The Missing Guests of the Magic Grove Hotel, page 26
Ladarat nodded. “Melissa Double? I just saw her on Thursday and the nurses tell me she came here this morning.”
“Ah, but she is not here.”
“Not here?”
“She was here, it’s true. Just this morning. But she changed her mind and wanted to travel on. She said she wanted to see … Laos.”
The owner’s eyes strayed to the trees over Ladarat’s left shoulder for just a fraction of a second. Hardly noticeable, but just enough to give the impression of deceit.
Perhaps it was true that Melissa Double was not here. Indeed, why would she say such a thing unless it were true?
But that statement about her going to Laos—that seemed false. False, and illogical. Would the Melissa Double that Ladarat knew simply travel to Laos on the spur of the moment, without a plan? What would make someone as careful and thoughtful as Melissa Double walk in the front door of this place and decide—suddenly and irrevocably—that she absolutely needed to go to Laos? Why didn’t she decide that before she left the hospital?
On the other hand, Melissa had been going to Laos when she was sidetracked by her symptoms. She’d been on her way to take a boat down the Mekon from Chiang Kong, hadn’t she? So Delia’s claim was certainly plausible. Perhaps Melissa came here, felt better, and was inspired to resume her journey. Or perhaps she knew that the hospital would have tried to stop her from going to Laos, whereas they would have supported her decision to go to a hotel nearby.
These were the conflicting thoughts that ran through Ladarat’s head as Delia stood smiling in the doorway. Either Melissa was there or she wasn’t. And either she’d left for Laos or she hadn’t. Regardless, Ladarat wasn’t going to learn any more by standing here. She said her goodbyes as politely as she could. As she made her way back to the car, she couldn’t help turning around to see that Delia was watching her.
Ladarat mused about this odd turn of events as she drove through thickening traffic back toward Chiang Mai. Even the distractions of drivers who honked angrily at her perfectly legal changes of lane didn’t deter her from thinking about the woman from Wales who had been so philosophical about her illness, and who was now so difficult to find.
THE CLUE OF THE FALLEN LEAVES
Ladarat was still thinking about Melissa’s sudden and strange disappearance a few hours later, as Wiriya led her into the WesternGirl bar. It was Saturday night, which apparently was the time when all closet country-and-western fans threw their inhibitions aside, dressed up in jeans and western shirts, and crowded into what had to be Chiang Mai’s foremost—and perhaps only—country-and-western bar.
The large, wood-floored room didn’t seem to have tables. There was just a packed dance floor, full of dancers of all nationalities, gyrating to the music coming from the stage twenty meters away. Although the entire room full of people was between Ladarat and the stage, the music was nevertheless rather too loud for her taste. They’d been there for less than a minute, and already Ladarat was ready to leave.
“Look … just look for a minute.” Wiriya leaned over so close that he was talking directly into her ear to be heard.
“Look? At what?”
Wiriya smiled. Then he pointed at the stage.
Just visible above the heads of dancing Americans and Germans and Australians and Italians, there was a band of five people. A drummer, of course, was making a terrible racket. He was a blond farang, but the only farang of the bunch. The keyboard player and the bass player and the guitar player were all Thai, as was the singer.
He looked very familiar. Now Wiriya was grinning broadly.
As Ladarat processed this new information, Dr. Taksin sang in a full-throated warble about his marital troubles. At least that’s what it sounded like. Ladarat recognized the song she’d heard on Monday night when she’d called Wiriya. All of Dr. Taksin’s exes, he sang, still lived in Texas. It seemed like an unlikely coincidence to her. But who knew?
“Why?” Ladarat asked him.
Wiriya cocked his head to one side, then brought his ear closer to Ladarat’s lips.
“Why?” she asked again. Then, because that question didn’t seem to capture the essence of the problem: “What?”
Again, Wiriya’s faced scrunched up in concentration. Then he shrugged and pointed at the door they’d entered just a minute ago. Ladarat nodded enthusiastically.
Outside, the sidewalk was noisy with Saturday night revelers. But after that country-and-western din, Ladarat’s ears felt as though someone had plugged them with cotton. Wiriya steered her down the street just two doors to an open patio of a restaurant where he commandeered an empty table with a fine view of the street.
“So …” she said, because it seemed like the only logical thing to day. “So. … Dr. Taksin is … a country-and-western singer?”
Wiriya laughed as the waitress came to hand them menus. He ordered a large Singha for both of them and waited until the waitress left before replying.
“Well, I’d say he’s more of an aspiring singer, wouldn’t you?”
Ladarat was tempted to agree. But truth be told, she didn’t feel she was well equipped to judge the merits of a country-and-western singer.
“Perhaps,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t know. But this explains his poor performance at work, it seems.”
Wiriya nodded. “The WesternGirl usually stays open and busy until the early hours of the morning.”
“And you know this because …?”
But Wiriya was saved by the return of the waitress with a twenty-ounce bottle of Singha and two glasses, beaded with moisture. He ordered for both of them—a maneuver that only six months ago Ladarat would have found presumptuous, but now she found it vaguely comforting.
Gang som pak ruam—sweet, sour, and spicy soup with vegetables. And gang som cha om kai, an omelet flavored acacia leaf. Also kao niew moo yang—grilled pork skewers. Usually just street food, some restaurants did them really well.
“Some of the best kao niew moo yang in the city,” Wiriya said as the waitress left. “The chef here used to have a food stand in front of the main police station, but then he won the lottery and became more ambitious.”
Wiriya seemed to be stalling. He poured the two glasses of beer and took a sip of his.
“And you know about the late hours of the WesternGirl because …?”
Wiriya laughed. “Remember that retirement party on Monday night?”
Ladarat nodded.
“Well, Arhit wouldn’t leave. It was his retirement party, and we couldn’t very well leave him. So we were there until … I don’t know. Three? Four? So I had plenty of time to determine beyond any doubt that it wasn’t a girlie bar.”
Well, that was one mystery solved. Granted, the problem wasn’t solved. If his performance was poor at work, someone would have to talk with him forcefully about his fantasies of becoming a country-and-western star. Surely that would be an easier conversation to have than the other conversations that she’d imagined.
Ladarat took a sip of the beer, thinking that it felt good to solve a mystery. Not a mystery, exactly. Not a Mystery with a capital M. But a mystery nonetheless.
On the other hand, there was the much more concerning mystery—perhaps even a true Mystery—of the Magic Grove Hotel. Ladarat filled Wiriya in, belatedly, on Delia’s suspicious behavior. She told him, too, about the Pisonia leaves on the front patio. She’d almost finished her explanation when their gang som pak ruam arrived.
She’d expected Wiriya to offer advice; ideas, perhaps; an opinion of the facts.
But instead he was silent, serving them both gang som pak ruam. He began to eat in silence.
“Don’t you think that’s odd? To give the staff the day off, when the front patio is unswept, and presumably there are many other things that need to be done? Those leaves … they are certainly a clue, are they not?”
Wiriya nodded. “Just sour enough.” He took another bite and thought for a moment, as Ladarat sampled her soup, too, thinking that perhaps it was a bit too sour.
Ladarat realized that she’d somehow forgotten to inform Wiriya about her clever ruse of placing Jonah as an inside observer at the Magic Grove Hotel and, therefore, he was unaware of the highly inappropriate treatment of Richard April’s luggage. She would explain all that. That information would raise his … index of suspicion to a more appropriate level.
But that piece of important intelligence was unceremoniously shoved aside to make room for Wiriya’s reaction to her initiative. He wasn’t pleased.
“It’s very fine that you’ve taken this initiative, certainly. But did you ever think that you might have compromised this investigation? If indeed your spy obtains any information, how can we use that information in a prosecution?” Now Wiriya’s dinner sat untouched and apparently forgotten. “It’s … irregular!”
Irregular? What did that mean? Answers were answers.
“Don’t we know that the man Richard April disappeared and left his luggage behind? That was thanks to my ‘initiative,’ as you say. And don’t we know that Delia arranged to have his belongings picked up by the Free Bird Café not two days after he left? And don’t we know that Delia—or someone—lied to the Free Bird Café and told them that those belongings had been left for months, when in fact they’d only been sitting there for a few days? Doesn’t that help at all?”
How could Wiriya say that this information—or her methods, however unorthodox—had jeopardized the investigation? Wiriya seemed stunned by this little outburst of hers, which was a good sign. But he tried to defuse her reaction with a remark about her detective skills, which wasn’t.
“Ah, so now you sound very much like a detective. A real detective.”
A real detective? Not exactly. Wasn’t it true that she was making progress on this case? What had the “real” detective accomplished?
“Ah, no. A real detective would just sit around and let his girlfriend do all the work. I can’t be a real detective, because I’m making progress on this case. And you? What have you done?”
“Well, I’ve been … busy.”
“Ah yes, with late-night trips to country-and-western bars. Such hard work.” Ladarat wasn’t sure why she was making an issue of what was almost certainly a harmless retirement party. But Wiriya’s casual comments about her skills at detection were uncalled for. It wasn’t just what he was saying, but its tone. It was …
“You’re beginning to think of yourself as a detective, aren’t you?”
It was condescending. That’s what it was.
“No …” Well … yes.
“Sending in a spy, and holding … stealthy phone conversations to gather information. It sounds like you’re taking this a little too seriously.”
“But … don’t you think this is odd?” Ladarat resolved to ignore—for now—Wiriya’s unkind comments about her successes in the art of detection. He felt threatened, that was all, threatened by the possibility that she might have discovered nefarious activity that he’d dismissed.
She was used to being in this position, after all. It wasn’t that dissimilar from the position that nurses found themselves in when they reached a conclusion ahead of the doctors who was supposed to be in charge.
That situation was so common that Professor Dalrymple had advice to offer: “It’s rarely productive to convince doctors; you must let them believe that they’ve arrived at the right decision on their own.”
“Well,” he said. “It’s odd, to be sure. But not suspicious, necessarily. And certainly not criminal.”
“But to say that a guest had been gone for months when he’d only been gone for a few days? To lie in order to get rid of incriminating evidence? Surely that is nefarious?”
“But you don’t know that.”
“Of course I know that. And you’d know it, too, if you just paid attention.”
“No,” Wiriya said, affecting a genial good humor as he took another bite of his neglected gang som pak ruam. “You’ve heard it from a man who works in a brothel and who has a significant criminal record.”
“But—”
Wiriya held up a hand in a way that could best be described as imperious. “I know Jonah is a good boy. And you know that. But you must think of how any … intelligence that he provides would be perceived by a court. Would it be valued and trusted?” Wiriya shook his head and took another bite of gang som pak ruam. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
Ladarat found herself getting annoyed in spite of Professor Dalrymple’s wise advice. As she felt her blood pressure rise, she knew that what was annoying her was not their disagreement, but the fact that Wiriya wasn’t taking her seriously. That might be normal—even expected—between a doctor and a nurse. But between her and Wiriya? For him to be so … condescending … Well, that was uncalled for.
“But imagine—just imagine—that she was … up to something.”
“Up to something?” Wiriya was smiling, his head cocked to one side, in a way that could be construed as friendly and supportive, but which Ladarat preferred to classify—at this moment, at least—as condescending.
Their gang som cha om kaia and kao niew moo yang arrived, along with an order of spicy som tam (green papaya) salad that they hadn’t ordered.
“Compliments of the chef,” the waitress announced.
“Please thank Khun Sirichai for me, would you?”
The waitress nodded and disappeared.
He’s threatened by her success. That’s all it is, she thought as she helped herself to just a taste of som tam and gang som cha om kaia.
Ladarat looked down at her plate and put down her fork. Then she took a deep breath. And another. And a third. That seemed to settle her blood pressure a little.
She would be patient and logical. She would lead him to the conclusion he needed to reach.
“Then if having a spy in the Magic Grove Hotel isn’t a good tactic, how should we proceed?”
Wiriya chewed a mouthful of gang som cha om kaia thoughtfully.
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.” Of course honestly.
“I would drop the whole thing.”
“You would … what?”
“I would drop it. There’s nothing there.”
“Of course there’s something there. Maybe I can’t prove it …” Yet.
“No, with respect, all you have is a bunch of facts that don’t fit together as neatly as you’d like. That’s not a mystery, that’s … life.”
“What about Delia sending the staff home when there’s work to be done?”
“Poor management.”
“And lying about when Richard April left?”
“A mistake.” Wiriya sighed. “We could keep going like this forever. There are things that are odd, and which don’t make sense. But people are human. They make mistakes. They do things that aren’t logical. That doesn’t make them criminals.” He paused for a bit of som tam, grimacing as he realized that it was quite a bit more spicy than he’d expected. “So …” He said after a breath or two. “That’s why you should drop it. You’re getting excited about everyday life, which is complex and messy.”
Ladarat was silent, her meal untouched, as she thought about that advice. Was she getting overly suspicious about little, insignificant inconsistencies? Perhaps. Or even probably. But she had a sense that there was something wrong, a sense that those inconvenient facts were pointing her toward a much larger mystery.
They could have left it there. Wiriya could have left it there. And they could even have agreed to disagree. But then Wiriya made a grave error. A very grave error. Perhaps the worst error a man can make in an argument with a woman.
He laughed at her.
It was just a harmless chuckle, which in another context would have been genial and charming. But any doubt that he was laughing at her was erased by what he said next, after a more modest bite of som tam.
“Believe me, I know how exciting it is to be hot on the trail of an investigation. It’s exciting. And even addictive. But you can’t let that excitement control you. You can’t give in to it. You have to think critically. You have to use your head.”
Wiriya would have said more, perhaps. Much more. He looked as though he was just warming up for an extended lecture. But something on Ladarat’s face warned him that he had made a misstep. He wasn’t sure of what that misstep was, exactly, or its magnitude, but he had the good sense to shut up.
Just in time to hear Ladarat say: “If that’s your opinion of my amateur efforts at detection, well, then you can solve this case yourself.”
THE DESIRE NOT TO LIVE
A moment later Ladarat was half running down the street, past the WesternGirl bar, and onto Loi Kroh Road, where she could easily flag a taxi. She looked quickly behind her and was surprised but not astonished that Wiriya hadn’t followed her.
He should have followed her, shouldn’t he? That’s what Ladarat was thinking as she waved down a taxi and gave her address to the implacable driver. He should at least have called out after her, instead of just sitting there like a lazy elephant, finishing his—and her—kao niew moo yang.
That would only have been right. And leaving her to find her own ride home, that was not very gentlemanly. He had picked her up at home and he should have offered to drop her off.
Ladarat’s thoughts bubbled along in this style for the twenty-minute trip out to her house, and by the time she’d paid the driver and let herself in, she felt several degrees more calm. Almost peaceful. Almost, but not quite. Hadn’t he dismissed her abilities of detection? She found herself getting angry all over again.
In the kitchen, Ladarat took a moment to take a deep breath, and then another. As Maewfawbaahn twined himself around her legs, she rummaged in the cupboard and found a can of cat food that emitted a little gust of fish smell when she popped it open. She dumped the whole can into Maefawnbahn’s bowl with a sharp thwack of the can that surprised both of them. Her loyal cat looked up at her in confusion.
“No, it’s not you.” She rubbed his head and scooted him toward his waiting dinner. She herself hadn’t eaten much, but she found she wasn’t hungry. That gang som pak ruam had been too sour and the gang som cha om kai had been cold. Although she hadn’t tried the kao niew moo yang, Ladarat was certain it was not nearly as good as Sonthi’s. For sure the som tam was too spicy—a trick to hide papaya that was a little too green. Thinking about that disappointing meal killed her appetite entirely.
