Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge

by Ovidia Yu

  “Is there any other family?” Mr. Ping Chan interposed smoothly. “Even if they cannot be present in Singapore, we might mention them in the service and make sure to send them a copy of the service program as a memento.” He brandished a bright green folder displaying samples.

  “Perhaps there’s somewhere we can talk it over,” Aunty Lee suggested.

  “Of course—please take your time and discuss it. I’ll be outside if you have any questions.”

  Josephine took the folder and pointed out one, then another to Mike, who said, “Nice, very nice,” with unseeing eyes.

  “Her parents are both dead, I understand,” Aunty Lee prompted.

  “Yes. About ten—no, twelve years ago. Very tragic or very romantic, depending how you look at it. Mrs. Love had some kind of cancer. In her throat and spreading everywhere by the time they found it. Mr. Love just quit his job and they lived on his savings while he nursed her. Then the day after she died he went home and killed himself. OD’d on his wife’s painkillers and sleeping pills. I heard he just swallowed everything that was left. It was a huge mess of course with the bills and everything, but my parents and the other neighbors all chipped in and helped sort it all out. We had been married just over a year at the time, and we were living in London, but Allie went back to help see to things. She was so mad at her old dad for taking the coward’s way out, but I remember my own dad saying the old man had been on duty nonstop around the clock twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and he was probably just tired. And my mum saying he loved her so much, he didn’t want to live without her. Romantic in a way. But anyway, the entire old neighborhood and the council chipped in to help. It was still that sort of place where they remembered growing up during the war and didn’t trust Germans and Communists, let alone Chinese dollars and Indian satellites. You can imagine what a shock it was for Allie, growing up there and then ending up in Singapore!

  “Allie was also upset because she always thought she would get her parents’ old house, but it had to be sold to pay off the mortgage and medical bills. She’d always said she hated it, called it slummy, but when she left me she had nowhere to go. She tried to sue the council and bailiffs for selling it without her permission and cheating her, but it didn’t come to anything.”

  “Poor woman,” Aunty Lee said. “Losing your childhood home can be terrible. Especially so soon after losing your parents.”

  Mike laughed wryly. “Allie once said she was glad her mum was dead because she couldn’t stand being around her, her mum had criticized her too much. And our Gemma said—she was about ten years old—that Allie criticized people too much too. And Allie got so furious, she was shouting and crying about how Gemma twisted her words and attacked her . . .” His words trailed away. “It was crazy. That’s when I first realized something was wrong. Allie was screaming at Gemma that no one would ever want to marry a stupid fat bitch like her. Gemma, our beautiful baby girl . . .” His face twisted in pain. Josephine rolled her eyes, but discreetly.

  The Love sisters used the same insults, Aunty Lee thought.

  “The children.” Mike ran a hand through his hair. “I’m thinking of flying them over for the funeral, but I don’t know. It’s a long way for them to come alone. I’ll talk to my sister.”

  “They are staying with your sister?”

  “Yes. With my sister Rosalie’s family. She has two of her own so it’s easier for them to fit in. And my other sister, Jeanette, doesn’t have kids, but she and her partner take all four of them out on weekends.”

  Aunty Lee thought she saw why Allison had been cross with Vallerie for not having anything to do with her children. She would have been calculating how much more time Mike’s sisters (one married, one not) spent with her children than her own sister did.

  “I gave Allison everything she asked for in the divorce settlement. But I had it put into a trust for her. So she would always have enough to live on but she couldn’t do anything stupid with the capital. I even set up a board of trustees that I wasn’t part of. It was all to protect her—and to protect my children from having to support her. Because she couldn’t be trusted.

  “I tried to stand by her, of course I did. The big mess in Singapore, I honestly didn’t see what all the fuss was about. If it were up to me I would have kept Lola. But Allie had the dog humanely put down. If that was against the law in Singapore, well, then the vet should have explained it to her. I was getting flak from my boss, from the department head, saying clients were not happy to have me handling their cases . . . they told me, ‘You don’t just barge into other countries and tell them they aren’t running things the right way.’ Allie always tried to help people do better. That’s all she wanted to do, you know. But frankly I was glad to leave. But it didn’t stop there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tell Aunty Lee about the other animals,” Josephine prompted. “After you got back to England.”

  “There’s no proof Allie had anything to do with any of them.”

  “Just tell her. So she knows what you were putting up with. Vallerie’s been telling her horrible stories about you—hasn’t she?”

  Aunty Lee waited expectantly.

  Apparently other animals had died inexplicably after the Fitzgeralds returned to England: A neighbor’s dog that barked in the night was found dead. So was the cat Gemma brought home. And after Allison had a tiff with the chairman of their Actively Involved Parents group, both his dogs died.

  Aunty Lee shook her head. “Poor woman.”

  Mike looked surprised, then gratified.

  Josephine looked peevishly at Aunty Lee. “You wouldn’t say that if it was your dog she poisoned!”

  “Look, there was no proof—” Mike started to say, but a manicured fingernail digging into his arm stopped him. Aunty Lee felt a stab of disquiet. But why? So many women controlled what their husbands were allowed to say.

  “So do you know if the police have come up with anything new?” Josephine leaned forward to ask Aunty Lee. “How long can they afford to keep Mike under suspicion without any proof? Have you got any idea what the police are doing now?”

  “I’m trying to get them to help me track down a moon cake box,” Aunty Lee said.

  “A moon cake box?”

  “Like the one that was in Allison’s room, but Vallerie is sure neither she nor her sister bought it.”

  “And you think that box of moon cakes had something to do with Allison’s death? That’s absurd! That’s so freaking crazy!” Josephine laughed harshly.

  Mike looked at Josephine in surprise, but Aunty Lee shook her head. “I’m just curious where it came from. The cleaners took the moon cake box because it was pretty and they thought it was going to be thrown away, and Vallerie got so angry with them. I thought if I can find out where it came from, I’ll buy a box of moon cakes and give it to them. But also . . .”

  “Also?”

  “Selina hasn’t been feeling very well. She has been having stomach trouble and thinks it’s food poisoning. I know it’s not from my food and I want to make sure it’s not from the moon cakes people gave her. Nowadays so many places use ready-made lotus and red bean paste filling. If there is something wrong with one batch, it can affect so many places!”

  “Unless someone’s trying to poison her,” Mike joked. No one laughed.

  Back at Aunty Lee’s Delights, Aunty Lee filled Nina and Cherril in on everything that had happened at the Lavender Casket Company. Vallerie was at the kitchen counter arranging platters of sweet, colorful kuehs. Her spurt of independence, or perhaps finally having fixed a date for her sister’s funeral service, seemed to have done her good, and she was humming softly to herself.

  “She took a taxi back and came in to ask me to pay the driver,” Cherril told Aunty Lee.

  Aunty Lee watched Vallerie thoughtfully. “The problem is we all think we are writing our own recipes, but we are also ingredients in other people’s recipes. We just have to find out who the dish is for
.”

  Cherril also looked at Vallerie. “There’s something about her that gives me the creeps. If she doesn’t want to see Mike or Josephine, why is she staying around? Why all the song and dance about getting Mike to take care of things and then refusing to see him?”

  Aunty Lee thought she knew where Vallerie was coming from. “I think she wants Mike to take care of Allison’s funeral so she can believe he still cares for her. And this way Mike can tell the children that in spite of the divorce he took care of their mother at the end. One day he may be glad of that. So Vallerie may be doing him a favor.”

  Her young partner studied Aunty Lee. Seeing possible good outcomes was a choice, not hopeless naïveté, she realized.

  “That’s true,” Cherril said.

  Whether or not they believed this, they both felt better for having said it.

  22

  Different Realities

  The terrible nausea seemed to be easing up. Exhausted, he felt tightness in the muscles of his face and neck, and there was a raw, metallic taste in his painfully dry mouth. And someone shaking him—

  “Damn you, wake up. What’s your password?”

  “It hurts—”

  “Your computer. What’s your password?”

  “J-O-S-1-9-8-2.”

  Brian kept his eyes closed as he answered. He knew he was lying on the dark green leather couch in his study, that there was someone there with him, that something very important was happening, but he couldn’t focus on what it was. He felt his arms and legs stiffening and jerking, and flashes of light shot across the insides of his eyelids. He tried to open his eyes but it was too much effort.

  Was he really at home? A strong smell of what seemed to be chemical cleaner distracted him. He knew there was something very important he had to do—he had to explain why they had to go to the police right away. They could go to the Bukit Tinggi Neighborhood Police Post where Inspector Salim would understand. They had no alternative now that Aunty Lee had told the police that he had been at Allison’s hotel the day she died. If only Aunty Lee had talked to him first he could have given her the explanation they had prepared . . . though he could not remember what it was now. And he could not understand why Josephine had made things worse. She had also gone to the police and said, “We weren’t together all of that day. I didn’t think much of it until I heard Brian told the police that we had been together all morning till we got to the café. It’s not a big deal, I just want to get it right.” He had thought Josephine liked him, but she had just gotten him deeper into trouble. Why? Had she been afraid of ending up as his alibi for murder? But Josephine had liked him, hadn’t she? Hadn’t Josephine spent so much time volunteering with the Animal ReHomers all those years ago because she had liked him?

  But it had been all those years ago. Even if Josephine had liked him then, he hadn’t been good enough for her. She deserved so much more than he could give her as a poor animal rights organizer. His throat hurt and he tried to swallow, but he could not remember how to. Brian had tried to become someone worthy of Josephine DelaVega. He had built up a business, made a name for himself, and years later when they met again he had dared to hope he had a chance, that it had all been worthwhile. Had it all been worthwhile?

  Brian tried to shake his head but the movement sent a painful shudder down his whole body. For some reason the puppy that had started the whole business came into his mind. Lola had been a gentle, playful, and good-natured little dog. The animal psychiatrist who screened her had described her as sociable and good with children. There had been no signs of the aggression Allison complained about.

  “Your printer’s out of ink,” an annoyed voice said. “Where are your printer cartridges? Don’t you keep spares, dammit?”

  Brian moaned softly. He felt as though he was sinking underwater. It was an effort to breathe and he could no longer feel his arms and legs. He heard drawers being pulled open and slammed shut, the sound of things falling. He tried to surface but sank back in.

  He felt the puppy Lola nuzzling him and then she was there with her little wet snub nose and goofy, trusting grin. Sorry, Brian wanted to say to her, sorry. I really thought they would give you a good home. And Allison was there too, looking at him as though she blamed him, but Brian was not sorry she was dead. Then Josephine was leaning over him, looking at him. I love you, Brian tried to say. I did all this for you. But Josephine was not listening to him. He tried to reach out to her but it was no use. He was sinking and suffocating and could not remember how to breathe. Something had gone wrong, very wrong.

  23

  Josephine Poisoned

  Not unusually for a weekday evening in the suburbs, Aunty Lee’s Delights was empty of customers by nine thirty that night. Vallerie joined Aunty Lee and Nina, who had seated themselves at one of the larger tables with a stack of napkins to be folded.

  “It’s quite a nice place you have here when people aren’t barging in and out,” Vallerie observed.

  “People barging in and out and paying,” Nina said. But aware of Vallerie’s nonpaying status, she said it to be heard only by Aunty Lee.

  “The police asked again if I want to get in touch with anybody in America. Why would I? They don’t have any idea what’s been going on here. I can’t go to them for support. Anyway, it won’t make any difference to them that Allison’s dead or that that’s what those evil animal activists wanted all along!”

  “They didn’t even want that dog to die, of course they wouldn’t want your sister to die,” Aunty Lee pointed out.

  “That blasted dog! That’s what started everything! I hate dogs!”

  “All dogs?”

  Aunty Lee looked at Vallerie, who continued: “Can you believe back in England the stupid girl starts saying she wants a puppy again and that fool Mike says why not—my sister, Allison, said no way in hell. No way she was having another animal under her roof.”

  “Can I get you some tea?” Aunty Lee offered. “I mean, would you like Nina to get you some tea?” She was not trying to stop Vallerie from talking—far from it. But when people got too angry it could be difficult to understand what they were saying. Aunty Lee appreciated the emotional impact, of course. But you needed to have facts, like protein, in a dish to make it worth savoring. And there was something in what Vallerie had just said that sounded slightly off to her, like a spot of soft rot on a cucumber. What was it? “My sister, Allison, said no way”? Why should that be strange? Aunty Lee was irritated when Cherril, who had been checking updates on her mobile, interrupted to ask if she could have a private word with her. Cherril’s “private words” were usually about cost comparisons and outsourcing the soothingly repetitive kitchen tasks that Aunty Lee found so therapeutic.

  “Here is private, what,” Aunty Lee said. “What do you want to tell me?” Cherril might not want to discuss her business plans in front of Vallerie, which would put them off for a little while.

  But then Cherril had been looking stressed and miserable for the last few days. There had been so much excitement going on that Aunty Lee had not tried to figure out what was wrong . . . surely all that, along with Vallerie’s unhappy presence, was enough to make anyone with less stamina than Aunty Lee feel down!

  However . . . “It’s important,” Cherril insisted. And what Cherril told her made Aunty Lee decide the napkins could wait till tomorrow. She and Cherril would bring a tray—“Just cover with cling film”—of leftovers and kuehs to the police station immediately. Late as it was, there was a good chance Inspector Salim would still be there, studying in the privacy of his office. If they were less lucky there would be someone on duty who would be glad enough of their food offering to call him for them.

  Salim was still working in his office but willing enough to see them, and the sergeant on duty let them in.

  “Brian was waiting in the hotel lobby when he called me to say they would be late. Josephine had gone to the ladies’. Allison had called and asked them to pick her up from her hotel for the meeting. H
e was hoping Allison had changed her mind or realized how hopeless it was and wanted to yell at them so as not to lose face before withdrawing her suit. But when they went to the hotel she wasn’t in the room, and the guy at the hotel said Allison had already left. He was certain because he had called the taxi for her himself.”

  Salim stared at Cherril. “Why didn’t he say something earlier? Why didn’t you?”

  “Smart men can still be stupid boys inside,” Aunty Lee said. “But if he is telling the truth now, that means both Brian and Josephine were at the hotel when Allison was killed. They might have seen something.”

  “Or he might have killed her,” Salim said. “Brian Wong could have killed her while Josephine was in the ladies’, then pretended to have been in the lobby all along. Women can take so long in the loo. Plenty of time to go up, commit a murder, and come back down.”

  “You wonder why Brian didn’t want to say anything sooner?” Cherril asked crossly. “He probably knew you would suspect him like this!”

  “But you say he wants to say something now?”

  “He said he talked to Josie and they agreed they wanted me to tell Aunty Lee and see what she suggests.”

  Salim looked at Aunty Lee, who smiled sweetly at him though she seemed disturbed.

  “You know I have to talk to Brian and Josephine about this. But first, has either of them said anything to you? On or off the record?”

  “No. You know I would have told you. As soon as Cherril told me I straightaway told her she must come here and tell you.” Aunty Lee still did not believe that Brian and Josephine could have had anything to do with Allison Love’s death—or the death of the young vet.