Last to arrive at the village center was Daeng, holding the hands of the unmatching sisters, all three of them in tears.

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Empirical Evidence

It was late afternoon in Vientiane. One of those fully loaded black clouds from Vietnam had just squatted over the city and dumped a thousand tons of water in five minutes. The dirt roads were mudslides rushing down to the river, diverting through shop fronts, carrying litter and flowerpots and cats too slow to get out of their way. But safe, one story up in the old Lido Hotel building, was Dtui, teaching another of her frustrating nursing classes. She’d had to take a break during the deluge while the rain hammered on the roof. Her class admired a waterfall beyond the open windows. She’d brought along an embryo in formaldehyde from the morgue, mainly to judge the reaction. Half of the country girls laughed with embarrassment. The other half said, “Eeuooh.” Dtui sighed. It was like teaching chickens to fly long distances.

The only enthusiasm she saw all morning was when every girl in the room looked toward the doorway with eyes wide and tongues hanging loose. There, still dirty from the concrete factory, boots muddy from the flood, stood Chief Inspector Phosy. In her mind, Dtui ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed the living daylights out of him. In real time, she smiled and said, “Chief Inspector Phosy, can I help you?”

“Nurse Dtui,” he said. “I was wondering if you could assist me. I appear to have been shot seven times.”

The students gasped. She looked him up and down and saw no sign of blood.

“Only seven times?” she said.

“I was lucky,” he said. “He ran out of bullets. As you are the most competent operating theater nurse in the country, I was hoping you might spare me a few minutes to remove the bullets for me.”

She looked at her indestructible Soviet wristwatch.

“Class,” she said. “Do you mind?”

“Go, go,” they said.

In the stairwell between floors, Dtui kissed the living daylights out of her husband, then she punched him hard in the ribs.

“Where do you think you’ve been?” she asked.

“Vang Vieng. Nice place.”

“Why do you look so messy?”

“I was drugged, kidnapped, dragged through the dust, and chained to a metal girder for thirty-six hours.”

“Oh, right,” said Dtui. “You go off and have a good time and leave me and Malee all alone.”

“Sorry. Next time I’m abused I’ll take you along.”

“Is Sihot okay? And the boy?”

“Fine. I gave them the day off to get clean.”

“And the girl?”

“We found her. She’s willing to back up Siri’s theory about the owl. She was there with the Vietnamese. She saw the whole thing. She’s in the jeep downstairs.”

“Why?”

“I sort of promised her father we’d take care of her.”

“Which means?”