by Elia Seely
“Good. I’ll check his alibi for Friday right now. I think Conn will be at work, and also the night manager at the motel. If it checks out, then we can get him to look at Choden’s papers for us. See if there’s anything there.” I noticed how good it made me feel to hope that Jerome was not going to be a suspect, and that he’d be working with us, maybe, so I’d see him again.
Eli went outside to have one of his infrequent cigarettes, and I got on the phone to Ruby’s Steakhouse. Conn was on duty in the bar and I asked him about seeing Jerome there the previous Friday night. He confirmed that Jerome had been there drinking and eating dinner until around 11 p.m. He hadn’t seen him leave to confirm whether he drove or not. Conn was curious about my questions, but I put him off as best I could and hung up. I called the Little Pine Motel next to talk to the night manager. He did remember seeing Jerome buy cigarettes; they had a brief conversation, but he couldn’t recall the time. He said he did not see Jerome leave at any time in his vehicle during his shift, but that he also wasn’t in the lobby all the time.
Eli had come back in during my conversation; I caught him up.
“I think Jerome’s alibi checks out. I mean, we have no motive that he’d want to kill Choden and when I talked to him yesterday, he seemed genuinely fond of the guy. I’m going to call him tomorrow and ask him to come in and look at those papers.”
“Good enough,” Eli said. “But I don’t really think there’s any answer there, anyway, do you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything! It’s frustrating … I can’t imagine someone wanting to kill Choden for some religious reason, but what else? The guy didn’t have any money and he wasn’t ‘important’ in any way that I can figure. He must’ve known something about someone. I still wonder about the Tenzin thing. If that’s even real.”
We speculated a few moments more, circling round our lack of information. Finally, Eli yawned and put his pager on the coffee table and settled down on the couch. I shut off the light and went to bed. It took me forever to get to sleep myself; I kept worrying about Margo’s strange visions and her information that she shouldn’t, couldn’t have. Eventually, I fell into a fitful doze, full of dreams of the strange Buddhist gods. I tried questioning them about Choden, all the while carrying one of his hands with me in my bag. No answers came; the gods were as impenetrable as their devoted monks.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wednesday morning started early; Joe and I the first ones into the office. He bitched about being shorthanded while I made the coffee, gave me grief about getting preferential treatment because I had kids. I’d heard it before but it still pissed me off. The dispatch phone saved me from losing my resolve to keep my mouth shut. Joe went to answer it while I started making my to-do list for the day.
“Bill’s down at the ER,” Joe reported when he finished the call. “Gonna stay for some tests. Heart pain, his wife said.”
“He’s okay, though?” Now we’d really be stretched. But we shouldn’t be relying on Bill anyway; he was supposed to be retired.
“Yeah—” the phone rang again and Joe picked up, immediately pulled out his notebook and started asking questions.
He left to respond to the call. Alone, I drank coffee and thought about the case. I had a sinking feeling we would never solve Choden’s murder, and Margo’s words from the night before bothered me. That he wanted to go home, that he was his mom’s only child. Who knew if it were true; but regardless of whether his ghost was around or not I wanted to get some justice for him.
I fielded more dispatch calls and radioed through to Joe; he had quite a list now to keep him busy all day. Eli wouldn’t be in until three, and though I wasn’t sure where to go next with the inquiry, I felt like there was a lot I should be doing. At eight-thirty I called Jerome and he agreed to come in within the hour. I was a little nervous about seeing him again—would the attraction still be there? Would he be able to find anything in Choden’s papers?
Jim called around nine, and I asked him about Luminol testing the monastery’s kitchen knives. As it happened, he was headed out to a crime scene near the Utah border with the mobile lab van, and would stop on the way to test the knives, as long as the monastery would allow that without a warrant. I agreed to arrange it, and, fingers crossed, called and spoke to Pema. I felt a little guilty about putting her in the middle of all our requests, guessing correctly that she wouldn’t put up a fuss about a warrant. Hopefully Tenzin wouldn’t either.
Jerome arrived a few minutes later. He had shaved and looked pressed and professional. He wore faded blue trousers and a button-down shirt. His hair fell over the collar and I noticed that same pleasant woodsy smell. We shook hands; the chemistry between us was still very much present. I set him up at the small table out in the reception area and brought out the box of Choden’s things. He pulled out a book and held it a moment before setting it on the desk.
“This is a terrible crime,” he said, and continued to sort the materials by some system of his own, scanning the characters that came alive with meaning under his gaze. I felt a stab of envy at his ability.
“I appreciate your help,” I said.
“What do you want me to look for?”
“I don’t know, if I’m honest. Anything that seems—personal, strange, or that doesn’t seem to fit? Anything that stands out. You’re good at looking for details, for a ‘story,’ right? So, anything that catches your attention.”
He nodded and sat down to work.
I brought him a cup of coffee and then started my own paperwork. Typing up statements, his first. I had him sign it and then went on sorting out my notes. Our list of possible suspects remained small. I sighed, re-stacked the file of interview notes, and prepared to begin again. We must have missed something, some small connection that needed to be re-explored.
Butch arrived at around ten and greeted Jerome before heading into his office. As he settled in for the day, reading phone messages that had come in for him, I went and stood in the doorway.
“Bill’s not here,” I said, and explained the ER situation. I caught him up on the day’s progress so far. “I’m not sure where to go from here. I went back through the list of people living at the monastery and our interviews. He really just didn’t know many people and there’s no motive. Though I’d like to get some justice for this poor guy, I think it’s a case for the CBI to solve. Or not.”
Butch leaned back in his chair and stroked his jaw. “I know,” he agreed. “We have to remember that most crimes are completely straightforward. What few murder investigations I’ve worked over the years have been simple, in the end. The hard part is usually just gathering the evidence—enough to prosecute and convict. Being in court again today has brought it home to me how limited the criminal justice system really is. And how inefficient.”
“When will you be done?”
“When I testify. Should be tomorrow, now. I’ve told the prosecutor I don’t have time to be going in and sitting there every day, waiting to be called. But, not much choice. It’s only because they called an early recess—sick juror—that I’m here now.” He shrugged. “How’s the kids?”
“Good. Good. They are all right. Recovered. Thanks for asking. Eli crashed on the couch last night; he’s going to get Margo off to her camp today and Dan will pick her up. He’s recovering and bored already. I’m going to try and get them up to Naomi’s tomorrow, Margo at least, so that I won’t have to worry about her while I’m on call.”
Butch nodded and I went back out to the stack of Monday’s interview notes on my desk. Pulled up the next in the pile. Steven Jackson, resident at the monastery as a lay student for a few months. I groaned inwardly; I had meant to find and speak to him yesterday but in the chaos of Margo going to the hospital I’d forgotten. I scanned through Eli’s scrawl, noticing that Steven really didn’t have an alibi for the nights in question. I put the page aside for follow up later today.
The dispatch line rang again. Another call of a minor car accide
nt up near Thompson, which I radioed through to Joe. Two more calls came in that I could put through to Butch. Jerome worked quietly and steadily; I actually almost forgot he was there. Then a call that was crackly and fuzzy with static. The caller identified herself as Amrita something, and her English was clipped and lilting. It was long distance from India. I glanced at the clock; it had to be late there.
“I am calling about Mr. Choden Khedrup,” Amrita said. “We are trying to find when we can bring him home and what is happening.”
“I’m sorry—what’s your relationship to Mr. Khedrup?”
“I am a work colleague at the university. I am calling for Choden’s family. They do not speak English.”
“I can’t talk about our investigation, but we are doing our best to find out what happened. When we can, we will allow Choden’s remains to be released. It’s going to be necessary to have him cremated here,” I added, remembering that Rabten had told me that the typical Buddhist practice was cremation.
“This is not ideal,” Amrita replied.
“Well—the condition of the body is such that it will be better.”
Silence. “Can you explain, please?”
I did not want to reveal the gruesome facts to this far away woman. “I can’t speak about it. I’m sorry. I can only say that it would be especially distressing for his family to receive his actual remains—and we are not permitted to send him out of the country in the state he is in. Cremation will be easier—kinder.”
More silence. “I see.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, feeling helpless and angry with the whole situation. “Please leave me your contact details and I promise I will let you know as soon as possible when the remains can be released. It should be soon.”
I took down her information, spelling the name carefully—though I remembered now that she was listed as Choden’s emergency contact in his file—and noting the country code and number. Jerome had risen to get more coffee and watched me silently. When I finished the call, he spoke.
“I can talk to the family, if you like. If it would help.”
“Thank you. I’ll let you know if that becomes necessary. But I’ve got to be honest, we’ve got no budget to pay you for your time. I should have said that before you started here.”
He shrugged. “It is extreme circumstances. I don’t mind helping. I would want someone to do the same for my family.”
His words pierced me, unexpectedly. Tears pricked my eyes and I remembered the state cop who had come to our home to tell my mother that Danny had been killed in a motorcycle accident. The cop had been kind; he had cried too, and held my mom’s hand.
“Thank you,” I said, and turned away so that he couldn’t see my tears.
I made the drive back up Two Dog canyon later in the morning, headed to the monastery to speak with Steven Jackson and verify Jerome’s meeting on the Friday with the Rinpoche—just to dot that ‘i.’ I also wanted to ask someone about the proper ritual for Choden’s remains. I was still bothered by the phone call from Amrita, feeling the confusion and pain of Choden’s far away family, not knowing what had happened to their boy, thousands of miles away. The helplessness she must feel … it struck at my heart. I couldn’t imagine—well, I could—but I didn’t want to even think about one of my kids dying in some terrible way. It had been bad enough to lose my brother. And his death had destroyed my mom and my family. An accident had changed all of our lives; how would a mother survive a senseless, brutal murder of her child?
As I once again drove through the monastery gate, I wished that I could find a way to calm the worry and agitation inside myself. Margo and Dan, managing on their own, the case, Margo’s weird ghosts, my loneliness that I had no one to share all of this with. I parked the Bronco and got out. The light coming from gathering cumulus clouds poured down over the great stone frontage of the main building. The trees in the garden shimmered, and I was drawn inside the garden gate like there were magnets pulling me forward. The quiet garden smelled of pine and dirt and cool rock. It was well designed: natural plants, nothing fancy, but arranged in beds and rock gardens, with the pool and the fountain. I went to sit on the bench under the willow that Margo had occupied a few days before. The tree seemed like a sort of guardian, and I was suddenly sobbing; mortified and completely unable to stop my tears.
I fumbled for a packet of tissues in my bag. I had to pull myself together. Two more shuddering waves swept through me and then I was quiet inside, empty, and just present in the sunlight with the birds chirruping around me. After a moment I rose and went into the still, scented peace of the monastery.
I spoke with the Rinpoche and he agreed to liaise with Choden’s family to facilitate the proper ritual and cremation. Pema had the knives ready for Jim and told me where I could find Steven Jackson. I walked up the road to the goat dairy, gratefully breathing in the forest air.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I found Steven Jackson cleaning out the goat barn. The goats themselves were out playing in an enclosure, bleating and jumping around. I entered the barn, smelling the straw bedding and dusty-poopy animal odor that immediately reminded me of county fairs and summers of my youth, playing in my friend Debbie’s barn, helping her feed her 4-H calves, the one time I raised my own lamb. I identified Steven by Pema’s description. His hair stood up in a woolly halo around his face, and he was tanned and wiry with prominent teeth. He wore a green t-shirt with a faded Buddha, several woven and beaded bracelets, pink shorts, and worn hiking boots.
“Steven Jackson?”
He looked up from his task. “Yeah?”
“Hi. I’m Deputy O’Connor from the sheriff’s office. You spoke to my colleague, Deputy Stewart, on Monday, up in the classroom. I just wanted to ask you a few more questions about Choden.”
“Oh. Uh, okay.”
He leaned on his rake and I took out my notebook.
“Just routine. Don’t worry,” I smiled. “We’re just trying to get a better picture of Choden. So, can you tell me about your relationship with him?”
“Um, I didn’t really have, you know, a relationship with the guy. I mean, I knew who he was. But he hadn’t been here long. Couple weeks maybe. I told the other cop—”
“Of course,” I said, pressing on. “But you had conversations with him? Do you speak Chinese?”
“Yeah, I talked to him. I speak a few languages,” he said with pride. “Mandarin, Nepali, Tibetan. I grew up over there, in Nepal.”
“That must have been pretty cool. For how long?”
“I was born in India. I didn’t come over here until I was eighteen.”
“Wow. Tell me more about that.” We were veering off-topic, but I found it fascinating that here was yet another person who had spent their childhood in Asia.
He scuffed the ground with the toe of his boot, making an abstract pattern in the dirt. “Um, so I was born at this ashram my mom was living at near Calcutta. But it was an intense scene there, I guess, so she went up to Nepal with some people to start an ashram up there. But then she got into Buddhism and was all into that and I was just along for the ride, you know? My first memories are actually of this village where we lived and then later I went to live in a monastery and go to school because she went into hermitage before taking her vows to be a nun.”
I couldn’t really fathom what he was describing to me. “So, you went to school—lived in—a monastery? Like this one? Separate from your mom? Is she Indian?”
“My mom? No—she’s American. But, yeah, I didn’t see her too often.”
“How did you feel about that?”
He shrugged. “It was just my life, you know? I liked it. I mean, they weren’t trying to make me a monk or anything. There were village kids there and the little kids who were already in training to be monastics. It’s a thing for families, you know, to have a kid in a monastery. And one less mouth to feed at their own homes. But yeah, I lived there for a few years.”
“Did you ever see your mother? Did she
live there too?” I was trying to wrap my head around your mom becoming a nun and disappearing into a convent.
“So—what does all this have to do with Choden?”
I paused, chastised myself for getting sidetracked. “Did you know Choden over there, by chance? Ever cross paths?”
Steven gave me a strange look that could have meant anything. “Uh, no. I mean, I was in Nepal. Choden grew up in Tibet.”
“Just a thought,” I replied. “Now Thursday and Friday last week, can you tell me what you did those days?”
I knew he had been vague about what he’d been doing from Eli’s notes. Couldn’t really remember, then just came forth with the usual ‘dinner, meditation, bed’ routine that they all seemed to stick to. I wanted to see if he’d change his story.
“I told the guy—” he began again.
“I know. So tell me now.”
He sighed and just kept himself from rolling his eyes. “The schedule is basically the same every day. We have some teaching and chores and meals. Morning and evening meditation. We get up early, so we go to bed pretty early. Plus, there’s nothing to do, you know, after nine o’clock when the meditation ends.”
“Yeah, but there’s some nice girls up here, right? Pretty ones. Other young guys. You must hang out a little. Or anyone have a car? Do you go to town together, go out for a meal or a drink? Do you have a curfew?”
He shrugged again; the same gesture Dan gave me when he considered my questions either obvious or stupid.
“Yeah, sometimes we hang out. No curfew, but nobody is allowed to have a car and only certain people drive the community cars.”
“But anyone could drive them, right? You know where the keys are?”
“Ye-ah. But, like, we’re not supposed to.”
“Okay, so Thursday and Friday, days like any other?”
“Yeah.”
“You said to my colleague that you didn’t think anyone could say for sure where you were, though. Why is that?”
