The Missing Guests of the Magic Grove Hotel

Book 2: Ethical Chiang Mai Detective Agency

by David Casarett

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; International Crime & Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

A fascinating mystery featuring Ladarat Patalung, the first and only nurse detective in Thailand.

As a nurse ethicist, Ladarat Patalung works to save the lives of her patients, and to make sure the ones she can't save have at least the dignity of a "good death."

But when wealthy foreign travelers start to go missing all across Thailand, Detective Wiriya Mookjai fears that a killer is at large, and turns to Ladarat for help.

The travelers have nothing in common, except for brief stays at a mysterious resort, known as the Magic Grove Hotel...

Ethical Chiang Mai Detective Agency
Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness
The Missing Guests of the Magic Grove Hotel

Release date: December 5, 2017

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 384

Sample

The frail woman sitting alone below in the courtyard was sad. That much Ladarat Patalung could see. Ladarat could also see that the woman wasn’t Thai. She seemed to be European, or American, or at least not Asian. She was in her fifties, perhaps. Luminous blond shoulder-length hair and a simple pale-blue cotton dress with oversize buttons down the front paired with a plain gray cardigan made her seem doll-like, especially when viewed from Ladarat’s office window, two stories above. And like a doll, this woman was almost perfectly still. But every once in a while, after a surreptitious glance at the doctors and nurses and families around her, she would raise a fingertip to the corner of her eye—sometimes the right but more often the left—as if she were brushing away a tear as casually as she could.

“Khun Ladarat?” The gruff but amused voice gently interrupted Ladarat’s musings.

“There is something interesting out there in the courtyard? More interesting, perhaps, than the situation we were discussing a moment ago?”

Ladarat shifted slightly in her chair so she would be less tempted to sneak glances at the sad woman. The possibly sad woman.

Her visitor was correct, of course. However important a possibly sad woman might be, she could not be as important as the matter at hand. So Ladarat turned her full attention to the heavyset man who was sitting on the little wooden chair facing her desk.

As the nurse ethicist for Sriphat Hospital, the hospital of Chiang Mai University, Ladarat received many important visitors, on many important errands. Indeed, it had been almost three months ago that this very chair had been occupied by the heavyset man who occupied it now. And just as it had then, once again the little chair meekly protested the bulk that it found itself supporting.

That bulk belonged to Wiriya Mookjai, a forty-two-year-old detective in the Chiang Mai Royal Police. She knew Khun Wiriya’s age to the day because they had very recently celebrated his birthday together with a meal at Paak Dang, perhaps the nicest restaurant in Chiang Mai, perched on the banks of the Ping River. Just as her late husband Somboon used to, Wiriya had an astonishingly expansive appetite. Their ability to consume vast quantities was disconcertingly similar. And at that birthday dinner, Wiriya had sampled a dozen delicacies for which Paak Dang was justifiably famous, including their kao nap het—succulent roast duck over rice, drizzled with intensely flavorful duck broth.

And meals like that had perhaps given him a bit too much bulk. Her little chair was right to protest. It was far more accustomed to the weight of the nurses who more typically sought her counsel. But Wiriya was handsome and … solid. That was the thought Ladarat had whenever she saw him. That he was solid. Solid and dependable.

Ladarat pulled her attention away from the window, and as she did, the old wooden office chair that supported her slight frame made the meekest of protests. Hers was not a figure that would tax even the most tired and worn article of furniture. Short, thin, and bookish, Ladarat Patalung knew she lacked a presence that was either appealing or commanding. But for the work of an ethicist—and, occasionally, as a detective—an unassuming appearance proved to be quite useful.

As it had when, three months ago, her visitor had come to ask her help when he had a suspicion—no more—that a murder might have occurred. And not just any murder, but a series of murders. Something unheard of in this quiet, sleepy city in northern Thailand.

But his suspicions had in fact been correct, which surprised them both. And they had solved the case—together—with Ladarat acting as a detective of sorts. Which surprised them even more. An “ethical detective” was what the Chiang Mai Post had called her.

Then she and Wiriya had become something of a couple. More a couple than not a couple, if that made any sense. And now he often made social visits to her new office, which had been given to her because of her sudden fame and, perhaps, her new unofficial job title as nurse-detective.

But today’s was not a social call. Khun Wiriya was here on business. Possible business.

Ladarat looked down at the pad of yellow lined paper that lay open on the desk in front of her, still blank except for today’s date written in neat script at the top of the page. It was ready to receive whatever thoughts might be worthy of writing down. But as of yet, she had no such thoughts.

It would be a shame to waste a fresh page, so she wrote “Situation?” in small letters in the upper right corner of the page, as a way of making some sort of progress in her note-taking, yet without giving undue weight to that single word. Then she added a second question mark, and then a third.

Indeed, the situation that Wirya had mentioned seemed exceptionally vague and uncertain, even more uncertain than the possibility that the doll-like woman sitting alone on a bench in the courtyard was, in fact, crying. So on the far left side of the page, she wrote “Woman, crying.” Then three question marks, just for the sake of symmetry. So far, the left side of the page seemed to be drawing ahead of the right, as far as plausibility went.

“And this … situation?”

Wiriya shook his head, then shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to think. Murder? Suicide? Kidnapping …? All we know with certainty is that over the past three months there have been at least eight people, all foreigners—farang—who have received entrance visas through Suvarnabhumi Airport, but who haven’t left the Kingdom of Thailand through official entry and exit ports.”

They came, but didn’t leave? It seemed a stretch—a very pessimistic stretch—to think of these people as potential victims of a crime simply because—

Phhtttt.

Ladarat looked around, startled. And even Wiriya—normally unflappable—jumped just a little, causing the little chair underneath him to register yet another futile protest.

She had forgotten that they weren’t alone. A small bundle of wiry white-and-brown fur lay curled at her feet, with the approximate shape of one of those annoying piles of dust that seem to find refuge under sofas and beds and other large, immovable pieces of furniture. On occasion this ball of fur would assume the shape of what could charitably be described as a dog of an indeterminate breed. A little bit of terrier, perhaps. And beagle. And who knew what else.

Every so often, Chi—that was the ball of fur’s name—would emerge from whatever dreams were entertaining him, raise his head, look around, and utter a sound like a wet sneeze. That phhttt seemed to summarize his deep disappointment with his present company, which was clearly inadequate for a dog of his great intellect. Then he would go back to sleep, biding his time until he was blessed with company that was more appreciative of his considerable talents.

Chi was a therapy dog. Not an exceptionally talented therapy dog, truth be told. And he was rather fat, thanks to the doting attention and treats lavished on him by nurses and patients and especially the food stall vendors lining the sidewalk in front of the hospital. He was also quite lazy. So, as therapy dogs go, Chi was not an outstanding specimen. But he was inarguably Sriphat Hospital’s only therapy dog. That was what earned him the dubious right to wear his bright yellow vest, which identified him to any security guard and earned him the unquestionable right of entry. And that uniqueness—compounded by the added status conferred by his bright yellow vest—had perhaps led Chi to overestimate his importance and thus to underestimate the amount of work he needed to do to continue to earn his keep.

Ladarat was caring for him this afternoon, since his owner, Sukanya, a pharmacist, wasn’t allowed to take him to the hospital pharmacy, where she worked. So Chi was shuttled back and forth between them, with other hospital staff stepping in to take him for walks and on rounds to see hospitalized patients whose days might be brightened by his appearance in their doorways, although sometimes it was difficult indeed to imagine why or how he could have that effect on anyone.

Phhtttt.

It was easy for dogs to feel they were special. Being a special dog didn’t necessarily come with special responsibilities. Chi just had to wag his long, fringed tail frequently, looking cute. As position descriptions go, that would be very easy. Easier than being a nurse. Or an ethicist. Or a detective. And certainly much easier than trying to be all three.

Speaking of which, Ladarat was supposed to be at least one of those things right now. She looked down at her notes, such as they were.

“So perhaps they are still here?” she asked. “These tourists?”

It wasn’t unusual, Ladarat knew, for people to fall in love with her country and to stay longer than they had planned. Perhaps that was what had happened to these people. They had just found a quiet bungalow in the mountains of the Golden Triangle, or on a beach on Koh Tao, or any one of a number of small, largely untouched towns and villages. They had found a new home, a new life, and perhaps a Thai spouse, and an embarrassingly cheap standard of living, and they had forgotten to leave.

“Ah, perhaps. But if they have made that decision to stay, they don’t seem to be telling their families of their plans. Indeed, it’s been the families of eight people, or”—he corrected himself—“the families of at least eight people so far, who have called various embassies to inquire about their whereabouts.”

“So you suspect … foul play?”

Wiriya grinned. “A detective is never so lucky as to stumble across two such enormous cases of foul play, as you put it, in one career. That would be unheard of. And greedy. No, I’ve had enough fame for a lifetime.”

And Wiriya was not being modest. If Ladarat had become a minor celebrity, Wiriya had become the toast of the town, as they say. He was given his own investigative division on the police force and a promotion. Now he was Captain Mookjai. And—as he was today—Wiriya often wore suits that were neatly pressed, several steps up from the rumpled trousers and shirts that had been his previous nondescript uniform.

But the best evidence of his fame, and by far the most treasured, was a letter of commendation from King Bhumibol Adulyadej himself. Ladarat knew that Wiriya kept that letter framed in his office for everyone to see. But she also knew that he kept a miniaturized version folded up in his wallet and with him at all times.

“But,” he continued, tapping a pen nervously on his knee, “I’m worried.”

“Worried?”

“Yes, these people are all well-to-do foreigners, not your wandering backpackers. They’re all wealthy, with homes and families and jobs. These are not the sort of people to disappear. At least, not the sort of people to disappear without a trace. And certainly not the sort of people who would disappear without any contact with their families.”

Dutifully, Ladarat wrote “Disappeared. No trace” on the right side of the page. Then she added a single question mark.

“No trace? No trace at all?” She thought for a moment, also tapping her pen. “But surely they stayed … somewhere? Perhaps somewhere in Bangkok?”

“It is difficult to trace the paths of these people,” he admitted, shaking his head head slowly, like a dog worrying a bone in slow motion. “Very difficult. Even finding where they might have stayed in Bangkok … well, it’s a challenge. But we do know that at least three of them—two Americans and one man from Germany—flew directly to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. We were able to get passenger manifests from Thai Airways so far. But for others who flew other airlines, or those who took a train or a bus …”

“Would a farang really take a train or a bus? That is so slow and uncomfortable. Most tourists want to … get where they’re going.” Ladarat herself had thought of taking the bus to the ethics conference in Bangkok she would be attending on Friday, but she had balked at the time required. That was something better left to the young backpackers.

Wiriya smiled. “It’s true, that’s the case for many visitors. Tourists, as you say. But some tourists want to save money, and a bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai costs only two hundred baht. And others consider themselves travelers. They take the most difficult routes, by the most inconvenient modes of transportation.”

“And you know this because …?”

“I know this because they often get lost, or lose their money foolishly, and show up at a police station in Thma Puok or Ang Thong or Kanchanaburi, asking for a ride home to New York City, or wherever they came from.”

Ladarat smiled. Yes, people traveled in Thailand with far more adventurousness than they did in many other countries. There were few dangers, and Thai people were generally very friendly and welcoming. So that led many travelers to take risks they wouldn’t take in, say, India or Cambodia.

“But you don’t think these missing people got lost?”

“No, we would have heard from them. Or their families would have. It’s true, one person just arrived in Thailand last week. She might phone her family any day now, perhaps saying that she was sick with a stomach infection and that she’s been in a hospital somewhere. But the first person on our list, he vanished three months ago. It is unlikely that he will suddenly reappear.”

Ladarat thought about something else. “These are all foreigners? Western foreigners?”

Wiriya nodded.

“Eeeyy. That is bad.”

And it was. Not just bad for tourism, but bad for the image of Thailand as a friendly, welcoming, and above all safe country. And Wiriya admitted as much.

“The director of the Department of Tourism asked me to look into this personally, and to help the families trace these people, if I could.”

The way he said that explained much about Ladarat’s feelings for this kind man. He did not boast, as many people might. He didn’t say: “The director asked me personally, because I am so important.” But rather: “I must do this because I’ve been asked. And I must do it conscientiously.”

Thinking about the implications of the Department of Tourism’s involvement, Ladarat wrote “Very bad for tourism” underneath “Disappeared. No trace.” Unsure of where this was going, she thought perhaps the result might become one of the strangest haikus ever written.

“And,” Wiriya added, “there is one more thing. One more … fact.”

Ladarat waited, her pen poised to record this fact, whatever it might be.

“The most recent disappearance? The one a week ago? It was an American woman. From San Francisco.”

“And?”

“And she was in this very hospital for several days.”

“What was she in the hospital for?”

Wiriya shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t have access to those records.”

“Was she very sick?”

Wiriya shook his head. “I don’t know, but it seems she was only admitted for less than a day. Perhaps …”

“She ate something that disagreed with her farang stomach.” Ladarat nodded. Of course, it happened all the time.

“But you, I suppose,” Wiriya said, “in your position you could—”

“I could do nothing of the sort. Looking up medical records of a patient? What if the hospitalization was not related? That would be a breach of privacy.”

Wiriya looked down, suitably chastened. “Of course, of course. I only asked because … well … I thought it might be a simple matter.”

But really, he asked because her explorations of medical records were what had helped them to catch the last murderer. But not this time. At least, not yet.

“Do you know where she went?”

Wiriya reached into the chest pocket of his suit and removed a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it on the desk and slid it toward her.

On the paper in uneven letters in smudged blue ink was a name: Sharon McPhiller.

And: Nong Chom Village, San Sai District.

Then: The Magic Grove Hotel.

Wiriya had gone, leaving behind a scrap of paper and many questions. Before he left, they’d discussed their plans for the evening. Wiriya would be “working” late, he admitted sheepishly, joining a retirement party for one of his detective colleagues. So he would spend the night, as he often did, at his own small, drab apartment in the Old City. Which was fine, because Ladarat had plans of her own, which she didn’t share. She promised him only that he would find out—perhaps soon—if her plans went well.

Now Ladarat was alone with the sad woman—the possibly sad woman—who was still sitting on her bench. She was still in the same place and in the same odd pose. Her head was tilted up, and every few seconds she would look around attentively, focusing now and again on someone or something that seemed to catch her interest.

Ladarat settled in to observe the woman more carefully. If she truly was crying, then of course Ladarat should comfort her. But was she?

Only a moment’s further observation reinforced Ladarat’s suspicion that this woman was, indeed, very sad. She was brushing away tears. That was certain.

And she had been sitting there for quite a long time. Ladarat glanced at her delicate gold watch—a too-elegant gift from Wiriya on her own thirty-eighth birthday two months ago. It was almost one thirty, which meant that for more than a half hour, as Ladarat had discussed these very theoretical crimes, this woman had been sitting there on a bench. At least while Ladarat had watched her, the woman had spoken to no one. She hadn’t taken out a cell phone, as most people do when they find themselves with a few extra minutes. She just … sat there.

A conjecture: This woman must be proud. She didn’t want anyone to see her crying.

A corollary: She was proud, too, because she was sitting in a public place. She could hide away somewhere, where no one could see her. But instead, here she was in the public courtyard of a busy hospital.

Yet there were aspects of that conjecture that didn’t fit. There was, for instance, the fact that the woman would look around her with what seemed to be a healthy interest. She was gazing now at the giggling cluster of nurses in front of her and next at the young boy feeding a flock of starlings. The woman even looked up occasionally, scanning the hospital windows, as if she was curious to see what they held.

No one else in the busy lunchtime courtyard noticed the woman. Certainly no one noticed these anomalies. But Ladarat Patalung did. Noticing was a talent. A skill. A calling, perhaps?

Indeed, it was her ability to notice anomalies like this probably crying woman that had let her help Wiriya solve the infamous Peaflower mystery, and which gave her this office with its commanding view of the courtyard. This was the office previously occupied by the Sriphat Hospital’s director of excellence, who had been an ever-present thorn in Ladarat’s side. But she’d been sent on a secondment—a sort of long-term loan—to a hospital in Bangkok. Hopefully very, very long-term. And until she returned, assuming she did return, Ladarat had this glorious office.

Until now, Ladarat had been worthy only of a small cubby buried deep in the bowels of the hospital basement. That office, in contrast, was endowed with only a tiny mail slot of a window that revealed nothing more than the passing ankles of nurses hurrying back and forth to the nursing dormitory behind the hospital.

It was thanks to her ability to see what others didn’t that she was now blessed with an office that looked down, not up. She’d enjoyed both local fame and a personal acknowledgment from the hospital’s director—and, of course, a new office with a window.

That fame hadn’t lasted, of course. One couldn’t afford to stay famous for long, when there was so much work to do. With her newfound prestige, there was work. Lots of work. And that work meant that she was not as free as she once had been to follow her heart.

Three months ago, seeing the probably crying woman in the courtyard, Ladarat would have tried to help. She would have taken off her white coat, so as to be less medical in appearance. If she’d had Chi back then, she would have nudged him gently with a toe, urging the lazy dog to his feet, and clipped on his leash. Together they would have walked down the stairs, through the grand lobby of the hospital, and out into the courtyard. They would have sat near the woman. Not next to her—that would be presumptuous—but nearby. Ladarat would have taken out her phone and would have pretended to be checking for messages.

Then Chi would have wandered over to the woman, uttering a pffttt or two to catch her attention. And gradually Ladarat would have let her attention wander with Chi over to the crying woman. Then she would have asked her how she was doing, using the English that she had learned during a yearlong ethics fellowship at the University of Chicago in the United States. They would strike up a conversation, and the woman would tell Ladarat what was troubling her, and …

But that was the past. Now, Ladarat Patalung found that she had no time for the informal sort of ethics work that involved comfort and support. It was of course very important work, and even—often—more important than the medical work of a hospital.

Just as she reached that conclusion, though, a sentence appeared in her mind. Unbidden, it seemed to float somewhere in the front of her brain, in type large enough to be impossible to ignore.

“Providing comfort to a patient is a nurse’s primary responsibility, because we can always comfort, even when we can’t cure.”

That quote—which Ladarat knew by heart—came from a diminutive book that she had carried with her since she found it by chance in a small used bookstore on the north side of Chicago during her ethics fellowship. The book itself was modest in appearance, consisting of no more than a hundred pages tucked into a weathered blue cloth cover. Yet The Fundamentals of Ethics, by Julia Dalrymple, R.N., Ph.D., Professor of Nursing at Yale University, U.S.A., was very, very wise. That little volume had provided a hundred times its weight in wisdom over the years, and it did so again now by prompting her with a question:

Was she really too busy to comfort that woman?

Ladarat pondered that question uneasily as the sad woman brushed a tear away and looked up and to her left, seemingly directly at Ladarat’s window.

Was she really too busy to offer comfort to this crying woman? True, there was a stack of charts on her desk—more than fifty—of patients who had died in the hospital in the past week. Ladarat was looking through them to try to determine if theirs had been good deaths. This was a task she had set for herself, and it was an important one. Yet it was also a very large task and perhaps an impossible one. So many charts, and so much detail. She’d been reading this week’s charts since early this morning and hadn’t struggled through more than eight.

What she’d seen had not been as bad as she’d feared, which was a pleasant surprise. Yet she’d seen very few deaths that could be even charitably called “good deaths.”

There were still more than forty charts she had to review and—more pressing—there was the presentation that she had to give on Friday with her assistant, Sisithorn Wichasak, in Bangkok at the National Thailand Medical Ethics Society. That presentation also began with a case three months ago. On the very same day that Wiriya had stepped into her office, the director of the ICU had knocked on her door, asking for help with the sad case of two Americans who were injured by an elephant on their honeymoon. That case had become famous, so famous that she and her assistant would soon be describing what they learned to an audience of more than two hundred physicians and nurses from throughout Thailand. Such an important presentation, and they had made very little progress in determining what they would say.

But now there was this woman. This probably crying woman.

What would Professor Dalrymple do?

Ladarat didn’t need more than a moment’s reflection to realize that in the time that it had taken her, Ladarat Patalung, to ponder these issues, the good professor would have hurried down the stairs and out into the courtyard. She would be sitting next to that sad woman right now.

Ladarat sighed. No matter how hard she worked, or how carefully she attended to her job, she could never attain the standards that the good professor had created for the profession of nursing. Her example was inspiring, to be sure. Yet sometimes Ladarat found her perfection just a little tedious.

But at least Ladarat’s mind was made up, and she knew what she had to do. Ladarat turned from the window after making sure that the crying woman wasn’t showing any signs of leaving. She nudged Chi with her toe, and he bounced up with much more enthusiasm than she would have believed possible from such an inanimate creature.

When had he last been out? Probably late morning, when another nurse, who had taken him on rounds, brought him in. Chi writhed in a little squirm—a sort of wiggle and hop that was as close as his profound sense of dignity would allow him to come to an expression of base pleasure. He looked up at her with eyes that might charitably be described as soulful.

Ladarat shrugged out of her white coat and hung it on the hook on the back of the office door. She was just reaching for the doorknob when she heard a tremulous knock from the other side.

Chi’s tail began to wag at a furious rate, setting up a whirlwind of tiny dust motes in the air behind him. He caught sight of them, glinting in the sunlight that slanted in through the window, and turned to snap at one. Then another. Then another. Visitor outside the door now wholly forgotten, Chi was obsessed with catching these dust motes. Since it seemed to be his only form of exercise, Ladarat would let him chase those motes as much as he liked. Besides, he usually tired quickly.

Again, a knock. Twice, and a little more insistent this time. And also the murmur of female voices. Ladarat sidestepped the whirling dervish dog and opened the door, gently nudging his spinning form toward the battered file cabinets in the corner.

The door opened to reveal two young nurses, dressed in the hospital’s regulation uniform of starched blue skirt, white blouse, and white, blue-rimmed hat. As a mark of respect for the fact that it was a Monday, the birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, they all wore loosely knotted yellow scarves. Ladarat herself was no longer required to wear the official nursing uniform and could instead wear one of her yellow blouses to honor the king.

Huddled in the doorway, they introduced themselves hesitantly: Sudchada, the taller and older, with severe features, and her hair, very lightly streaked with gray, wrapped in a tight bun; and diminutive Siwinee, soft-spoken, who had to repeat her name three times before Ladarat heard it distinctly.

Chi greeted them both in turn, sniffing at hands and ankles perfunctorily, as if he knew he was duty-bound to be proper. But he discovered a new energy as his keen nose came within range of Siwinee’s left foot. Wagging his fringed tail and snuffling excitedly, Chi scrunched his face with intense interest, extracting and analyzing this strange and fascinating scent.

But Chi was not blessed with an extraordinarily long attention span, and he tired of his investigation after only a moment. When neither visitor offered him more affection than a perfunctory scratch behind the ears, he soon quit his duties as a greeter and assumed his customary position on the frayed blue rug next to Ladarat’s desk.

Both Sudchada and Siwinee offered the same formal greeting, with a respectful wai—hands pressed together and touching their foreheads in a modest bow. As befitted her station, Ladarat returned the greeting with a little less formality. But only a little.

Politeness, Professor Dalrymple pointed out, cost nothing. And one should never be stingy about something that cost nothing.

Actually, Ladarat was certain that the good professor had not written that aphorism and that therefore she, Ladarat Patalung, had made it up. Yet it seemed to her to have more authority if it came from that august personage. What was the weight of the musings of a nurse ethicist in a modest city in northern Thailand? Very little. But the pronouncement of a learned professor … well … that was something that anyone would take seriously.

So whenever she felt strongly about an opinion or an idea, Ladarat would often attribute a saying or bit of wisdom to the professor. Now she smiled a little, thinking about how that professor would have. . .