Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

same brand of arthritis cream. But perhaps I’m being cruel. Arny rose to greet his lady love. She was wearing a nice shiny top that showed her toned shoulders, and huggy trousers. She certainly hadn’t let herself go since the competition days. I found her rather attractive myself but I’d never admit that to Ed’s sister. Her name, we learned, was Kanchana Aromdee, nickname, Gaew, and she was one of the most interesting women I’d met in a life spent meeting people. Even Granddad Jah took a shine to her. She entertained us with her anecdotes and listened attentively to ours. All the while she held Arny’s hand and smiled at his profile when he spoke.
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    The Pipers were down to a dozen, and we’d eaten, and the time had tumbled on by and nobody seemed in a hurry to go home. Mair told some of her most bawdy and hilarious stories, fired by the taste of whiskey on her lips. She let slip the odd curse that drew censure from Granddad and consternation from the gallery. We talked about our Gulf Bay Lovely Resort and how we could turn its fortunes around: how we’d be the Club Med of the Gulf in six months. At one stage, Chompu had received a call from Major Suvit telling him that Mika Mikata had, in fact, traveled to Thailand on her real passport to attend an international photographic symposium in Haad Yai. Our own Pak Nam fell almost to the decimal point directly between Haad Yai and Bangkok. We toasted Granddad Jah and made him an honorary Police Major General for the night. Chompu let him wear his hat. Gaew lip-sticked an insignia on his coral white undervest and he didn’t put up a fight.
    It was almost midnight when I got the call I’d been hoping for. I staggered down to the water’s edge to leave the noise of the party behind me. I sat on the sand and listened. I heard calls for my return to the table but I ignored them. Crabs were sizing me up but I didn’t care. I listened and I cried and I said thank you and returned to the table where Gaew was demonstrating an unbreakable armlock on the lieutenant. Mair asked me why I’d been crying and all attention turned to me. During the meal, we’d briefly talked about the killing of the abbot and the subsequent investigation, and now I had what I hoped would be the final kill.
    Sissi had found a way, via impenetrable firewalls through invisible wormholes…and various other jargon I’d not understood, into Mika Mikata’s Web site. There, she’d found the most horrific gallery of murder masquerading as art: the step-by-step pool murder of the orange-hatted worker in Guam, an underwater assassination in the Great Barrier Reef set amid some of the most glorious colored corals and sea creatures, the aviary slaying in Taiwan, and the recently posted killing of an abbot in Thailand. In an attached blog, some arty farty pseudo-poetic nonsense about destiny. A location pinpointed on a map. A vague sense that saffron was calling to her. That her inner soul and the whim of the orange hat would finally come to select the perfect tableau to showcase her art. Mika Mikata was a dead duck. The Juree family had its first notch.
    That night, as I was filling in the details of my story, I paused to consider the victim for once. Abbot Winai would undoubtedly have seen this as his karma. He’d probably visited the moment during meditation, walking on that path beside the flowers at that particular time when Mika Mikata passed by in her rental car. He probably knew before she burst through the hedge, before she forced him to don the hat. There had been no fear in his eyes and that would have been a terrible disappointment to the crazy Japanese, the woman who crafted death.
    Sissi had posted the link to the members-only Orange Gallery on the Sangka Council’s Web site. It couldn’t be traced back to her. She knew the outrage would fuel its way to the police ministry and the case would explode in the media. Everyone was looking for something exciting to nudge the yuppy rebellion off the front pages. Somehow, Mika Mikata would be punished for her cruelty.
    Our resort was quiet. Everyone had gone to bed. The table was littered with bottles and plates and topped by Gogo with sauce around her mouth. The cleanup could wait. I kick-started the motorcycle and rode into Pak Nam to deliver my exclusive. It was a ghost town. The light above the 7-Eleven bathed the street in puddles of red, green and orange. As I passed, I saw the cashier yawn into a magazine. There was another