Harry seemed deep in thought for a few miles, now and then shooting me a glance, as if uncertain about something. He took a deep breath, blew it out, sounding like he was changing gears in his head.
“You hear anything from the Dauphin Island cops on their part in the Noelle case?” he said. “Have they gotten anything from Briscoe?”
“I talked to Jimmy Gentry yesterday. He said Briscoe was all promises, but hadn’t really checked on anything like the ownership of the burned-down house.”
“Racist bastard,” Harry muttered. “How about you check, Carson? Briscoe ain’t gonna do squat for me.”
I sighed, picked up the phone, got the deskman, asked for Sheriff Briscoe. A gruff male voice answered like the mouth was at home watching TV and eating pizza and not in a supposedly professional law-enforcement agency.
“Briscoe?”
“Speaking. And it’s Sheriff Briscoe.”
“This is Carson Ryder. And it’s Detective Ryder. I’m calling about –”
“I know what you’re calling about, Deee-tective. We ain’t got nothing on harpoon man.”
“Nothing?”
“Like in zero. You ever have one of those cases has nothing to grab hold of? That’s this one. No one lived close to that place, no one heard anything, no one saw any fire. I’m about to close the books.”
“It’s only been a few days since –”
“The place was probably used as a meth lab. Some meth head got pissed at another, jammed a spear in his belly. Still had enough brains left to burn the place down ’fore he ran off. I gotta go. I got work to do.”
“Let someone else sort the mail, Briscoe. I need ten seconds of your twenty-second attention span.”
“What the hell are you –”
“Two things, Briscoe. One, the forensics lab found no residue of the chemicals used to make methedrine, and two, harpoons aren’t used to make meth either. A man was killed in that shack and, like you said, you’re the sheriff. Maybe you recall from your oath of office that the title comes with some expectations.”
The phone clicked dead. I sighed, dialed the county property evaluator’s office. The owner would be listed in tax records, a no-brainer. The woman who answered was one of those personality-free, efficient types I love, answering my question within thirty seconds.
“The residence was owned for fifteen years by a Lewis Johnson. It sold twelve years back for twenty thousand dollars to a…to a…Oh my, I’d better spell it for you.”
I started to take down the name – and kept taking down the name – hoping the lead in my pencil lasted.
“Chakrabandhu Sintapiratpattanasai?”
Harry attempted to pronounce the name, no way of knowing if he was even close. He’d pulled over and parked, the better to devote his attention to the name.
I shrugged. “For all I know about Thai, it’s pronounced Chuck Smith.”
“Male or female?”
“I’ll assume male. Records show that CS bought the place a dozen years back, which dovetails with the upsurgence in Thai shrimp fishermen moving into the area.”
“Address? Phone?”
“No listed address. Phone disconnected five years back.”
“Probably switched to a cell and stiffed the phone company.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “A name we can’t pronounce, a phone we can’t call, an address that ain’t listed.”
“It’s an immigrant community,” Harry mused. “Extremely close-knit, I expect, the protection of the tribe. We have to assume that somewhere in the area is a Thai who has knowledge of his kinsman’s – CS’s – whereabouts.”
“So where from here, Mr Anthropology?” I asked.
“Let’s go to lunch and see if we can dig up some family Thais.” He grinned at me, the first time in days he’d looked happy about anything but Noelle. “Pun intended.”
We ended up at a tiny Thai restaurant and grocery in Harry’s neighborhood. We’d eaten there a few times, always a delicious experience. We sat in the eight-table dining area, the walls green and embellished with posters of Thai temples. Paper lanterns gave a soft light. The room was fragrant with garlic and ginger and chilis. The owner, a man in his early sixties, came out to meet us. Harry pulled him aside and spoke for a few minutes, and the man gave a half-bow and returned to the kitchen.
“Well?” I asked.
Harry said, “Mr Srisai thinks he speaks English worse than he does. He’s calling someone who might help us. It’ll be a few minutes.”
We ordered pad Thai and pad see yew, trading halfsies. Harry doused his with nam pla, I went heavy on the chili paste. We ate and watched visitors to the adjoining grocery select from a variety of vegetables that were unfamiliar to me, save for ropy knots of ginger and fragrant sprays of cilantro. I saw a blue beamer pull from the street to the rear of the restaurant. I listened for the back door and heard it through the potwash din of the kitchen.
Two minutes later, the kitchen door opened to reveal a short, slender man in his mid twenties. He wore sandals, unpressed khakis and a T-shirt from the University of Alabama. His short black hair was arrayed in abbreviated spikes, like being hip, but having to temper it for the office. The soft angles of his round face were further softened by owlish eyeglasses. We did introductions, shook hands. Kiet Srisai was the owner’s eldest son.
“You a student at the U of A?” I asked, nodding at the shirt.
“A recent graduate. Architectural engineering. I’m working for a firm a couple miles from here. Father tells me you have questions about Thai fishermen down the coast.” His English was excellent and musical.
“The shrimpers near the border. The ones hit by the recent ‘caines.”
He nodded. “I knew the community, small, maybe a dozen families. They came here to the restaurant and grocery when in town. Very close-knit. They were scattered like leaves by the hurricanes. Some blew off to Texas, others to Louisiana. Others as far as California. Most will be near water, that’s all I can say. All they know is fishing.”
I again studied the name on the note page, handed it to Srisai. “Such a long name,” I said. “Is that common?”
“It’s the Chinese influence. Native Thais tend toward simple, short surnames, like Srisai. Immigrants from China had to register a name with the government, a minimum of ten characters. But favored combinations of letters got taken. No duplication is allowed, so the names are increased in length to be unique. Many are over twenty characters long.”
Harry said, “And I’ve been trying for decades to get folks to spell Nautilus right.”
Srisai’s face went from affable to apologetic. “Also, and perhaps this will add to your burden, Thais often change their names. In Thailand, names have mystery and meaning. Thais are very superstitious. If bad luck befalls a person, they might change their name to change their luck.”
Harry frowned. “Getting blown out of job and home by a series of hurricanes might be interpreted as pretty bad luck. So the person we’re looking for under this name…”
Srisai nodded. “Might not be using that name. At least not fully.”
“Can you help at all, Mr Srisai?” I asked.
“The fishing community is very inwardly focused, Detective. They’re also viewed with suspicion by the locals – many look on them as interlopers and stealers of jobs. The fishing people have sometimes been the focus of overzealous law enforcement.”
“The kind that says, ‘We don’t need you here’?” Harry asked.
Srisai nodded, sadness in his eyes. “Yes. Thus your, uh, police ties might be a difficulty in getting people to come forward.”
I looked Srisai in an owlish eye. “Someone killed a man with a shark spear, Mr Srisai. A harpoon straight into the belly. The death was neither immediate nor pretty. A fire was started to hide the body. All we want is information.”
Kiet Srisai studied the name I had handed him. He folded the paper and put it in his wallet.
“I’ll put out the word. Our family is known and respected. People may respond if they know anything.”
I reached to the table and picked up the fortune cookie that had accompanied the meal. “So fortune cookies are in Thailand as well as China?” I asked Srisai.
“The cookie idea actually originated in San Francisco years ago, in Chinatown. It’s not a Thai tradition. But the, uh, natives seem to like the concept, so we…” Srisai smiled sheepishly, spread his hands.
“Give ‘em what they want,” Harry finished. He looked at me. “What’s it say, Carson?”
I slipped the paper strip from the broken cookie. Stared at the tiny writing.
Small steps will eventually take you a great distance.