I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  He turned to her with no expression on his face. She shuddered.

  “You’d be inside me,” he said. “Then you could see everything I see, feel my feelings, share my depressions.”

  There followed an uncomfortable silence.

  “She’d only be in there for seventy-two hours,” said Siri. “That is, assuming you minced her. And if you did she’d have no memory of her brief sojourn through your digestive tract.”

  Boh turned his attention to Siri. “You’re not an artist,” he said.

  “Scientist,” said Siri.

  “Then, scientist, explain to me in three words what you see there on the horizon.”

  “Particle refracted light,” said Siri. “Your turn.”

  “Daytime’s reluctance to die,” said Boh.

  Siri thought about it. “Well, technically, that’s four words, but I’ll give it to you. You win.”

  “Abbot Somluang sends his best wishes,” said Daeng. “But we’re here about Abbot Rayron.”

  “So you’re police,” said Boh.

  “Do we look like—” Siri began but Daeng cut him off.

  “Are you expecting us?” she asked.

  “Do you like football?” he asked in reply.

  “No,” she said.

  “I’m very fond of it,” said Boh. “It’s a microcosm of humanity. For example there’s a moment when your opponent is running into the penalty area with the ball at his feet and you trip him. The referee has a split second to decide whether contact was made in or outside the area. Nobody’s really sure. The referee adjudges that you fouled him outside the box and awards a free kick. You are exonerated. Your team wins the game, but you can never relish the victory because you know deep in your soul that you cheated.”

  The sun was gone but the sky continued to bleed in its stead.

  “We know everything,” said Siri.

  “Then you can think yourselves lucky you didn’t waste fifty years of your life in search of that knowledge,” said Boh. “I, on the other hand, know nothing.”

  “Tell us more about the football,” said Daeng.

  Boh smiled for the first time. He had brand new teeth. “When it happened, in my mind, I was outside the penalty area. But in reality when I committed my foul I was inside. Only a few centimeters either way, so I thought, ‘Who really cares?’ I thought I might get away with it, you see?”

  “But you didn’t?” said Daeng.

  “I went to his house,” said Boh. “I went to his house expecting him to be dead, old Lim, the Udon Thani nine owner. I thought perhaps I might talk to his legitimate children. It was plain to me what had happened. I’m sure even Abbot Rayron knew deep in his heart: The Chinaman produces a bastard child. The minor wife dies. The father donates the child to the temple and forgets about him. In Thailand it doesn’t even count as scandal. The richer you are, the more women you’re supposed to impregnate. The courts are bloated with claims from illegitimate offspring haggling over the family estate. And sometimes if there is evidence of the mother being set up in a home with an income the bastard son might win some of the loot.

  “My plan was to act as intermediary for Abbot Rayron in his claim for compensation for being discarded. I believed we might be able to settle out of court. Of course Rayron knew nothing about it. He had no idea I was following up on the car registration. You see? I was one step away from being outside the temple, outside the penalty area. I didn’t want to die unfulfilled. I wanted the few remaining years to be less . . . disappointing. I’d already picked out my safari shirt and straw golf hat. I wanted to experience all the things I’d supposedly given up but actually had never sampled. But for that I needed money. It occurred to me that through all those years in the robes I had fantasized about wealth; not on a grand scale, just, you know, ‘I wish I had fifty baht to buy soap that doesn’t bring out my eczema.’ That sort of thing. But the doctrine does not distinguish between desire for an ice cream and desire to own the ice cream factory.

  “So I went to Lim’s house, a big, sprawling mansion of a place up in the hills. And the maids told me he was still alive. I hadn’t counted on that. He was on his deathbed but was aware of his surroundings, and he called me into his bedroom. I could have been any old monk paying respects, but it was as if he knew immediately why I was there. He said, ‘You were at Wat Po, the temple?’ I told him I was. ‘You knew my son,’ he said. I told him I did and that he was still alive. He sighed then, long and contented. He asked me where his son was and that was my moment. The defining moment of my life of goodness. If I’d told him without conditions I might have been worthy of my calling. My heart might have remained pure for eternity. But then I wouldn’t have had a new television or a stereo or a nice Japanese car, would I?

  “So I told him I was a poor monk and looked at him. He was shriveled like a dried root under his white sheet, but there were elements of the old businessman still hanging on. He was shrewd. He itemized what he would pay me for proof of the life of his son. How much for a narrative of the monk’s journeys around the country. How much for a current address. How much for a photograph. I left with a check to the value of more money than I had ever seen in my life. I was surprised that the bank would even cash it so readily. And I bought my television and stereo and car. I built a house and put flamingos in the garden. I bought a strongbox to put my remaining money in, and I bought women and drank and ate the corpses of dead animals. In two weeks the desire was out of my blood. Was that really all there was to it? Such a disappointment. So every day I sit on my roof and watch the sunset. And when the sky is cloudy and there’s nothing to see I sit in front of my unplugged television and I cry.”

  Siri, Daeng, and Ugly were driving their stolen truck back to Sawan. It was dark, and the road was still awful but the new vehicle had marvelous suspension, so it was a pleasure to drive. Siri had turned over the wheel to Daeng, who had recently learned how to drive in Civilai’s old cream-colored Citroën.

  “Why do you think the father didn’t contact Abbot Rayron?” she asked.

  “Perhaps the old man died first or perhaps he did make contact,” said Siri. “Perhaps Ray just forgot to tell us.”

  “He’s a monk, Siri. He wouldn’t lie.”

  Siri laughed.

  “All right, so, if he lied, why?” asked Daeng.

  “Perhaps he sought revenge on the father who threw him out. Or perhaps the fault is in us believing the story of a madman who sits on his roof every evening and has a house full of unplugged electrical goods.”

  “Do you think he’ll do what we asked?”

  “It’s a chance for redemption,” said Siri. “An opportunity to spend his ill-gotten wealth on something moral.”

  Before leaving ex-monk Boh, Siri and Daeng had made a proposal. They’d told him about the mysterious death of Abbot Rayron while he was in custody. They’d gone on to the connection with Loong Gan, the second murder victim from the village. Boh had no recollection of anyone by that name or description ever having resided at Wat Po. They talked about his supposed affair with a Chinese woman and the likelihood of her being Lim’s wife. They agreed they needed to probe deeper into the members of Rayron’s legitimate family. Boh had asked them what he could do to help.

  “You can do some detective work around Udon,” Daeng had told him. “We need to know what became of any children Lim fathered with his Chinese wife, assuming he did. If the affair wasn’t a lie, did Loong Gan and the Chinese woman produce any children of their own? Was there any doubt over the parenthood of the legitimate children? That sort of thing. We need to know how the Chinese wife and the mistress died. It would help to get the name of Lim’s lawyer and any gossip the domestic staff feel like giving up.”

  “And how do you propose I gather such information?” Boh had asked.

  “Spread some of your money around,” Siri had said. “This is Thailand. Money
talks here.”

  Just before leaving, Siri had turned back to Boh and said, “This might be nothing, but see if ‘Than Kritsana Mukum, Dusit Insurance Company’ means anything to anyone on your travels.”

  “Where did you get it from?” asked Boh.

  “From a dream,” said Siri.

  The late morning meal the next day was a subdued affair. Not one to condone yet another misogynistic world religion, Daeng sat at the table with the Sangharaj and Siri and did not wait for leftovers. The monk did not insist she dine alone. There was not a great deal of conversation. They all thought they’d let the abbot down. He’d asked for help and they’d failed.

  “I saw him, you know?” said the Sangharaj.

  “Who?” asked Siri.

  “Abbot Rayron. The morning he died. He was sitting out there on his favorite slab looking at the fish. It’s nice to know he considers this place worth a last visit.”

  “Are you sure you should be confessing to paranormal sightings?” said Siri.

  “To you, Yeh Ming? You of all people know how much magic we enlightened ones have in our arsenal. But the difference is we do not choose to use it. I could levitate right here in front of you both, but I do not aspire to do so.”

  The monk smiled wryly to himself.

  “You should reconsider,” said the doctor. “You might need a few circus tricks once you retire.”

  “Yes, what will you do without the temple?” asked Daeng. “I don’t see you playing golf.”

  “You never really retire from faith,” said the Sangharaj. “In fact I think I may stay here for a while. At least until the Sangha sends a replacement for Abbot Rayron. Perhaps the new man will keep me on as a gardener or a fish feeder. I like it here. And, who knows? If I stay on for a while somebody in the village might build up the courage to tell me what happened the other night. Nobody’s talking.”

  “You probably just had a bad dream,” said Siri.

  The Sangharaj would no doubt hear of his exploits eventually. Thais were poor at keeping secrets. But for the time being the villagers had agreed to spare the old monk the details of his possession. He was strong as a buffalo, but there was no telling how a man in his eighties might react to such a revelation.

  “Not even the worst of my nights has left me bruised the next morning,” said the monk.

  “You should try sleeping with Madam Daeng,” said Siri. “I mean . . .”

  “You should stop now, Siri,” said Daeng.

  “Yes, my love.”

  “What about you two?” asked the monk. “Home?”

  “Not yet,” said Siri.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re insatiable detectives,” said Daeng. “And we’d never be able to sleep if we failed to solve the mysteries of Sawan.”

  “Plus, I promised my good lady a trip to Bangkok,” said Siri.

  They heard a distant car engine approaching from the direction of Nam Som.

  “Probably the police captain coming to round up all the illegal Lao immigrants,” said Siri. “I hear they get fifty baht a head for each one of us they catch outside the refugee camps.”

  Daeng went to the window.

  “Do we know anyone who drives a hearse?” she asked.

  It turned out that the vehicle was not a hearse but a Toyota Crown Estate, which many people had compared to a hearse. It was obviously the car of choice for newly rich ex-monks. With the windows down to save the air-conditioning, Boh parked his car outside the temple wall even though there was a fine gravel lot inside. He was dressed in a football jersey—some European club—and flip-flops.

  “Mr. Fashion’s here,” said Daeng.

  They went to meet him.

  “It’s astounding,” Boh said, sitting at a concrete picnic table beneath a spreading duck foot tree.

  “What is?” asked Daeng.

  “What people are prepared to tell you for the sniff of a banknote,” said Boh.

  “Then you have information?” said Siri, joining him at the table.

  “A lot,” said Boh. “One contact led to another. I met the staff from old Lim’s house and workers from his factory. Met a friend of his mistress. And the police were particularly helpful when you slipped a folded banknote in their palms. Where to start?”

  “The beginning,” said Daeng.

  “First,” he said, “there was only one child from the registered marriage of Lim and the Chinese wife: a son named Ananda. That was in the public records at the town hall. According to one of their old nannies he was a bright child but moody. Neither the mother nor the father had much time for him. The father worked all God’s hours, and when he wasn’t making money he was off at his minor wife’s place making whoopee. The mother didn’t have much time for the kid either, what with shopping trips to Bangkok, tennis, and . . . get this, one single-story shop house on Nuwong that everyone knew she rented for her lover.”

  “And you showed them the photograph I left you?” Siri asked.

  “It was him sure enough, old Loong Gan—the lover of the Chinese wife. But, according to the neighbors, he wasn’t there much. Had other women by all accounts.”

  “Good job, Boh,” said Daeng. “We should hire you for private detective work.”

  “I confess it did start to get a little stimulating,” said Boh. “I was up till midnight, then out again at the crack of dawn. The minor wife was a nightclub singer, and she and Lim had one son together: Rayron. When the boy was eight years old an intruder broke into her apartment, garroted her to death and robbed the place. They never caught him or her, but here’s the big news from a policeman who was there at the scene: The boy slept in the same room as his mother. It was impossible he didn’t see the intruder and witness the murder.”

  Boh was far more animated than they’d seen him the previous day. He was almost enthusiastic.

  “It would have been dark,” said Siri.

  “It was, but the intruder lit a lamp in the room when he or she was looking for money. The boy would have looked directly into the killer’s face. But when the police questioned him he said he’d seen nothing. He said he wasn’t in the room. Even at the temple he claimed to have no recollection at all about what happened that night.”

  “The trauma probably blanked it out of his memory,” said Siri. “It must have been awful.”

  “Why ‘he or she’?” asked Daeng.

  “What?”

  “Twice you said ‘he or she’ when talking about the killer.”

  “Yes,” said Boh. “I was getting to that. When they were investigating the crime scene—and don’t forget these were the days of clumsy, amateurish police work—they found a strip of material caught on a nail on the window ledge. They concluded it might have come from the clothing of the killer. It had a flower design on it. Possibly from a woman’s blouse. And outside the window was a footprint from a high-heeled shoe.”

  “Ha,” said Daeng. “The wronged major wife gets revenge.”

  “In high-heeled shoes, no less,” said Siri.

  “The police went to Lim’s house to give him the bad news,” said Boh, “discreetly, so they thought. But the Chinese wife understood the gist of the conversation, burst into the room and created a scene. The police didn’t understand what she said, but it was apparently about the world being a better place without whores. Ironic considering she was having an affair too.”

  “And she had a rip in her flowery blouse,” said Daeng.

  “Sadly not,” said Boh, “but a lot of people came to that conclusion. The wife was a mad woman, they said. Should have been locked up, they said. Lim was heartbroken. He sent his love child to a temple and was later told by a monk that the boy had died from some disease. He became reclusive, lived in a small room behind the factory. And it was there that people claimed the hatred he felt for his wife grew into a plot to kill he
r.”

  “He killed his wife?” said Siri.

  “It was three years to the day after the death of his lover. They found the wife facedown in her bowl of corn soup. She’d been poisoned. The cook obviously denied putting anything out of the ordinary into the meal, but during the interrogation she told the police that she’d been shocked earlier that day when she ran into Lim creeping around. Of course it was his house but he rarely went there. He was friendly and told the cook he’d come to pick up some paperwork. Four hours later he was gone and his wife was dead. Again the police had no evidence he was involved, but the next day when the maids were packing up the dead woman’s clothes they found a blouse with a strip missing—a flowery pattern.”

  “Did the police follow up on that?” asked Daeng.

  “Any evidence from that earlier murder had been long lost, but the rumors and conclusions lived on in the community. The old man moved back into the house and stayed there alone.”

  “And one day, you turned up there to tell him his bastard son was alive,” said Daeng.

  “I admit, learning the husband and wife were both murderers has made me feel much better about my role in this drama,” said Boh.

  “Any leads from the company name I gave you?” Siri asked.

  “I’ve got somebody looking into it,” said Boh.

  “What about the will?” said Daeng.

  “Ah, the will,” said Boh. “I found Lim’s lawyer right here in Udon. He refused point-blank to divulge client information about personal wills, but I get the feeling I just didn’t offer enough money. I’m still learning the ropes, you see.”

  “So we don’t know about the will,” said Daeng.

  “Yes, we do,” said Boh. “The lawyer’s filing clerk was much cheaper and far more sociable. Lim’s will was changed on March sixth last year. That was five days after I visited him. Two months before he died.”

  “Changed in what way?” asked Daeng.

  “The name of the beneficiary.”

  “From?”

  “From Ananda, the son by the Chinese wife, to Rayron, the son from his relationship with the singer.”