Ty Callison for Kennebec7 (#6)
Ty Callison back at you, courtesy of Kennebec7. I’m honored that they’ve made me one of the big seven, along with Shirley Francona who was living a quiet, peaceful, successful life with her art business in Santa Fe before she went to Thailand, and got hooked up with her own elephant.
Shirley must think I’m following her around, because for many years we’ve been living next door, so to say, with me in Phoenix and Shirley in Santa Fe, but today I’m here in Thailand, too, believe it or not.
Not only that, but I’ve left the Phoenix police department after some twenty-five eventful years. It was, more or less, a parting by mutual agreement. Chief Mark Gaudio wasn’t all that thrilled with this comic book and movie (White Darkness) they’re working on about my Carmen DaSilva/Billy McCrae case. The department was having a little problem explaining who I was. I don’t have trouble with that. Sometimes I don’t know who I am either.
In fact, when this young lady we knew, name of Heidi Koenig, niece of the owner of Evenside, that big Internet company that does stuff that sounds like a foreign language, came to me to investigate the death of Miranda, I was ready to make a clean break.
It happens that Heidi is a friend of Jill Evans, my colleague from the forensic science division of the Phoenix Police. They went to college together at the U of Arizona. Everybody was shattered when the news came out that Miranda Weiss, the owner of Evenside, had fallen off a cliff in Krabi, a resort area in southern Thailand.
Then the Thai police started an investigation, and said that maybe Miranda had committed suicide because apparently she had cancer.
Heidi said Bullshit! and set a meeting with me and Heidi. I was retiring from the department anyway and Jill was pissed off when she was bypassed for a promotion. Jill wanted to help Heidi who works high level for Evenside.
Miranda wouldn’t ever commit suicide, Heidi said. The Thai police don’t know anything about the problems uncle Phil’s having with his bank. (Philip Weiss is Miranda’s husband.) He inherits Miranda’s fortune, Heidi went on. Pretty timely when he’s being investigated for some of that stuff banks have been going down over. He’s got a securities outfit in Bangkok called BLESSCO that’s up to its eyeballs in forensic accounting folks pouring through its books.
So Jill took herself a leave of absence and she and Heidi and I flew over to Thailand where we are right now.
Pretty hot here in Krabi, but the heat doesn’t bother us much after Arizona. Jill thinks it’s hotter here, but that’s because they got humidity, whereas Arizona’s got its notorious dry heat. Of course, you know I was in the war in Vietnam. For me it’s never been hotter than that place. Wearing the uniform and lugging all that gear and weaponry. Hotter than Hell, that’s the truth.
Heidi fixed us up in a suite at this Ayodhaya Resort. White sand beaches all over the place. Got ourselves bedrooms as big as a Wal-Mart. Authentic Italian pizza at a place called Lo Spuntino. Wouldn’t want to get too used to this. I might start thinking I deserved this lifestyle.
*
Jill was out today looking around the cliffs where Miranda allegedly fell. She also met the local medical examiner who showed her the autopsy results. No body for us to look at. You see, Miranda was buried in a Christian cemetery here before Jill and I got to Thailand.
Meanwhile I was discussing things with Philip Weiss, Miranda’s husband, along with Heidi and another uncle named Arthur, and his son, Sandy, a young fella in his early twenties.
Back at the hotel I was having myself some Thai beer name of Singha that packs a pretty good wallop when Jill came back. I poured her a can and asked, How’d your day go?
I saw some interesting X-rays, she told me.
Tell me.
The lower left of Miranda’s skull received a massive blow.
Well, I’d imagine a fall from that height might do that. I assume there were other broken bones.
Oh sure. But this blow on the skull was a tight spider web fracture with no bridging, no consolidation. Not particularly the kind you get by bouncing around on sharp rocks.
This occurred at the time of death, Jill?
Uh huh. The tightness of the fracture indicates a blow with great force from a very hard object. Maybe a round surface. A baseball bat, for instance.
I thought about that. I told her, I don’t think they play baseball in Thailand.
Jill gave me a look. Philip Weiss keeps a batting cage on the estate. He’s an Arizona Diamondbacks fan. They let him hit one time in pre-game practice.
Whoa. No shit?
No shit. You met the family, Ty?
I did.
What’d you think?
Phil doesn’t play the bereaved husband with much passion. But that may be his normal banker’s personality.
What’d you think of Sandy?
Well, Jill, he’s got a look I’ve seen before.
What look is that?
I hesitated a second, but then I said it. I think it’s a look of – ahh – perversion.
Sandy Barrett - a pervert? Is this information coming from ‘beyond?’ Jill asked me.
Sometimes there’s no telling what thoughts are my own, and what comes in from somewhere else.
Doesn’t that get confusing?
Not really, honey. Conclusions seem to more or less reach themselves.
I opened another beer. And that’s the way the evening went as we started finding our way into my first case as a private eye.
Ty Callison
Krabi, Thailand
05/06/2010