Thai Die

by Monica Ferris

  “They weren’t on your list of people to whom you were sending that daily Bangkok diary?”

  “No, I didn’t send them my Bangkok e-mails . . . What?” The query was to someone in the room with Doris. “Oh, okay. Carmen says to tell you she was forwarding my Bangkok diary to them.”

  “So who was it who told you about the factory?”

  “The concierge at the hotel. I wanted to see silk being made, but the north part of Thailand, which is where the factories mostly are, seemed so far away, and she said it’s kind of primitive up there, no place for a foreign woman to go alone. I asked her if there was one closer to Bangkok, and she told me about Bright Works—that’s the name of it.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Betsy had been amused to learn that Thai businesses often had English names that were only approximately appropriate.

  “She even arranged for a driver to come along who could translate Thai into English.”

  “That was very nice of her.”

  “Oh, yes. The Thai people are just amazingly kind.” A sense of longing came into Doris’s voice. “I wish I could have stayed over there.”

  “I don’t blame you one bit. I think those are all the questions I have for now. Thanks, Doris. And may your guardian angel be at the top of his game.”

  “You’re welcome and thank you. Here’s Carmen.”

  “Did she tell you anything helpful?” Carmen asked.

  “Yes, I think so. But I wish one of us could have talked her out of going off with Phil. Thank you for calling me, Carmen.”

  After she hung up, Betsy finished closing up the shop, setting aside the starting-up cash for tomorrow, drawing up a deposit slip for the rest. She would take it to the night deposit drawer at the bank later—in her newly acquired state of alarm, she had a notion that a robber could do worse than lurk outside a business waiting for the owner to come out with a bag of cash in hand.

  She flipped the lights off and, with her impatient cat trotting ahead of her, went up the stairs to her apartment.

  Supper was a quiet affair, with Betsy deep in thought, trying to figure out where Phil might have gone with Doris. He was a Minnesota native, one of the sort who had always taken most of his vacations within its borders, so he knew the state at a level that immigrant Betsy couldn’t even dream of. He was a retired railroad engineer, chummy with fellow railroaders, so he could doubtless have called on one of them to hide Doris—perhaps on a train. He knew people with cabins up in the north woods, many located down some obscure lane deep among the pines. He and Doris could rest secure before a roaring fire in a fieldstone fireplace with no one but the crows, eagles, and foxes as neighbors. It was also possible that he and Doris were flying out of Humphrey or Lindburgh Terminal on their way to Costa Rica or London or Singapore or South Africa. Betsy tossed her napkin down. There was no way to figure out where the two had gone.

  Which, come to think of it, might make his plan not such a bad one after all.

  Dishes done, Betsy went in to boot up her computer. Doris had put a message onto RCTN about a pattern she was having a problem with. Lillian Banchek had replied privately and Doris’s trip to Thailand came up in conversation. Lillian wrote that her ex-brother-in-law had a manufacturing business in Thailand, and she had offered Doris his e-mail address. Betsy and Lillian had exchanged messages both on RCTN and privately for a long time, so Betsy looked to send Lillian an IM. But Lillian wasn’t logged on. Betsy sent her a quick e-mail, asking for Ron Zommick’s e-mail address and phone number, adding, This is urgent, so please let me know ASAP.

  She was about to settle down with her bookkeeping program when her phone rang. It was Carmen. “Mike Malloy just left. Does he treat everyone like he thinks they’re crooks?” Her tone was crisp, as if she was trying hard not sound as angry as she really was.

  “Probably. Until he gets to know them. Was he really rude?”

  “No, not rude, exactly. Just . . . Well, he wouldn’t take anything I said as true. He’d ask me the same question three different ways.”

  “Oh, that. That’s not suspicion, that’s just how the police operate. They want to make sure you understand the question and that they understand the answer.”

  “Oh? Well, it made me feel uncomfortable.”

  “On behalf of the City of Excelsior, I apologize.”

  With a hint of a smile in her voice, Carmen replied, “On behalf of the citizens of Wayzata, I accept your apology.”

  “Did he get a chance to talk with Doris before she left with Phil?”

  “No, and he seemed to think I should have tied her to a chair or something to keep her here until he arrived.”

  “Mike usually suspects people are out to thwart his investigations. Sometimes he’s right, but it’s hard trying to remember the policeman is your friend when he’s acting like that. Meanwhile, would you care if I asked you some questions, too? While your memory is all warmed up?”

  “Among other things,” said Carmen with a chuckle. “All right, I want somebody to make sense of this and bring an end to it. Doris says you have a wild card talent for solving crimes. If I can help you do that, I certainly will.”

  “All right, thank you. When you went to Thailand with Wendy and Lena, whose idea was it to go?”

  “Lena’s. She’s the one who talked to me about it, anyway. It might have been Wendy’s idea; she had been to Asia before, not Thailand but Indonesia and Japan and, I think, China.”

  “How do you know Lena?”

  “Through our husbands. They met in college. Richard hunts, and he collects guns. He has some excellent bird guns—shotguns. Lena’s husband, Tad, has always had a golden retriever or two. Richard and Tad go out together every fall hunting duck and pheasant, and so Lena and I started getting together with other hunting widows. I didn’t get to know Lena well until about five years ago, really. But Wendy and Lena go way back—they were like sisters. Lena introduced me to Wendy. I think they met in high school, actually. I know they both went to Northwestern, both got degrees in fine arts. I’m a U of M grad myself, a master’s in education.”

  “Wendy’s husband is a hunter, too?” Betsy asked.

  “Oh gosh, no. I don’t think Frank knows which end of a gun the bullet comes out of.”

  “Okay, I think I understand all that. Now, when you three were in Thailand, did you meet a man named David Corvis?”

  “Yes. Sergeant Malloy asked me about him, too. But I didn’t get to know him or anything, I only met him for about a minute. I saw him with Lena and Wendy in the lobby of our hotel one morning and came over for an introduction. He was planning a trip with them, up north to Chiang Mai, to see silk still being made by women working alone—you know, as individuals. They invited me to go, too, but I’d gotten a tour ticket for Coral Island, in the Sea of Thailand, that was right in the middle of their three-day junket.”

  “So you didn’t go up north with Wendy and Lena.”

  “No. They came back with some beautiful fabrics and about a hundred pictures. They were all excited.”

  “Did you see Mr. Corvis again?”

  “No, just that one time. They talked about what a great guy he was, but I don’t think they saw him again, either.”

  “What did they say about him?”

  “Nothing much, just that he was a soldier who came to Thailand after the Vietnam war and started working in a silk factory. They said he knew just about everything there was to know about silk.”

  “It was interesting that he ran into Doris, though, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Sergeant Malloy was all interested in that, too. Do you think that’s important, that he knew Wendy and Lena and then Doris?”

  “Yes, I think it’s very important. Carmen, I’m worried about Doris. Did you get Phil to tell you where he was taking her?”

  “No. That is scary, isn’t it? I know Phil loves Doris and I’m sure he thinks he’s protecting her, but I really don’t think hiding her himself is a good idea, do you?”

  “I’ve bee
n thinking about that. There are so many places for him to take her, it’s impossible to figure out where they’ve gone. I’m concerned that there’s no way to get in touch with them when this is over, but on the other hand, if we don’t know where they are, it’s not likely the person after her knows, either.”

  Betsy couldn’t think of anything else to ask, so she wished Carmen a good night and hung up.

  Her head was too full of conjecture and confusion to focus on recording the day’s sales, so she clicked the program closed. Then she saw she was still logged on to the Internet—and that she already had a reply from Lillian. His name is Ron Zommick, and he’s in Bangkok right now, so don’t phone him, e-mail him. She gave Betsy the address, then continued:

  What’s up? Why do you want to contact him? You’re still friends with Doris Valentine, aren’t you? You could have contacted her, she has it. She saw Ron in Bangkok, and he showed her around. Do you want him to get you some silk? He may do that for you, if he isn’t too busy. I’ll e-mail him and tell him you’ll be in touch. Don’t forget, Thailand is eleven hours ahead of you and on the other side of the international date line, so if you’re reading this in the evening, it’s tomorrow morning over there.

  Betsy thought, Well then, when it’s tomorrow evening there, is it yesterday morning over here? For a moment she pictured the globe of the earth, one half toward the sun, the globe turning so the leading edge of dawn was always moving west. Somewhere tomorrow had to start; that’s what the international date line was for. So no, if it was evening in Bangkok, it was the morning of the same day over here.

  Betsy wrote a brief thanks to Lillian, then turned her attention to Mr. Zommick. She tried to think of a way to explain what she wanted without turning it into a very long story. Or scaring him off entirely. Finally she typed:

  Hello, Ron Zommick! Lillian gave me your address and said I might ask a favor of you. There is a man in Bangkok named David Corvis. He is an American, an ex-marine, who manages a silk factory called Bright Works near the city and also owns a small export business on Silom Road, name unknown. Can you confirm that he’s still at these places and get me his address, at home, the factory, or his export business? Please be discreet about this, he may be a rough customer. I may be able to tell you what this is about later, if you want to know. Thank you.

  Betsy Devonshire

  She wrote a much longer version, then rewrote it twice, read it over, sighed in dissatisfaction, and before she could change her mind entirely, pressed Send.

  Twenty-one

  BETSY shut down her computer and sat awhile, trying to make sense of what she knew—but there were gaps. She had too many questions and not enough answers. She thought some more, then decided she needed something to focus her mind. She thought about stitching the sneezing Dalmatian, but it would call for all her concentration. What she was after was something that would leave her free to think and reason and ponder.

  She went into her stash of yarn for a ball of mauve wool and some number ten needles. Then she sat down in her most comfortable chair, turned on the standard lamp behind it, and began to cast on stitches. That XOXO scarf she’d been knitting in her imagination at the art institute library had lingered at the back of her mind. It should work up pretty fast—though to make it fun, it should be extra long as well as extra skinny. Perhaps she should make it as part of next year’s Valentine’s Day display: Sheepish Love and Kisses? No. Warm Love and Kisses? Better.

  Meanwhile, as she had hoped, getting into the rhythm and repetitions of knitting settled her turbulent mind and allowed patterns to emerge.

  She thought at first she didn’t have enough data on this case to make a guess at its solution. But then she thought perhaps the opposite was true: There was a superabundance of data. Could there be too much? Maybe the problem was that she had collected the data out of order.

  She began to list the events as they had come to her, beginning with Doris’s return from Bangkok with the stone statue, and then tried sorting them into a chronology. First . . . well, first was the archaeological dig at the Han Dynasty site back in the 1980s that disclosed the embroidered silk. Then the immediate and subsequent thefts of that silk. Then . . . yes, Lena, Wendy, and Carmen’s trip to Thailand. Doris’s trip to Thailand . . . No, David Corvis’s turning up to meet Wendy and Lena, then connecting with Doris. Doris’s throwing the silk away and Betsy’s retrieving it. Doris’s taking the statue to Fitzwilliam in St. Paul. Fitzwilliam’s murder. The burglary of Doris’s apartment. The trip to St. Peter and the death of Wendy Applegate. Lena’s murder. The shooting at Carmen Diamond’s house.

  As Betsy built a chronology of this complicated case, she looked for a pattern, a set of suspects. To her dismay, there didn’t seem to be either.

  She knit and thought, but nothing else came to her, and at last she tucked her needles into the ball of yarn and went to bed.

  THE next morning Betsy came home from water aerobics, ate a quick breakfast, and as usual, took a few minutes to sit at her computer. She noted on her calendar that she would have double the entries to make on her bookkeeping program that evening. Falling behind on record keeping, the most dreary of small business ownership tasks, was one sure recipe for disaster. She absolutely must make up for her failure of yesterday.

  Then she wrote an e-mail to Foster Johns, who had acted as a construction contractor for her before. She asked if he would be available to draw up an estimate for the remodeling of two apartments on the second floor of her building at 200 Lake Street.

  When she connected to the Internet to send it, she saw that she had a reply from Ron Zommick in Bangkok:

  Got your e-mail. Mysterious! But Lil says I should help you if I can, and I hope you will tell me what this is about as a reward for finding your man. Even though he’s dead. Hit and run, outside his Silom Road office. It was in the newspaper, but I didn’t remember his name. Happened a few days ago. They found the car that did it, a stolen Mercedes. The story is, some teenagers stole the car and were driving it recklessly. But no one’s been arrested. Still want me to find out more about him? Or shall I drop it?

  Ron

  Betsy just sat staring at the screen. David Corvis, dead. The hair at the nape of her neck stood up.

  What kind of murderer could reach halfway around the world? Because she did not for one instant think David Corvis was the victim of a careless teenaged car thief.

  She clicked Reply, thanked Ron, and told him not to continue looking into David’s business. She would contact him again in a few days, she wrote. She logged off and went to pencil in her eyebrows.

  This was far, far too big a case for an amateur like her, she reflected. She should have realized that when she found out what the silk was, and that it had been an object of immense value and rarity sought by international art thieves. Betsy’s forte was solving crimes committed by ordinary people, motivated by jealousy or hatred or a desire for revenge. When it was about money, it was the $10,000 left to Bertram by Aunt Kit who was dead under suspicious circumstances—not the sale of a unique piece of ancient embroidered silk. The workings of international smuggling rings were beyond her ken.

  She needed to contact Carmen, warn her this was bigger than she’d dreamed, that an armed and dangerous husband might not be enough to protect her. And she needed to tell Doris the same thing. Plus tell Mike Malloy she was backing out of this case. The big problem? Doris was in hiding with Phil. And Betsy had no way of contacting either of them.

  She reached for her phone and called Mike’s office number. It was before his office hours, so she left a message explaining that she was quitting the case and why. “If you want to talk to me, I’ll be in my shop all day.”

  She went downstairs and opened the shop, then phoned the Diamond house. The phone was answered by Richard. “Yeah?” he growled.

  “It’s me, Betsy Devonshire. I want to talk to both you and Carmen, if I may.”

  “She’s not here!” Which Betsy was sure was a lie—but she did
n’t blame him for telling it.

  “I just found out that David Corvis is dead. I’m not able to work on a case with international connections, so I’m quitting. Please tell Carmen that someone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will probably want to talk to her in the near future. This is federal government business now.”

  “Right.” The phone was disconnected by a crash so loud Betsy would not have been surprised to learn Richard had blown it to flinders with his shotgun.

  Godwin came in a few minutes late. “It’s so dim and gray out, I didn’t believe my alarm when it went off,” he explained. He looked around the place, decked for Easter in the colors of spring, with here and there the warmer colors of summer starting to show. “At least in here it feels like the sun is shining,” he said.

  “Well, that’s good,” Betsy said. “That was the effect we were after, remember? I’m glad it makes it a little less painful for you to come back to work.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said abruptly.

  “Of course,” said Betsy, taken aback by his tone.

  “Why didn’t you call me about Doris? Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Because you didn’t tell me where you were staying, remember? You said you wanted to get completely away from everything up here.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well . . .” He shook his head. “I would have come home if I’d known. Have you had any more ideas about who’s doing all this?”

  “No. In fact, Goddy, I’m quitting. I can’t solve this one, it’s too big for me.”

  “Too big? I don’t understand.”

  “This is about international smuggling, possibly run by organized crime. That’s not at all the sort of crime I can solve. I’m just in the way. It’s too big even for Mike—even for the St. Paul police. This is the kind of crime that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will investigate. Considering that I had never even heard of ICE until yesterday, you can see how out of my depth I am.”