For the Dead (33 page)

“Presumably in revenge,” Rafferty says. “Except that it doesn’t make sense.”

Arthit says, “I’m getting to that. And on Friday morning, Andrew and Miaow buy a used phone, and all hell breaks loose. They get chased, then there’s an attempt on Miaow’s life. And you don’t know this yet, but the Sikh who sold them the phone, plus his whole family, are sitting in custody as illegal immigrants, waiting for deportation and not allowed to talk to anyone.”

He looks over at Thanom, who’s slumped back in his chair, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, staring at the surface of the table. “And as I told the colonel here, I searched the databases today and there are
no murders
linked to Sawat that have the number of female and juvenile victims that Sawat and Thongchai’s killer so carefully mentioned on those surveillance videos.” It takes Rafferty a second or two to make sense out of the sentence, and when he does, the back of his neck begins to prickle. He says, “Really.”

“Nope. There were a few matches, but not linked to Sawat.”

“Miaow was right,” Rafferty says, trying to put things together
in a way that makes sense, or at least isn’t laughable. “The shooter knew he was on video. He said it for the camera.”

Nguyen says, “But what does this tell us? Why wouldn’t they use—how would you say this—a count from two of the real cases? If, as you say, there are really so many killings involving women and children?”

There’s a silence. Arthit breaks it by saying to Nguyen, “This is just one of the things you don’t know about.”

Thanom says, “Before we go past this, let me suggest something. The plan was always to frame me. To stick me for all of it. If they’d used real numbers, maybe those would have pointed at a killing I couldn’t have been involved in.”

“How?” Rafferty says. “You’re being framed as a conspirator, not a killer. I mean, alibis wouldn’t matter, since no one is suggesting you were at the scene.”

“I don’t know, I’m just looking for an explanation, same as you. For this to be closed out as far as we—I mean, the police—are concerned, it has to be resolved with a sacrifice from inside the department. That’s the only thing that will shut up the media and the political opposition. It has to look like someone inside the department, killing Sawat because he’d become a threat. Me.”

He spreads his fingers on the table, hands flat, and looks down at them. “And let me also say that the men who actually killed Sawat and Thongchai are almost certainly dead by now. There’s no way they’ve been allowed to go anywhere.”

“I don’t buy the explanation for why the murders on the surveillance videos don’t fit,” Poke says. “But maybe we can make them fit when we answer the real question, which is, if it’s
not
you, who is it? Obviously, someone with a lot of clout, if the immigration people have been roped into it.”

Thanom says, “I know who’s behind the way the investigation is being run. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s behind the murders of Sawat and Thongchai or the attempt on your daughter’s life. It doesn’t necessarily mean he was the one who was shielding Sawat in the first place.”

“Do you know who it is, Arthit?” Rafferty asks.

“I do,” Arthit says. “And you’ve already had one dance with him, and nothing about him would surprise me.” He turns to Thanom. “Colonel?”

“He’s a princeling,” Thanom says. “Came into the department near the top. His name is Ton.”

“A
FEW YEARS
ago,” Rafferty says as he pours coffee, “I was put in the position of writing a biography of a guy named Pan.”

Thanom’s head comes up, his eyes fixed on Rafferty’s face. “
That’s
when we met,” he says. “I remember your wife.”

“Everyone does. Yeah, at that ridiculous fund-raising dinner he threw for that malaria charity, whatever it was called.”

“Net Profits,” Thanom says.

“It’s interesting, considering why you’re here tonight, that Pan described you back then as the cop who ran the murder-for-hire ring inside the department.”

Thanom rests his chin on his hand and says, “Did he.” He doesn’t make it sound like a question.

“By the time you and I met, I had been threatened by two factions if I didn’t write the biography. Problem was, they wanted diametrically opposite books. The more dangerous faction, one that managed to drive my wife and child into hiding, was headed by Ton.”

“But you survived,” Thanom says. “Here you are.”

Rafferty looks at Arthit and smiles, although it feels more like a baring of the teeth. “That’s right. Here I am, with my wife and child in hiding,
again
. And you know what? Now that I know who it is, it seems impossible to me that he isn’t into it up to his eyebrows.”

“In the investigation, yes,” Thanom says,

Rafferty says, “All of it.”

Thanom holds up both hands, asking for his minute. “You have no evidence that he’s not running the case the way he is to protect—to
whitewash
—the department, avoid further embarrassment.”

Arthit says, “In a way that’s consistent with the plan to frame you. And you say that goes back a long way.”

Thanom is nodding, but he looks like someone who’s just been told he has ten minutes to live. “But—” Thanom swallows. “He’s worth billions and billions of baht. Hundreds of millions of dollars. His family is one of the richest in the kingdom. Why would he be interested in the kind of money Sawat was pulling in?”

Rafferty says, “There are usually three reasons for crime, right, Arthit? Love, money, and power. Love is a non-starter, and maybe, in this case, so is money.”

Nguyen shoots Rafferty a look and gets up, and the movement has so much energy coiled inside it that they all watch him cross the room to refill his mug, looking like someone walking an invisible line. He takes a sip and turns and leans against the counter. “Corruption is the infinite crime,” he says. “It’s the worst of all because there’s literally no limit to how far it can go. Every successful act of corruption brings more power and more money. And it also gives the corrupt official more to defend, and more weight to defend it with. It’s a terrible cycle. It’s the way an obscure country doctor, like Papa Doc or Idi Amin, given ten or twelve years and the right opportunities, turns into the kind of national leader whose policies are implemented with machetes. It’s the way some people pervert whole social and political structures to become rich. Everyone in this room has experience with corruption.” His eyes go to Thanom and slide past. “Some of us from both sides of the line. Me, for example. I’ve put up with, fought against, and taken advantage of corruption all my adult life. And I agree with you, Colonel. The money is nowhere near enough to attract the attention of a man like the one you describe.” He takes another sip. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not at the center of it.”

Rafferty tilts his head back and closes his eyes, and it feels like the room has just stopped spinning. “We’ve been looking at the whole thing upside-down,” he says.

Nguyen nods, but says, “What does that actually mean?”

“He didn’t profit financially from the murders, at least not via Sawat. He didn’t need the money. What he needed were the
murders
.”

Thanom says, “What he needed were—?”

“He put Sawat in
business
,” Rafferty says. He gets up, just needing to move a little. “I know, it sounds ridiculous, but look at it as a hypothesis. It explains everything: how Sawat chose his victims, how he was shielded for so long. Even how he kept living at that level after he was kicked out.”

Arthit says, “And it would explain why he and Thongchai were killed. Look what they might have been threatening.”

“Test it,” Thanom snaps. “You’re saying that a member of one of the richest families in the kingdom set up a police murder unit and chose its victims?”

Rafferty says, “That’s what I’m saying.”

Thanom shakes his head. “
Test it
. If you want to make a case, the first thing you need to do is establish motivation, and it would have to be
massive
motivation for someone like Ton to risk everything. And the phone, why would the phone—”

“Power,” Rafferty interrupts. “Advantage. Money in the
long
run, enormous sums of money. The kind of money that comes with eliminating the competition.” He’s pacing around the table now, Arthit’s head following his movement. “One of the most interesting things about the murders Sawat’s gang committed is that—”

“Is that no one really looked at motive,” Arthit says. “They convicted their murderer, the murderer had a plausible motive, usually robbery or getting even for something that was done to him or his family. And the case against Sawat never went to court. The department denied all of it, so none of the murders was reopened. All those motives are floating around out there.”

“Perfect murders,” Rafferty says, trying it on. “Committed for enormous stakes. Over a period of years. A long-term plan.”

Nguyen says, “We need someone who’s good with databases. We need to identify the possible motive for Ton killing each of these people.”

“I’ve got the person you need,” Arthit says. “I worked with her all day Friday. I’ll bring her in.”

“In here,” Nguyen says. “We’ve got space, machines, and encrypted lines.”

Rafferty says, “A cop?”

“And what a cop,” Arthit says.

“And you trust her.”

Arthit nods.

“Well, when she’s finished juggling all that data, we need to find a way to present it.” Suddenly he sees Andrew’s graphic of the short and tall students, and he almost laughs. “A circle,” he says. “I’d like her to come up with a nice, neat circle, really simple. A wheel with Ton at the center and spokes to each of the victims we know about, with a one- or two-sentence explanation of what he gained from the death.”

“Sounds good to me,” Arthit says.

“I stole it from Andrew,” Rafferty says, glancing at Nguyen.

“We need more than a bunch of hypothetical motives,” Thanom says. “We need a
connection
, something more than the possibility that he’s just doing his job, running the investigation in a way that will protect the department. We need something real, a link, either to the earlier murders or to the killing of Sawat and Thongchai. Something tangible.”

Nguyen looks at Rafferty, eyebrows raised in a question. Rafferty nods assent and says, “Andrew again. The kid’s practically running things.”

Nguyen says, “Please turn off the light nearest to you,” and goes to Andrew’s Mac Air. He brings the screen to life and the picture appears: the electronically enhanced image of a man holding an iPhone, reflected in a store window. “You want a connection,” he says to Thanom. “We might have one.”

I
T
’
S WELL AFTER
three in the morning when Rafferty eases open the door to their room, but Rose says, “Here you are.”

He closes and locks the door, which, since there’s no window, reduces the room to almost total darkness. “What are you doing up?”

“Waiting for you, of course.”

“Keep talking,” he says, “so I can find you.”

“I’m just wasting away all by myself,” Rose says. “Wondering what I did wrong to be all alone in the middle of the night. Are you here yet?”

“The next touch you feel will be mine.” He works his way up the side of the bed and reaches gently toward the space where he thinks the pillow will be.

She nips his finger. “That will be nice,” she says. “But what I really
really
want is a cigarette.”

“Not on the menu.” He sits on the other bed and kicks off his shoes. “You’ve been doing so well.”

“I know,” she says. “Especially considering all that’s going on. A week ago I’d have been smoking with both hands.”

“We’re going to be fine,” he says with more confidence than he feels. “It’s hard to believe, but all this started on Friday, and this is only Monday night. But you know what? We’ve got a big jump on the other side. We’ll be all right.”

“Life with you is too exciting. Working in the bar was more restful.”

“This time, it isn’t my fault.”

“I’m just grumpy because I need nicotine. Aren’t you naked yet?”

“Working on it.” He undoes his belt and unzips his fly.

She says, “Do that again,” and he zips and unzips it once more.

“My favorite song,” Rose says. “I could get used to being here. You can’t turn up the air-con.”

“That’s okay,” Rafferty says, folding back the covers. “I’ve got this big ice cube to cuddle up to.”

He slides in, and she slips an arm under him and tugs lightly on the hair on the back of his head. “You want to know what happened with Miaow tonight? Why all the silence between her and Andrew?”

“Sure.”

“She talked to those kids for about thirty seconds about what it was like on the street, and of course, she was really talking to Andrew. And he walked out. Just turned his back on her and went out the door.”

“You know,” Poke says, “maybe he’s just not the right boy for her. But the kid really did a job with that picture tonight. You can totally see the guy’s face.”

“Your daughter,” Rose says.

“I’m
thinking
about my daughter. I’m thinking about the motherfucker who sent someone after her with a knife.”

“Calm down.” She takes his hand and puts it on her stomach, just below the navel, where his approximate grasp of female anatomy tells him is probably as close to the baby as he can get. At the thought of the baby, at the warmth and smoothness of her belly, the anger inside him melts a little. “This is nice.”

She says, “Rub in small circles and don’t press down too much.”

“Press like this?”

“Just a little harder. It shouldn’t hurt, but it shouldn’t tickle, either.”

“What we all want from life. Not hard enough to hurt, not light enough to tickle.”

“This is going to be a valuable skill,” she says. She puts her hand on his and guides the circles, and he relaxes his arm and wrist and lets her take over. It’s so dark he can’t actually see her face, but he has no difficulty imagining it. “Slower,” she said. “Like that. Do you think he or she can feel that?”