The Axe Factor: A Jimm Juree Mystery (Jimm Juree Mysteries) (16 page)

“Uncle Rip,” I said.

Only his eyes and the top of his nose were visible through his ski mask. Locals here dressed for the season rather than the temperature. He was the type of person who jumped with surprise whenever you spoke to him.

“Is that Jimm?” he said.

He wasn’t blind and it wasn’t dark, so I don’t know why he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Have you seen my grandad?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, and tried to walk on. Only the dog barricade forced him to turn back. He was petrified of our dogs and they knew it.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“I’m not sure you’d want to know,” he said.

“Would I have asked if I didn’t?”

“Ah, no tricking me with your clever newspaper-reporter questions.”

“Uncle Rip. Don’t make me set the dogs on you. Where is he?”

The ripple of fear that ran through him caused the dogs to growl.

“All right. All right,” he said. “But you didn’t hear it from me. He’s at the boatyard at Jamook Prong.”

“Really? He wouldn’t have a big chunk of wood there with him, would he?”

“That’s all I’m saying. Now, call them off.”

The dogs were so busy rooting out putrid fish from the garbage that they’d completely forgotten him. He gave chase to a water bottle that was being tumbled along the beach by the wind. I wondered when my grandad had developed an interest in boat building. I picked my way through the bamboo and the broken beer bottles and bloated blowfish and looked out at a surf that, to a city girl, was formidable. I knew even the most incompetent surfer would laugh at the little waves. But Mair was a city girl, too. I took out my phone and called her. Some canary-voiced recorded idiot told me the number wasn’t in service. I called Arny.

“Arny, what are you doing?”

“Watching
Terminator Two
.”

“Can you get out of it?”

“I guess.”

“Right. Arrange a boat. I’m worried about Mair. It’s been three days at sea and it’s rough out there. I’m getting nervous.”

“How will we know where to find her?”

“They’ve been moored at the same spot since she left. I see the light every night. But I keep thinking about that Nicole Kidman movie when she was still earthy and Australian and a maniac got on her boat and ravaged her. What was the name of that…?”

“I don’t think anyone would ravage Mair.”

“You watch your mouth. That’s our mother you’re talking about. There’s a strong movement toward elderly women on Internet porn. She is highly ravageable.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m just saying that Dad will take care of her.”

Arny was the only one calling him “Dad.” I think he’d always been desperate to have a father. It didn’t matter if he turned up thirty-two years late.

“Just organize the boat, Arny.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Look, anything I’m doing has to be more taxing and valuable than watching
Terminator Two
. I happen to be in search of Grandad Jah.”

Arny was silent.

“What?”

“Just, don’t get mad when you find him.”

“Why should…? What do you know?”

“I’ll get a boat,” he said, and hung up.

What a bloody family. I seemed to be the only clueless member.

Jamook Prong was just the fancy name for a tiny jetty where all the local squid boats tied up. In the monsoons, the high tides banked up the sand and they couldn’t get out without a backhoe. So here they rocked idly for weeks at a time. It was ten a.m. and the harbor was deserted. I heard the buzz of an electric sander. They always reminded me of a sadistic dentist’s drill fitted with an outboard motor. The “boatyard” was actually a slight sandy incline, up which the fishermen dragged their vessels to make repairs or chip off barnacles or paint fortuitous but culturally inappropriate names like “Ronaldo.” This was where I found Grandad Jah and his log. He had his shirt off and his back to me. At first, I thought he was an untidy stack of CDs draped in damp tissue paper. Grandad was a man who should have always worn a shirt or a sheet … anything.

The log had been sawn lengthwise into two parts, the smaller of which leaned against a nearby tree. The larger portion had been partly hollowed out and the corners rounded. It looked like an attempt by a crocodile to make a canoe with its teeth. Like plumbing, electronics, building, and child rearing, woodwork was not my grandad’s strong point. I sat and watched until the local power supply, not for the first time, went off. It did so whenever there was a huge storm, a moderate wind, or if somebody sneezed within forty meters of the generator. Grandad Jah uttered a good number of words we would have been severely reprimanded for using as children. The rant ended with “Can’t these hillbillies do anything right?”

“Grandad Jah,” I said.

He turned and saw me, and for some unfathomable reason, he covered his nipples with his index fingers.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped.

“I haven’t seen you at breakfast for two days.”

“Well, perhaps you would have if you hadn’t been out canoodling with the international community, instead of being in the kitchen where you belong.”

See what I mean about word getting around?

“Where have you been eating?” I asked.

“Not that you care.”

“I care because if you’ve found an alternative venue for breakfast, I can stop ordering all that expensive high-fiber stuff that keeps your hemorrhoids in check.”

“Right. Shout it to the world.”

“Grandad, there’s nobody else here. There’s just you and me and your canoe.”

“Canoe? I don’t see a canoe. Are you referring to this? Have you ever seen a canoe that looks like this?”

“I assumed it isn’t finished.”

“Of course it isn’t. But it will be extremely splendid when I’m done with it.”

I walked up to the project and looked at the gnawed-out interior and the unevenly sanded exterior. And I turned to the skinny surfboard of lumber by the tree, and probably much slower than any of you, I got it.

“Grandad, are you making a coffin?”

“As if you need to ask.”

“But for twenty years you’ve been describing how we should carry your body to the local pyre, lay your tired bones on the recently lopped branches of still living trees, and set fire to you—al fresco. That your soul should be able to rise up on the flames without it having to fight its way out of a box.”

“And none of those plans have changed.”

“So why do you need a teak coffin?”

“Because I refuse to spend a fortune on one of those crappy paint and plaster efforts they sell down in Pak Nam.”

“No, I mean, why do you need a coffin at all?”

“As a statement.”

“Of…?”

“That I’ll go when I damned well please.”

I vaguely remembered a Thai movie about a man who spent a night in a coffin, in order to cheat death and put to rest the bad luck he’d experienced in his life. The movie was probably based on some Thai tradition I didn’t know about, and Grandad was more likely to have heard the myth than to have seen the movie because I doubt he ever went to a cinema in his life. But, either way, movie or myth, this was a lot of work to go to for nothing.

“Are you planning to sleep in this?” I asked.

“Just the four nights. That should be enough.”

“You’ll get splinters.”

“It’ll be smooth as a virgin’s thighs when I’ve finished with it.”

The way he was going, I could imagine it chopped smaller and smaller until there was nothing left but a small heap of sawdust and woodchips. But it was a good workout and better than getting into drugs and criminal activities, so I didn’t dissuade him, but I did have a more urgent job for him.

“Grandad,” I said, “do you remember the note that was attached to our kitchen door with a cleaver?”

“It’s hardly something that happens every day.”

“Well, somebody tried to poison the dogs. I think it was the same person.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“Because you were off whittling with no forwarding address.”

“You know who did it?”

“Yes. I mean, I think so.”

He reached for his shirt.

“I’ll get Captain Waew down here.”

“No, don’t. Not yet. You two old cops always resort to violence.”

“That doesn’t make us thugs. We’re avengers. Those that the stupid laws excuse will have to undergo a retrial with the upholders of social justice.”

Yes, he was being serious, and I’d seen the results of his social justice.

“When I get home, I’ll take out Mair’s sewing machine and run you up a couple of suits with capes. But, in the meantime, we aren’t going to beat anyone up because we need evidence. I have a small DNA test on the boil at home. But even if it’s a match, it won’t be admissible in court. We need some old-fashioned policing.”

I knew that would get his attention.

“What do we have to go on?” he asked.

“I’m quite sure it’s a woman, Burmese. Conrad’s maid. Perhaps her husband’s involved somehow. It’s weird. She’s clearly jealous of me and wants me to stay away. Or there may be some other reason they don’t want me hanging around. Last night I saw the husband at two a.m. carrying what might have been a bloody machete and something in an old sack. It’s got me wondering about a lot of things.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

“What you do best. Investigate.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“I am a little busy.”

“Grandad, the coffin can wait. You won’t be dying for at least a month. This woman invaded our home and tried to kill our dogs.”

He thought about it.

“I’m not that fond of dogs.”

“I know. Me neither. But it’s the principle of the thing. A crime has been committed, and social and legal justice needs to be upheld.”

His chin rose.

“I’ll look into it.”

“Can you start now?”

Grandad looked at the lifeless sander at his feet and nodded.

*   *   *

I was on my porch staring at the magic of Japanese DNA testing. There was nothing I could do for twelve hours. But I imagined I could see the little DNA molecules breaking down and swimming around and reassembling to re-create their history. I looked up to see Arny standing there. He’d just appeared like a genie.

“I’ve got a boat,” he said.

“Well done,” I told him. “Whose is it?”

“Ed’s.”

My stomach always rolled over when I heard the name Ed. Ed the grassman, Ed the boat skipper, Ed the bimbo hairdresser fancier. Everything always came back to Ed.

“He doesn’t mind us using his boat?” I asked.

“No.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“Because he’s in it.”

“What?”

“He said he doesn’t trust us to use it on a rough sea, so he’ll take us out.”

“Oh, God. All right.”

I followed Arny to the thin sliver of beach, and there on the garbage was what looked like a plastic bathtub, with a long-tail boat engine strapped on the back. Ed was posing beside it in his standard fisherman gear: shorts and a T-shirt. I hadn’t seen him for a while. He looked great. If I didn’t have a steady boyfriend who happened to be a world-famous writer and rich, I’d have allowed myself a little heart flutter.

“Hello, Ed,” I said.

“Jimm.”

“Haven’t you got anything bigger than this?”

“I’m not taking out the squid boat in this squall. The waves are two meters out there. I don’t know what Kow thinks he’s playing at.”

Two meters? I suddenly remembered a hairdresser’s appointment.

“Here, put this on,” he said, throwing a grubby life jacket at me.

“Haven’t you got one in pink?” I asked. He didn’t laugh. “What about Arny? Doesn’t he get one?”

“He can’t come,” said Ed.

“Why not?” I squealed, thinking what a bad time this was to get me alone in a boat in order to tell me how much he cared for me.

“With Arny’s weight at 105 kilograms plus mine at fifty-seven,” said Ed. “And what are you? Fifty-five?”

“Fifty, thank you,” I replied, although fifty-five was closer.

“That’s 217 kilos,” he said. “Not counting the motor, this boat can take two hundred.”

“Well, that’s just a fraction over,” I argued.

“Right, but if the purpose is to rescue your mother from Captain Kow’s boat and bring her home, one of us would have to stay out there.”

I saw his point, considered staying on the beach and sending Arny in my place, but it might have needed a woman’s voice of reason to wake her from her trance. So Ed and I set out for the deep ocean. Actually, the Gulf was only eighty meters at its deepest. In the calm season you could walk a kilometer out and the water still wouldn’t be over your head. My hair whipped into my eyes. We’d only been out five minutes and I was already feeling nauseated from the roll. Distraction helps in moments of impending seasickness.

“So you’re sleeping with the
farang
,” he said, one hand on his long-tail, the other in the pocket of his shorts.

How the hell did…?

“Oh? What makes you think that?” I said as nonchalantly as I could, while yelling at the top of my voice above the sound of the engine. “And, in fact, what business is it of yours?”

“None.”

“Good. End of discussion.”

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate,” he said. His gaze all this time hadn’t left the horizon.

“Appropriate for who?”

“You.”

“I’m perfectly able to decide what’s appropriate for me, thank you, Ed. And, at this time in my life, having a nice, honest, faithful boyfriend seems most appropriate.”

I believe he aimed deliberately at a big wave and bounced me on the plastic seat.

“He’s married,” said Ed.

“She left him.”

“There’d be a reason.”

I smiled at him.

“It’s very sweet of you to be jealous, Ed. Thank you. Oh, and how’s the hairdresser? I heard she’s a good stylist, but she won’t get her license until she turns fifteen.”

“She’s twenty-two.”

“Really? So that’s as developed as her body’s going to get?”

That put an end to the none-of-your-business stuff. In fact, we didn’t speak again for ten minutes. Finally, I asked, “How do you know where you’re going?”

“When Kow dropped anchor two days ago, he radioed in his position,” said Ed. “It’s tradition. We have customs down here we adhere to. We look out for each other. Kow’s one of us.”