorn.
When they were alone, Ladarat asked Sisithorn what she would say to the Americans. “What are you going to tell them? You must make certain not to cast aspersions on his doctors, you understand? You must be very careful…”
She trailed off. She sounded, she knew, like an overprotective parent. Sisithorn was smart and capable. And she had a relationship with the American’s wife and his parents. That would count for a great deal. And… well… she shouldn’t worry so much.
Before Sisithorn could answer, Ladarat simply told her assistant to ignore what she’d just said. “Do you have any questions for me?” was all she asked.
Sisithorn shook her head. “No, Khun, I don’t think so. Dr. Wattana will be with me. And as you said, we are bringing good news. And… Khun?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think this will be a surprise to them. I think… they expected good news. Kate in particular. She was ready for bad news, but she still had very strong hopes, I think. It’s been as though she thought some miracle would happen.”
Ladarat nodded. “Exactly so. They won’t be distressed by this change because they never really believed what we told them before, any more than you believed the people who said you wouldn’t be able to get this job.”
Then Ladarat left Sisithorn in the ICU to go find Dr. Wattana. She hoped that they would go soon. It wouldn’t do for the family to come up to the ICU and discover on their own that the patient had woken up.
But there was no danger of that. Sisithorn knew that time was of the essence. More important, she knew what time meant, which was one of the main reasons Ladarat had hired her. She hadn’t been the best qualified applicant, it’s true. But she was the only one who had arrived early for her interview. That was why she got the job.
AN ANTICIPATED DEATH THAT IS NEVERTHELESS UNEXPECTED
The waiting room had begun to fill up with families, but the mysterious man hadn’t yet appeared, so Ladarat headed down to medical records. She took the stairs, now that she wasn’t preoccupied. And she was pleasantly surprised to find that when she reached the basement, she felt virtuous. She would do this more often. At least four flights of stairs every day, she decided. Four was an auspicious number. And more important, it was a rather small auspicious number.
In the medical records room, she was surprised to find Chaow Willapenna behind the counter. He offered her a tired wai, looking up at her under sagging eyelids.
“Have you been here all night?” She’d heard that his uncle Khun Panit worked long hours, but she’d had no idea that they would work overnight like this.
“Yes, you see, we still have much to get ready for ahead of the inspection.” He waved at the stacks of charts behind him. “My cousin at Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok told me yesterday that when his hospital was inspected last month, the inspectors asked to see charts of current patients in the hospital dating back two years. Two years! Can you believe it? So yesterday we began to get those old charts from storage.”
“But that must be charts for almost a thousand patients…” She knew the hospital was full. That would be a huge number of old charts to find in storage.
Chaow smiled wearily. “Fortunately, it’s too important to trust to me, so my uncle has gone to do it himself. Unfortunately, he’s taken most of our workers.” Then he perked up. “But here, Khun, I have what you asked for. I had a few free minutes this morning—it didn’t take long.” And he handed her a small slip of paper, neatly folded in half.
Ladarat thanked him. It was amazing to see such dedication in a Thai of his age. Most kids would simply grab any convenient excuse, like the need for old charts. They would be “off the hook,” as the Americans say. But this young man did what she’d asked anyway.
Letting him get back to work, she took the result of his searches back down the hall to her office. It wasn’t until she shut the door behind her and sat down at her plain wooden desk that she realized how tired she was. And it was only… 8:05.
She’d accomplished a great deal. But she was already exhausted. It was truly going to be a long day. And this day would most likely not include a trip to the market or a browse in the booksellers, or a cup of tea by the Ping River.
Ladarat unfolded the slip of paper to find only one name: Arhit Tantasatityanon. She couldn’t be certain, but the long name was a good indication that this doctor was a relatively recent immigrant to Thailand. By law, surnames had to be unique to a family. So once the short names were taken, immigrants had to stretch for surnames that were increasingly long. And since most immigrants were Chinese…
And his address was in the tourist district, just where she thought it should be. Not more than three blocks from the Shangri-La. So only one physician in that area had seen a man named Zhang Wei in the past week.
How Chaow had managed to get that information was still a puzzle. But last night he’d promised that it would be easy. They asked for this kind of information all the time, he’d said, to complete a patient’s chart when information was missing.
So now she had a name and a phone number. It was still early, too. If she was quick, she might be able to talk to the doctor if she caught him before he began to see patients. Or should she go in person?
What would Khun Wiriya do?
As Ladarat sat down at her little desk, though, she realized that was the wrong question. She wasn’t a detective. Maybe technically she was, at this time, a detective. But she didn’t have the sort of personality that would convince people to give her information. She couldn’t be convincing and she certainly couldn’t be threatening. One look at her oversize glasses and diminutive figure, and anyone would say: “This is not a person I need to take seriously.”
Perhaps this insight should have distressed her. But it did not. It truly did not.
One must work within the limitations that one is given. One should not attempt to swing through the trees like a monkey if one is an elephant. And vice versa.
That was not wisdom gleaned from the good Professor Dalrymple. But it was, Ladarat thought, wisdom nonethe
less.
Besides, she could sound much more authoritative on the phone, she knew. And on the phone, her mild manners wouldn’t be a liability. And there was always the chance that this doctor wouldn’t be seeing patients on a Saturday. Unlikely, but it would be silly to waste a trip. So, before she could start to have second thoughts, she picked up her phone and dialed the doctor’s number.
It was still early, but perhaps the office staff were already answering the phone. If not…
She was surprised by a man’s gruff voice. He answered in heavily Chinese-accented Thai, and she had trouble understanding him at first. He said hello again and seemed about to hang up when she launched into the speech that she had been practicing the night before.
She introduced herself as a nurse at Sriphat Hospital and then—a guess: “Are you Dr. Tantasatityanon?”
“Ah, yes. My office manager called in sick—I am all alone here today. How can I help you, Khun?”
“I am trying to understand the events that brought a man to our emergency room last week. He was one of your patients, I believe, a Khun Zhang? Zhang Wei?”
The doctor thought for a moment, but not long. “Of course. I’ve been caring for him for… at least four or five years. A very sad case. Is he well?”
Ladarat would need to tell the good doctor that his patient was not, in fact, particularly well.
“No, I’m afraid he isn’t.”
“Oh?”
“He is not well at all.”
“That is too bad.”
“In fact, he is dead.”
There was silence on the line for a few moments as the doctor processed this information.
“He went to your hospital?”
“Well, he didn’t actually go to our hospital.” Then she explained that his wife had appeared with him and that he was dead when he reached the emergency room.
The doctor seemed to be surprised. So Ladarat took a risk.
“And how was he the last time you saw him?”
Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness Page 20