“uRinguist doesn’t have Chinese interpreters. It only operates in three languages, Thai, English…and Japanese.”
Sixteen
“For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times.”
—GEORGE W. BUSH, TOKYO, FEBRUARY 18, 2002
“Mika Mikata.”
“That’s not a really southern Californian name, is it?” I said. “Perhaps it’s Mexican?”
“It’s Japanese.”
I could tell Sissi was stressed when she couldn’t be bothered to get my jokes. Best stay serious on days such as this.
“And what was she doing in the States?”
“It was an East-West Center arts council grant. She had a year to pursue her artistic bent.”
“Which was photographing roadkill?”
“Dressed roadkill. Sunglasses. Bermuda shorts. Little waistcoats.”
“And hats?”
“And party hats – colored ones.”
“Would have made nice postcards: Even the roadkill parties in California.”
“She had an exhibition of her photos.”
“And that’s what got your drunk detective on the case?”
“Nope. Evidently, in the States, roadkill has no rights. You can dress it up any way you like. She hadn’t broken any laws. People were outraged but you know how it is in the arts; the more controversial you are, the more famous you become. One high class magazine called her ‘the Caligula of on-the-edge photography’.”
“So where did the red-nosed policeman come in?”
“His name’s Gerry Moore. There were complaints that some of her roadkill wasn’t quite dead when she started dressing them up.”
“Oh, yuck.”
“One complainant specifically accused her of running over her cat on her motorcycle. When the owner ran out into the street to see what all the squealing was about, she found Mika fastening a pink tutu around dying Fluffy.”
“Did she do time?”
“We’re talking Los Angeles in the eighties here. Animal cruelty wasn’t high on the list of crime investigation. She was fined a couple of times but continued to gain notoriety from her slide show exhibitions.”
“And then she vanished?”
“No. On the contrary. She blossomed. She became a celebrity. She has an enormous cult following still. She’s got her own bilingual Web site and you’ll never guess what she calls it.”
“If it’s got the word ‘orange’ or ‘hat’ in it she’s mine.”
“Dressed to Kill.”
“You aren’t serious.”
“Deadly. There are quotations on there from famous artists calling her a genius and a guru. Andy Warhol said, ‘She has a visual grasp of death so vivid it makes you wonder whether she’s been there.’ Her site gets twelve thousand hits a day.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“It’s all there; the old nostalgic roadkill period with her doing V signs behind prostrated elk, crows in tiaras splattered across windscreens, upended coyotes in pale blue baby booties. Then there’s the less obviously dead roadkill pictures. Is the possum in headphones perhaps looking at the camera? Isn’t that a slight blur of movement from the snake in a stocking? I have to admit it all makes spectacular yet stomach-curdling photography. But then we get to the humans.”
“Oh, don’t tell me.”
“I don’t know how. Really I don’t. But she got access to morgues. Bodies laid out on their trays in bobble hats with streamers in their mouths.”
“No.”
“Striped football socks, boxing gloves – cross-dressing.”
“That’s got to be illegal.”
“Unless someone recognizes a near and dear one in a Madonna cone bra she could always claim it was set up, all done with actors.”
“But you think different?”
“I’ve seen actors die in TV dramas all the time, even ones who didn’t intend to. I have a nose for bad acting. These were definitely dead bodies.”
I’d read everything there was to read on criminology in Thai and English. I’d studied all the cases – the famous murders, the notorious serial killers – and one point that cropped up often was that the killers of people often began their careers by practicing on animals. Mika Mikata had started her apprenticeship in the public eye and been encouraged. She’d progressed with adoration through all the stages, and I knew there was only one more level. I knew Mika Mikata was either a potential or a practiced murderer. But there was no connection between her and our slain abbot and I could think of absolutely no reason why she’d come to our little nowhere village to do her nefarious deeds.
“Is that as far as the site goes?” I asked. “Cadavers?”
“There are three galleries. There’s the free White Gallery which is all mostly weird but innocent stuff. Then there’s the pay-to-view Black Gallery which wasn’t that hard to get into. That’s where I found the roadkill and the morgue pictures. But then there’s a members-only Orange Gallery.”
“Bingo. Can you get into that?”
“It’s not easy.”
“You’re the maestro of the Net.”
“Jimm, I’ve been a fly on the wall at a maximum secure video conference link between members of the U.S. Homeland Security. I’ve seen the Queen of England in her pajamas sipping Horlicks on Skype. If I say something’s not easy, it’s not easy. But I’m working on it.”
“All right, one more question. What does she look like?”
“Mika? She’s gorgeous on her Web page photo but we both know what that means. Looking back at the early photos she was reasonably bland but bubbly. I imagine she’s in her fifties now, still going for that cutesy manga love doll look.”
“Any idea what she’d look like now without air-brushing?”
“Nong, the longer I spend with the Web Idol people, the more I understand that Granddad Jah could be Brad Pitt in three easy steps. Mika might be the plainest pig in the litter. I imagine she’s got that every-Asian face you could do anything you want with. Look, I’m sending the glamor photo and one of the early ones to your phone.”
“Thanks, Siss. Anything on the other murders?”
“You asked me about witnesses for the Guam swimming pool killing. The guy who got his hard hat painted orange. By the time Toshi had flown down, the local police had already done the interviewing. They still didn’t have a suspect. There was one possible eyewitness they hadn’t been able to locate. Some of the engineers said there’d been a reporter at the scene of the crime taking photographs. She had a Japanese press ID. They remarked on how quickly she’d been able to arrive there.”
“Any description for her?”
“Conflicting, he said. Some remembered her as young, others as middle-aged. Medium length hair. Toshi checked with immigration. There were no Japanese reporters registered around that time and none of the crime-scene photographs appeared in any newspapers.”
“What about Taiwan? You said there might be a lead there.”
“Detective Wing Shu’s promised to look through his files about the aviary killing. Actually he looks a lot better in his swimming pool photos.”
“Do whatever it takes, Siss.” Yes, ma am.
“OK. The picture’s have come through.”
♦
And there she was, all cuddly and fluffed. I went through it all in my mind. Medium length hair. Young or middle-aged. That every-Asian face. It was impossible to describe to a sketch artist because the picture in the newspaper would look like everybody’s mother or sister or next door neighbor. It was a face everybody would forget. With a little bit of work it could be the rouged face of a reporter in Guam or the over-mascara’d face of a Hong Kong birdwatcher. They’d remember the bad make-up and sunglasses before they remembered the person behind them. But I was certain I’d seen that face unadorned. It was drawn and blotchy and an over-generous powdering had made it look older than it was. The gray wig had completed the trick but I’d seen through it, and I co
uld see it now. Eyes always betrayed you. I could see her in her real Lacoste sports shirt, twenty times more expensive than a Bangkok rip-off. It was tucked into tight sweatpants that gave her two bellies. She’d smiled and complimented my awful Korean even though she probably wasn’t fluent herself. That’s why she’d had to check out when the Korean engineers moved in to the 69 Resort. They’d know she wasn’t one of them. Her cover would have been blown.
I don’t know why, or how, but my instincts rang loud and hearty that I’d met Mika Mikata that day.
♦
“Are you sure?” Chompu asked.
“No. But put it all together. The 69 Resort is ten minutes’ walk from the hospital intersection and another ten to the Tiwa where the driver was staying. Her room was right there beside the road so nobody would see her come or go in her disguise. She was the right age and height and I’d bet my bottom she wasn’t Korean.”
“Actually, I meant are you sure you really want me to approach my volatile, uncooperative superior officer with a story like this?”
I could see his point. We were sitting on a bench in front of the four-meter white Buddha opposite the police station. Granddad Jah was pacing back and forth. I didn’t really have any physical evidence to substantiate my odd suspicions. They were based on a two-minute meeting at the 69 Resort and intuition.
“You’re right,” I said. “One step at a time. What if you handle it like this? The police get an anonymous phone call saying that a foreign woman at the 69 Resort had been acting strangely for several days. She’d checked in a day before the killing and checked out the day of the attack on Sergeant Phoom. You trace the passport number she gave the resort, find out it doesn’t exist…”
“What if it does?”
“Let’s stay positive, shall we?”
“Right.”
“We try to find witnesses who saw her disguised as Wu and then we somehow introduce Mika Mikata.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
It was. The opportunity presented itself sooner than we expected. We were interrupted by the ringing of Chompu’s phone and he was summoned to Lang Suan for a meeting. The new direction of events had prompted the return of the Bangkok detectives. They were more than miffed when they found out the local police had taken over the inquiry when all they’d been asked to do was report on events. Bangkok already had its suspect neatly wrapped so they didn’t appreciate having to come back south so soon. When they discovered that the Benz driver had already been interviewed and, upon seeing a photograph of the nun, had stated categorically that this was not the woman he’d driven, they were positively spewing stomach acid. They called an emergency meeting of everyone involved in the case, including poor wheelchair-bound Sergeant Phoom.
Nobody appreciated their condescending tone, particularly Major General Suvit, who’d been rather proud of the way he’d been handling the case since Bangkok had left it behind. Chompu informed us later that the meeting had twice erupted into a slappy, spitty shouting match. There were those present who swore the major general had reached for his pistol at one stage. The question of motive had come up from time to time. Who had a better motive than the nun? Why would a foreigner with no known connection to the victim just suddenly up and kill him? It was a question nobody could answer. Bangkok argued that murder never happened at random. Killers invariably knew their victims or had a personal stake in wanting them dead. That was the point in the proceedings when my interruption happened.
A female lieutenant entered the room with coffee, coconut biscuits and news of a tip-off. She handed the message to the major general and made the mistake of staying in the room. He told her they all had their coffee now, thank you, and asked her what she was still doing there. She’d probably asked herself the same question on a career level. She left. The major general read the note, then announced that someone had phoned in with information that there had been a woman answering the description of Ms. Wu from Hong Kong staying at the 69 Resort. She’d been seen carrying an expensive camera and, for good measure, driving a black Benz. Within seconds the room emptied, all except for Sergeant Phoom who had his elbows in forty-five-degree plaster casts and didn’t have anyone to push his wheelchair. He finished his coffee and had a double helping of coconut biscuits.
The receptionist at the 69 Resort was somewhat overwhelmed when seven police vehicles sped into the parking lot. She told them she had no idea who might have called the police and it certainly wasn’t her. There had been a guest, a Korean lady by the name of Do Ik. She’d paid on a day-to-day basis for her room and left unexpectedly on Wednesday. She’d tipped everyone generously and hadn’t caused any trouble. Yes, she did have a camera but she was a tourist. It was only natural. Considering the economic climate, it wasn’t surprising that nobody had moved into the Korean’s room since her departure, especially given its proximity to the main road.
The German saluted when the police parade marched past his room, and his unexpected girlfriend ran inside the cabin. The receptionist opened the door to the Korean’s room: B4.
“Has anyone been inside this room since she checked out?” one Bangkok detective asked.
“Yes, the cleaner,” she replied.
“Apart from that?”
“No.”
The room was a little cramped for an eighteen-man search but neither Bangkok nor Lang Suan, nor Pak Nam was prepared to yield the responsibility to the other groups. They settled on a delegation of two men from each section, a total of six. They all wore standard issue rubber gloves but they carefully lifted bedsheets and towels and opened drawers with the non-writing ends of pencils. By some incredible chance, it was an officer from the Pak Nam station who uncovered the only clue in the room. And what a clue it was. A clue so vital, in fact, that it blew the case wide open. What had, until then, been a domestic murder inquiry was suddenly of concern to the world.
Lieutenant Chompu, it was, who discovered the tiny scrap of paper that had evidently slipped down behind the cushion of one of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs. On it was a handwritten Web site address. Anyone who’d read Chompu’s pep-talk notes on the Pak Nam notice board might have recognized some characteristics in the style.
He’d disguised his handwriting as best he could but, as the Bangkok detectives took possession of the paper immediately, it was a connection that would never be made. Neither would anyone think to ask why the guest would write her own Internet address on a slip of paper. From the criminal point of view, there was a lot to be said for police non-cooperation.
We sat, the three of us, me, Granddad Jah and Lieutenant Chompu, at one of our beachside tables. An array of local food, bought from here and there, was covered in plates and clingfilm and untouchable in front of us. We had a bottle of 100 Pipers whiskey that Granddad Jah drank over ice, and me and Chompu drank mizuwari. That’s Japanese for ‘drowned to death in water’. But we still had a buzz going just from the lieutenant’s telling of events.
“I zeroed in on the chair,” he said. “I was able to palm the Web site address, but I thought I might be pushing my luck to slip the photo prints under the mattress. I mean, there were six of us in a room of two-by-two meters.”
“Do you think it’ll be enough?” I asked.
“To tie crazy Mika to Abbot Winai’s murder? It’s hard to say. They’re very likely to find camera footage of Do Ik passing through immigration and compare it with the Web site photo and say it’s a completely different person.”
“She used her real passport to enter and leave the country,” said Granddad.
We both looked up.
“What makes you think so?” I asked.
“She went to so much trouble to avoid showing her ID to the rental firm. By hiring a car with a driver, she didn’t need to leave her passport. And the resort didn’t check either. She came to the right area. Hotels here are so desperate to get paying guests they really don’t care who you are.”
“The passport theory would certainly make life a lot e
asier if it were true,” said Chompu. “But it still doesn’t tie her to the murder. Unless they can get a recent photo of Mika Mikata to the Benz driver or the 69 receptionist, there’d be nothing to connect her to the killing at all. It’s only your reporter’s nose that ties the two women together. There’s no evidence. There are no witnesses. No murder weapon’s been found. And, as our Bangkok friends would hurry to point out, there’s no motive.”
“So, we might still be forced to give up the photographs?” I asked.
“They’re not incriminating,” he said. “All you can see is a hand in an oven mitt.”
“Damn,” I said. “It should be easy now.”
“Look out! Mother at seven o’clock,” said Granddad.
“Hello, you conspirators,” Mair said. She’d snuck up on us from the beach side. She joined us, pushing me along the bench with her backside.
“What would we be conspiring about?” I asked her.
“I don’t know the details,” she said. “But I can see secrets floating around you. You have guilty auras. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
“No,” said Granddad Jah. “You know what you get like after half a glass.”
“You see, Lieutenant?” Mair smiled at the police officer.
“A girl never really grows up. Her father’s always there to remind her of her morals.”
A few days ago she’d thrown herself under the counter to avoid him; now she was flirting with him. Mothers! We mixed her a drink so weak the soda bubbles were beside themselves in the search for whiskey atoms. We fell into a peaceful silence, staring at the little lights out at sea, bobbing along on their polystyrene rafts. After a few months of fishing, the locals became lethargic. They put together traps of fine mesh and suspended them from small foam platforms illuminated by gas lamps. The boatmen would come back the next day to see what their indiscriminate snares had collected. They took as many immature fish as they did squid and it screwed up the ecosystem. It’s illegal and irresponsible, but it’s terribly pretty. The pearl tears of lamplight dotted the surface of the water all around.
Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat Page 26
