Dead Girl Beach (3 page)

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard.”

“You're in very serious trouble.”

Seabury looked at the cop and shrugged. They were two doors down from the main lobby in a small, cramped interrogation room. There was a GI desk and three wooden chairs inside and two O-rings attached to the floor. Seabury had been pushed in through the front doors of a square, two-story, cinder block building painted a stark white color. It took five cops to get him down the hall and into the room in back.

“You were at Kontee Beach last night?

“No, further up.”

“What do you mean?” The cop looked puzzled.

Seabury leaned back in the chair, and the metal sagged under his big, agile, Herculean body. Arrested before, he knew what to do. He knew to stay composed, not sound aggressive or hostile and anger the cop, but also not to allow the cop to intimidate him.

“I rented an outboard and motored past Kontee Beach last night. I ended up inside that small lagoon just north of there.”

“You know about the signs posted up there?”

“Yes.”

“And why the place got that name?”

“Dead Girl Beach?”

Montri nodded.

“It's not illegal to go there.”

“It should be,” the cop said. “Anyway, why did you go up there?”

“Dao Suttikul. She was my fiancé. Your predecessor showed me pictures of her. The way she died. I went to pieces when I saw them. Later, I decided to build a grave up there, to remind me of her.”

“A grave?”

“I put a little stone marker up there showing where she died.”

“You must have had a lantern with you last night.”

Seabury nodded.

“Aha, then.” The cop flashed a sly little grin. “You know that shining light on the water up there is illegal, don't you?” He let the words hang in the air and looked for a reaction from Seabury.

Seabury kept quiet.

The cop leaned over the desk. Small, flat hands came to rest on top of an ink blotter. There were flowers in a vase nearby and a picture of a young woman holding a child, in a gold picture frame at the side of the desk. Seabury stared at him. He could see a trap coming, and the cop was trying to spring it on him.

Montri looked suspicious. “Then, you must have shone a light out on the water?”

“No. There was a full moon. I didn't need a light. I motored in and out of the lagoon, but I kept the lantern in my rucksack.”

The cop's eyes continued to narrow on Seabury. His name was Aaron Montri. He was a small, trim, Thai police lieutenant with dark, oily hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He kept staring over the top of them at Seabury. His English was flawless. A graduate in Criminology at UCLA, he could have lectured at any university in the Western World. His voice and diction were nearly perfect. Now, a wrinkle of confusion stitched Montri's forehead.

“You had the lantern turned off?”

“Yes.”

Seabury saw Montri scribble something down in his notebook. Although the interview was being tape-recorded, Montri was a copious note taker. Seabury smiled a little just as the door behind him swung open. A woman entered the room and, without anyone offering her a seat, she sat down next to Seabury.

“You're in serious trouble, do you know that?” Montri said.

His voice raised an octave higher as if to dramatize Seabury's situation for the benefit of the woman. Seabury smiled and shook his head. He looked at Montri and then at the blonde woman sitting next to him. She had blue eyes, raw and sun-damaged skin, and was maybe in her late thirties. Raw-boned and muscular, over six feet tall…
a big and strong-looking woman
, Seabury thought.

“This is Greta Langer.” Montri stared over his glasses at Seabury. “Greta, this is Sam Seabury,” he said to her and finished introductions. “She's here to make a—”

“Let me say what I came to say, Lieutenant.” She cut him off, rudely. “This man was out on the lagoon last night with a lantern, shining it on the water, and breaking the law. Signs posted everywhere warned people not to go up there where all those women died. He had someone with him, too,” she added, fidgeting in the chair.

Montri's hand gesture spurred a response from Seabury.

“No offense, ma'am,” he said. “I know how dangerous it is to shine a light on the water where needlefish are feeding. They're like a ticking time bomb. If they see a light, they'll go after it. They tear across the water at high speeds and leap over small boats, not to mention their steel-tipped beaks, which are lethal weapons.” He shook his head. “You must be mistaken. I had a lantern in the boat, but it was turned off.”

“I saw a light,” she argued.

Seabury said nothing and glanced back at Montri.

“Maybe, you better tell Greta why you were up there,” Montri said.

Seabury figured he owed the woman no explanation but instead went along with Montri. He told her what he had told Montri earlier about the gravesite. He finished with, “We put up a stone marker. It's back off the beach up near the timberline. We went there last night to pay our respects to my dead fiancé, Dao Suttikul.”

“Oh…” she said in a cool, expressionless voice, “…the last one killed.”

Seabury noticed her eyebrows arch. A raw edge entered her eyes. Guilt? Suspicion? He made a mental note of her detached, apathetic expression and leaned in close to her.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “Why does any of this concern you?”

For a moment, the woman froze in her chair, jolted by Seabury's sudden abruptness. Her face shriveled in resentment.

“I own land there,” she snapped,” through my company. I don't want people snooping around my property any more than I want a killer on the loose up there. That's why this concerns me,” she said sarcastically, “if you really want to know.”

Seabury said nothing.

Montri cut in.” Okay, enough,” he said to Seabury. “Who were you with last night?”

“Lawan Songsiri. She works at the Riser Room. You know, that bar down on Sunrise Beach.”

Montri's mouth turned up into a dry smile. “Yes, I know the place.” He wrote the name down in his notebook. Then, he flipped his cell phone open, punched in a few numbers, and got the duty sergeant outside in the lobby. “Yes, Sergeant. The Riser Room…Correct…I know…Yes, that's the place.” He chuckled. “Get back to me as soon as you can.”

Seabury sat in silence. The air conditioner was running, and the chill from Greta Langer matched the chill inside the room. He saw her taking side glances at him from inside a grim, tapered face with the worst red-raw skin he'd ever seen.

“If your story checks out, you'll be free to go,” Montri said to Seabury. “Otherwise, I'll charge you with reckless endangerment. You had a woman with you last night and a lantern. You could have caused her considerable harm by shining it on the water.”

“I didn't turn it on,” Seabury said.

Greta frowned. She rolled eyes and looking bored. “I know you did, but it's up to the police to decide.” She shook her head. “Enough of this crap,” she barked and stood up.

Seabury saw her long, gangly body move out of the chair. She wore dark jeans, a blue cotton shirt over a khaki vest, and gray sneakers. Her arms were muscular, and her big hands like those of a construction worker. He thought about the way they'd found Dao—her nose broken, a deep purple bruise above her left eye. He made another mental note and stored the impression in a file box at the back of his mind.

“I have to go,” Greta said to Montri. “Keep me posted, will you?”

Montri nodded and went to get up.

“Don't bother. I know the way out,” she said. As she left the room, she purposely avoided looking at Seabury.

“Wow!” Seabury said after she left. “She's a handful.”

“You don't know the whole story,” Montri said.

While Montri waited for a call from his sergeant, he continued to question Seabury.

“I want to know about the villagers living up near there,” he said. “What exactly are they saying?”

Seabury stirred in his chair and said, “Most of them are old timers. They say it makes no sense to see girls die so young. They wonder why no one has ever been charged with the murders.”

A single eyebrow arched above Montri's left eye. “What are you implying, Mister Seabury?”

Seabury's hand flew up in a gesture of solidarity. “Nothing really,” he said. “Most of the old men I've talked to are afraid the same thing will happen to young girls in their villages. They also can't believe the crime scene. It scares them half to death. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen—the way the killer leaves them with a needlefish's beak stuck through their right eye.”

“A grisly crime signature, I agree,” Montri said and then surprised Seabury even further. “They've sent out a crime profiler. She's here on loan from the police department in Taiwan. Her name's Tara Bennett. Her father is British, and her mother mainland Chinese. She's here now drawing up a profile on the killer, asking questions in the bars up and down Sunrise Beach. She's getting to know some of the bar girls fairly well, like your friend, Lawan Songsiri. She's mentioned her the few times we've talked here at the station. See, I'll take responsibility for being unable to catch the killer.” Montri's voice went low and flat, close to an apology but never quite making one. “The truth is our crime resources are just too limited here on the island. There's no coroner, no crime lab, no DNA testing unless we ship to Bangkok, and it takes forever to get anything back.”

Seabury said nothing. He knew the cop was being truthful, even though he was grossly incompetent for a young police officer trying to look competent in the eyes of his supervisors. The local
Koh Phangan Island Gazette
quoted Seabury as stating how deeply disturbed he was over the freakish deaths of five young women killed near the lagoon during the past two years. After the article came out, Seabury had received death threats over the telephone. Three nights ago, as he lay asleep in his bungalow, shots fired through his bedroom window and missed his head by inches. Now, he had to watch his back wherever he went.

Switching topics, Seabury said, “I got off a cargo freighter a week ago in Bangkok. I own a condo there.” He leaned his big body over in the chair. His elbows pressed against his huge, rugby player thighs. He had a ruggedly handsome face, crowned by short, dark, curly hair and eyes the color of black oak. Montri noticed how unusually calm he was for a man in his predicament.

“Here. Maybe, you want to see these.” Seabury took out his wallet and laid cards out on the desk. “I can give you the number of the shipping office in Bangkok. Better yet, here's the number of the IBU Hiring Hall. We're at 1711 West Nickerson Street, in the Puget Sound Region in Seattle. Ask for Biff Barnes. He sent me on a freighter hauling grain to Port Moresby, then onto Rotterdam. After five months at sea, I figured it was time for some rest and relaxation.”

Montri scribbled in his notebook. He was thirty years old and a politically well-connected but somewhat tattered star, trying to work his way up the ladder of the Royal Thai Police Force.

“I need to know one thing. That's all I'm asking.” Seabury straightened back up. The big fingers of his rough, calloused hands rested on his knees. “How can I be charged with reckless endangerment? I'd never risk a girl's life by being that careless.”

Montri cleared his throat. “If your story checks out, you'll be free to go. Though, let me remind you that a charge of reckless endangerment carries a two-year prison sentence and a 30,000 baht fine.”

Seabury sat back and didn't respond. He watched Montri watch him. “One more thing,” he finally said.

“Enough questions…enough.” The lieutenant turned away just as his cell phone started ringing.

With a serious expression, Montri listened to the caller. He nodded his head a few times, listened, and nodded again. Then, he hung up and clipped his cell phone shut. Two cops banged into the room and stood posted at the door. Turning back, Montri glanced at Seabury, his face dark and solemn. “I'm arresting you on a charge of reckless endangerment.”

“What?” Seabury couldn't believe his ears.

“You endangered a girl's life last night.”

“I took her up there. I didn't shine light on the water.”

Ignoring the response, Montri motioned to the cops posted at the door. They moved across the room toward Seabury. He was glad he was sitting down. If he had been standing up, Seabury would have fallen over on the floor.

They led Seabury down the hall to a holding cell at the back of the police station. They shoved him into a crowded cell with twenty other prisoners. Most were small-time Thai criminals, their jackets thick with data depicting a host of petty crimes—breaking and entering, spousal abuse, and drug possession. Seabury's size—six feet two inches and 210 pounds of corded muscle—kept them at a distance. All except for one man. A loquacious Brit—bald, soft, and doughy—went over the moment the cell door slammed shut.

“Don't get too close.” The guy motioned to one of the inmates. “Thailand's full of tuberculosis. The one over there in the corner, coughing? He probably won't live the year out.”

Seabury said nothing.

“What you in for?”

“Tuberculosis,” Seabury said and watched the Brit's head recoil in surprise.

“That's a bloody good one, Old Man. Now, what's the charge?”

“Reckless endangerment, but it's completely bogus.”

“Well…fancy that,” the Brit said. “Whoa, that's a nasty one. I hadn't figured you for a
Barmy
.”

“Which means you think I'm crazy?”

The guy cracked a smile. “You must have traveled a bit to know the term. Please accept my apology.”

He extended his hand, but Seabury didn't bother to shake it.
Probably a good idea not to
, Seabury thought, considering the crowded conditions in the cell. Seabury saw the guy's face flush, half-embarrassed.

 “Okay, Old Man. Have it your way. I was just trying to make light of a bad situation.”

Seabury kept quiet.

“They got me on a drug violation. Now, I'll be lucky to see the likes of Manchester for another decade.”

“What drug?” Seabury asked.

“Cocaine taped to my body. They caught me at the airport.”

Seabury said nothing.

“I wasn't very bright,” the guy said. “I do a favor for a bloke back home. Now, I'm banged up abroad. Have you seen the series on the telly? It's wildly popular. Now, I'm a common criminal like all the others, locked up here in a foreign land.”

Probably not a good idea to destroy the guy
, Seabury thought, but drug possession in Thailand was serious business. So serious that it carried the death penalty if convicted. The holding cell was hot and humid inside. A noisy babble filled the air. Harsh, strident, unfamiliar sounds boomeranged off the chipped, rust-stained walls. They reached Seabury's inner ear with the thrust of an ice pick. His head throbbed, and his eyes began to sting. The rancid smell of unwashed bodies surrounded him. The Brit named Billy Brooks slumped down in a far corner and left Seabury alone near the cell door.

The slang word
barmy
popped in and out of his mind. Crazy…hmmm? He wondered how long it would take to go crazy if he had to spend two years in a Thai prison. He guessed not long, judging from the looks of his cellmates. Wild, bloodshot eyes and lean, sunken faces—the grim dehydration of bodies withering away from a life of drug abuse surrounded him. Not long.
Not long in a place like this
, he thought.

Guards came up to the cell, opened the door, shoved prisoners out into the hall, shoved new prisoners back inside. In and out, in and out—for the next three hours—and in the midst of his depression, Seabury remembered a name. It broke from the gloom and the darkness like a beacon of bright light. Dao Suttikul.

* * * *

She was young with long, raven hair and a tiny butterfly tattooed above her navel. She was young and alive, with a dazzling smile, just twenty-four. He'd met her at a coffee shop along Sunset Beach two years ago, and they'd fallen in love. He remembered how it happened.

“I'm not a bar girl, Seabury,” she'd told him. “I work in an office. I have a regular job. It's not that I have anything against what they do. Most of the girls come from poor, rural villages. They've had a hard life, made even harder by having to work in those places. My heart goes out to them. I can't imagine what it would be like having to—”

“Hustle drinks and sell their bodies.”

She'd looked away embarrassed and didn't respond.

“They're not all what you think they are,” Seabury had said. “You might be surprised to know that a lot of the girls just sell drinks and don't go to bed with every guy who walks into the place. A lot of them do, you're right about that, but a surprising number of them don't.”

He'd switched the topic quickly, because her interest in him and the tepid cup of coffee that sat in front of her were diminishing. So, he started talking about her. Her job. Her degree from Bangkok University, her family, her company, and during the conversation, he'd found out she also liked outdoorsy things like scuba diving and fishing. The times he returned from the sea, they went scuba diving and fished for squid up on the northern part of the island near Chaloklum.

Gradually, she'd felt herself drawn to him, loving everything about his quiet, gentle nature. The unhurried way he went about doing things appealed to her laid-back, free-spirited nature. Then, one night, she'd surprised him.

“I want to go there. Everyone in my office talks about the place, but no one has the courage to go there, with the signs posted all around.”

“Why would you want to go there? The locals say the place is haunted, and you know the story.”

“About all the dead girls?”

He'd nodded.

“Curious and adventurous, that's me. So, when are you going to take me?”

They went up the next day in a rented outboard, hooked around the cliff at the top of the peninsula, and powered into Kontee Beach. He'd asked her a final time, “You sure you want to do this?”

“Sure, I'm sure,” she'd told him. So, he pointed the rudder of the two-horsepower outboard in the direction of Dead Girl Beach and swung inside the lagoon fifteen minutes later.

Tall, dark trees on each side of the lagoon bowed low, casting dark and ominous shadows over the water. A foreboding mist hung inside the branches. The light from a crescent moon cut through a cloak of darkness, stark and ghostly. The air thickened suddenly and carried the odor of a dying man's breathless whisper.

At the end of the lagoon were signs posted on the beach and warning visitors to keep away. Further inland, black volcanic rocks piled high on the dirty, rock-infested sand. Headstones littered with shoots of withered flowers marked the places where young girls had lost their lives. The lagoon had gone quiet as the wind rose over the water with the spine-chilling sound of a distant roar. Further out, a fierce undertow boiled beneath the surface.

“Okay. I've seen enough,” she told Seabury. “The place gives me the creeps. I'm glad I'm not here alone.” She looked up at him. “You're a big, brawny man. I'm lucky you're here to protect me.”

Seabury powered out of the lagoon as fast as the outboard could carry them and remembered what Dao had said as they left the lagoon.

“Once is enough. I wouldn't be caught dead up here ever again.”

Her words were the last ones Seabury would ever hear her mention about the place.

* * * *

The sharp clang of the cell door opening jarred him back from the past. Someone ushered inside two Thais in saffron prison garb and pulled another man back out into the hall. Then, the cell door clanged shut, and it got as quiet as a cemetery inside.

Seabury sat down near the cell door. With his back resting against the bars, he looked around. Men sat in small, isolated groups on the floor. Some sat up with their backs to the inner wall. Others curled up into cramped spaces in the middle of the floor. After a while, Seabury heard some of them snoring.

He stared straight ahead as the agitation about where he was and how he got there ate at him. There was a killer, out somewhere in the night and roaming free, who had to be found and held accountable for the murders. He knew he couldn't count on Montri to solve the crimes. He was here on a trumped up charge, and his fiancé was murdered. He felt the seeds of anger and resentment growing deep inside him. He had to get out and find the killer, but how was he going to do that with his ass shackled to the floor of a prison cell for two years?

Something about the way Greta Langer had said those words bothered him—“Oh, the last one killed.” Why? He wasn't sure. There was something about her callous indifference, the way she spoke and acted, her tall, muscular body and big hands, and the shots fired at him as he slept the other night. No man would tolerate these things. Also, there was the brusque, accusatory way that she had singled him out. That was no accident.

He was determined to find out how deeply involved she really was. He had no concrete proof that she was guilty of anything other than accusing him of illegally shining a light out on the water while needlefish were feeding, but in his own mind, she was a prime suspect.

Now, Montri—sad, grossly inefficient Aaron Montri—was charging him with reckless endangerment. Just because he'd been out in a rented outboard last night didn't make him a criminal, but in a country where due process of the law was non-existent, he knew he was in trouble. Any charge Montri brought down on him would probably stick.

He stared out grimly through the semi-darkness of the cell and heard the sounds of restless sleep. After a while, he closed his eyes. At 9 p.m., a tall and pretty, female police officer entered the hall. She stood a few feet back from the cell door.

“Sam Seabury,” she shouted into the cell, shaking Seabury out of his slumber.

He got up and moved toward her.

“Is your name Sam Seabury?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

She curled up a finger and wiggled it back and forth. “Out. They want to see you, now.”