A HIGHLY INEFFICIENT WAY TO CATCH A CRIMINAL

But things did not work out in the way that Ladarat had planned. Not quite. She had tried to call Khun Wiriya, but he hadn’t been in his office. His secretary gave Ladarat the detective’s mobile phone, but he didn’t answer that either. She left a message, and then—what else?—went back to work.

There were seventy-three policies left to review, and not nearly enough time. She couldn’t afford to spend precious hours on a murder investigation for which she was so poorly equipped. As she worked her way through policy after policy, checking expiration dates, she moved them from the left side of her desk to the right. Each wave of migration from west to east across her desk gave her a tiny but noticeable breath of satisfaction. And then she’d turn to the next one in line.

Yet she found that she could not keep herself from thinking about this Peaflower murderer. Indeed, in the gap of concentration that opened as each policy passed from one pile to the other, she thought for just a second about her investigation.

During each momentary respite between policies, her thoughts circled around one very simple question. What would make a person kill again and again and again like that? But no answer came to her. So she would move on to the next one.

Eventually, though, her thoughts began to follow one another down a common path, and that path led her back to the question of Peaflower’s motives. At some point after the twenty-ninth policy but before the thirty-fifth, she began to wonder if her focus on life insurance was incorrect. Sometimes, she knew, when you see a problem initially in a particular way, it is hard to set that initial impression aside. It becomes part of the way that you see the world.

Is that what she was doing? Had she become nearsighted, looking only for Peaflower’s financial gain? Was it a vendetta after all, as Siriwan had suggested? Her cousin was a woman of the world and surely would know about such things.

Or perhaps—just perhaps—this wasn’t murder at all. Could there be another explanation? Could there be a simple explanation that didn’t involve murder?

As Professor Dalrymple warned her readers, a nurse must always take a step back and look at ethical problems—and patients—with fresh eyes.

That was what she must do now. Reevaluate.

And that was precisely what she was trying to do when the phone on her desk rang, startling her out of her reverie. The official Sriphat Hospital Policy on the Appropriate Care of the Elderly Patient slid out of her right hand and fluttered under her desk. Reaching one hand for the phone and extending the other under the desk, she answered as she scrabbled blindly for Policy No. 04-5829.

But she stopped scrabbling and straightened up as she heard the voice of Khun Wiriya. He sounded tired. Tired and… beaten down.

He must have a very hard life. Always chasing bad people. That must be debilitating. Always thinking about the worst in everyone. That must be even worse.

And in that moment, she realized that she was being selfish. How could she think of abandoning the job that she had begun? This was something she had committed to do. So it was her responsibility. She had to finish.

And that is why, as she told Khun Wiriya what she had found, she found herself falling into the role of a detective.

“So what does this mean?” she asked when she’d finished.

“It means we have a problem.”

“But… you don’t sound very worried.”

“Oh, I am worried. Very worried indeed. I think we have a woman who has killed many men and is likely trying to murder another one soon. So I’m very worried. But worrying won’t help protect the next man she has set her sights on.”

“Then what will?”

“Finding him before she does.”

“So you have a plan?”

“For a start, I’ll look for men with the same name in Chiang Mai.”

“And warn them?”

“No, I’ll investigate them. I’ll find out who they know and who they’ve been in contact with.”

“That is your plan?”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan.”

Indeed, that seemed like a highly inefficient way to catch a criminal. A little like posting policemen outside every bank in case someone tried to rob it. But he was the detective, not her.

After they’d said their good-byes, though, as she was finishing the pile of policies on her desk, his answer continued to nag at her. There were many men out there with this unfortunate name who were at risk. It was, after all, one of the most common of Chinese names. Less common in Chiang Mai, of course, than in mainland China. But still.

As she finished gathering her policies into a neat pile, she squared them just as Khun Panit liked to. Then she remembered the policy that had slid under her desk. She retrieved it, putting it in order. She was glad that she’d insisted that each of their policies have a unique number that denoted the year in which it was created. She’d invented that system herself several years ago to try to keep track of a growing stack of policies. Now each policy had a unique number that could be tracked. One number per policy. It was the sort of order that Mr. Booniliang would appreciate.

She was gathering up her handbag and turning off the light when those numbers gave her an idea. She stopped in the doorway, the office dark behind her except for a streak of light sneaking through the narrow basement window. It was a long shot certainly. And probably not worth exploring. And yet… she was increasingly certain that Khun Wiriya’s strategy would not help him find the murderer.

This idea Ladarat was thinking about might not find her either. But at least it was something. And besides, if they both looked in different ways, perhaps they might compare results?

And in the back of her mind, she admitted, there was the tiny hope that perhaps she would succeed where the detective had failed. Not a realistic hope, she knew, since he was a detective and she was only a nurse. Nevertheless…

But she was too tired to think about this right now. She would go home, and she would get something satisfying. Perhaps gai pad pongali—yellow curry rice with an egg whipped in. Like a savory curry pudding. Usually more of a winter dish, but perhaps Khun Duanphen would make an exception. And maybe—if she was very lucky—there would be glooai tawt. She would sit on her patio and share her dinner with Maewfawbaahn. And she would read the biography of Aung San Suun Kyi, with the compelling cover, because it was important to learn about inspiring people whenever one could.