we get to the humans.”
“Oh, don’t tell me.”
“I don’t know how. Really I don’t. But she got access to morgues. Bodies laid out on their trays in bobble hats with streamers in their mouths.”
“No.”
“Striped football socks, boxing gloves — cross-dressing.”
“That’s got to be illegal.”
“Unless someone recognizes a near and dear one in a Madonna cone bra she could always claim it was set up, all done with actors.”
“But you think different?”
“I’ve seen actors die in TV dramas all the time, even ones who didn’t intend to. I have a nose for bad acting. These were definitely dead bodies.”
I’d read everything there was to read on criminology in Thai and English. I’d studied all the cases — the famous murders, the notorious serial killers — and one point that cropped up often was that the killers of people often began their careers by practicing on animals. Mika Mikata had started her apprenticeship in the public eye and been encouraged. She’d progressed with adoration through all the stages, and I knew there was only one more level. I knew Mika Mikata was either a potential or a practiced murderer. But there was no connection between her and our slain abbot and I could think of absolutely no reason why she’d come to our little nowhere village to do her nefarious deeds.
“Is that as far as the site goes?” I asked. “Cadavers?”
“There are three galleries. There’s the free White Gallery which is all mostly weird but innocent stuff. Then there’s the pay-to-view Black Gallery which wasn’t that hard to get into. That’s where I found the roadkill and the morgue pictures. But then there’s a members-only Orange Gallery.”
“Bingo. Can you get into that?”
“It’s not easy.”
“You’re the maestro of the Net.”
“Jimm, I’ve been a fly on the wall at a maximum secure video conference link between members of the U.S. Homeland Security. I’ve seen the Queen of England in her pajamas sipping Horlicks on Skype. If I say something’s not easy, it’s not easy. But I’m working on it.”
“All right, one more question. What does she look like?”
“Mika? She’s gorgeous on her Web page photo but we both know what that means. Looking back at the early photos she was reasonably bland but bubbly. I imagine she’s in her fifties now, still going for that cutesy manga love doll look.”
“Any idea what she’d look like now without air-brushing?”
“
“Thanks, Siss. Anything on the other murders?”
“You asked me about witnesses for the Guam swimming pool killing. The guy who got his hard hat painted orange. By the time Toshi had flown down, the local police had already done the interviewing. They still didn’t have a suspect. There was one possible eyewitness they hadn’t been able to locate. Some of the engineers said there’d been a reporter at the scene of the crime taking photographs. She had a Japanese press ID. They remarked on how quickly she’d been able to arrive there.”
“Any description for her?”
“Conflicting, he said. Some remembered her as young, others as middle-aged. Medium length hair. Toshi checked with immigration. There were no Japanese reporters registered around that time and none of the crime- scene photographs appeared in any newspapers.”
“What about Taiwan? You said there might be a lead there.”
“Detective Wing Shu’s promised to look through his files about the aviary killing. Actually he looks a lot better in his swimming pool photos.”
“Do whatever it takes, Siss.” Yes, ma am.
“OK. The picture’s have come through.”
And there she was, all cuddly and fluffed. I went through it all in my mind. Medium length hair. Young or middle-aged. That every-Asian face. It was impossible to describe to a sketch artist because the picture in the newspaper would look like everybody’s mother or sister or next door neighbor. It was a face everybody would forget. With a little bit of work it could be the rouged face of a reporter in Guam or the over-mascara’d face of a Hong Kong birdwatcher. They’d remember the bad make-up and sunglasses before they remembered the person behind them. But I was certain I’d seen that face unadorned. It was drawn and blotchy and an over-generous powdering had made it look older than it was. The gray wig had completed the trick but I’d seen through it, and I could see it now. Eyes always betrayed you. I could see her in her real Lacoste sports shirt, twenty times more expensive than a Bangkok rip-off. It was tucked into tight sweatpants that gave her two bellies. She’d smiled and complimented my awful Korean even though she probably wasn’t fluent herself. That’s why she’d had to check out when the Korean engineers moved in to the 69 Resort. They’d know she wasn’t one of them. Her cover would have been blown.
I don’t know why, or how, but my instincts rang loud and hearty that I’d met Mika Mikata that day.
“Are you sure?” Chompu asked.
“No. But put it all together. The 69 Resort is ten minutes’ walk from the hospital intersection and another ten to the Tiwa where the driver was staying. Her room was right there beside the road so nobody would see her come or go in her disguise. She was the right age and height and I’d bet my bottom she wasn’t Korean.”
“Actually, I meant are you sure you really want me to approach my volatile, uncooperative superior officer with a story like this?”
I could see his point. We were sitting on a bench in front of the four-meter white Buddha opposite the police station. Granddad Jah was pacing back and forth. I didn’t really have any physical evidence to substantiate my odd suspicions. They were based on a two-minute meeting at the 69 Resort and intuition.
“You’re right,” I said. “One step at a time. What if you handle it like this? The police get an anonymous phone call saying that a foreign woman at the 69 Resort had been acting strangely for several days. She’d checked in a day before the killing and checked out the day of the attack on Sergeant Phoom. You trace the passport number she gave the resort, find out it doesn’t exist…”
“What if it does?”
“Let’s stay positive, shall we?”
“Right.”
“We try to find witnesses who saw her disguised as Wu and then we somehow introduce Mika Mikata.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
It was. The opportunity presented itself sooner than we expected. We were interrupted by the ringing of Chompu’s phone and he was summoned to Lang Suan for a meeting. The new direction of events had prompted the return of the Bangkok detectives. They were more than miffed when they found out the local police had taken over the inquiry when all they’d been asked to do was report on events. Bangkok already had its suspect neatly wrapped so they didn’t appreciate having to come back south so soon. When they discovered that the Benz driver had already been interviewed and, upon seeing a photograph of the nun, had stated categorically that this was not the woman he’d driven, they were positively spewing stomach acid. They called an emergency meeting of everyone involved in the case, including poor wheelchair-bound Sergeant Phoom.
Nobody appreciated their condescending tone, particularly Major General Suvit, who’d been rather proud of the way he’d been handling the case since Bangkok had left it behind. Chompu informed us later that the meeting had twice erupted into a slappy, spitty shouting match. There were those present who swore the major general had reached for his pistol at one stage. The question of motive had come up from time to time. Who had a better motive than the nun? Why would a foreigner with no known connection to the victim just suddenly up and kill him? It was a
