by David Dagley
Cale sympathized, looking down at his hands and then at Jay, “I am sorry. I have heard different versions of the same thing and have seen some brutal situations since I arrived. I think it’s terrible, and I also feel pretty helpless.”
“Yes. I’m sure you do,” Jay said slowly with tears of rage and a fierce stare. He continued, “It’s going to continue as long as greed runs our countries and not reason and compassion. Even some of the Buddhists have been bought off. I guess what I want to know is what’s the difference between terror in Iraq, or anywhere in the Middle East, and here in Burma? Why do we not get help when our country wants democracy so badly? I think it’s because we have little to offer to the global economy. America, France, Britain, Japan, Germany, and others take our goods at a cheap price, and the military government takes the profit and takes our souls for nothing. It makes me burn, Mr. Dixon!”
“Like you said, Jay, it’s been going on for some time now. Many feel the same as you do, in your country and in the outside world.”
Jay took a deep breath, and controlled his feelings, then changed the direction of the conversation, “You’re right, enough of this. I just wanted you to know how I feel inside. We are not going to solve Burma’s problems under this night sky, and you will not be president of your country anytime soon. So tomorrow I will put you on a bus, and you will go to Rangoon. You will have to sign out of the country at the MTT office near the bank. Do it on the way to the airport so the Tatmandaw will be a few hours behind you when passing your information along to those who want you. Then leave back to Bangkok and back to your world, which is very, very far from this place. Let’s try and salvage this night by playing with the innocent villagers who don’t clean up after themselves, shall we?” Jay said mockingly.
Cale heard the condescending jab in Jay’s voice, but there was nothing Cale could do, “You sure?”
Jay looked off into the dark and took another deep breath, saying, “I need a cheroot, a glass or ten of rice whiskey, and a good song.”
“I’ll join you in all of the above,” Cale said with a nod.
Jay smirked and spoke apologetically, “Good. I’ll be fine in a minute; I just wanted you to know what lies beneath our smiles—abandonment.”
“Indeed. Let’s go get warm, and have fun with the locals, and forget about all this garbage,” Cale said trying to make light of the subject.
Jay smiled, “Yes, one thing at a time.”
A bonfire glowed in the distance. It was growing bitter cold. By the firelight, three Palaung boys played guitars and sang Western songs with Palaung words. It took Cale a few minutes to figure out why the songs sounded so familiar. One lovesick teenager sang a series of Palaung love ballads, which made the young girls smile shyly. One little girl, all of maybe six, did an imitation of M.J.’s moonwalk with his ex-father-in-law’s gyrating hip swings. Her dark eyes mirrored the stars above with a crescent moon for a smile. The villagers raised the applause with hoots and shouts, and out came the whiskey and the neighbors carrying more wood. Cale thought to himself that the warmest place in the world was right here with these people and this fire, which grew with every new person showing up adding to the stack of wood or offering a milk jug full of pink rice whiskey.
Jay joked as he handed a jug to Cale, “The pink color is antifreeze.”
Five in the morning came brutally early for Cale. He awoke curled in a ball with a blistering headache and his thin blanket beside him. Jay was outside starting a fire by blowing on the end coals of last night’s sticks and logs. Cale got up to join him. They drank tea in silence, shaking off their headaches and the cold. After finishing the rest of the pumpkin and rice, they packed up quietly and vanished into the woods, still heading downhill. Cale noticed some more spot cropping of opium but said nothing. Neither of them spoke until they arrived on a newly paved road.
Jay crossed the road and looked up a steep hill of switchbacks. There was a bus crawling around some of the hairpin turns with its brakes squealing like a gibbon high in the jungle. “This is where we part company, Mr. Dixon.”
Cale could hear the bus downshifting somewhere out of sight up the mountainside. Clouds of black smoke puffed out of the jungle canopy. Cale asked, “Do I owe you some thing, a donation perhaps?”
“No. Thank you for the walk. Hopefully it is I who has given you something you didn’t have before,” said Jay prophetically.
Cale pulled out 1,000 kyat, handed it to Jay, and said, “I have a terrible headache.” Cale smiled genuinely and extended his hand.
Jay took the money and smiled back, “Me too. Good Luck.” Jay stuffed the money in his pocket and hailed the bus as it came into view. Jay spoke with the bus driver in Burmese. The bus driver nodded and looked at Cale. Jay turned to Cale and said, “I told him you were lost and want to go to the Strand Hotel to make a phone call. He’ll drop you off nearby. It will cost you one hundred kyat from here. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye and thank you.”
Jay waved Cale off and disappeared into the jungle.
The bus was packed with locals, and the bus driver forced a man out of his seat for Cale, even though Cale objected. After the bus got moving again Cale stood up and gave the man back his seat much to the man’s protest. The trip was uneventful after everyone stopped staring at Cale. Late in the afternoon he got out at a random stop when the bus driver looked at him in the rearview mirror and nodded. The bus driver pointed down a side road and simply stated, “Strand.”
Cale walked down the road, which was on the backside of a commercial road. The ditches on the sides of the road were filled with black water, garbage, and feces. Clothes were hanging out of many of the second-story windows to dry. Cale turned onto the main road and walked a few blocks until he looked up at the entrance of the old colonial hotel and felt like he had entered another era. The feelings remained as he entered the air-conditioned mezzanine. There was a beautiful wood bar to his right with a few tables against the wall, and overhead were calmly spinning fans. He walked into the center of the building where there were tables set up for dinner with white tablecloths, full sets of cutlery, and three glasses per setting. Large plants in black urns stood at the base of the columns, surrounding the tables. Cale recognized the urns.
During Cale’s flight back to Thailand, he found a one-day-old Bangkok Post in his seat pocket in front of his knees and read of a Dutch couple, a man and a woman, found dead in a ditch near the outskirts of Mandalay. They were badly beaten and had suffered broken bones. There was an introductory investigation by the Burmese government. They had no suspects at this time, but the government suspected an insurgent cell known to be operating in the Mandalay area. There was an ongoing investigation by the Tatmandaw with the help of the Burmese secret police.
Cale could only wonder.
Part III
—
28
—
Cale opened the door to his office and found a young man sitting at his desk. He looked up and away from Cale’s computer.
Cale and the young man nodded greetings in silence, and Cale looked at Victoria.
Victoria was already at her desk, finishing up another research report. She looked up smiling and greeted Cale, “Hey! Welcome back.” She got up, walked to him, and gave him a friendly hug, “You have a tan. How was it?”
“It’s beyond this world. I’m not sure I have the right words for it yet. I’ll have to take you to a really long lunch and tell you about it. And as you can see, I did manage to catch a full moon party in Thailand before I flew back.”
“I’m jealous. I want to hear all about it. Oh, Cale, this is Kurt. He’s starting an internship. Kurt this is Cale; you’re at his desk,” Victoria said frankly.
Kurt stood up, shook hands with Cale, and said, “Hello. Let me just save this stuff on a disk, and I’ll be out of here. I can do the rest of it down on one of the lab computers.” Kurt went to work saving information and closing out his files.
Victoria loosely he
ld on to Cale’s wrist and said, “Look at you, all golden brown. You look great.”
“Thanks, yeah, the sun was fierce.” Cale felt a little distant and out of place, so he went straight to work and asked, “Did you get my message from Bangkok?”
Victoria turned around, sifted through some folders on her desk, and handed one to Cale, “Yeah, Rayman Stell and family file. The family history is odd. It’s all in there. Oh, and someone came and identified the body, a Mr. Won, the victim’s brother. He flew in from Seoul, South Korea. He also seemed very interested in the knife and wants it back.” Victoria raised her eyebrows suspiciously and continued, “He said it was a family heirloom that has been missing for many years. Mr. Won had photos of the knife and a family portrait with him when he came in the front door. Martin interviewed him and helped him with the transportation issues. And the lab finished with the knife and found through DNA testing that the old blood was from a family member, a woman. Most of the folders are on the shelf behind your desk.”
Cale opened his briefcase, pulled out a small notepad, and flipped through it, “The victim is South Korean? A jeweler in Burma separated Mr. Stell and Mr. Bower out of a group of stone buyers. The others were two Chinese family names, a South Korean family, a Russian cartel, and a Laotian co-op.”
Victoria pulled her glasses down to the end of her nose with her index finger, “Two things; the Won people used to inhabit the southern area of present-day China. China was much smaller back then, and Korea was much bigger. The second thing is that the South Korean currency is called “won.”
Cale nodded, “Yeah, borders change over time. I know. I got that much from the tour at the Cho Museum. So Mr. Won has a pre-Chinese name, possibly Korguryan, and still lives in South Korea. I’ll have to take a look at their family tree one of these days. Did you get anything on Mr. Bower? The jeweler said he was possibly Austrian, but didn’t know where he currently lived.”
Victoria pushed her glasses back up the ridge of her nose and frowned, “His full name is Christian Bower. He’s a well-respected antique collector and dealer. I got his name off of some auction documents from a friend of mine, but other than that, I have nothing. I’ll start with passport records. I really didn’t have time. The captain asked me to concentrate on this other report for the last week, so I just did the Stell file. I’ve got to get this in soon, so I couldn’t get to it. But I will.”
Kurt interrupted, “Ah, Victoria, will that be all, or will you need me next week?”
“Your internship is for three months. I expect you here at nine o’clock five days a week. It will be more of the same, data entry, case proofs, and some errands.”
“No problem. Thanks for the opportunity. I’ll have to send you the paperwork to sign so I get credit for the time here.”
“That’ll be fine. Thanks Kurt.”
“Nice meeting you, Detective Dixon. Victoria, see you later.”
“Nice meeting you Kurt,” Cale said with a wave.
Kurt walked out of the office.
Cale turned his attention back to Victoria and said, “I think we’d have to involve Interpol to get more of Bower’s information unless he has holdings here in the States, as well.”
“I’ll check on that, too, but you’re probably right about Interpol. What are the odds that Mr. Stell might know him? That would be a good place for you to start.”
Cale nodded as he sat at his desk and opened the Stell folder, “Yeah, it says here that Rayman Stell is into antiques, as well. They might know each other.” Inside the folder was a small stack of photocopies of a local Idaho newspaper, The Weekly Review. Cale noticed the copies dated back sixteen years. Behind the photocopies were two missing person’s reports, one for Robert Stell, Rayman’s father, and the second was for Rayman’s uncle, John Stell. The top newspaper copy was about Robert Stell.
“Robert Stell was reported missing yesterday by his son, Rayman Stell. Rayman returned home from a one-week outdoor education program to the Black Hills, sponsored by his high school. Rayman came home to find a week’s worth of mail in the mailbox and six days of newspapers in the driveway behind Robert Stell’s Bronco. All the doors were locked, and the curtains drawn on all locked widows. Rayman told reporters that he heard their dog barking inside. Both the dog and their cat were dehydrated and starving, but miraculously alive. Not having a key, Rayman broke his bedroom window in order to get in the house. Soon after Rayman looked around the house and property, he called his uncle, John Stell. Rayman was told by his uncle to call the local authorities and that John Stell would come directly to Idaho from New York.
“Robert Stell’s wife, Luanne, passed away two years ago in the intensive care ward at the local hospital of an apparent poisoning, which went undetected for at least a week before she was admitted. The poison ate away the lining of her stomach so severely that she began the slow process of bleeding to death. Had the poison been detected earlier, doctors say she could still be alive today, but not without medical support. The poison was not of local origin, and no one was charged due to lack of evidence.
“The local community, when asked by authorities, couldn’t place Robert Stell in the local market, gas station, nor the hardware store in the last week. All three services consider Robert Stell a regular customer and thought it odd that no one had seen him around.
“No note was found by Rayman or the inspectors. Foul play has not been ruled out, but it seems unlikely, say investigating authorities. Robert Stell has been living and working in the Driggs area since he finished his military service and is known to be an honest, hardworking, and generous man. He and his older brother, John Stell, served in the armed forces and were stationed in or near Seoul, South Korea.
“Rayman’s uncle, John Stell, arrived in Driggs last night, the same day he was notified, and will be handling the affairs of the family until Robert Stell returns to the ranch house.
“The authorities are now involved in a ground search in the neighboring forested area, and a more extensive aerial search is scheduled. Local volunteers are assisting the police in the ground search. Robert Stell has a clean police record and a healthy mental and medical history. If you see this man, have information, or wish to help in the search for Robert Stell, please contact the local authorities at the following number: 1-800-USEARCH.”
Cale looked at the photo in the newspaper of Robert Stell for a minute then turned to the second missing persons report.
“Another tragedy at the Stell ranch. Just three years after Robert Stell’s disappearance, brother John is now reported missing and has been for an undisclosed amount of time. Once again the mailbox was found packed full of unclaimed mail, and the driveway had at least three weeks of newspapers strewn around the entrance. The Stell’s dog was found by Byron Hersch, a ranch hand at the Double D, eight miles to the north of the Stell ranch house. Once again the dog was starving and dehydrated.
“Mr. Hersch told reporters that he read the dog tags, fed and watered the animal, and drove it home. When Mr. Hersch saw the pile of newspapers, he remembered the last time this occurred at the Stell ranch. He walked up to the house and knocked on the door. ‘There was a powerfully rancid smell coming from within the house,’ said Hersch. He also said that he walked around the perimeter of the ranch house calling out, but with no response. He put the dog back in his truck, drove into town, and notified the authorities.
“Troopers initially investigated the house and found all the doors and windows locked with curtains drawn, the telephone lines and the house power severed from the outside. Troopers entered the house and found the rancid smell emanating from the kitchen. Everything in the refrigerator was discolored or thick with mold; milk, cheese, meat products, vegetables, ice cream, etc. The refrigerator was full, as if John Stell wasn’t going anywhere soon.
“John Stell’s nephew, Rayman Stell, was notified and flew back to Idaho from UC Berkeley, where he is studying for a double major in Asian History and Geology. In the photo below, Rayman is jo
ined by his girlfriend, Monica, who arrived a day later.
“Rayman says that the cat is also missing.”
A picture of John Stell’s face was next to the photo of Rayman and his girlfriend.
Cale looked at the newspaper photo of John Stell and then at Rayman and his girlfriend greeting each other in the front yard. In the photo Cale could clearly see streaks of tears reflecting under the woman’s sunglasses as she held onto Rayman with her head stretching upward so her chin cleared his shoulder. She had a slim figure, tan skin with jet black hair running over her shoulders, wearing a loose pair of light khaki pants and a blue oxford button-down shirt with the collar up. “Attractive,” Cale said to himself. He continued reading;
