Cale Dixon and the Moguk Murders

by David Dagley

  The waiter responded to her request, “Yes, please sit.”

  She turned, veered to a table near Cale, and glanced at him as she came closer.

  Cale looked at her tanned face, hazel eyes, and short, sun-bleached, brown hair.

  She sat down with a journal, and drew a pen out of the spiral binding.

  The waiter returned with two waters and two beers. He placed a beer and a glass on the lady’s table and walked over to Cale. The waiter didn’t make a sound and walked away.

  The woman poured her beer into her glass, studied Cale’s western clothing, and asked confidently, “Did you just get in?”

  Cale turned his head towards her, “Yeah, just an hour ago.”

  “Are you meeting up with a tour group or traveling on your own?”

  “I seem to get more out of traveling on my own, you know, backpack style.”

  “Oh, I agree,” she said. “You don’t get herded around, and you get to solve your own problems as you go. Have you been here before?”

  “Yeah, I flew into Rangoon in 1996 and walked in over the Thai border a couple of times since then,” Cale replied.

  Impressed she exclaimed, “That’s more than most people. You must have come through some of the mine fields when you came over the border?”

  Cale nodded, “I had a good guide.”

  “Where are you headed this time?”

  “Probably bus to Mandalay, stop in and see a friend, then train out of there towards Lashio, hopefully with a couple stops along the way.”

  “Wow! You’re heading right into the dragon’s lair.”

  “Mostly Chinese, aren’t they, in Lashio?” asked Cale.

  “Well, the people are sixty percent ethnic and forty percent Chinese, but the influence is disproportionately Chinese. Major smuggling outpost: U.S.-boycotted goods coming into Burma, and opium, children, women, precious stones, rare animals, rare animal parts, illegal goods going out, among other things, of course.” She started to nod and said thoughtfully, “It’s a real fascinating cultural and moral crossroads.”

  Cale was caught by her perfume and shyly looked down at the file before him. He opened the folder full of copied photos, evidence lists, sub-lists, hypothetical event chronologies, the victim’s post-mortem photos, and a few evidence analysis reports. The case folder appeared moot; it was impossible to concentrate. And still Cale tried to dig in, eventually blocking himself off from the rest of the room with both elbows firmly planted on the table, using his forearms as shields and his hands like blinders bracing his head. In reality, everything Cale looked over in the folder had this woman’s eyes in the background.

  Both Cale and the woman pretended to be buried in their perspective projects when a loud conversation broke out in the kitchen.

  The woman hadn’t written a word in her journal when she looked up to see the waiter coming out of the kitchen and heading right for her. “Could I order food and take it to my room?”

  The waiter stood nervously between the woman and Cale and apologized, “I’m sorry to inform you, but the kitchen is closed, and the dining room is going to close early this night.”

  Cale popped his head up, “What about my order?”

  “Yes, sir, I will bring it to you, and you can take it to your room.” The waiter then turned for the kitchen.

  “That’s disappointing,” the woman grumbled.

  Cale admired her accepting way and offered, “Would you like to share mine?”

  Her eyes passed a sparkling flirt as she said with hesitation, “Ah, yeah, if you think there’ll be enough. Thank you.”

  Cale turned and caught the waiter before he disappeared, “Excuse me, waiter.”

  The waiter turned around at the entrance, “Yes?”

  “Is it possible to order one more plate of plain rice and two more Mandalay, big?”

  The waiter nodded and said, “Rice, we have. Beer, we have. Yes.”

  The woman thanked the waiter, “Chee jew tim ba day.”

  Cale and the woman finished their beers and began gathering their things when she suggested, “You might want to bring your glass. There aren’t any in the rooms.”

  “That’s good to know.” He waited for her to begin walking towards the kitchen before introducing himself, “My name is Cale Dixon.” He extended his hand.

  She smiled and reached out, “Paula Henderson.”

  The waiter came out with two beers in a plastic bag and the food in another bag of stacked Styrofoam boxes and gave them both to Cale. Both Cale and Paula independently put money on the table and walked out of the restaurant side by side.

  “Do you feel like exploring the roof? There’s a good view, and it should be cooler with the night breeze coming,” invited Paula.

  “That sounds grand.”

  —

  16

  —

  Mr. Won crept silently through the trees, between shadows and moonlight, down a trail towards the silhouetted ranch house. A seam of light escaped through a pair of drawn, dark-green linen curtains. Crickets sounded out in a fallow field behind the house and next to the barn. A few desperate frogs performed their end-of-season symphony at the edge of a reed-filled pond on the far side of the front circular driveway. A small stand of neglected fruit trees dropped leaves in preparation for winter. It was beginning to chill. Mr. Won moved slowly to the light coming from the living room window and peered into the dimly lit room. He could see Rayman sitting at his desk, his back to the window, typing away on his computer. The room was crowded with various-sized exotic masks lining the walls, spears and small statuettes standing motionless in the corners, and small display cases scattered throughout the living room. Mr. Won could hear a band called Fiest playing softly in the background as Rayman finished writing what appeared to be a letter and moved briefly from his computer to his printer. Rayman addressed an envelope, put two stamps on it, and placed it near the front door.

  Inside the house a grey cat jumped from a chair in front of Mr. Won and scampered to the middle of the room. It posed with its back arched and its hair standing on end, looking beyond the chair to the window. The cat saw Mr. Won’s eyes and bolted from the room. Rayman watched his cat and looked at the window. Curious, he walked over and pulled open the curtains, immediately noticing a steam mark climbing up the center of the glass window from the bottom. The vapor trail rapidly faded then disappeared altogether. In a rush, Rayman turned, grabbed a shotgun leaning near the front door, and moved swiftly onto the porch, listening to the cold quiet night. His footsteps creaked on the deck boards as he moved to the end of the front porch nearest the window. Light from the window flooded the area outside the house and nearby forested hillside. There was no one to be seen, and the crickets were silent. Rayman knew someone was out in the dark. He listened for a minute longer before he walked back into the house and locked the front door. Rayman then began systematically searching every room, shotgun in hand, locking all the windows and drawing all the curtains and drapes.

  Mr. Won watched from the trees as Rayman turned on the lights in each room then turned them off after each room was secured. The crickets in the field and the frogs in the front pond started up again.

  Rayman could hear the crickets, as well. He turned off all the lights in the house and sat in a comfortable chair in the dark living room, aiming his shotgun at the front door. He cradled the gun across the armrests and listened to the night. The cat jumped up onto Rayman’s lap and perched on his knee, facing the window. Rayman leaned his head back into a corner of the headrest knowing all he had to do was watch the cat. He stroked the cat slowly, and it began to knead his thigh and purr.

  —

  17

  —

  Cale and Paula hadn’t slept, and before the break of dawn, they were swapping stories of life, eating roti, and drinking sweet tea together near the center of Rangoon. Paula had filled most of the evening conversation with her observations of the Burmese military government’s actions, depicting eye-witness
rapes, whole villages being robbed of food, tools and equipment, and people being murdered. The two watched each other as they wandered through the morning markets and open shops, admiring the tapestries, blankets, silverware, sculptures, paintings, and jewelry. When they returned to the hotel, they made some loose plans to cross paths in Mandalay, and they parted company.

  Cale walked into his room, packed what little he brought with him, and headed out into the streets of Rangoon to the tourist information center. A bus was leaving that afternoon, and Cale got on board. During the evening lowdown from Paula, she had mentioned some of the easily recognizable differences between locals and the military. The military and government vehicles used mobile gas and the locals got gas smuggled in from India. The local gas had a fair bit of dirt in it, which Cale noticed while watching it get siphoned out of the bus through a coffee filter a few times before being put back in the tank. Throughout the late afternoon and into the night, the bus shuttered through jarring potholes. Villagers flashed in the headlights as they ran out of the road. Periodic bonfires blazed near the road. Gas delays forced the bus to be more than five hours late, which gave Cale some daylight the following day, which he knew the government didn’t really want you to have as a tourist. The plains stretched across the valley floor only to be interrupted by the broad brown and languid Irrawaddy River to the east. Cale could see just below the rim of the Shan Plateau to the northeast sloping even higher to the north into the clouds. By midmorning Cale could see the sparsely planted villages along the roadside, remembering that these were mostly hill tribes, burned out of their homes, uprooted from their lands and livelihood, and brought down into the sphere of the government control in the form of reestablished villages. The hill tribes had been separated from the forest where their customs and language were born, which they were now not permitted to practice or speak. Ultimately they were forced to relocate by the military to work on the new roads going in throughout the government-controlled areas and those areas that will make money. Cale thought the breakdowns of the bus were worth the views of the Irrawaddy basin and the state of destitution into which some of the villages have fallen.

  Just after noon, the bus arrived in Mandalay, stirring up a parched cloud of dust and a troop of young boys, some with trishaws and some on foot wishing very badly to lead a tourist passenger anywhere their money was going. Cale got out of the bus and made the mistake of asking for directions to his hotel. He acquired an unwanted escort of three boys for his simple question.

  His hotel room overlooked one of the small market and transportation centers in town. After he dropped off his bag in his room, he wandered down to a nearby tea shop and sat in the shade, overlooking the Irrawaddy River. From where he sat, he could overhear conversations of other foreigners either trying to get into the mountains or searching for alternative means of getting into the mountains. The stories began taking on new color: mild stories of ripped-off tourists, peepholes in couples’ hotel walls, and tourist blockades. There were stories of secret police always watching and paying attention to who you speak with during your stay. It made the locals uncomfortable and nervous. Cale drank his tea and listened to the world around him. He thought of the dramatic changes in Mandalay since the day when it was a trading center for the Indians, Chinese, hill tribes, and all the other groups who occupied the valley. Cale ordered some Shan food dishes and sat out the afternoon looking at the map that Yongyot, the Thai jeweler, had given him in Bangkok. There was no reference point. Cale turned the map periodically.

  A small boy with a shaved head and bare feet, wearing an orange robe, walked up to Cale’s table and extended his bowl toward Cale. Cale tried to hand the boy a small plate of chicken and rice, but the boy backed up, moving his bowl around Cale’s offering then stepping closer and raising his bowl in front of Cale. Cale smiled at the boy’s creative begging tactics and said, “If you were a true Buddhist, you would not ask for money or food. I would give it to you gladly, but you are not Buddhist. Shin thwa 'ba.”

  The boy looked into his bowl, shook what few kyat he had, and extended his arms again.

  Cale noticed a man sitting up the street watching the boy. He was smoking a local, Tiparillo-style cheroot in the shade of a tree near the bank of the river. Cale turned to look at the other tourists; they were preoccupied with conversation. Cale looked into the shop. A Burmese man wearing a bleach–white, long-sleeve shirt and a dark purple, wraparound loungyi came out of the shade slowly, wiping his hands on a towel, and asked, “Yes?”

  Cale pointed at the boy, “This is not a student of the lord Buddha, is he?”

  The man smiled. “You are very smart. No, he is not a student. His father,” he replied, pointing with a nod at the man under the tree, “has a gambling problem. It’s amazing how many people give this one money. Is he bothering you?”

  “Not really. I just wanted to be sure,” replied Cale.

  The man looked down at Cale’s table and noticed the small map with Thai and Burmese writing and a few words of English on it, “What is this you have, a map?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for a shop, but I haven’t figured out where it is yet.” Cale picked it up and displayed the map.

  The man pulled a pair of glasses out of his breast pocket, read Cale’s map, and explained, “You are looking for a shop called The Eye of the Elephant. It’s a jewelry shop run by a man from this area who deals in stones. I know this man and his brothers. His shop is not far from here. “

  Cale looked at the map and asked, “How do you know that?”

  “Whoever gave you this map wrote the name of the shop in both Burmese and in Thai.” The man smiled at his own swiftness and said quietly, “As a boy I had to live in Thailand for some years and learned the language.”

  “Did you run from the military?”

  “Yes. I had to learn to speak and write in Thai in order to work and make money for my mother and sisters. Many times, before we escaped over the mountains to Thailand, my father told me to learn English when I was old enough to go to school.”

  “Didn’t your father go with you?”

  The man looked around to see who could hear. There was no one nearby. In a very soft but firm tone the man answered, “The S.L.O.R.C., The State, Law, and Order Restoration Council, sent the military to our house and imprisoned my father for having an education; my older brothers marched in front of the military, clearing mine fields with their lives. We never heard another word from my brothers or my father.”

  “I didn’t mean to pry into your personal life. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. We Burmese need to tell our stories to people who can relate them to the rest of the world. This government does not care about us, only about lining their pockets with money and gems. We hope someone out there does care about us.” The man nodded his head at Cale, “Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s not. But we have to try.” He stared at Cale long enough for Cale to turn his attention to the map. The man continued, “Now, to get to this shop, you go to the closest palace wall from here and follow the moat to the right. When the moat turns left, you turn right again. Go two hundred meters, and the jeweler’s shop is very close on the left side of the street. You will see a carved elephant head and trunk on a building over a door. It used to have ivory tusks and ivory eyes, but the government took the tusks and the eyes. Now the tusks are made of whitewashed high-mountain pine, and the eyes are the same with a painted center. I knew the jeweler there when we were young and again when we both returned.”

  “Is the palace this big square?” Cale pointed at the map.

  “Yes, with a moat.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, can I get you anything else?”

  “No, thank you. How much do I owe you for the food?”

  “It will cost you one hundred and fifty kyat. But please, relax. I like it when people come here to relax. There is no hurry, and the sun is still too hot, and the roads are very dusty. Have more tea.” The man poured more tea into Cale�
�s cup and walked back into the shade of his restaurant.

  Cale finished eating and paid at the counter. He walked out into the sun-baked street, passing and ignoring the robed boy with outstretched arms holding his bowl.

  The boy turned back towards the restaurant to try his luck with another table of Westerners.

  As Cale turned the corner, an elderly Burmese man sitting on a rust-red trishaw asked, “Hello, Mister. Where you go? You want trishaw?”

  Cale looked over the tanned old man; short white hair, khaki button-down shirt, blue shorts, and dust-caked sandals. “How much to the palace?”

  “Fifty kyat.”

  Cale knew he could bargain, but in the heat he didn’t feel like it and hopped in the double seat behind the driver.

  The driver turned his front wheel out into the road and stood up, trying to pack all his weight on the high pedal in order to dislodge his three-wheeled trishaw from the thick dust at the edge of the road. The trishaw began to crawl forward, gaining momentum out into the street.

  Cale was a little embarrassed hiring the oldest man in the fleet, but the man had what looked like a pair of avocados for calf muscles in each leg.

  The driver asked over his shoulder, “Where you come from?”

  “America.”

  “Oh, very nice. How long are you here for in Mandalay?”

  “I don’t know, a few days maybe.”

  “I am also a tour guide. If you want, I can give you a tour of the palace, our markets, or anything you want to see. I was born here, and I have seen lots of changes happen to Mandalay. It used to be a major trading center.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Oh, have you been here before?”

  “Yes.”

  The driver drove straight down the main street, dodging dogs that lay in the road in shade of overhanging trees and avoiding people who crossed the road aimlessly.

  A group of children played on the sidewalk, and one of them saw Cale in the back the trishaw and yelled out, “Hello Misses, where you go?”