Dead Girl Beach (9 page)

Suma moved over to the edge of the mat, dazed and not believing what she saw or heard. Greta was ordering her to help get rid of the body.

Wow!
Suma thought.
What's happening here? Am I crazy? Am I losing my mind, helping her?

Waves rippled across the water in the lagoon down below. Night waves under a full moon, fresh with the smell of tamarind and palm fronds wafting through the fresh, December air, and the boat…the boat.

When Parry returned, she could see herself…somehow, some way…making a dash for it. It was her only hope of getting out of here alive. Power out beyond the lagoon to the ocean and then cut back sharply along the coast down to Sunrise Beach. Maneuver into position somehow, so she could get to the boat and take off out of here before Greta caught her. If that happened—ah… oh boy, she didn't want to think about that.

A crash. The sound of bats—black bats flying out of bright trees—brought her back. She saw them now, squadrons of bats winging west out across the lagoon, soaring higher, faster into the nighttime sky. She wished she were one of them, flying far away from here. At the sound of Greta's voice, Suma turned back and looked at her.

“Come on. Let's go. I need your help.”

Suma could feel her shoulders droop—a heavy burden of guilt and shame pressed down on her. The gun in Greta's hand. Her finger pulling the trigger in four quick blasts—
blam, blam, blam, blam.
Then, bullets going through the man's chest, his white shirt soaked. She couldn't believe how quickly the gun went off. She was still in shock and disbelief.

 “For God's sake, don't just stand there. Give me a hand!”

Together, they turned the body over. Beckers lay lifeless on his back. A patch of wet sand from Greta's spilled beer stuck to his bald head. Bits of black stubble showed along the sides of his jaw. His eyes were open, and his face was starting to turn blue.

“Let's go,” Greta said to her. “We need to bury this fat ass extortionist.”

Suma could have been stuck inside a horrendous nightmare, except her eyes were wide open, and she was stunned and panic-stricken, going out of her mind in shock and fear. She knew Greta was manipulating her, and she could do nothing but comply.

“Over there.” Greta pointed to the outstretched arm and watched as Suma grabbed onto it.

“Let's go. Heave on three.” Greta bent over the body and counted out the last number.

Suma pulled one arm, Greta pulled the other, and they dragged the lifeless body up a short incline off the beach. They stopped at a spot a few yards beyond the timberline and back inside the jungle forest. Night sounds stirred from the trees. A rustling sound came from a clump of bushes nearby.

Suma reeled back suddenly, startled by the sound. “What was that?” she shrieked.

Greta snickered. “A tiger, looking for his next meal.” Greta tapped the gun in the pocket of her cutoffs.” Remember, though. I'm the one packing heat.”

Then—from somewhere—Greta found an army shovel down the hill near the fire and raced back.

She snapped the head of the shovel straight, twisted the metal disk around the neck, and went to work. She hacked through a nest of tangled roots, dug down to a gritty layer of topsoil and through it to a soft, underbelly of orange dirt. She kept digging with a wild, relentless fury as she shaped and widened the grave. Sweat ran down her face, flushed red with heat. Soaking wet by the time she'd finished, it looked to Suma like Greta had sat fully clothed inside a sauna for hours.

Standing by in the darkness of the clearing and watching her, Suma felt numb, drained, and stunned by the sight of the grisly murder. She realized that she was too weak and powerless to do anything to stop the woman—too small, brittle, and fearful of the outcome if she tried. She was a bar hostess, small, good with numbers, and two years short of a degree in business logistics. She had a temper, yes, but she was no match for Greta Langer.

The ground opened now into a deep, rectangular vault. Greta's flashlight beam passed over the dark ground. The light turned in a wide circle and then flew up into Suma's eyes.

“Don't stand there gawking,” Greta said. “Let's get the job done. Then, we'll go drink beer.”

Suma couldn't believe what she did next. Watching Greta grab a trouser rung and part of a leather belt, Suma looped her arm under Beckers's left shoulder, turned him upright, and started dragging him across the dark ground. She couldn't believe what she was doing—aiding and abetting a criminal to cover up a brutal murder.

They dragged the body to the edge of the grave. A wind howled through the trees. Bright, little eyes poked from the darkness and watched them. Close by, a cluster of thorny bushes shivered in the wind near a wall of high, swaying grass.

On its side now, Becker's dead body was ready to go. One little nudge would send it over. Greta slammed the heel of her hard, rubbery sandal into Beckers's back. High up on the spine, the sound of the spine splitting in two reached Suma's ears, and the body toppled over. It made a loud, sickening thud as it hit bottom.

Shovel after shovel of dirt went flying down into the grave until closed over, patted flat, and covered with twigs, shrubs, and a huge pile of dead leaves. When they finally finished, working in tandem as partners to complete the burial, Greta turned and patted Suma on the back.

“How you feelin'?”

“Okay.”

Greta's eyes swung onto the grave, then back on Suma. “Good,” she said, “because we just sent this asshole straight to hell. Now, I'm ready for a beer.”

“I think it has something to do with that man,” Lawan said to Seabury. In the room, their eyes engaged. Seabury sat focused in the chair, listening. “He came in snooping around the bar…he and that dreadful woman. I hid in the bar. My friends told them I no longer worked there and didn't know where I'd gone, but I'm not sure they believed them. Especially the woman. She was more suspicious and kept looking around in the bar and then downstairs.”

“Do you know them?” asked Seabury.

He glanced across at Montri, who seemed disinterested, and then back at Lawan, who raised a single eyebrow.

“I haven't the slightest idea who they are.”

Her body language indicated to Seabury that she wasn't telling the truth. He looked at Montri again to gauge his reaction, but the cop sat aloof, listening but appearing to want no part in the conversation. Things in Asia are never what they seem, and Seabury began to wonder about the cop and Lawan who sat with the black, glossy hair, the splash of red lipstick, and the worried look on her face.

“Suma said she'd call back.” Lawan abruptly switched topics. “She never called—that's really not like her. She's the late one…always running late for everything, but if she's running late, she'll call. I know her.”

“This couple, do they live around here?” Seabury asked.

“Yes. They live in that big house, with all the windows, facing the sea. The one on Red Parrot Bay. I've checked.”

Seabury wondered why she would check on people she didn't know, unless she knew more about them than she was telling him. Another white lie, Lawan? Hmmm.

“Will you help me, Sam?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“Okay. Okay. Wait a minute, you two.” Montri snapped out of his stupor as if a door slammed behind him. “I don't want you two getting into any trouble.” He looked at Lawan. “Just because the Langers were looking for you doesn't mean they're involved in anything…illegal. They've live here for years. So, I don't want you two poking around their place and starting trouble. Suma will probably show up, anyway. I can't start a search for her for forty-eight hours.”

At the door, Lawan turned back to Montri. She bowed her head respectfully and folded her hands in front of her face. It was the familiar Thai Wei sign—a sign of respect and friendship extended to others; not just to local dignitaries and people in positions of authority like Montri, but to everyone here in the Kingdom.

Montri acknowledged the greeting by bowing his head and straightening. Seabury stood watching them out in the hall.

Montri looked at them. “You might think twice about getting involved with Greta Langer. She's a fiery one,” he said with a raised voice. “In the past, we've had our share of trouble with her. When girls turned up dead inside that lagoon north of Kontee, I brought Greta and her husband in for questioning, but I wasn't figuring on Greta coming into some Texas oil money from a recent inheritance. Now, she's bought her way into the upper echelon of Thai society, and she's well connected politically. When I brought her in for questioning, she cried foul, went to the Chief of Police, and threatened to sue the department—and me personally—if the police ever bothered her, again. I laughed because, being foreigners, she'd never win anything in a Thai court, anyway.” He looked at both of them. “I got called in on the carpet. My boss wasn't pleased with the call he received from Greta. To survive and get promoted, it's best to keep a low profile. As they say in the United Kingdom,
Mum's the word
. So, I try to keep that in mind and avoid having anything to do with the Langers.”

Seabury walked Lawan back outside to her car. He heard the door of the ancient Toyota creak as he got inside and slammed the door shut.

“Let's start with the cabin. Maybe, she's there.” Seabury turned to Lawan, who had the key in the ignition.

The engine whined as it turned over and sprang to life, and Lawan drove out of the parking lot and onto the main road. She headed south for two miles into the foothills that separated Sunrise Beach from Sunset Beach, took a side street in a rundown section of shops and tin shacks beyond the hills, and parked at the curb in front of Suma's cabin.

A stone walk frosted by a gray, murky light led the way inside. The cabin was on the far left, down at the end of a wooden deck facing the street. The silvery rim of a full moon rose above the foothills, far back to the east behind them.

“I have a key.” Lawan shoved a key inside the lock.

A set of rusted hinges squeaked back at them as the door swung open. A horrible smell sprang out at them. It rolled back out of the living room—so foul and putrid that it rocked Lawan and sent Seabury back on his heels. Lawan choked and coughed, turned her back, and coughed some more. Seabury gave her a handkerchief. She rushed it up to her nose as Seabury stepped around her and switched on a light inside the door.

Seabury recoiled by the sight of what he saw inside the room. Blood splattered everywhere—on a plaid sofa pushed up to a curtained window near the door, on the floor, across the room, inside the kitchen, and pools of blood leading to a back bedroom.

“Stay here,” Seabury said to Lawan. She nodded, her eyes snapped open and her body frozen inside the door. Seabury entered a hall that led to the back bedroom.

“Suma,” he called out. “Hello, anyone there?” He checked the bedroom nearest him.

No one. The sticky gel of blood adhered to his soles as he backed out of the room. At the end of the hall, he twisted the doorknob to the other bedroom. He waited a moment—cautious of someone hidden there in the darkness—then cracked the door open and found the wall switch. Light flooded the room beyond him and hung at the edge of the door. The smell here was worse than the smell outside in the living room, and there was more blood. Blood everywhere—splattered across knotty, pine walls and the rosewood floor. On a wooden chair overturned in front of him. Blood on the rumpled, twisted sheets of a queen-sized bed pushed up to a far wall in the middle of the room and below a rainy morning seascape.

Seabury gasped for air and held his breath, nauseated by the stench reeking from the room. He held on, his lungs heaving, aching in pain. He switched on a desk lamp to his left further in and looked around. Across the room, his eyes riveted on a lump of soiled sheet, and further up a rumpled bedspread—half of it on the bed, half on the floor.

In the dim, white light, he saw it—the headless corpse of a dead body spread-eagle on the bed. From the distance came the sound of voices. They were talking in another room beyond the wall. Seabury inched back outside the room and closed the door. He wiped the tail of his shirt across the doorknob and moved back out to the living room, where Lawan waited nervously in the shadows.

“Don't touch anything…have you?”

Lawan shook her head.

“We need to get out of here, now.” He felt his voice start to race, but he quickly calmed it. Twisting the doorknob to the front door with his shirttail, he opened it, and they stepped outside.

“I want to get rid of our shoes.

She cocked her body to the side. One eye squinted up at him.

“What's going on? All that blood…”

“We can't stay here. We need to go.”

 “Is it…Arun?”

He didn't answer. He paused a moment and said, “We need to get rid of our shoes.”

“Our what?” Lawan looked puzzled.

Lights were on in the cabin window next door. A shadow passed over the curtain. He heard the sound of a television going on as loud as Thais often play them.

“We need to buy new ones…down in the market.

He stepped back off the wooden deck in front of the cabin next door, turned back, and they hurried down the stone path out toward the street. At the end of the path, he stopped under a canopy of trees, switching his eyes back and forth up the street, making sure no one saw them.

“I want to go there right away.” He checked his watch. “It's 8:20, now.” He looked at her. “We need to hurry.”