Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

young father on, but all I could see were the faces of his children starving to death.
    “Look. Really. This is the toilet plunger of resorts. We’ve been here nine months and we haven’t made enough money to get the truck tires pumped up.”
    “But that’s because you don’t love it.”
    “What?”
    “None of you is really here. I’ve been watching you. I see you all come and go but your hearts aren’t here with you. A place like this, you have to work at. You’ve got no food in the kitchen refrigerator, no stock in the store. The cabins are sparse and uninviting. Nobody sweeps the beach.” (People sweep beaches?) “You’re all just staying here. I can make you an offer to give you all the chance to be where you really want to be, wherever that is.”
    I walked into the shop and caught Mair darkening a white surgical mask with a black felt pen. It suddenly didn’t seem important anymore. I was in a state somewhere between excited and scared legless. I knew this would be the first engagement in a long-drawn-out battle but fate had armed me.
    “Mair, you know the family in room two?”
    “We’ve got guests?” she said, tucking the mask and pen into her apron. “That’s nice. Arny didn’t mention it.”
    “That’s because he probably doesn’t know. He’s not here. He’s off romancing Granny. He’s hardly been here since the family arrived. They had to drive down the coast in search of lunch. They’re using their own towels. The guy fixed the cistern in the toilet. That’s embarrassing.”
    “The cistern was broken?”
    I sat beside her on the little bathroom stool and I took hold of her hand. I sighed a deep breath.
    “Mair, listen. It’s not working. Whatever magic you thought might happen down here, it’s not. And the people in room two like it here. It’s a miracle, but they want to buy the resort. I know you – ”
    “All right.”
    “All right, what?”
    “I’ll sell it to them.”
    “Really?”
    “If that’s what you all want. Yes, I can sell up.”
    I’m not sure I can actually describe the feeling that slithered through my body when she said that, but I’ll try. I was ecstatic at first, elated, gold-plated. It was if a legion of warm maggots had been deployed into my veins. But, unexpectedly, their pace slowed and they grew heavy and cold and eventually froze. I had a body full of iced maggots.
    “Are you sure?” I asked.
    “Child, in Chiang Mai we were five people in a house. Five individuals with nothing in common but a surname. We were hemmed in by traffic and breathing soot. We floated in noise and aggression and other people’s troubles. We were all so inside ourselves we stopped living for each other. I hoped coming here might pump life back into us as a family. I wanted my children and my father back while I could still recognize them, before it was too late.”
    “Mair, I – ”
    “But we gave it a good shot. Nine months is something to be proud of. I’m sure Sissi will be pleased to have us back.”
    It was that easy. We could all go home and be happy again. Granddad Jah to his car spotting. Arny to his asexual body shop. Me to my desk beside the head crime reporter who always promised to die, one drink at a time, but never did. And Mair to…
    “What are you doing here, Mair?” I asked.
    “Doing?”
    “Yeah. And don’t lie to me. It’s humiliating. I don’t like it. What do you do every night with your black get-up and your pest killer and your beach creeping?”
    She was just about to slide into her Titanic smile but I suppose she realized the gig was up. She took me by the hand and massaged my knuckles with her thumb.
    “We’re haunting a man,” she said. I held in my breath and waited. “The man who killed John. I found out who it was. The son of Auntie Summorn. He’s a nasty man, a drunk, a bully. He carries a gun and threatens people. My private detective knew who’d poisoned my dog straightaway. It wasn’t hard to work out how far John had walked before the poison took effect. And the man had killed countless other dogs who’d worried his precious chickens.
    “I had a meeting with the owners of the other dogs he’d killed. They were all angry but the police do nothing about it. They say everyone should keep their hounds tied up. It’s our fault, they say. But, child, look at this place. How can you keep a dog chained with all this beautiful nature around? Our dogs were all well fed. They didn’t chase chickens because