Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness (29 page)

Before Sisithorn could answer, Ladarat simply told her assistant to ignore what she’d just said. “Do you have any questions for me?” was all she asked.

Sisithorn shook her head. “No, Khun, I don’t think so. Dr. Wattana will be with me. And as you said, we are bringing good news. And… Khun?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think this will be a surprise to them. I think… they expected good news. Kate in particular. She was ready for bad news, but she still had very strong hopes, I think. It’s been as though she thought some miracle would happen.”

Ladarat nodded. “Exactly so. They won’t be distressed by this change because they never really believed what we told them before, any more than you believed the people who said you wouldn’t be able to get this job.”

Then Ladarat left Sisithorn in the ICU to go find Dr. Wattana. She hoped that they would go soon. It wouldn’t do for the family to come up to the ICU and discover on their own that the patient had woken up.

But there was no danger of that. Sisithorn knew that time was of the essence. More important, she knew what time meant, which was one of the main reasons Ladarat had hired her. She hadn’t been the best qualified applicant, it’s true. But she was the only one who had arrived early for her interview. That was why she got the job.

AN ANTICIPATED DEATH THAT IS NEVERTHELESS UNEXPECTED

T
he waiting room had begun to fill up with families, but the mysterious man hadn’t yet appeared, so Ladarat headed down to medical records. She took the stairs, now that she wasn’t preoccupied. And she was pleasantly surprised to find that when she reached the basement, she felt virtuous. She would do this more often. At least four flights of stairs every day, she decided. Four was an auspicious number. And more important, it was a rather small auspicious number.

In the medical records room, she was surprised to find Chaow Willapenna behind the counter. He offered her a tired
wai
, looking up at her under sagging eyelids.

“Have you been here all night?” She’d heard that his uncle Khun Panit worked long hours, but she’d had no idea that they would work overnight like this.

“Yes, you see, we still have much to get ready for ahead of the inspection.” He waved at the stacks of charts behind him. “My cousin at Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok told me yesterday that when his hospital was inspected last month, the inspectors asked to see charts of current patients in the hospital dating back two years. Two years! Can you believe it? So yesterday we began to get those old charts from storage.”

“But that must be charts for almost a thousand patients…” She knew the hospital was full. That would be a huge number of old charts to find in storage.

Chaow smiled wearily. “Fortunately, it’s too important to trust to me, so my uncle has gone to do it himself. Unfortunately, he’s taken most of our workers.” Then he perked up. “But here, Khun, I have what you asked for. I had a few free minutes this morning—it didn’t take long.” And he handed her a small slip of paper, neatly folded in half.

Ladarat thanked him. It was amazing to see such dedication in a Thai of his age. Most kids would simply grab any convenient excuse, like the need for old charts. They would be “off the hook,” as the Americans say. But this young man did what she’d asked anyway.

Letting him get back to work, she took the result of his searches back down the hall to her office. It wasn’t until she shut the door behind her and sat down at her plain wooden desk that she realized how tired she was. And it was only… 8:05.

She’d accomplished a great deal. But she was already exhausted. It was truly going to be a long day. And this day would most likely not include a trip to the market or a browse in the booksellers, or a cup of tea by the Ping River.

Ladarat unfolded the slip of paper to find only one name: Arhit Tantasatityanon. She couldn’t be certain, but the long name was a good indication that this doctor was a relatively recent immigrant to Thailand. By law, surnames had to be unique to a family. So once the short names were taken, immigrants had to stretch for surnames that were increasingly long. And since most immigrants were Chinese…

And his address was in the tourist district, just where she thought it should be. Not more than three blocks from the Shangri-La. So only one physician in that area had seen a man named Zhang Wei in the past week.

How Chaow had managed to get that information was still a puzzle. But last night he’d promised that it would be easy. They asked for this kind of information all the time, he’d said, to complete a patient’s chart when information was missing.

So now she had a name and a phone number. It was still early, too. If she was quick, she might be able to talk to the doctor if she caught him before he began to see patients. Or should she go in person?

What would Khun Wiriya do?

As Ladarat sat down at her little desk, though, she realized that was the wrong question. She wasn’t a detective. Maybe technically she was, at this time, a detective. But she didn’t have the sort of personality that would convince people to give her information. She couldn’t be convincing and she certainly couldn’t be threatening. One look at her oversize glasses and diminutive figure, and anyone would say: “This is not a person I need to take seriously.”

Perhaps this insight should have distressed her. But it did not. It truly did not.

One must work within the limitations that one is given. One should not attempt to swing through the trees like a monkey if one is an elephant. And vice versa.

That was not wisdom gleaned from the good Professor Dalrymple. But it was, Ladarat thought, wisdom nonetheless.

Besides, she could sound much more authoritative on the phone, she knew. And on the phone, her mild manners wouldn’t be a liability. And there was always the chance that this doctor wouldn’t be seeing patients on a Saturday. Unlikely, but it would be silly to waste a trip. So, before she could start to have second thoughts, she picked up her phone and dialed the doctor’s number.

It was still early, but perhaps the office staff were already answering the phone. If not…

She was surprised by a man’s gruff voice. He answered in heavily Chinese-accented Thai, and she had trouble understanding him at first. He said hello again and seemed about to hang up when she launched into the speech that she had been practicing the night before.

She introduced herself as a nurse at Sriphat Hospital and then—a guess: “Are you Dr. Tantasatityanon?”

“Ah, yes. My office manager called in sick—I am all alone here today. How can I help you, Khun?”

“I am trying to understand the events that brought a man to our emergency room last week. He was one of your patients, I believe, a Khun Zhang? Zhang Wei?”

The doctor thought for a moment, but not long. “Of course. I’ve been caring for him for… at least four or five years. A very sad case. Is he well?”

Ladarat would need to tell the good doctor that his patient was not, in fact, particularly well.

“No, I’m afraid he isn’t.”

“Oh?”

“He is not well at all.”

“That is too bad.”

“In fact, he is dead.”

There was silence on the line for a few moments as the doctor processed this information.

“He went to your hospital?”

“Well, he didn’t actually
go
to our hospital.” Then she explained that his wife had appeared with him and that he was dead when he reached the emergency room.

The doctor seemed to be surprised. So Ladarat took a risk.

“And how was he the last time you saw him?”

“Well, you see, he doesn’t usually come to clinic.”

This was interesting.

“And when was the last time do you think he came to clinic?”

“I would have to check my records to be sure, but I think it was perhaps several years ago.”

This was very interesting.

“Perhaps about the time that you first started seeing him as a patient?”

“Perhaps,” the doctor admitted. “You see, he is—was—very frail. His cancer has spread to his organs, causing him pain when he moves. It has been a surprisingly slow-growing cancer, though, and one that he has been able to live with for some time. But coming to clinic has been… a challenge.”

“And yet you provide him with medications for his pain?”

“Oh yes. His wife is a delightful woman. She takes excellent care of him, and gets his medications for him. Every three months she comes in. But there has never been any concern about abuse of his pain medications, you see. Always the same dose…” He paused for a moment. “That is really too bad. But if I may ask, how did he die?”

“As you said, Khun, he did have cancer at an advanced stage.”

“Of course he had advanced cancer, it is true. But he also seemed to be stable, if one could describe a seriously ill patient with that word. It was as if he could continue on like this forever. His death was anticipated but nevertheless unexpected, if you understand me. On her last regular visit, about three months ago, I refilled all the usual prescriptions. Morphine, of course. And also lorazepam, to help him sleep. You know the drugs? You said you are a nurse?”

Ladarat said she knew the drugs. Though perhaps not as well as Peaflower seemed to know them.

“And then just last week, his wife asked again for an antibiotic for a gastrointestinal infection. He suffered from such infections frequently—a result no doubt of his weakened immune system. Every few months she would come for another prescription.”

Ladarat considered for a moment, not liking the implications of this new development.

“But was there a cause of death determined?” he asked. “Could it have been this infection? You see, often in cases such as this, there is an event that causes an abrupt decline. Either an infection, or a blood clot in his lung perhaps. Or bleeding?”

“Khun…”

“Yes?” He seemed distracted, but at least she had his cooperation.

“Is it possible—just possible, you understand—that your patient Zhang Wei has been dead for some time?”

“But… you said he died just last week.”

“Yes, it’s true that a woman brought a man by this name to the emergency room last week. And it’s most undeniably true that he was quite dead when he arrived. But is it possible that this man—who seems to have had the same name as the man you’re thinking of—is actually a different person?”

“But… why would that be? Are you saying that there are two men with the same name and with the same diagnosis? That perhaps this man in the emergency room is not my patient?”

“No, actually what I’m suggesting is that there may be several men with the same name.” And she told him what she thought might be happening.

She gave this information a moment to sink in. In that time, she noticed that the doctor seemed genuinely surprised. She also noticed something else. He didn’t seem to resent the implication that perhaps he had been aiding in these murders, even unwittingly. He didn’t point to the law, and what he was allowed to prescribe. Nor did he say that he was just doing what any caring doctor would do. That was what she would have expected him to say if he had a guilty conscience. And that was a relief, because she wasn’t at all sure how she should proceed if she had reason to believe that the doctor was somehow involved. That would be very difficult.

Instead, he only asked her what he could do to help. And that, fortunately, was easy.

“You would be able to recognize this woman—the man’s wife?”

“Of course. And my office staff would be able to recognize her as well. As I said, she came to see me quite often.”

Yes, Ladarat knew exactly how this doctor could help.

A HUNCH

S
he barely had time to savor what could only be called a victory of detection, when she heard a soft, almost apologetic knock on her door. She rose to open the door, a maneuver she’d often noticed could be accomplished—almost—without leaving her chair. Such were the modest dimensions of her little closet of an office.

When the door opened, though, she could only stare at Dr. Jainukul standing there. He offered her an overly polite
wai
and waited impatiently to be invited in. In that moment, he seemed like a lost child. One hand was fidgeting nervously with the stethoscope in the right pocket of his white coat, and the other was clicking nervously on a pen in his left pocket. Click. Click. Click. Click.