Read Online Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness by David Casarett - Free Book Online

bend the truth if that’s what was required. And in this case, it most certainly was.
    “We have received word that the inspectors are very interested in the care of patients who have died,” she announced, with what she hoped was a perfectly neutral face.
    “Ahhh. This is from… an inside source?”
    “It is.”
    “Indeed?”
    “Indeed. That is, they are interested in the care of patients who have died suddenly. They will want to see records of patients in particular like this man, Zhang Wei, who died suddenly two nights ago.”
    “But why?” Khun Panit could not hide his confusion. “Why would they be so interested in such a patient, when there are hundreds of other patients in this hospital right now?”
    Why indeed? That was an excellent question.
    “Besides, which,” he added, “from what you’ve told me, it seems that this man died outside our hospital. What could we have done that was good or bad?”
    “Ah, but you see, that is perhaps the most important part of the practice of medicine.”
    “It is?”
    Ladarat was as surprised as Khun Panit had been to hear this. But she needed to invent an explanation. Quickly.
    “Yes, indeed. When a patient dies, our responsibilities don’t end.”
    “They don’t?”
    “No, of course not.” Ladarat shook her head, warming to her topic. And wondering what words were going to come out of her mouth next.
    Words were like that, she thought. Sometimes they surprised you by appearing. Or by failing to appear. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen in this case.
    And indeed it did not.
    “No,” she heard herself saying. “We still have an obligation—a duty—to help support the family. That means offering emotional support, for instance, and the chance to pray with one of our monks. It also means making sure the family has enough information about the cause of the patient’s death.”
    The medical records clerk was nodding now, listening attentively.
    “Because if families leave with unanswered questions, and if they are worried that perhaps not everything was done that could have been done…”
    “Then there are ghosts. Phi tai hong. ” He shuddered.
    Ghosts? Ah, indeed. Ghosts ( phi ) were commonplace in Thai culture, and phi tai hong were particularly feared. They were vengeful ghosts of people who died suddenly, without the necessary preparation or Buddhist rituals.
    Were such ghosts real? That was not a question that Ladarat had ever felt comfortable with. It was a wrong question. Unanswerable and unproductive.
    A better question, perhaps, was what these ghosts meant to Thai people. That meaning was certainly real. And Ladarat had always thought that these beliefs—and beliefs about tai hong ghosts in particular—were a way of putting a face to guilty feelings. Guilty feelings for the bad things you may have said or done to a person during life. Or things you should have said but did not. A ghost was a way of doing penance for those things—expunging them through the fear that one felt.
    Ah, but she was not a psychologist. Already a nurse, and an ethicist. And now perhaps a detective. That was enough professions for one diminutive Thai woman to take on in her lifetime. She would leave those sorts of theories to those who were better prepared.
    The medical records clerk was watching her expectantly, as if waiting for her to confirm or deny the existence of phi tai hong . Instead, she simply nodded. “That is one concern, to be sure,” she said.
    “Then they bring a lawsuit.”
    “Well, yes, that is another concern,” Ladarat admitted. And one that, presumably, Khun Panit knew more about than ghosts, because whenever there was a lawsuit, it was he who was responsible for gathering all of a patient’s records. “But there is also the distress and anger and guilt that the family may feel. This is also our responsibility, is it not?”
    Faced with such unassailable logic, Panit Booniliang had to agree that this was, in fact, their