People in refugee camps don’t ask for information, the Colonel knew; they are given it. It’s a one-way street, and people like Mon Hla and her family reside at the dead end of that street.
The others at the table sat in silence, listening to Colonel Pratt politely, gently asking his questions. Then Yoshi Nagata interrupted.
“Colonel, you must have many questions, such as who bought Ploy, and who sold her from a camp under Thai jurisdiction? How much money was paid and when, and to whom? Was it a one-off sale or part of a larger trafficking network? As you have gathered, Mon Hla is not someone who remotely knows the answers to these questions.”
“She has to report back at the camp tonight or she has a big problem,” said Calvino. “Unless someone extends her travel permit, Judy takes her back this afternoon.”
Colonel Pratt assessed the situation as urgent. He knew that, as a rule of thumb, the more urgent the matter, the quicker time slips away. The future unfolded before him as he looked at Mon Hla, a young Burmese woman who had just attended the cremation of her sister’s remains. She could be grilled for days and nothing more of value would emerge. Putting her in front of the press to recount her sighting of the helicopter would likely lead to reprisals. Nothing good would come of keeping her in Bangkok.
“You return to Mae Hong Son,” Colonel Pratt said. “I am sorry about what happened to your family.”
When they left the restaurant, McPhail lit a cigarette, turned and spoke to Colonel Pratt.
“Hey, I wanted to ask you if you need any Dexter Gordon. I’ve downloaded everything he ever recorded.”
“On Sundays I jam with a guitar player who knew him. Billy Clarke once played as a sideman with Gordon in Paris.”
“Life follows cycles, all loops and circles,” said Yoshi Nagata. “Most of life is encrypted. We waste our lives searching for the wrong keys and forget where the right keys are kept. Life and death are matters of chance. A sideman for Dexter Gordon half a lifetime ago appears in your life in Bangkok. Perhaps this is a key to unlock a door for you.”
Calvino waited until he had a moment with Colonel Pratt away from the others.
“Come back to my office. I have some videos I want to show you. And some audio that you will find interesting.”
Ratana stood a few meters away, glancing in their direction. She wanted to join them but saw that Calvino and Colonel Pratt were in the middle of something. She could tell by Calvino’s posture and expression that he was explaining about the plastic surgeon. The Colonel was hearing another story. Unlike the helicopter story, the plastic surgeon’s botched operation had a recorded confession attached; it had arrived into the world with pictures and sound. Calvino figured that once Colonel Pratt saw the video and heard conversation between the doctor and his receptionist, he’d pick up the phone and send out the word that Akash Saru should be released from prison and the charge of murder dropped.
An outsider could be forgiven for assuming that release in such circumstances would be automatic, standard procedure, for it would now be clear that an innocent man was being wrongfully held. But in Thailand, as in a lot of other places, establishing a contradictory story about who committed a murder set the cat among the pigeons, mice and mad dogs, and each of these animals has its own way of dealing with cats.
THIRTY
AFTER COLONEL PRATT had watched the video for a second time and heard the conversation McPhail had taped at the pizza parlor, he got up from the chair, walked to the window and stared down at the sub-soi below Calvino’s office. A patron rolled out of the No Hands message parlor, dancing on his heels and smiling. The customers who emerged from that place always seemed happy. A massage business was like a successful plastic surgery business—patients had a choice, and word spread. If a friend had “liked” a place, they expected to walk out feeling good about themselves, on top of the world. It didn’t work out that way at all such businesses, though. Sometimes a customer made a mistake—wrong plastic surgeon or wrong massage girl—and never made it out the door alive.
Calvino waited as Colonel Pratt collected his thoughts—which galloped down a steep mountain pass.
Finally, Calvino said: “Looks like they set up the doctor. The receptionist works as the nurse and administers a double dose of anesthetic. The girl dies. The receptionist says it was an accident. If it’s a botched abortion, he’s ruined. No need to worry; she knows someone who can handle the problem. Make it go away. It will cost some money, but problems usually do. The doctor goes along with her idea. She calls her boyfriend, Jaruk. If you dig a little, I expect you’ll find he’s not only a driver for CEO Thanet of the Diamond Flagship Import and Export Ltd. but also has a hidden talent. Jaruk is an experienced cleaner. You don’t get that good without a lot of practice.
“I figure after he got the call from his girlfriend, he arrived in under an hour. I’d bet he borrowed the boss’s white Fortuner with a couple of men he’s worked with before. When they show up at the doctor’s office, the doctor waves them into his surgery and they get down to business. Before touching anything, they suit up in surgical masks and surgery greens, shoes bagged and taped. Only then do they remove Ploy’s body. They use the right chemicals to wipe the surgery clean. They dress the body in a designer tracksuit. By the time they leave with the body, there’s not a trace of Ploy having ever being inside the surgery. The doctor has an overwhelming sense of relief.
“Jaruk and his girlfriend split the three hundred grand, giving a small percentage to the cleanup crew. Sukanya now has job security and sets her own annual bonus and pension plan, and basically makes herself a partner. The doctor is effectively married to her. She’s put together a deal that puts her in the picture for the rest of his life.”
“But it’s not quite working out as planned,” said Colonel Pratt.
Calvino leaned forward over the computer screen.
“There’s been a hitch. Something they hadn’t planned on.”
“Now the cleaner and the receptionist are running scared,” said Colonel Pratt.
Calvino nodded.
“But not of the doctor,” Calvino said.
Colonel Pratt looked back from the window.
“No, he’s in his receptionist’s pocket. It’s someone else.”
Ratana walked into the office with a look of panic.
“Sukanya’s office phoned me and said Dr. Nattapong wants to negotiate.”
“Did he say about what?”
Ratana stared at the Colonel.
“She said that I knew very well what it was about.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her I’d have to talk to my husband first.”
“Don’t worry,” said Calvino. “The doctor’s problem is Thanet’s luk nong, Jaruk. Have I got that right, Pratt?”
“You have a theory about Khun Thanet, but where is the evidence?” asked Colonel Pratt.
The name rolled out with a mixture of regret and repulsion. Bold-faced names like black flies at picnic time, landings and quick escapes with a million years of evolutionary engineering.
Though still quite young, Thanet had assumed the top dog position of a powerful and rich Chinese-Thai family that owned land and rubber plantations in the South, along with a long-haul trucking firm to service it, and had expanded into shipping. The wives and daughters of the family regularly appeared in the Thai press—featured in pictures taken at hi-so parties, dinners, banquets and fundraisers. Members of the family were profiled as smart, foreign-educated and rich.
One of Thanet’s brothers had held a series of important government posts. One nephew climbed the ranks in the army, while another was an officer in the navy who was tipped for promotion. Colonel Pratt had listened to Calvino’s theory of how the murder had gone down. For the Colonel Calvino’s theory left out an essential element—the psychological state of fear and the choice the doctor had made under duress of that emotion, not knowing the full price of what he’d bought. If Dr. Nattapong had known that he was
about to connect his fate to Thanet’s family, he might have decided that his chances were better coming clean, going to the police and taking the heat.
“Thanet’s driver might have been hiding his moonlighting career as a cleaner,” said Calvino.
Colonel Pratt sat back in the chair and crossed his legs.
“Was he moonlighting or acting on orders?” the Colonel asked. “We don’t know. Remember the businessman who was killed by his driver and friends a couple of weeks ago?”
It had been widely reported that the gang had extorted millions of baht, strangled the boss and told a story that hadn’t lasted through the first police interrogation.
“I read about it,” said Calvino.
“What you don’t read about in the newspapers is that a lot of important people in this country are having a second look at their drivers, maids and gardeners. Quietly running background checks, accessing their bank accounts, firing anyone with a question mark next to their name.”
There was a long silence. Both men felt its weight pressing against them.
“The thing that bothers me most is the way Jaruk disposed of Ploy’s body,” said Calvino. “The body dump doesn’t seem professional. Why not take it upcountry and bury it? Or transport the body to the Eastern Seaboard, load it on a boat, drop it into the sea? But he doesn’t go for any of the obvious choices. Instead he goes to the trouble and risk of dumping the body on the Tobacco Monopoly Land. An Indian nut vendor goes to the same spot for an appointment to meet a girl, only he finds she’s dead. The vendor is arrested. His go-between is murdered. Does that sound like something that makes sense if it were just Jaruk, his girlfriend and a small crew?” asked Calvino.
In Thailand premeditated murder tended to orbit around three parties: a mastermind, an executioner and a cutout. The last of these was the schlemiel whose role was to take the fall.
“Jaruk and Sukanya sure seemed nervous at the pizza place,” said Calvino.
Clearly they had much to be nervous about. As the recording revealed, the little plot they’d hatched had begun unraveling, and their choices were narrowing. Jaruk had promised Sukanya he’d work things out. Meanwhile she should continue to go to the office as usual. After their pizza parlor meeting, she’d driven him to a couple of sois away from the Thanet family compound, and he’d taken a motorcycle taxi the rest of the way.
“I want to pay the doctor a visit,” said Colonel Pratt.
“Why don’t I come along, Pratt? I can introduce you. The doctor wants to open negotiations. Let’s see what he has to offer. ”
Colonel Pratt thought about the implications of Calvino accompanying him. Unexpected events happened when Calvino came along. Inviting the unexpected always sounded creative and good, but that was before anyone considered the downside. On the other hand, he told himself, without Calvino’s help he’d have had no reason to go to the doctor’s office. After watching the video in the doctor’s office, he had no doubt Ploy hadn’t been raped and killed by the Indian. She’d died in surgery with the “assistance” of the receptionist. Jaruk had been called in to dispose of the body. And as Calvino had said, there had to be a reason why the body was left where it was. He had a few questions for Sukanya.
“Vincent, it might be better if I went to the doctor’s office on my own.”
Calvino’s wounded expression softened the Colonel.
“If I’m in the office, I can stand by the door so neither of them bolts,” said Calvino. “He’ll crack, and so will she. Watch their faces when they see me walk in.”
“Looking for what?”
“That guilty as hell look,” said Calvino.
THIRTY-ONE
CALVINO AND COLONEL Pratt turned up at the doctor’s third-floor office and walked in. The reception area was empty. No one was behind the desk. On Sukanya’s computer screen a pattern of marigolds exploded into a starburst. Calvino opened the door to the doctor’s office. It was also empty.
Calvino nodded at the door to the surgery.
“That’s where he operates.”
No voices or music—only a deep silence.
“What do you think, Pratt?”
“Only one way to find out.”
The Colonel swung the door open, looked inside and watched as Calvino walked in, shaking his head.
The silence of the surgery had become the silence of a morgue, with two bodies sprawled out.
Colonel Pratt knelt beside the body of the doctor.
“He hasn’t been dead long.”
The doctor lay on the floor face up, with a bullet wound between his lifeless eyes, which stared at the ceiling. A pool of blood created a red halo around his head.
Calvino stood over the operating table looking down at Sukanya. Dark red blooms like rosebuds with black holes covered the front of her white blouse. Calvino counted a bouquet of three small blooms sprouting from her chest. Liquid from her implants—which had taken a direct hit—bubbled through one of the flowers like a clown’s boutonnière spraying water. Blood from her chest wounds dripped from the operating table into puddles on the floor below. A surgical mask covered her nose and mouth. Calvino leaned over and lifted the mask, pulling it back over her head. Sukanya’s lips were bloodied and bruised, her teeth broken.
“Looks like the negotiations broke down,” said Calvino.
Colonel Pratt rose to his feet, his knees creaking, and walked around the doctor’s body on the floor, trying to locate where the shooter would have stood. He slowly shook his head.
“It is likely the gunman fired from this spot.”
Colonel Pratt marked the spot a meter from the body. So much for a routine visit, with Calvino tagging along to guard the door in case of escape. The doctor and his receptionist were going nowhere.
“Where are you going?” asked Colonel Pratt, as he saw Calvino move to the door.
“To check out what my camera picked up.”
He walked out of the surgery and back into reception. On Sukanya’s desk he spotted the blue Honda box and opened it. Her iPhone was inside, overlooked by the killers. He slipped the phone into his pocket and put the lid back on the box. He walked over to the sofa, sat down and reached under the arm where he’d planted the camera. He played back footage from the past hour, fast-forwarding until he saw the two gunmen enter the office.
“Pratt, come and have a look at this.”
Colonel Pratt walked around the blood and back into the reception area. Calvino had his iPad out and had logged into the app that hooked up to a feed from the camera. The Colonel watched the screen as the two men entered. They wore white Guy Fawkes masks and surgery green tops and bottoms. One of the men pulled the doctor from his office. The other one ordered Sukanya to walk around from her desk. The doctor babbled, pleading for the men to leave, offering them money.
Sukanya seemed calm.
“Do what they ask,” she said.
The absence of fear in her voice suggested she knew the men. The four then filed out of the lobby into the surgery. From off camera Colonel Pratt and Calvino could hear the trademark sound of a silencer masking a gunshot. Calvino played back the men herding Sukanya and Dr. Nattapong into the surgery. Then the unmistakable sound of muffled shots. That was all a silencer accomplished. It didn’t silence the shot; it merely reduced the loudness of the slugs on their way out of the gun barrel. None of the people working in neighboring offices would have heard the shots.
The video footage captured two shadows dressed in surgery greens with their faces hidden behind identical masks. Not any mask, but a symbolic seventeenth-century face with a mustache, a goatee and black eyebrows—a face that for a brief moment had featured prominently in the ongoing political conflicts between the main factions in Thailand. One side had registered its protest by wearing Guy Fawkes masks to political demonstrations. The gunmen had found an alternative, more practical use for the masks. A mask that hundreds had worn in the streets of the city afforded professional killers a perfect disguise. They were indistinguisha
ble from anyone who’d participated in the demonstrations. As with the street protests, the killers’ appearance was an inspired piece of political theatre that deserved a larger audience.
THIRTY-TWO
IN THE FAR distance a large crow circled overhead, while another crow called out from the trees lining the access road separating Queen Sirikit Center and Benjakiti Park, which both ran along the Ratchadapisek edge of the Tobacco Monopoly grounds. Their cawing and its echoes sounded like the cries of wounded sentinels on a distant battlefield—shocked, angry, frightened and sad. Calvino and Colonel Pratt passed through the security gates behind Queen Sirikit Center and walked shoulder to shoulder down a narrow side road. Calvino then took the lead, cutting across a small canal and into a sprawl of tall grass, wildflowers and bamboo. Calvino stopped at the spot where he’d discovered Ploy’s body. Colonel Pratt squatted beside him. The grass was still mashed down. He patted the ground.
“Someone chose this location for a reason. To make a point.” Looking up at Calvino. he added, “A location is like a weapon. It leads to the man using it.”
The Colonel understood that while weapons are easily switched or ditched, the physical place where a crime has been committed was unchangeable. The skill of an experienced cleaner can break the connection between the location and weapon, but the criminals usually leave behind some meaningful marker such as a fingerprint or DNA. Colonel Pratt had been trained to start with the location of the crime and work backwards so that the weapon, user and motive revealed themselves. He’d studied the body discovery scene before, looking for that piece of evidence that would point to the murderer’s identity. The problems in the case had started when the police turned up a suspect, Akash Saru, and all their efforts shifted to finding evidence to prove his guilt.
“Akash Saru had been here before,” said Calvino.
He hadn’t come by chance. He’d come for a reason.
Colonel Pratt patted the grass again.
The Marriage Tree Page 19