Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

case. Even if I went along with Granddad’s scenario and I arrived at the point where I needed to exterminate Abbot Winai from Internal Affairs so I could be with my lover, it could never have been planned this methodically. I didn’t see the murder of the abbot as a mid-play act. This wasn’t the bumping off of a threat, the removal of a plot spoiler on the way to the final scene. I’d seen the photos. Abbot Winai was undoubtedly the star of the show and his demise was the climax. This was all about him, not her.
    “I think it’s time to show your granddad the photos,” said Chompu.
    I’d considered it myself, of course, albeit briefly. Granddad Jah had earned our trust, but this was more than just sharing information. It was sharing a secret. The lieutenant and I had deliberately withheld evidence. It was a criminal offense. Granddad Jah couldn’t even drink a beer without Breathalyzing himself. He was a stickler. He’d made his own life miserable by being honest. I had no idea where this would fit in his moral code book. Chompu could lose everything he’d fought for on this one throw of the dice, but he’d tossed the suckers anyway.
    Granddad Jah was pensive for several seconds. His head nodded in time with the bleating of the ‘door unfastened’ buzzer. Then he looked at the policeman.
    “I was wondering when you’d get around to it,” he said.
    “You knew I’d downloaded the pictures?” said I.
    “You didn’t think I’d be curious as to why a police lieutenant was going with you to your room at ten thirty in the morning?”
    I should have had a snide answer to that but I was still in shock.
    “Were you spying?”
    “Just happened to be sitting in a bush, minding my own business. But I confess I wouldn’t mind seeing those slides from closer range.”
    Granddad was in. We were safe. An alliance of three untrustworthy people.
    “Well, if that wasn’t good enough news in itself,” said Chompu, “I have even more information to impart on our own modest VW inquiry. In his statement, Tan Sugit had mentioned being apprehended by four villains – sometimes stretching to six or eight depending on who he’s talking to – driving a refrigerated Milo chocolate drink van. The Milo company reported that such a van had been stolen the previous evening. Lang Suan police found it abandoned a few hours ago behind the clay urn foundry. The print people have been all over it but it seems to have been wiped clean. It all indicates that Tan Sugit’s abduction was not a figment of his imagination, after all.”
    ♦
    Chompu dropped us home and promised to call as soon as the results from the Benz driver interview came to light. I put Granddad Jah in front of my computer and showed him where to click. I was on my way to find Mair in the shop when I noticed our young family of guests back on the balcony. I noticed Gogo sitting with the kids, showing them her belly. She never showed me her belly. She seemed to like everyone except me.
    “Would you mind if I asked you a question?” said the father.
    I hoped it wouldn’t be anything difficult: the tides, the names of the islands you could vaguely see on the horizon, or the genus of the bright turquoise birds that sat regularly on our back fence. My local knowledge was remedial.
    “Certainly.”
    He walked leisurely beside me along the path behind the beachfront tables. He was cheerful, attractive in a young-married-man kind of way, and very polite, and the question he asked was a lot simpler than I’d imagined.
    “Would you be interested in selling this place?”
    My first reaction was that this crowd must have escaped from some maximum security family asylum. I looked back over my shoulder at the young wife and the happy children. They seemed normal enough.
    “Why?” I asked.
    “We’ve been driving down the coast,” he said, “looking for a little place to take over. My wife’s father passed away last year and left us a small sum we hadn’t expected. We have a modest dream to make a go of something on the coast. We aren’t rolling in money but I can make you a fair offer. We like it here.”
    “You do? Why?”
    “Haven’t you looked around?”
    At his bidding, I looked around. The noncommittal weather of the past week had finally got its act together and a black pudding of a storm cloud was rolling toward us, filling the entire vast sky to the east. It was a Steven Spielberg moment. I instinctively knew I should have been egging the