Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“So you’re saying you don’t think he died in the position we found him?” Dtui asked.

“I’m always learning new things,” Yamaguchi told her. “There will always be mysteries and anomalies.”

It was a diplomatic answer, given that this wasn’t his autopsy. But the response gave Siri more fodder for thought. He’d also been confused by one or two things. He lifted the major’s chins to get a better look at the ligature marks. The band of bruising formed an attractive macrame necklace high on his throat. The hands were clenched and there were no fingernail marks around the wound which might indicate the victim had fought to free himself. Mr. Geung and Yamaguchi helped him roll the body onto its stomach. There was surprisingly little hypostasis on the back of the thighs, perhaps because the major was suspended when he died. Or so it had appeared. So far, everything had been predictable. That was until Siri traced the ligature marks to the back of the neck. He leaned to one side to follow the bruising then stood back. Yamaguchi, seeing the look of surprise on Siri’s face, stepped up to the table. He tilted his head to one side, looked up at Siri and shook his head.

“What? What is it?” Dtui asked.

“Come and have a look,” Siri told her.

Dtui focused all her skills of observation on the bruising but nothing came to her.

“Think of where he was found,” Siri said.

“He was behind the door hanging by the neck from the doorknob,” said Dtui, “so he … he was hanging. That’s it. If he died from hanging the bruise would climb up like an inverse Y,” she said.

“Whereas?”

“Whereas this goes flat around his neck like a necklace. But that means….”

“It means Yamaguchi was right. Major Potter didn’t die in this position and he didn’t die from the hanging. I’d say he was strangled, probably while he was lying on his stomach under the quilt. That’s why there are no fingernail marks as he tried to loosen the garrotte.”

Yamaguchi was explaining exactly the same hypothesis to Secretary Gordon who looked every bit as surprised as Dtui.

“What about the erotic … bit?” Dtui asked.

“The erection? I don’t know. He’d had a lot to drink so it might have even been the result of a full bladder. If he was face down it’s more likely that it occurred on the bed in his sleep.”

“So someone must have set this whole thing up.”

“It’s the only logical explanation. Drugged him, I wouldn’t wonder.”

“Why?”

“The first thought that comes to me is that if the US embassy believed their representative had died in extremely embarrassing circumstances they’d want it covered up. The Americans would be on the defensive and our people would be in a very strong negotiating position. If it was straightforward murder, we’d get the blame and the old brown sandal would be on the other foot.”

“Doc? The explosive.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“If he’d been blown up by his own dynamite they’d blame his drinking habit. It wouldn’t be quite as embarrassing as this but bad enough. Drunk in charge of explosives.”

“Someone wanted him dead and embarrassed. The first attempt didn’t work so he or she resorted to this.”

They looked up to see Yamaguchi and Gordon staring at them across the body. Dtui and Siri stared back. There was a long silence.

“What do we do?” Dtui asked.

“We either keep our suspicions to ourselves and mobilize our morgue squad to come up with a concrete plan,” said Siri, “or we share our suspicions now with the Americans.”

“Perhaps they haven’t worked it out.”

“Look at them, Dtui. How many years of education do you suppose they have between them? They’ve got it, all right, and if I was one of them I’d be certain we did it. Holding back makes us look more guilty.”

“It does all point to us,” Dtui agreed.

Ignoring the corpse, Siri, Dtui, Mr. Geung, Auntie Bpoo, Yamaguchi and Gordon sat on fold-up chairs overlooking the plain and went through the case step by step. Of course the Americans had come to the same conclusions. Together, they made two rather quick decisions. Firstly, not to perform a full autopsy on the major. He’d been victimized enough. His name was tainted and somehow they’d have to find a way to clear it. They decided to wrap the body, find a cool spot for it and hope that the smog cleared soon so they could send him home.

Secondly, and this was risky, they agreed not to tell anyone other than Inspector Phosy about their findings. They didn’t want to alert the killer that they’d seen through the deception. Siri would secretly tell Civilai and Daeng but that subclause didn’t need to be included in the oral contract. Someone had gone to a good deal of trouble to kill the major. It was somebody who would not draw attention by being seen around the hotel. As they were surrounded by exploding countryside, the only access was through the front of the Friendship and past the dining room. So the perpetrator was either one of the staff or a member of the teams. They drew up a list of suspects. The hotel had a permanent staff of four, including the manager and his wife, plus three day workers who walked up from the town to prepare the meals for the guests. The two old guards could barely lift their muskets but nobody was being left off the list. Not even the truck porters who were supposed to have gone home before dark. Any one of them could have hidden in the grounds. The major weighed over a hundred kilos and his body was dragged from the bed to the door and lifted off the ground. The murderer was either somebody extremely strong or this had been a team effort. If the latter was true, nobody could be excluded.

Siri drew up a mental list of anyone in the Lao team he couldn’t personally guarantee with total certainty. He came up with four. Reluctantly he had Commander Lit in fourth place. Siri had known him briefly and believed him to be hard working and intelligent. But he was a loyal cadre of the security division and a very serious party member who would not question Politburo orders. Auntie Bpoo would have been delighted to hear that he had her at number three on his list. He knew nothing about her background, especially why it was she spoke fluent English. At number two was Cousin Vinai who had come on the mission under false pretences. And in the top spot was Judge Haeng. Siri knew, of course, that the judge wouldn’t have the spunk to commit the crime himself but he would certainly have been able to recruit a killer. Haeng was a devious character with a number of agendas and he’d been acting suspiciously since they arrived. He’d insisted on searching the major’s room that morning and not told anyone why. There was also the added bonus that Siri just plain didn’t like him.

There was something about the sophistication of the crime that suggested this wasn’t some local killer with a grudge against Americans. Sinister groundwork had been laid and they agreed that motives beyond the political should be investigated. In order to do so, they needed to fill in some of the gaps that existed in their information about the mission. There were still questions as to what possessed the missing pilot to go to pieces on the night he disappeared, and then the matter of Potter’s comment to Civilai that this MIA venture wasn’t as clear-cut as it seemed. Secretary Gordon took one of the ponies back into Phonsavan. He had a close friend at the embassy who could copy the documentation they had concerning the mission. He promised they’d find a way of getting the information up-country if it was humanly possible.

The depleted MIA teams had already left for the crash site. General Suvan slept in his room and was hopefully not dead. Senator Vogal was going through papers on the veranda with Ethel Chin. The hotel staff members were attending to their duties. Dtui decided it would be a useful ploy for her to stroll into the kitchen and engage them in idle girl talk. There was a lot to be learned from gossip. Her departure and the mysterious absence of Auntie Bpoo left Siri and Yamaguchi with no means of communication other than the experience that comes from a joint hundred years of medicine. Bpoo never seemed to be around when there was physical labour to be done. Geung helped them carry the body to the rear of the complex where they laid it in a huge cluster-bomb casing lined with straw and natural tobacco leaves. The other half of the casing completed the sarcophagus. They cleaned up their impromptu morgue and shook hands.