by Jack Kerley
“How long did he live with you?” I figured there wasn’t much to be gleaned here, information-wise, but I tried for a bit of background before I laid the ugly news on her.
She shrugged. “’Til he was fifteen, sixteen? He kept running off, nothing I could do. So one day I just didn’t call the cops to look for him any more.”
“That was the last time you heard from him?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He calls mebbe once a year. He gets his ass in jail for some pissy-ass thing and calls me whining for bail money.”
“You ever give him any?” I asked.
“I don’t steal the shit. Why should I pay his bail?” She grinned. “Terry Lee still got a face like a squished basketball?”
The casualness of her words roiled my stomach. I breathed down anger and let a few seconds pass.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am,” I said, “but your boy’s dead.”
A look of mild confusion. “You mean like…dead?”
“Yes, that’s the dead I mean.”
She frowned at the news. Stubbed the cigarette dead in the ashtray.
“What am I s’posed to do now?”
“You might ask how he died,” I suggested, feeling my jaw muscles clench. “Or grieve. Or pray for his soul.”
None of my proposals seemed appealing. She looked to Fabio Hair for a second opinion. “What am I s’posed to do, Sweets?”
“Sweets” looked at me, a frown of concern on his broad face. He stepped close for a man-to-man conference. “This thing with Terry Lee,” he asked. “It gonna cost her anything to deal with?”
“He was over twenty-one,” I said, hearing drumbeat thunder in my head. “There’s no paternal obligation, legally. If the State drops Terry Lee into an unmarked hole, it won’t cost a penny. But she might consider a small service, something to honor his life.”
Vernia Teasdale nee Bailes was eavesdropping.
“I ain’t got money for no fancy services and shit,” she brayed. “I got a tough life.”
The drumming in my head ramped into a roar, like an overloaded dynamo. From beside me the coffee table launched from the floor into the smelly little room to the side, taking out the camera and the lights and causing sparks to pop from a junction box on the floor.
The action seemed in slow motion. I remember a lot of yelling, but by the time I walked out, Mrs Teasdale and Sweets were nicely quiet.
When I got in the car Harry looked between me and the house.
“You OK, Cars? You’re kind of red in the face.”
“It was warm in there.”
He raised a curious eyebrow. “But everything went fine, right?”
“Hunky-dory, bro. How ‘bout we get a move on?”
Chapter 17
Harry seemed deep in thought for a few miles, now and then shooting me a glance, as if uncertain about something. He took a deep breath, blew it out, sounding like he was changing gears in his head.
“You hear anything from the Dauphin Island cops on their part in the Noelle case?” he said. “Have they gotten anything from Briscoe?”
“I talked to Jimmy Gentry yesterday. He said Briscoe was all promises, but hadn’t really checked on anything like the ownership of the burned-down house.”
“Racist bastard,” Harry muttered. “How about you check, Carson? Briscoe ain’t gonna do squat for me.”
I sighed, picked up the phone, got the deskman, asked for Sheriff Briscoe. A gruff male voice answered like the mouth was at home watching TV and eating pizza and not in a supposedly professional law-enforcement agency.
“Yeah, what?”
“Briscoe?”
“Speaking. And it’s Sheriff Briscoe.”
“This is Carson Ryder. And it’s Detective Ryder. I’m calling about –”
“I know what you’re calling about, Deee-tective. We ain’t got nothing on harpoon man.”
“Nothing?”
“Like in zero. You ever have one of those cases has nothing to grab hold of? That’s this one. No one lived close to that place, no one heard anything, no one saw any fire. I’m about to close the books.”
“It’s only been a few days since –”
“The place was probably used as a meth lab. Some meth head got pissed at another, jammed a spear in his belly. Still had enough brains left to burn the place down ’fore he ran off. I gotta go. I got work to do.”
“Let someone else sort the mail, Briscoe. I need ten seconds of your twenty-second attention span.”
“What the hell are you –”
“Two things, Briscoe. One, the forensics lab found no residue of the chemicals used to make methedrine, and two, harpoons aren’t used to make meth either. A man was killed in that shack and, like you said, you’re the sheriff. Maybe you recall from your oath of office that the title comes with some expectations.”
The phone clicked dead. I sighed, dialed the county property evaluator’s office. The owner would be listed in tax records, a no-brainer. The woman who answered was one of those personality-free, efficient types I love, answering my question within thirty seconds.
“The residence was owned for fifteen years by a Lewis Johnson. It sold twelve years back for twenty thousand dollars to a…to a…Oh my, I’d better spell it for you.”
I started to take down the name – and kept taking down the name – hoping the lead in my pencil lasted.
“Chakrabandhu Sintapiratpattanasai?”
Harry attempted to pronounce the name, no way of knowing if he was even close. He’d pulled over and parked, the better to devote his attention to the name.
I shrugged. “For all I know about Thai, it’s pronounced Chuck Smith.”
“Male or female?”
“I’ll assume male. Records show that CS bought the place a dozen years back, which dovetails with the upsurgence in Thai shrimp fishermen moving into the area.”
“Address? Phone?”
“No listed address. Phone disconnected five years back.”
“Probably switched to a cell and stiffed the phone company.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “A name we can’t pronounce, a phone we can’t call, an address that ain’t listed.”
“It’s an immigrant community,” Harry mused. “Extremely close-knit, I expect, the protection of the tribe. We have to assume that somewhere in the area is a Thai who has knowledge of his kinsman’s – CS’s – whereabouts.”
“So where from here, Mr Anthropology?” I asked.
“Let’s go to lunch and see if we can dig up some family Thais.” He grinned at me, the first time in days he’d looked happy about anything but Noelle. “Pun intended.”
We ended up at a tiny Thai restaurant and grocery in Harry’s neighborhood. We’d eaten there a few times, always a delicious experience. We sat in the eight-table dining area, the walls green and embellished with posters of Thai temples. Paper lanterns gave a soft light. The room was fragrant with garlic and ginger and chilis. The owner, a man in his early sixties, came out to meet us. Harry pulled him aside and spoke for a few minutes, and the man gave a half-bow and returned to the kitchen.
“Well?” I asked.
Harry said, “Mr Srisai thinks he speaks English worse than he does. He’s calling someone who might help us. It’ll be a few minutes.”
We ordered pad Thai and pad see yew, trading halfsies. Harry doused his with nam pla, I went heavy on the chili paste. We ate and watched visitors to the adjoining grocery select from a variety of vegetables that were unfamiliar to me, save for ropy knots of ginger and fragrant sprays of cilantro. I saw a blue beamer pull from the street to the rear of the restaurant. I listened for the back door and heard it through the potwash din of the kitchen.
Two minutes later, the kitchen door opened to reveal a short, slender man in his mid twenties. He wore sandals, unpressed khakis and a T-shirt from the University of Alabama. His short black hair was arrayed in abbreviated spikes, like being hip, but having to temper it for the office. The soft angles o
f his round face were further softened by owlish eyeglasses. We did introductions, shook hands. Kiet Srisai was the owner’s eldest son.
“You a student at the U of A?” I asked, nodding at the shirt.
“A recent graduate. Architectural engineering. I’m working for a firm a couple miles from here. Father tells me you have questions about Thai fishermen down the coast.” His English was excellent and musical.
“The shrimpers near the border. The ones hit by the recent ‘caines.”
He nodded. “I knew the community, small, maybe a dozen families. They came here to the restaurant and grocery when in town. Very close-knit. They were scattered like leaves by the hurricanes. Some blew off to Texas, others to Louisiana. Others as far as California. Most will be near water, that’s all I can say. All they know is fishing.”
I again studied the name on the note page, handed it to Srisai. “Such a long name,” I said. “Is that common?”
“It’s the Chinese influence. Native Thais tend toward simple, short surnames, like Srisai. Immigrants from China had to register a name with the government, a minimum of ten characters. But favored combinations of letters got taken. No duplication is allowed, so the names are increased in length to be unique. Many are over twenty characters long.”
Harry said, “And I’ve been trying for decades to get folks to spell Nautilus right.”
Srisai’s face went from affable to apologetic. “Also, and perhaps this will add to your burden, Thais often change their names. In Thailand, names have mystery and meaning. Thais are very superstitious. If bad luck befalls a person, they might change their name to change their luck.”
Harry frowned. “Getting blown out of job and home by a series of hurricanes might be interpreted as pretty bad luck. So the person we’re looking for under this name…”
Srisai nodded. “Might not be using that name. At least not fully.”
“Can you help at all, Mr Srisai?” I asked.
“The fishing community is very inwardly focused, Detective. They’re also viewed with suspicion by the locals – many look on them as interlopers and stealers of jobs. The fishing people have sometimes been the focus of overzealous law enforcement.”
“The kind that says, ‘We don’t need you here’?” Harry asked.
Srisai nodded, sadness in his eyes. “Yes. Thus your, uh, police ties might be a difficulty in getting people to come forward.”
I looked Srisai in an owlish eye. “Someone killed a man with a shark spear, Mr Srisai. A harpoon straight into the belly. The death was neither immediate nor pretty. A fire was started to hide the body. All we want is information.”
Kiet Srisai studied the name I had handed him. He folded the paper and put it in his wallet.
“I’ll put out the word. Our family is known and respected. People may respond if they know anything.”
I reached to the table and picked up the fortune cookie that had accompanied the meal. “So fortune cookies are in Thailand as well as China?” I asked Srisai.
“The cookie idea actually originated in San Francisco years ago, in Chinatown. It’s not a Thai tradition. But the, uh, natives seem to like the concept, so we…” Srisai smiled sheepishly, spread his hands.
“Give ‘em what they want,” Harry finished. He looked at me. “What’s it say, Carson?”
I slipped the paper strip from the broken cookie. Stared at the tiny writing.
Small steps will eventually take you a great distance.
Chapter 18
Back at HQ, Tom Mason saw us as we walked into the detectives’ room with steps neither small nor large, and gestured us into his office. Tom was behind a metal desk as file-laden as ours, though he lined up the file edges better. Tom was in his mid fifties, rail-skinny, with a face as wrinkled and lugubrious as a basset hound. He was totally unflappable and spoke in a country drawl so slow that waiting for words was like watching cold molasses drop into a biscuit.
“You’re off anything with the baby snatcher involved, Harry,” Tom said. “You had direct involvement in the case, and killed the chief suspect. It’s over on the kid case for you.”
“Come on, Tom,” Harry complained. “I can still work the edges.”
“Procedure says it ain’t gonna happen, Harry. Anyway, here’s the case I need you guys to put to bed,” Tom said, holding up the morning New York Times. The biggest headline read, Rev. Scaler Found Dead in Church Camp. Details Pending Autopsy.
“The Scaler case?” I said. “It’s not a murder. The guy died of a heart attack while wearing panties upside-down.”
“First,” Tom said, “we don’t know anything for sure, right?”
I turned from the blinds. “Not a hundred per cent. Maybe ninety-nine point –”
“Secondly, it’s high-publicity, gonna get higher. You guys are the first team, and the city council and chief are gonna want me to tell them the first team’s on the case, right?”
“That’s just diddle-squat politics,” I groused.
“Playing diddle-squat politics is what keeps me in the corner office. Scaler’s yours for now. Find out who was with the Rev. in his final moments, get all this ugliness figured out.”
“Why?” I continued to protest. “It’s all gonna be kept under wraps. Half the politicians in Washington attended Scaler’s services and prayer breakfasts. Everyone knows Scaler’s support put Senator Custis in office and kept him there. You know what’ll finally come out: Scaler died of a heart attack while writing pietistic sermons at his church camp. The dom who beat Scaler’s butt will be threatened by one of Scaler’s lawyers and offered money by another. Stick and carrot. She’ll clam tight. Richard Scaler’s reputation will stay pure as the driven rain.”
Tom walked to his window. “You’re probably right, Carson. But we’re gonna do our job because that’s what we do, right?”
I shrugged. We did our job all the time and nothing ever changed.
Harry chimed in. “What about the baby snatcher? I want to stay close.”
“You want to take it, Carson?” Tom asked. “You’ve been handling it so far. Or should I assign it to someone else?”
“Give it to Barret and Osborne. I’ll fill them in on what background we’ve got. It’s a freak thing. They’re all freak things these days.”
Tom said, “You don’t think the guy specifically targeted the boat kid?”
“Noelle,” Harry corrected.
I said, “There’s no way a brain-dead fuck-up like Bailes could have known which kid to pick. You got a half-dozen infants in the sick-kids ward, another dozen in the regular paed unit. Bailes called the kid a clone and a mutant in his rant, like maybe he saw Star Wars a few hundred too many times. Or maybe he thought the hospital was breeding them. You can’t get into a psycho’s mind, Tom. When Bailes got caught he made an I’m-a-tough-guy speech to the camera and tried to take the gravity elevator.”
“Carson’s right, Tom,” Harry said. “I can’t see how Bailes could have been looking for a specific kid. It had to be pluck’n’run, a random grab.”
“Give the goddamn case to Barrett and Osborne,” I said. “If we’re gonna pursue the Scaler investigation, we haven’t got time for –”
“I want the abductor case,” Harry repeated.
“It ain’t gonna happen, Harry,” Tom said, shaking his head. “The shooting, remember? Departmental rules are clear.”
Harry looked at me. “Carson? How about it? You can work Noelle’s case, right?”
“I’m working the Scaler case if that’s what Tom wants. We’re working the Scaler case.”
Harry’s eyes were no longer looking, they were pleading. I dropped my head, muttered something that must have sounded like surrender.
“OK,” Tom said, holding up his hand to indicate discussion over. “Carson’s got the baby snatcher case. But that can of worms isn’t high priority as long as Scaler’s in the air, no pun intended. That’s the case I need shed of right now.”
We left Tom standing at his windo
w and hustled toward the garage; it was time to pick up our tack hammers and beat on the Great Wall of China, trying to reduce it to rubble. We climbed into the car. Harry looked my way.
“Thanks for taking Noelle’s case, bro. It makes me feel a lot better.”
I turned to my partner, pulled my mouth wide with my fingers, blinked my eyes and waggled my tongue. I said, “Gaaaaa. Gaaaaaaa.”
“Uh, what’s that mean, Carson?”
“What real choice did I have?” I said.
Chapter 19
I dialed the college, got the general switchboard, was shunted to Tutweiler’s office. He’d been a long-time friend and business partner of Scaler’s. We figured he might have something interesting to say.
I asked the female voice when Harry and I could come and talk to the Dean, suggesting fifteen minutes from now would be a good choice. I heard her muffle the phone with her hand, talk to someone, Tutweiler, I supposed. She came back on.
“Dean Tutweiler can meet you tomorrow after lunch, say one o’clock? He has fifteen spare minutes and wants you to know he’s a firm supporter of the police.”
“I was thinking more like within the hour.”
“He’s very busy,” she said. “He’s having a difficult week.”
“Not as difficult as his boss, ma’am,” I said, hanging up. I heard that drumming in my head again, like my irritation had developed a soundtrack. I frowned at Harry. “We have an appointment for tomorrow. Let’s go confirm it now.”
We passed the boundaries of the college minutes before coming to its buildings, the border denoted by plastic strips flapping from pine poles in the ground: surveyor’s stakes. A billboard-sized sign proclaimed we’d hit Elysium, after a fashion, providing a twenty-foot-long artist’s soft-edged rendering of the institution in the near future, a cityscape of architectural splendor and curving streets embracing dormitories for tens of thousands of the faithful. A white cross was displayed in the upper-right-hand corner of the signage like a beaming sun.
