A Head in Cambodia. Nancy Tingley
A Head in Cambodia
JENNA MURPHY MYSTERIES
A Head in Cambodia
A Death in Bali (forthcoming)
A HEAD in CAMBODIA
A JENNA MURPHY MYSTERY
Nancy Tingley
Swallow Press
Athens, Ohio
Swallow Press
An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© 2017 by Nancy Tingley
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.
Hardcover ISBN 978-0-8040-1185-3
eISBN 978-0-8040-4080-8
To the best kids ever
Sloan and Jessie
Thanks
Elizabeth Fuller Collins
Nina Schuyler
Eliza Harding Turner
Elizabeth Rieke
Amy Torgeson
Sheila Levine
John Morris
and the staff of Ohio University Press/Swallow Press
Content
A Head in Cambodia
1
The head lay on the table before me, partially covered by a cloth that did nothing to disguise the fact that it had been severed from its body. The eye like a lotus petal torn from the seedpod. The curve of the earlobe like a whorl of sand in the midst of a tornado. A hole where an earring had fitted snugly in place. Hair pulled back in a chignon, each strand clearly articulated. So thick and lush that you knew the hair would spill to her waist if loosened.
I leaned forward, better to see the lips, full and puckered, slightly extended as if reaching, arching, longing for a kiss. Longing, yet partially opened as if taking in breath.
That was what I was missing, that taking in of breath. That link to the living and all that living entails. Breath, consciousness, attachment—not just of head to body, but of the ephemeral to the concrete, soul to body, mind to body. That connection