MANNER OF DEATH 5

 

Chapter 5

I wasn’t an expert on stalking. Even though I was working in the field relating to the legal profession, I was just a regular doctor. I simply didn't know how to follow his car without alerting him to my pursuit--- especially on an empty road such as this one. There weren’t many vehicles in this small province, especially when the night had fallen. People in this small town were now returning to their homes. The road that once filled with motions of vehicles during the day began to ease back to calmness. At this time, there was only one pickup truck and a motorcycle that were driving behind me, giving me some sense of calm.

I had been following behind Tann, keeping a distance of approximately 50-100 meters, for quite sometimes now. The black car in front of me didn't move very fast. I channeled all my concentration towards the target.

And then, the black car flashed a left turn signal.

I swiftly looked up where Tann was about to make a turn. He turned off the main road, heading into a small alley, an old wooden house located in front of the alley. I slow down the car, pulling it to the left side of the road and quickly putting out the headlights. I looked inside the alley that Tann had just entered. It was a small and dark alley, with only a few fluorescent lights. Tann's car came to a slop, its headlights off, in front of the fence of the wooden house. Inside, the house was completely dark, the shadow of longan trees obscured some parts of the house.

Does he live here? It's unlikely that the owner of the largest cram school in the province should be able to live in this type of house.

I made a decision to turn off the engine, stepping down from the car and shutting the door loosely to prevent any sounds. I marched slowly and warily into the alley. I knew that doing this was dangerous. However, under a situation that forced me to unmask the identity of the killer, I had no other choice but to find evidence to support my surmise. I stood and looked into the wooden house that was completely dark. I didn't see any signs of other people living in it. I tried to locate a way to get inside. The gate was rusty and decayed, a concrete fence built in an awfully low fashion, void of any protective equipment. I thought it shouldn't be hard to get into the house, but I had no intention of breaking into Tann's house at this time. I would come back again while Tann was teaching at the cram school.

Once I had gathered the satisfactory information of the vicinity. I quickly turned back to my car. I took merely two steps towards my destination when, suddenly, someone's voice echoed through the dark into my ears.

"Why are you following me?"

I turned my head back to the direction of the voice. A man came out of the shadow where he had been hiding. I didn't waste time finding any middle ground as I sprint towards the car blocking the entrance of the alley, I heard the footsteps of the man behind chasing after me. My heart almost jumped out of my chest, I would reach my car just a few meters away.

The long and strong arms wrapped around my torso, the enormous momentum of the speed of the man behind me tossed both of us to the ground, sending us rolling. Tann was the one who ended up on top of me, I tried to push him away. Instead, Tann grabbed both of my wrists, preventing me from pushing him away

"Let go of me!" I cried, trying to escape from this confinement. I saw a look of shock after he saw my face.

"Officer!?" He quickly released his hold from my wrist and stood up on his feet. "Sorry, I didn't see it was you! Are you okay?"

I rolled onto my stomach and picked myself up off of the ground. The fall had sent the throbbing pain throughout my body, and my arms must have been covered with abrasions. Tann darted forward to grab my upper arm, trying to get me on my feet, but I jerked my arm away, refusing his help.

"I'm sorry. I saw someone had been following me in a car. I was scared, so I sneaked in this alley and see if someone had actually been following me. Didn't think it was you." Tann raised his hands to express his sincerity, still breathing hard.

I took a stepback, my heart was still pounding. I gazed at the tall man warily. Can I believe what he said?

"So the police are still suspecting that I killed Jane, right? That's why they put an officer on my tail, is it that? I already told you I didn't do it. I was somewhere else that night. And I've already given you guys the contact number of the witness who could confirm on the matter, I have friends who…"

"You are the murderer." I countered before he could finish. Tann trailed off, dumbfounded.

"I am not, you are misunderstood."

"Where is the Prosecutor?" I'd started to regain my senses. I attempted to say many things to see the man's reaction. I could still make out his demeanor despite the dim light.

"What are you talking about?" Tann knitted his eye brows, "What exactly is going on here, officer?"

"And I'm not a policeman, I'm a doctor."

Tann's eyes grew big, "What…"

"I am a forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy on Ms. Janejira. I was the first to know that she was murdered." The reaction of the man in front of me was not in the least as I had expected. Tann seemed shocked at what he'd heard from me. "You already know about this. You asked your police fellow about the autopsy report, and once you learned that I have analyzed the manner of death as a murder, you threatened me so that I would forget a false report as a suicide. With that, you'll be off the hook." As I spoke, I kept stepping away from him.

Tann stood there silently. I was confident that what I said had triggered something inside him. I thought that soon I might have a chance to see action from this man that would verify my belief.

"Is there any proof to support that it was me?" Tann knitted his eyebrows.

Frankly, I had none. I had no evidence to claim that Tann was the murderer, I had only my instinctual speculation along with statistics of female homicide cases around the world. About half of female homicide victims were killed by their lovers. There were a number of homicide cases I had performed an autopsy on suggested as much.

I decided not to say anything, quickly turned around and ran back to my car. I heard Tann's objection, but I didn't care what he said. With the door left slightly ajar, I slid into the driver's seat, locking the door, and pressing a button to start the engine. I saw Tann ran forward, blocking the path in front of my car. Seeing this, I put the car in reverse and turned right, back onto the road in my haste. I might not gain any evidence with me this time. But I was certain that if Tann was the real murderer, my presence before his eyes was to make known that I was not a fool. If he could find me, I could find him as well.

This was the first time I wanted the assailant to return, for I was sure that if Tann really was that guy, I would be able to recognize him right away. However, if Tann was smart enough, he wouldn't dare threaten or hurt me anymore, because I would be able to recognize who he was, and thus expose him.

Cover your face and come back to me again. I dare you, Tann.

---

"Dr. Bunn!" Tik, the ER nurse, ran after me as I moved into the Emergency Room and went straight to the Forensic Examination Room, a place preserved for my forensic investigation. This small examination room occupied merely a few square meters of the ER. Despite its small size, it's better than nothing at all since this kind of examination required a relatively secluded location, as garment may be removed from the bodies. Performing an autopsy in the middle of the ER wouldn't be quite appropriate, given the location. "Dr. Bunn!"

"How many cases do I have today?" I inquired without turning to the nurse who had a panicked expression on her face.

"Will you be okay, Doctor? Didn't you take a break?" Tik sped up and blocked my path before I could dart into the examination room. "You can have the Interns do the examination for you, Doctor."

"No need to bother them, I'll do it myself." I looked down at the middle-aged nurse who was standing in front of the door of the examination room with her arms akimbo, blocking the entrance.

"But you were just discharged from the hospital yesterday."

I sighed softly before giving her a false smile. "I'm completely fine, Beautiful.”

Last night, after I had returned to the hotel, I couldn't sleep at all. Eventually, I ended up staying in the lobby till 1 a.m. Therefore, I made a decision to come to work today as fear had gotten the better of me. It would be better if I was in a place surrounded by people, it felt safer that way. As coward as it may sound, in this situation, I didn't want to be alone. It was so unfortunate that I was living by myself, in a remote place, far away from my family and relatives. No one could keep me company the entire time. Today was probably the first time that I wish didn't have to get out of work. I wanted to continue staying at the hospital.

At last, I got to do my job as I wished. My current duty was issuing legal documents, most of which were medical certificates for health insurance claims or Accident Laws. I rarely come across patients who had been physically attacked or sexually assaulted. I would examine the patients from head to toe to look for signs of injury, assess the severity of it, determine the length of time the wound existed, and determine the time it would take to treat that certain injury.

The first patient was a boy with a tall, willowy figure in a T-shirt and shorts. His limbs covered in abrasions, and with one look at him- I could tell as much that this boy must have been injured in the road accident. The nurse guided him to sit on a round chair arranged in the middle of the room. I accepted the patient chart from the nurse and put on the gloves as she uncovered the wound for me.

"Mr. Sorrawit Kamma, am I right?" I asked the boy, "How old are you?"

"Eighteen, sir."

"What happened? On what day. What time. Tell me about it."

"Well, I was drivin' ma' motorbike, 'Bout 8-9 pm. There was a hole on the road but I ain't see it. I hit the hole and rolling down to the side of the road. Didn't drive fast tho."

I took me a while to try to interpret the dialect. Two years in the North granted me the ability to pick up a few phrases of the Northern dialect, albeit my inability to speak one. All I could make out from his story was that, around 9 p.m. of last night, this boy had driven on a motorcycle before he hit a pothole and fell down the side of the road. "Did you put on a helmet?" I inquired in Khammeuang, the Northern dialect, in my Bangkok accent.

"Didn't wear it, sir."

I jotted the details down in the chart before peeling the boy's clothes up to check for injuries on his entire body. There were abrasions scattered on his forehead, cheeks, right arm, and ankle. I found no unusual wounds. I drew pictures and wrote down a description of the wound inside a blank human diagram designing for the convenience of injury recordation.

"What's your name, Doc?" The boy sent me a pair of gleaming eyes. "You’re cute, Doc, did you know that?"

The nurse guffawed while I pretended to ignore the statement. In normal circumstances, I would have returned the of my own joke with this boy. But at the moment, I wasn't in the mood to do that. "Raise your arms like this," I demonstrated, lifting my arms so that my elbows would point forward and rest my hands behind my head. The patient emulated my posture meekly. I didn't expect any other wounds except scrapes.

Eh…?

On the boy's forearms, there were two bruises paralleled to each other, with normal skin color in between. These bruises were likely caused by a long blunt object, like a bar. The bruises were located on the area where a person would use in self-defense. Imagine if someone hit you with a club, you would automatically raise your arms to block the blow. As a result, you would get a defensive trace of wounds on your inner forearms.

This boy's problem wasn't just a motorcycle crash, he had also been assaulted.

"Did someone hit you?" I asked the boy. He jumped slightly, a look of panic on his face.

"N… no, sir. Only motorbike crashed," The boy quickly lowered his arms and crossed his arms over his chest.

"If you tell me, I will tell you my name." I used this trick to beguile him.

Sorrawit stuttered a little before he finally admitted it. "I'd been hit by gangsters before I crashed,"

"Okay." I took my gloves off, writing more details down on the chart. "You didn't report this to the police, right?"

“No, sir. I haven't. I ain't wanna mess with them. I just want a medical certificate for my sick leave." The boy turned to look at me. "You're incredible, Doc.”

"Alright, I'll issue a medical certificate for you. Please wait outside." I turned to the young lad who was looking at me in anticipation. "Oh… my name is Dr. Bunnakit, by the way. If you need anything else, you can come back to me."

---

It took me two hours to finish the examination of all the patients. When my job's done, I walked out of the small examination room. A nurse walked right up to me and told me there was a body of a person who had died in the hospital waiting for my post-mortem examination at the Forensic Department. I planned to eat somewhere in front of the hospital before heading back to work. I pulled out Pert's phone and looked at it. No one had been calling me via this phone. Not that I was surprise, given the fact that the cell phone I had been using at the moment wasn't mine.

"Doctor!" A familiar voice called out to me as I strode out of the emergency room. In alarm, I swiftly whipped my head to look at the person who had been calling me. A tall man approached me in a long stride, his face wearing an apprehensive look.

Tann! I stepped back automatically, eyeing the man who had materialized out of nowhere. My heart was racing from the fear. He was the murderer. Of course, he must have known where I had been working. However, I didn't think that he would come to me in person like this - under his true identity, no less.

"I'm here to show my sincerity that I am not the one who did it. If you're available, can we have a talk, Doctor?"

"I'm busy." I quickly walked away. Tann followed my retreating back, unrelenting.

"After what happened last night, don't you really have anything to tell me?" Tann raised his voice, eyes of everyone--nurses and patients-- in front of the ER suddenly were on us. "What exactly is going on here?! What happened to Jane?! I tried to ask the police, but they didn't give me any answers."

I didn’t answer him. I was about to ran to get out of that area.

I wasn't falling for your trick.

I took advantage of my familiarity with the path in the hospital, weaving through the throng of people and covers until had successfully shaken off Tann. I went straight to the Forensic Department, thinking about taking sanctuary in the autopsy room for a while.

I saw a man waiting in the chair in front of the Forensic Department. He rose to his feet as soon as he saw me, and I almost shouted when I saw him-- Captain Aem. The Captain was in casual attire, his large figure approaching me. "Why can't reach you at all, Dr Bunn? I asked your colleagues, and they kept giving me your old number."

"Aem!" I’m about ran to him, "I lost my phone."

Captain Aem let out a sigh, glancing at the wound on my forehead. "What's up with that?"

“…" This may be a great opportunity to tell Captain Aem. Should I tell him everything? If I do, would the killer know about this? What will happen if he knows? Can I trust this police officer? Is he on the murderer's side? Everything was unpredictable.

"Aem, what brings you here?" I quickly changed the subject.

"Two reasons: the first one is the fact that I can't contact you. The second one is about the Prosecutor…" My heart was in my throat upon hearing this, "I am working on this case, I presume you've already heard the news?"

I nodded. Captain Aem went on, "Doc, have you got any clues? I know two of you are friends. Do you know if he has conflicts with anyone?"

I went silent for a few seconds before shaking my head slowly. "I don't really know either,"

"When you're available, Doctor, please meet me at the police station to discuss this further. And I would like to have your new number too.”

Me myself didn't know the number of this device, so I asked for Captain's number and dialed his number once. After we had exchanged our numbers, the Captain bid me goodbye and walked away from that area. I sank wearily into the chair in front of the Forensic Department. Every single thing seemed too heavy to carry the burden all by myself.

Even though I felt like I couldn't trust anyone, I wanted somebody to know what happened to me. I wanted someone to help me figure this out more than anything. That person should be Pert, but he was gone. I didn't even know if he was dead or alive. I lifted my eyes to the ceiling aimlessly. Up until now, haven't the police found further evidence? No CCTV footage or anything that could tell someone had killed Janejira? I really wanted to ask Captain Aem about this, but if I do that would there be further consequences? Would someone close to me disappear again?

I lifted my hands to rub at my temple, squeezing my eyes shut, letting out a sigh to ease my melancholy.

In that instant, I heard the sound of footsteps walking towards me.

"Doctor…" And then, Tann found me.