I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  “And that was the end?”

  “Goodness, no. The battle was on. The phibob had lost their hostage, but they continued to fight. Their disciples were breaking free of their trances and falling asleep. The circle of elders had amassed a sizeable following, and they were going from villager to villager evicting the malevolent spirits. Young people were joining the circle, and there was great joy and jubilation when everyone realized the power they wielded. The battle was still raging when we brought you back, but Fortune-teller Doo had seen a future free of phibob, so there’s nothing to fear. We beat them, Daeng.”

  The rice porridge in Daeng’s spoon was cold now, and she returned it to the bowl.

  “I could have married a plumber,” she said.

  “No, you couldn’t have.”

  She leaned over and kissed her husband’s nose. It was the only undamaged spot on his face.

  “I don’t suppose you solved the mystery of the Buddha murders while all that was going on?” she said.

  “Ah, now that,” said Siri, “is another story.”

  He’d forgotten about his lost hours the previous day, or rather he hadn’t had a spare second to analyze them. He told his wife about the damned doors and the bathroom where he’d met himself and the vet’s waiting room, and the Chinese nurse and Civilai and Phosy with their lizards, and the birthing of the piglet. And they sat either side of their uneaten lunches and pondered.

  “I have no idea what Civilai and Inspector Phosy were doing in your dream,” said Daeng, “but assuming everything else was connected to the murders, perhaps it suggests there’s the question of birthright. Do you have a clear image of the vet’s face?” Daeng asked.

  “Yes,” said Siri. “But what good will that do?”

  “Peace Corps,” she said. “Enthusiastic young people with cameras.”

  Headman Tham did indeed have a drawer of photographs that had been sent by the Peace Corps desk officer in Bangkok a month after the water tower team had left the village. They were pockmarked and warped, but it didn’t take Siri long to spot his vet.

  “Why, that’s Loong Gan,” said the headman.

  “I thought so,” said Daeng. “That man played a bigger part in this whole mystery than just being a random victim.”

  The village was a different place that afternoon. It had become so serene that Ugly joined them on their walk along the shortcut. He was now officially Siri’s general, and his untidy walk had become a march. The smiles they met were sincere, and there was a feeling of relief and pride that had not existed a day earlier. Siri’s amulet hung almost chilly from his neck. He and Daeng sat in the cadaver hut and drank coconut water with the elders. Aware that every man in the room was a suspect, Siri looked for odd reactions to his questions. They were undoubtedly in the right place for gossip.

  “What do you know about Loong Gan’s life before he came here?” he asked nobody in particular.

  “I remember when he first arrived in the village,” said Headman Tham. “They said he’d been a monk at Wat Po in Udon, but most of us have been monks at some point in our lives. It’s not always a long-term thing.”

  “I was in for ten days,” said Intermediary Cham.

  “I heard he was one of those monks who flit in and out of robes,” said Priestess Thewa. “Probably on the run.”

  “You think he might have been involved in something illegal?” asked Daeng.

  “I doubt he was smart enough for larceny or armed robbery,” said Thewa, “but he might have been on the run from some irate husband. He certainly had a way with the ladies. He was a fine-looking man. He used to boast about his philandering days. How he’d seduced rich women and been what he called rewarded for his sexual prowess. But of course he didn’t phrase it nearly as politely as that.”

  “Was there a Chinese woman in his life?” asked Siri, remembering his dream.

  “There was one married woman he called his money faucet,” said Headman Tham.

  “She was Chinese, I seem to recall,” said Shaman Phi.

  “That’s right,” said Tham. “Fresh off the boat from Shanghai, he used to say. Even though there was no boat from Shanghai.”

  “He wasn’t that fond of the Chinese, so he felt no obligation to be polite when he talked about her,” said Shaman Lek.

  “And give him a few drinks, and you couldn’t shut him up,” said Tham. “He’d go into more detail than anyone wanted to hear. Sexual positions and the like.”

  “I think we’ve heard enough,” said Daeng, and she stood to leave. Siri joined her. Everyone else got to their feet. One by one they prostrated themselves before Siri wai’ing deeply. He blushed.

  “Yeh Ming . . .” said Headman Tham.

  “I know,” said Siri. “You’re welcome.”

  Siri, Daeng and Ugly walked the shortcut to the temple.

  “Why didn’t you let them gush some more?” asked Daeng. “You know you like it.”

  “Because you were right,” said Siri. “It was as much my ghost hunt as theirs. I used them. But I feel like a curse has been lifted from me.”

  “Any chance your inner Yeh Ming might step up sometime soon with a word of gratitude?”

  “He isn’t that sociable.”

  They walked on hand in hand.

  “What’s our next move?” asked Daeng.

  “The murders?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think we need to go back to Udon Thani. We have a connection now. Abbot Rayron and unreliable Loong Gan were both at Wat Po.”

  “Not necessarily at the same time,” said Daeng.

  “But a straw to clutch at nevertheless. At least we’ll be able to ascertain whether the old man and Abbot Rayron knew each other before they arrived here in Sawan. Coincidences invariably lead to clues, my dear.”

  When they arrived at the temple they were surprised to see Captain Gumron leaning against his truck, talking to the Sangharaj. Both appeared to be staring at the ground.

  “Good afternoon, Captain,” said Siri. “Not another murder, I hope.”

  “Not this time,” said the policeman. “A suicide.”

  The Sangharaj continued to stare at his feet. His eyes were damp.

  “Siri,” he said, “Abbot Rayron has killed himself.”

  •••

  When Dr. Siri retired as the national coroner the morgue had been locked and largely ignored. That was not to say people had stopped dying, just that there was nobody with sufficient interest to discover why. Everyone considered the short, squat building to be deserted. Even with two antique French cars badly parked out front nobody suspected there might be life at the morgue. But the cutting room currently housed three patients—three more than the central post-op ward.

  Inspector Phosy had survived for twenty hours, which they all agreed was a good sign. He’d lost a lot of blood, and the transfusion had not gone well. Dtui was afraid the bottle from the blood bank might have been tainted or mislabeled. There was never a way to tell until it was too late. Phosy was running a fever, and it was all she could do to keep his temperature down.

  On the sleeping mat beside Phosy’s slab lay a man with a shattered shin and a missing foot. He too had lost a lot of blood, most of which was on the backseat of the Renault. If anyone were to poke their head into either of the cars there would be no doubt that a massacre had taken place. This second patient had responded much better to his blood transfusion, but Dtui had no intention of putting his leg back together. After hearing Civilai’s account of his time in Ban Toop, nobody cared too much whether the mechanic lived or not. It was, however, a miracle that he’d survived the journey to Vientiane.

  Civilai would heal. Dtui had reset his arm and plastered it. He was eating and very talkative. He’d already held them spellbound with his tales of black magic.

  “But why come here?” Dtui asked. “To
the morgue, I mean.”

  “I didn’t intend to exactly,” said Civilai. “I was on my way to the police station when I got it into my head that I was about to die. I’d been driving all through the night on roads that would have killed a lesser man. I don’t know how many sleeping sentry guards I ignored at checkpoints. Any one of them could have shot me. I diverted myself to the hospital. I was on my way to emergency when I saw my old car parked in front of the morgue. I might have even said a little prayer that Siri would be here.”

  “Sorry to have disappointed you,” said Dtui.

  “Quite on the contrary,” said Civilai. “That old man would come in a distant fourth compared to the ministrations I have received from Dr. Geung, Matron Tukta and Surgeon General Dtui.”

  Geung and Tukta fell into a laughing fit that spun out of control.

  “Dr. Geung,” said Geung. “Dr. Geung.”

  “I’ve been practicing medicine and performing surgery illegally, Uncle,” Dtui reminded him. “I could be arrested any minute.”

  “Ah, Dtui. Most of the doctors here have studied on patched up courses the Soviets provided for us dumb people in the third world. I doubt any one of them is legal. You, my dear, are the real thing. A true artist.”

  “You’re sweet,” said Dtui. “A born diplomat. But what about you? What are you planning to do about your Satan friend?”

  “I’ll give him a few more hours till he’s fit enough to be bundled roughly back into the car, and I’ll complete my journey to police headquarters. Arriving there in a stolen government vehicle with a corpse in the backseat will just make my story all the more fascinating. As you have a senior policeman on your slab I shall not mention my detour here.”

  “Ugghhh,” said Inspector Phosy.

  15

  A Killer in High Heels

  The body of Abbot Rayron lay on the concrete floor of the cell in which he’d purportedly killed himself. He was covered in a dirty white sheet. Captain Gumron was reluctant to allow the visitors access to the scene, but as there was no next of kin they needed an official identification of the body by a credible witness. The Sangharaj refused to enter the cell without Siri and Daeng. The chief of Nam Som police said it was permissible and told the policeman who’d found the body to cooperate.

  The captain peeled back the sheet. The abbot lay facedown. His feet were near the bars of the cell. It was the type of cage you’d expect to find in a zoo. It had thick vertical bars to the ceiling and two horizontal reinforcements. There was a door with a padlock, currently unfastened. Around the monk’s neck was a saffron loincloth, the ends of which lay across his shoulders and down his back like the scarf of a World War One flying ace.

  “He tied himself to the bars about here,” said the duty policeman, pointing to the lower crossbeam about one and a half meters off the ground. “I discovered the body at about three this morning. I untied the noose, and he dropped to the floor like he is now.”

  “You didn’t move the body?” asked Siri.

  “No, sir, I—”

  “This isn’t a public inquest,” said the captain.

  “Do you mind if I turn the body over?” asked the Sangharaj.

  “You can’t touch him,” said the captain.

  “If I’m to identify him it would help if I could see him,” said the monk.

  Captain Gumron reluctantly nodded for the officer to turn over the corpse. They could immediately see the dark bruise down the center of his forehead. His nose was broken.

  “Must have happened when his face hit the concrete,” said the captain.

  The Sangharaj knelt and chanted quietly, not directly toward the body but into the air around it where the abbot’s soul might have been waiting for a blessing to continue its journey. Siri worked himself into a position from which he could see the abbot’s neck. When the captain was distracted he gestured for the Sangharaj to loosen the scarf. The old monk did so gently as if loosening the collar of someone finding it difficult to breathe.

  The captain noticed.

  “We’d rather you didn’t touch anything, Granddad,” he said. “This is police business. We’ve had enough amateur detectives traipsing all over this case as it is.”

  Siri hurried Madam Daeng from the building.

  “You were quiet in there,” she said.

  “I was quiet because I didn’t want to tell a policeman he didn’t know how to do his job.”

  “You don’t think it was suicide?”

  “I know it wasn’t, if only because suicide is contrary to basic Buddhist values. But from a pathological point of view if you’re serious about hanging yourself you’d do it from the top crossbar, not the bottom one. It wouldn’t take much to climb up there. And if you’re afraid of heights and decide to use the bottom crossbar you’d throw your legs out in front of you. The abbot’s feet were close to the vertical bars. And, why make it even more difficult for yourself by tying the knot on the outside? You’d loop the scarf around the bar and tie it in front of you.”

  “Then what do you think happened?”

  “I think somebody came to visit him, grabbed the scarf and smashed his head against the bars—broke his nose. If the policeman was right and the abbot fell on the concrete after he was dead he wouldn’t have bled or been bruised. The blow to the head knocked him out, and the killer held him up by the scarf and strangled him to death. The bruising around his neck was horizontal and low, so it wasn’t a hanging. The only thing I can’t work out is how the killer manipulated the body to be facing away from the bars. Either he was very strong, or he had a key to the padlock.”

  “Then he’d have to be a policeman,” said Daeng.

  “Or someone with money or influence who might borrow a key for a few minutes from an impoverished jailer.”

  “But you think it was the captain, don’t you?”

  Siri laughed. “Have I become that transparent?” he asked. “I’m not particularly fond of him. He has some issues with the temple, he’s certainly disrespectful, and I think he has historical connections with Sawan. But that’s not enough to accuse a man of murder. Certainly not three murders.”

  “Then it’s time to gather some new evidence,” said Daeng.

  “That’s my girl.”

  The first stop was only a few meters away. The jails, temporary courtroom and police station were in the same compound. The guard who watched over them was not a policeman nor would he ever be. He was better dressed than his counterparts in Laos but no more brilliant. He sat on a chair holding a rope that raised or lowered the entrance beam.

  “Who has access to the jails?” said Siri, adopting his air of importance.

  “Has what?” said the guard.

  “Access . . . Who do you let in at night?”

  “Nobody,” said the guard.

  “Not even the police? Prison guards? Cleaners? Meal lady?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t work at night.”

  “All right. Good answer. Who works at night?”

  “My cousin Eun. He does six p.m. to six a.m.”

  “So he could tell me who entered the building last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. So where . . .”

  “But so could I.”

  “Could what?”

  “Tell you who came and went last night. He has to report to me at five forty-five a.m. before my shift.”

  “All right. Then we’re getting somewhere. Who had acce—who came in last night?”

  “All them people you asked about. They all come. It’s a police station, so the police was coming and going. And the court was still going till nine so there were criminals and witnesses and family members.”

  “And do they have to report to you and Eun?”

  “No.”

  “So anyone
could come in?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then what do you do?”

  The guard tugged on his rope by way of explanation. Siri squeezed Daeng’s arm to tell her the first interview of the day was over.

  “Just a minute,” she said, and smiled at the guard. “Did your cousin Eun mention anything different or unusual during his shift?” she asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Okay, thanks,” said Daeng and started to walk away.

  “Excepting he saw Captain Gumron climbing over the compound wall that night.”

  “What?” said Daeng.

  “I know. Strange, isn’t it?”

  Siri and Daeng came to heel.

  “Was he climbing in or out?” Siri asked.

  “Out,” said the guard.

  “What time?”

  “Around nine-thirty. Oh, and the food girl was too pregnant to come so she sent her husband.”

  “Eun knew him?” asked Siri.

  “No. But he said the man knew his wife’s name. That’s a sort of security check.”

  “What time was he here?” asked Daeng.

  “Six p.m. to six a—”

  “The husband!”

  “Oh, about eight p.m.”

  “And he went to the cells alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he have keys?”

  “Didn’t need ’em. There’s a gap under the doors wide enough for a plate.”

  “And what time did he leave?” asked Daeng.

  “Eun didn’t see him leave.”

  “Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Not really,” said the guard. “Eun has two jobs. He drops off from time to time.”

  “Excellent,” said Siri. “I don’t suppose we know the name of the pregnant meal lady?”

  “Oh, that we do. Her name’s Somjit Laoseu. Been coming here since she was a girl.”