Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

with a grudge against the Bangkok abbot? I mean, his job was to investigate wayward monks and make recommendations for them to be disrobed. There may be a cause for revenge there.”
    “We haven’t found anything. That is to say, no comment.”
    So much for our new open relationship. Either the Bangkok detectives had shut him out, or there really were no other suspects or motives, or he was lying to me. I didn’t like people lying to me. He leaned too close to me and smiled.
    “I could arrange for you to interview Abbot Kem,” he said.
    “I already have,” I said, haughtily.
    He looked at me with awe. The press had climbed several rungs in the power rankings of his admiration and I knew there’d be no more hanky-panky lunches with the good major. He doffed his cap, vowed to recover our lost TV, and even waved at me as he climbed into his truck.
    ♦
    Abbot Kem was back home and living in his stilted hut at the rear of Wat Feuang Fa. Two uniformed constables from Lang Suan had been assigned to watch him, but when I cycled past them in my disguise – baggy flower-patterned shorts way past my knees, Red Bull T-shirt under a long-sleeved gingham shirt, flip-flops and straw hat – they barely looked up from their comics. I was so obviously nobody to admire or fear that I depressed myself.
    I found the abbot alone. He was sitting on the same front step drawing patterns in the hot air in front of him. The dogs sat at his feet watching his fingers sculpt.
    “Good morning,” I said.
    He turned to me and smiled. There was no evidence on his face that the murder inquiry was causing him any grief at all. But I guess that’s what it’s all about. When you get to warp-factor gamma three on the self-discovery orbit, worldly worries bounce off your defense shield. I envied him. I could use a little karma when the handlers brought their monkeys to collect coconuts and the wicked beasts deliberately threw them down onto my vegetable nursery. I wish I had the patience to take it all seriously, this religion thing. But I have sacrilegious ideas rushing through my mind all the time like a continuous, graffiti-laden subway train passing through a station. There’s no way I can eviscerate the troubling thoughts and leave myself with purity. I’d implode.
    “So, they let you out, I see,” I said.
    “Yes.”
    “Did they treat you well?”
    I was mired in clichés, too. I needed a good clean out.
    “Yes.”
    “I’m assuming they didn’t actually charge you with anything.”
    “No.”
    “Can I ask you some more questions about that day? The day you found the body?”
    I hoped I could come up with a question or two that evoked more than one word answers.
    “Yes.”
    “Did you notice anything odd about Abbot Winai when you found him lying there on the path?”
    “Odd?”
    “Incongruous, illogical, downright weird.”
    “Are you talking about the hat?”
    Bingo.
    “I am.”
    “I mentioned it to the detectives. It’s been on my mind since that afternoon. The officers dismissed it. They said it was a hot day – late afternoon glare of the sun. The abbot could be forgiven for slipping on a hat, they said.”
    “But you don’t agree.”
    “I know how strictly my friend followed the regulations. That’s why he was elected to conduct inquiries on behalf of the Sangka . It’s clearly stipulated in the Disciplines, book five, regulation four, that a monk cannot wear a hat.”
    This was starting to feel rather silly.
    “So what do you think would possess him to break with tradition and put on a hat?”
    “That’s just it. He didn’t. We had been debating my prickly situation with regard to the precepts…”
    “Arguing?”
    “More like a philosophical discussion. We’d been mulling over points for two days already. It was his habit to walk and digest his thoughts, then return with more questions. He was a very logical and fair man. He stood and stretched and told me he would be back soon and began to walk along the concrete path. As soon as he stepped out of the shade of the fig tree he readjusted his robes and covered his head with one flap of material. He wasn’t wearing a hat, of course.”
    “Perhaps one of the gardeners left it there? He could have picked it up on the way?”
    “What for?”
    Good question. I had no idea.
    “So, when you reached him, that was the first time you’d seen the hat?”
    “Yes.”
    “What kind of hat was it?”
    “It was very bright orange with a red flower.”
    If