Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

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 could 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