Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge

by Ovidia Yu

  Aunty Lee chatted triumphantly as Nina made sure her boss was safely settled with her stick by her feet and her seat belt locked in.

  “I could see what Raja was thinking, but I know Cherril would never go after somebody else’s boyfriend.”

  “Madame, I thought you said Madame Cherril didn’t know that man is Miss Josephine’s boyfriend?” Nina started the engine and looked over her shoulder, preparatory to reversing. It would not do to run over someone in the basement of the police headquarters.

  “Anyway, Cherril is happily married, so that’s not an issue.”

  “It’s hard enough to be happily married when you come from the same background. But when your backgrounds are so different, there will be so many more problems.”

  Aunty Lee’s happy flow of murderous thoughts ran into a sudden stop. Was she imagining things? Nina’s voice did not sound any different, but it was unlike Nina to express such decided opinions. Aunty Lee stole a look at Nina, but her helper’s eyes were fixed on the electronic payment reader, as though daring it to overcharge their car. Josephine was not the only woman involved with a man from a very different background, Aunty Lee remembered. There was also Cherril, whose upbringing had been so different from Mycroft’s though in the same country, and Nina herself, come from a country and culture completely alien to the young police officer who . . .

  “It can be good that two people are from different backgrounds.” Aunty Lee put on her sunglasses as the car emerged from the dim car park into the brilliant Singapore sun. “Because then you know you must make adjustments. You remember that you are two different people. Otherwise you assume the other person is exactly like you, the smallest difference also very easy to get angry.”

  Nina shrugged and signaled a lane change. “Too different is not good. Different religion, different food, different families, different countries—all not good.”

  “All people are different, Nina. It’s just that most people don’t realize it. As long as they agree on the important things you can work out everything else.”

  It seemed Aunty Lee had been successfully distracted from her fall-induced listlessness. Unfortunately Nina liked this new direction even less.

  “Madame, I must concentrate on driving. Cannot talk.” Domestic helpers were not supposed to drive in Singapore, and it was only Aunty Lee’s pleas of helplessness and the late ML’s influence that had gotten permission for Nina’s special license. Aunty Lee ought to understand she could not afford to jeopardize it.

  Later, with Nina safely in the kitchen tending to the fresh chicken meat, Aunty Lee put in a quick call to Constance DelaVega, Josephine’s mother. Aunty Lee was old-fashioned enough to prefer talking to people face-to-face, especially friends whom she had not seen for some time and about subjects as potentially sensitive as their daughters being involved with potential murderers. But fortunately Connie had heard about Aunty Lee’s fall and was understanding. Even more fortunately, she was not offended when Aunty Lee brought up the subject, saying that she was only calling because Josephine had just spoken to her about Mike and she wanted to know how her friend Connie was taking it.

  “Then she’s said more to you than to me,” Connie said. But at least she sounded resigned and hurt rather than angry and raging, Aunty Lee thought. And at least she had not put down the phone immediately. If anything, Connie sounded eager to talk. Aunty Lee suspected the family had been avoiding the subject of Josephine’s ang moh boyfriend and she was longing to discuss it. Plus the relative anonymity of a telephone call might have made it easier—almost like the anonymity of Catholic confession boxes, where you trusted the unseen person but where you could discuss things you might prefer to avoid face-to-face. Aunty Lee told herself to remember some people were less rather than more comfortable face-to-face, whatever she herself might prefer.

  “Josie’s young,” Aunty Lee said vaguely. “She’s in love and she thinks you don’t approve of the man she’s in love with—how can she talk to you?”

  “Of course I don’t approve of that man. I don’t even know him, how to approve or disapprove of him?”

  “She thinks you won’t approve of him.”

  “Maybe that is her own guilty conscience speaking, then!” Connie’s voice rose slightly.

  “Because he is a white foreigner?”

  “No. Not really.”

  “Because he’s divorced? Because he’s much older than Josie? That is not necessarily a bad thing, you know. ML was much older than me. He said it gave him patience and I think that was a good thing for me!”

  Although Aunty Lee did not mention it, she knew Joseph “Jojo” DelaVega was her friend’s second husband. Connie had married at eighteen, to a handsome boy her own age. They had separated after less than two years and somehow their families had managed to get an annulment, back in the days when divorce was seldom spoken of in Singapore.

  “I’m not against this Mike Fitzgerald being white, divorced, or much older than Josie.” Constance DelaVega’s voice came quietly over the line. “I am concerned about my daughter marrying a man who may have treated his first wife badly. The newspapers quoted the sister—Vallerie Love, right?—saying how badly Mike always treated Allison, his first wife. Men like that get into a habit. They don’t even consider it wrong. To them it is just the normal way men behave.”

  “Vallerie may have a habit of exaggerating,” Aunty Lee pointed out. “Vallerie has also been saying their parents—her and Allison’s parents—treated Allison so badly while they were growing up, but she was talking about things like not giving her opportunities and not encouraging her, so it’s possible that after Allison’s death, Vallerie feels so bad for her that she thinks everyone, including the husband, mistreated her sister.”

  “So you think that Mike’s bad behavior may have been exaggerated?” There was wry doubt in her voice.

  “Josephine is bringing Mike here to talk to me. Would you like to come and meet him at the same time?”

  “They didn’t arrest him? I thought they did. Where is he now?” Aunty Lee heard real fear in Connie’s voice. “Is he staying with Josie? Do you know if that’s where he is?”

  “No, he’s not,” Aunty Lee said, having asked the same question herself. “He’s got a room at the Grand Hyatt.” The Grand Hyatt on Scotts Road was part of the Orchard Road prime district and in a far higher and far more expensive class than the Victoria Crest Hotel.

  There was a silence over the line. Then, “Can you meet him and tell us what you think of him?”

  Aunty Lee considered telling Connie she ought to see for herself—bringing Aunty Lee with her to keep the peace, of course—but just then Nina interrupted.

  “Madame! Did you order a lot of mangoes online?”

  “Mangoes? Oh, Nina, you won’t believe the price they were going at. And they had Thai and Indian mangoes as well as Malaysian mangoes—”

  “Madame, there is over twenty boxes—”

  “Connie, I have to go. Do you like mangoes?”

  15

  Mike Fitzgerald

  To Aunty Lee’s surprise, she liked Mike Fitzgerald.

  After all she had heard, Aunty Lee had expected to meet a dangerously seductive killer. But Mike Fitzgerald turned out to be more like a middle-aged lawyer or businessman. He had the look of a successful man gone paunchy, the posture of a tired one, and he was not what Aunty Lee considered “handsome,” with a bald head that made her think of a healthy brown egg.

  “So you are the husband of the dead woman,” Aunty Lee said when Josephine introduced them. She had called Aunty Lee about bringing Mike over before Aunty Lee had had a chance to think about her mother’s request. “Do you like mangoes?”

  “Of course! And I like you, the wonder woman who got the police to let me out.” Mike Fitzgerald brushed over the question. There was definitely some charm there, she thought.

  “You have been in Singapore for some time.”

  “He got in last week to meet with Cherril. We told you that,
” Josephine said with some impatience.

  “Not last week. At least two weeks, maybe more. Look at the color of his skin on the top of his head. He has been eating local food and going out in the sun.” The signs were obvious to Aunty Lee.

  “That’s crazy. He’s been traveling for work in—” Josephine automatically started to defend her lover. Then she stopped.

  Mike ran a hand over his head, sweeping hair over the emerging egg of his thinning crown. Aunty Lee estimated he was coming to the end of his forties. Quite a bit older than Josephine. But then who was she to talk? ML had been quite half a generation older than she when they married. And his friends—including Raja Kumar, Aunty Lee remembered with a smile—had been concerned about the age difference though they had all been too well bred to say anything openly. The young Mrs. Rosie Lee had been aware of how her husband’s fuddy-duddy old friends felt about her. And she had thought them all old and stuck in their ways.

  Aunty Lee was older now than they had been then. And yes, she was doing to Josephine what she had resented them doing to her. And more. Unlike her late husband’s friends who had been always punctiliously polite and merely radiated disapproval through their eyes and body language, Aunty Lee meant to ask questions and probe into the man’s motives and any murderous intent. That was the real reason she had asked Josephine to bring Mike round to Aunty Lee’s Delights. “You are a bit older than Josephine, aren’t you?”

  “Oh yes. Fortunately she’s quite a bit older than my two kids, so that’s one minefield avoided,” Mike said languidly.

  An old egg that wouldn’t crack as easily as a fresh one, Aunty Lee thought. And hard-boiled old eggs were always difficult to get out of their shells. Aunty Lee was momentarily distracted by how much she missed having her own chickens. Perhaps she would speak to Nina about that. It would be nice having chickens in the back garden again even if they didn’t produce many eggs and what eggs did come out of them couldn’t be officially certified “free range” or even “organic” though they would be. Chickens would be one more diversion in her old age, which suddenly seemed round the corner.

  “That’s why you wouldn’t let me phone you,” Josephine said to Mike. “That’s why you always had to be the one that contacted me on Skype. Did everybody know you were in Singapore except me?”

  “You believe some old woman who looks at my skin and tells you where I’ve been?” Mike asked genially. Clearly Josephine did. “Josie, I told you it’s complicated.”

  Mike threw Aunty Lee a half-humorous, half-pleading look. The message was clear: Go away and give us some privacy—time for a heavy couple conversation. But Aunty Lee chose to ignore this. There was no telling what nonsense the man would feed Josephine if Aunty Lee and her lie detector weren’t there to keep an eye on things.

  Aunty Lee wondered whether Josephine had told Mike about the baby yet. Somehow she didn’t think so. The girl was still young enough to think that she could handle everything herself if only she made more of an effort. It was the result of the competitiveness in schools that told children it was more important to “try harder to come out on top!” than work together and help each other. But that was not relevant right then. It was also not really relevant that Aunty Lee did not believe in couples telling each other everything. You could end up doing nothing but talking and analyzing each other. And anyway, being told things was never as interesting as finding them out for yourself. Much as Aunty Lee loved reading recipes, she did not enjoy being regaled with recipe details every time she sat down to a meal.

  However, some things like “I killed my ex-wife” and “I am having your baby” definitely needed to be said if you wanted a marriage to work.

  “Why did you come to Singapore earlier than you told Josephine you would? She is supposed to be the woman you say you are in love with and want to marry,” Aunty Lee asked.

  “Because I wasn’t sure the job with your company—the franchising and everything—would work out. Since I was going to be in the region, I thought, Why not get in early and talk to some other people? I met with someone from an Indonesian company and another guy from Thailand. I didn’t want Cherril to know in case it put her off me for this business. I knew if I said anything to Josephine she would have told her. That’s what women do, isn’t it? They talk about things. They just can’t stop talking.”

  It took a great effort, but Aunty Lee said nothing in response to that. She would not validate his absurd statement by opening her mouth to reject it. But Mike’s opinion of women did not bother Aunty Lee as much as his assumption that Josephine would go along with any plans he made for them without consulting her.

  “Did you know about your ex-wife’s lawsuit? Why didn’t you warn Josephine and the others?”

  “Allison had trouble letting things go sometimes.”

  Aunty Lee found Mike’s choice of words curious. Someone else had used that phrase recently—it had been Brian, speaking of Josephine. When the Animal ReHomers merged with the local SPCA after the puppy killer incident, most of the volunteers had been glad to move on, but Josephine had not wanted to.

  “I thought it was just one of her threats. She throws them out and makes a huge fuss, but then if you don’t react she doesn’t usually follow through. Even the children knew what she was like. If they give me any trouble I tell them I’m shoving them off to live with their mother, is that what they want? And that’s usually enough to shut them up. With Gemma, anyway.” He paused. “Nick missed her more. Anyway, I never believed she would come back to Singapore. When we left she said she wished the whole island would disappear under a nuclear bomb. No offense.”

  “Her sister said you took out a restraining order against your wife—why?” Aunty Lee saw Josephine start to interrupt her, then turn to watch Mike, waiting for his answer.

  “I was worried for their safety. When she first moved out she used to come over to spend time with them while I was at work. One day I got a call from a neighbor saying that Allison had been shouting and the children crying for almost an hour. It wasn’t a complaint. Mrs. Ameeta may be a nosy old fart, but she’s a good-hearted old bag. When I’m not around she calls the kids over and gives them their tea. Anyway, when I got home Allison had wrecked the whole place: windows, TV, right down to carving up the backs of the cabinets with a kitchen knife. She was looking for bugging devices, she said. I wanted to call the mental health people but Nick begged me not to put his mum in the madhouse.

  “Anyway, she’s dead now. I want the children to remember her good side. She tried to be a good mother. I’m sorry you don’t like me, but I really don’t—”

  “Stop.” Aunty Lee said quickly. “I didn’t say I don’t like you. All right, when I heard about you I didn’t like you, that’s true. But that’s past tense. Meeting you is like eating tangerines. You know what tangerines are, right?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “If you eat tangerines after you eat ice cream, then you will say they are so sour, they make your teeth sensitive, all kinds of bad things. But if you eat the tangerine first, then you will think, Oh, quite sweet, quite fresh, and quite delicious. After meeting your wife’s sister, who had all kinds of good things to say about your late wife, even if you turned up here as Saint Francis we would have looked at you and said, ‘What a terrible man, so bad to his wife and to animals.’ But after a while the ice cream wears off. You know what I mean?”

  “I think I do.”

  Strangely enough she thought he really did.

  “We should all brush our teeth more often. Before we eat, in fact. Like you wash hands before eating, should wash mouths also, right? I don’t know why people only brush their teeth after they eat. Like they cannot wait to get the taste of food out of their mouths. But anyway, I don’t think you are so bad. Josephine is a nice girl. She has a good heart but she is not stupid. If she likes you that means you are not all bad. Anyway, you are her risk to take.”

  “Thank you. I think.”

  Mike Fitzgerald knew he ha
d been left with some kind of compliment. Or it might have been a threat. He was not sure. But at least he was part of the discussion now and that was a definite step forward.

  “Inspector Salim will be joining us for dinner.”

  “Oh Christ, more questions?”

  “Last time he had to ask you questions as a suspect. Now you will both be my guests. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m always hungry.” Mike took Aunty Lee’s hand in his. “I know you are keeping an eye on Josephine and keeping her safe and I must thank you.” He raised her hand and touched it to his lips. “I owe you.”

  She smiled and he knew he had given the right answer.

  “Dinner won’t be until seven thirty. Some other people who met you before will be joining us.”

  “Brian? I remember him. We’ve been in touch, actually. Will be good to see him again.”

  Aunty Lee caught the surprise on Josephine’s face and the embarrassment on his after she nudged him hard on the ribs. If those two ended up together, it would be a good thing if they learned to talk to each other. She changed the subject: “Did Josephine tell you that Allison’s sister is staying at my house?”

  “Yes, she did. Actually I don’t know Vallerie very well. I just know she’s fat and moved to the U.S. before Allie and I got married. She didn’t even come back for our wedding. Said she was down with food poisoning or something. I remember Allie said it was just like her to get sick at the worst time. I met her when she visited Allie here in Singapore, before all hell broke loose. I should thank you for taking her on too.

  “I was hoping to meet her here today, actually. I guess she doesn’t want to see me?”

  “If she thinks you killed her sister, that’s not surprising,” Josephine said.

  “I didn’t. I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to go on saying this, but I didn’t kill my ex-wife.”

  “Vallerie must have been close to her sister,” Aunty Lee said. “She seems very upset. I think she’s having some kind of breakdown.”