Wonton Terror

by Vivien Chien

  “My stomach feels weird,” I fibbed. “I think I ate something funny.”

  “What did you eat today?” my mother inquired. “You are always eating junk.”

  “Um…” I had been at the restaurant all day and she knew that. To insinuate that I got sick at the restaurant would really set her off. “I had some leftover chicken wings when I got home from work … I think maybe the sauce was bad.”

  “Mommy tells you every day, you have to be careful eating spicy food. You are getting older now and your stomach is not the same. You cannot eat the same things as before.”

  Thankful to be on the phone so my mother couldn’t see my eye roll, I agreed with her. “You’re right, Mom. I should listen to you more often.”

  “Yah, I know,” my mother said with triumph. “Are you sure you cannot come anyway? Your auntie will be sad that you could not make it tonight.”

  “I’ll come next time, Mom. Right now, I think I need to lie down.”

  “Okay, okay. Mommy will check on you later.”

  She hung up and I stared at my phone for a few minutes in guilt. I hated to lie to my mother about why I didn’t want to join them for dinner, but I didn’t want to subject myself to telling her the truth, either.

  Instead of torturing myself, I went back to my notebook and concentrated on the other dilemma in my life … finding ways into this case. For the moment, I dropped the Winston angle since I was coming up with nothing in particular, and did a search on Calvin’s uncle Gene.

  Without much difficulty, I found Gene’s auto repair shop, which was located on the east Side near Payne Avenue and East Thirty-third. Funny I had never noticed it before. Aside from that, there wasn’t a whole lot of information to be found on him.

  Kikko whined from her spot on the floor next to me and when I scanned her bowls, I noticed she was out of water. I got up and filled her water along with her food dish and paced the living room instead of sitting back down.

  I felt lost, and unsure of myself. Nothing seemed to be taking shape. Nothing was sticking out at me. That in itself made part of me think that maybe Sandra really did do it. Then the question became, did she act alone or did someone help her? Or did Ronnie unknowingly have a hand in his own death?

  I didn’t know much about the Chows or what they’d been through as a family. The Matrons had told me they kept most of their business private and didn’t associate extensively with the Asian community, so my normal go-tos were out of the question. It was all working against me.

  I thought about how much trouble I’d had the first time I tried my hand at solving a mystery, and that’s when it dawned on me. I scurried into my room and pulled a book off the packed shelves of paperbacks. A few months ago, Megan had gotten me a book about being a private investigator. Of course, it had more information than I needed since I had no intention of getting a PI license, but it did have helpful tips on how to conduct an investigation.

  Flipping through the book, I stopped at a couple pages that seemed helpful, and that’s when a lightbulb lit up in my head. I could check the county records to see if anything there might be helpful.

  With renewed hope, I returned to my seat at the dining room table. I could have smacked myself for not thinking of it earlier. I typed in the appropriate information and before long I was on the page that I needed to conduct my search.

  I typed in Ronnie’s name first and found he had an impressive list of minor offenses—all of a semiviolent nature. But there was one in particular that caught my attention. It was related to his wife. I had a bit of trouble deciphering some of the coding that was meant to shorten the descriptions, but from what I gathered, there had been a domestic dispute, and charges were dropped in the end.

  The most current entry in his file was from six months ago, and another man’s name was listed as well. When I reviewed some of the details, it read as if a neighbor had gotten involved or the two men had gotten in a fight on their own. I couldn’t tell, but I jotted it down in my notebook.

  After that, I looked up Sandra’s name and found similar listings under her file. So, I thought, sitting back in my seat, things had gotten physical between the couple. What could have happened? Had she been messing around with the neighbor mentioned in the report? Is that why another man was involved?

  What if that was the real reason Winston the meat truck owner and Ronnie were rivals? Could something have been going on between Winston and Sandra? What piece of information wasn’t I seeing?

  I must have lost track of time because Megan walked through the door as I was pondering what I’d found. It was a little past 9 P.M. and I hadn’t even noticed. Kikko was dozing on the couch and Megan walking in with crinkling bags woke her from her nap. She sprang up from her spot and waddled over to try and catch a sniff of what Megan had brought home.

  Megan held the bags up for me to see. “Thought I’d grab us some munchies. You hungry?”

  “Oh good. Yes, I’m starving. I passed on dinner with my family tonight.” I reached out for the bags. I could smell barbecue sauce and fried batter.

  “Mozzarella sticks, chicken quesadillas, chicken wings, and French fries.”

  “Oddly enough, I told my mother I was sick from eating chicken wings so I could get out of meeting with them tonight.”

  “See? I’m turning you into an honest woman.”

  I faked a laugh and set the bags on the table while Megan went and grabbed a few things from the kitchen. She came back to the table with a two-liter bottle of Coke, two plates, and napkins.

  “So what are you up to?” she asked, nodding toward the computer. “Digging into this case, I presume?”

  “I went to see that woman Ruby from the night market after I got off work today.”

  “Oh, do tell.” Megan opened the bags and pulled out the containers one at a time, organizing them on the table.

  While we filled our plates and started eating, I told her about my interaction with Ruby and the information I’d found online about Sandra, Ronnie, and the male neighbor.

  “We need to find out what neighbor this was,” Megan said, after finishing off a chicken wing. “Just like I said to you the other day, we’ll go undercover and ask a couple questions. Maybe Sandra was having some private time with the neighbor and got busted by Ronnie.”

  “Do you think the neighbor could have had something to do with the explosion? Maybe his plan was to get back at Ronnie for something. And that would fit with why it happened at the night market. Assuming they kept the food truck at their house, a neighbor’s involvement would be more plausible. But having it happen where it did might help give this guy some cover.”

  “Possibly. Or he did it to keep Sandra for himself,” Megan offered. “Clearly she wasn’t jumping at the chance to leave Ronnie.”

  “Unless she couldn’t figure out a way and this was it?” I mulled the thought over in my head. “She must have been afraid of him?” My mind went digging back to the evening of the night market, working my way from the beginning of my interactions with Sandra. “That’s it!” I yelled.

  Kikko skittered away at the sound of my raised voice.

  “That’s it, what?” Megan asked.

  “I hugged Sandra and she winced. She told me she’d hurt her back and I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but maybe her injuries were caused by Ronnie.”

  Megan tilted her head back and forth while she weighed the scenario. “Okay, so it’s become a pattern in their relationship since the incident six months ago. He doesn’t trust her anymore, and they get into physical fights more frequently. Finally she can’t put up with it anymore and decides to blow him up?”

  “I hate to say it, but yeah.” My eyes settled on the chicken quesadillas and I played the scenario out in my head, trying to see how she would put together this elaborate scheme. “How would an ordinary woman know how to blow up a food truck, though?”

  “You can basically learn anything you want on the Internet.”

  “True, Adam sai
d the same thing the other night. But it still seems odd to me.” I tried to slow my thoughts, thinking over the details a little more carefully than before. “Or … she had someone help.”

  “But who? Do you think she involved Calvin in this?”

  “I don’t know. I keep going back and forth with that. He mentioned to me that he didn’t know anything about what went on with his parents. Which might be true because I think his reaction to his father’s death might have been a little different had he known what was going on behind closed doors.”

  “He could be faking it.”

  “Exactly, that’s why I keep going back and forth. But I do know one person who keeps sticking out above everyone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Sandra’s brother Gene.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  “Looks like you found your starting point,” Megan said. She leaned back from the table, and clutched her stomach. “And I think I just found my stopping point.”

  “It has to be her brother,” I said, reassuring myself that the pieces fit. “Ruby said to me earlier tonight that Gene had moved back here from New York to help Sandra handle her business. Only she wasn’t talking about the food truck business. Then she got flustered and left the room before I could say anything else, and when she came back, she rushed me out of the house. She must have realized she’d said too much.”

  “It does make sense,” Megan agreed.

  I smacked myself on the forehead. “Oh my God, and I wasn’t thinking about this either. The two women exchanged weird glances with each other at the night market, kinda like how you and I do when we already know what the other is trying to say. Maybe she knew what was going to happen.”

  “But wait … do you think she actually knows what really happened? Maybe Sandra didn’t tell her everything … if there is something for Sandra to tell, of course.”

  “If I were about to do something that major, I’d definitely tell you.”

  “Okay, that’s true. But do we really think that Sandra is involved in this? Would Sandra really let her brother or possibly her own son go through with a plan this crazy? She’d be ruining her entire life in the process.”

  “If Sandra and Ronnie were struggling, maybe he convinced her that she’d do better with the insurance money. Maybe Ronnie had no involvement at all. And, it’s very possible Gene didn’t tell her the whole plan. He could have intended to kill Ronnie from the beginning but hidden that fact from Sandra because she would never agree to it.” I paused. “Ugh, I can’t believe how much this is all making sense now. Gene was in a big hurry to leave the night market that night, claiming he had to use the bathroom. He rushed Calvin out of the picnic area in the nick of time too. He had to have known that the truck was going to blow and didn’t want to be anywhere near it.”

  “So now what do we do? And what about your theory involving the other food truck guy … Winston? There may be other motives here and we’re just picking up the first one that’s convenient.”

  She was right. It felt careless of me to dismiss the rival-food-truck angle altogether, but I couldn’t help feeling that all these pieces fit so well. Then again, if I was wrong, I could end up making things worse for the Chow family … especially Sandra.

  “Okay, we scope out the neighbor situation and see what we can find out. Then we’ll dig into this Winston guy and reassess what seems plausible.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan. But what about talking with Sandra herself?”

  “She’s still in the hospital for another day or two. I want to give her some time before approaching her. It’s only been a couple of days since the accident. If she didn’t know what her brother was up to, then she’s actually grieving and I don’t want to disrespect her feelings.”

  “You seem too sure about your theory, Lana,” Megan pointed out. “We can’t say for certain that her brother did it. Regardless of Sandra’s involvement, we don’t know that her brother was necessarily involved at all.”

  “True, true.” I sighed. “It feels so right, though, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” Megan agreed. “And I wouldn’t mind agreeing with you if there wasn’t one glaring fact.”

  “Which is?”

  “It came by us a little too easily. Which means the police are definitely thinking along these lines too, but they haven’t found enough evidence to make any arrests. Don’t you think we should be investigating the road less traveled?

  “You’re right. Okay, so we’ll take our time and search through all the leads, but Gene is definitely going to the top of my list.”

  * * *

  I fell asleep a bit more easily that night, and when I woke up, I felt more confident than the day before. One visit to Ruby and gathering a few minor pieces of the puzzle had brought me much farther along than I’d hoped. Of course, I was planning to heed Megan’s warning, but I could feel it in my bones that I was on to something.

  Maybe by talking with the others, I would be able to solidify the story as a whole. Of course, I’d present my theory to Adam when I finished looking into everything, and I would let him decide how to approach Detective O’Neil about it.

  Once the restaurant was open and the Mahjong Matrons were settled into their favorite booth with tea, I decided to try a different set of questions on them. Maybe this time around, they’d have more interesting things to tell me.

  Helen seemed to sense before the others that I had something I wanted to ask. She gave me the okay to interrupt their conversation.

  I set their tea service on the table. “Do you happen to know much about Sandra Chow’s brother Gene?”

  “He owns an auto repair shop, right?” Opal asked. “He is the one who drinks too much?”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” I said, watching the four ladies anxiously. “What do you know about him?”

  “Not too much,” Wendy added. “He has not lived here long. He was in the navy for many years, but something bad happened and then he moved to New York.”

  I hated to admit it, but I was kind of disappointed in the Matrons. Their lack of information on the Chows and their extended family was disheartening. “Wait … did you just say he was in the navy?”

  “Yes, that is what I said,” Wendy replied.

  “Is that why Calvin went into the navy?” I did think it was a little strange that he’d chosen that particular path considering what I knew of him at that age. He was nothing short of a degenerate.

  “I think so,” Pearl interjected. “I think that Gene was once a nice man, but then something happened to him while he was away. I think he and Calvin were close when Calvin was still a little boy.”

  “Yes, this sounds right to me,” Opal said with a slow nod. “I am starting to remember too. Ronnie was always busy working, so Calvin spent time with Gene whenever possible.”

  Peter rang the food bell from the kitchen signaling that the Mahjong Matrons’ food was ready. I hurried back into the kitchen, my mind stuck on the information the Matrons had just divulged. I didn’t know if it meant anything, but it was potentially another angle I would have to consider.

  What if Calvin idolized his uncle? He was always at odds with his father, and fighting against the grain. But, with his uncle … well, he joined the Navy, and though he failed, he still went through the motions. And instead of helping with the family business like his father wanted, Calvin had gone to work at his uncle’s auto repair shop instead.

  That led me to wonder if Calvin did indeed know what kind of man his father was. But that would imply that the abuse had started earlier than six months ago. What if he had abused Calvin too? While I did consider it a possibility that long-standing violence could be a large factor, there was no actual proof of it. There was no record of it except the one incident.

  I tried thinking back to my childhood and the time that I spent with Calvin and his family. Most of it was a blur, but I didn’t remember Ronnie being around a whole lot. It was always my mother and Sandra having tea and talkin
g in Mandarin while Calvin and I played with his Transformers in the other room. Often it was already dark by the time we went home and Ronnie still hadn’t returned from work.

  Clearly there was more to this story than I realized and the new information about Gene’s time in the navy spoke to that. Even though parts of today’s theory felt a little on the thin side—I knew I was speculating wildly—I could see it developing if I just added a few more pieces.

  The Matrons’ food was placed on the tray and I stood staring into space as I worked out some of the different scenarios that could be additional possibilities. I reconstructed my original theory of Sandra and Gene plotting this together and substituted Calvin for his mother. Maybe Calvin was also sick of it all and asked his uncle for help.

  It seemed likelier that this was the case rather than Sandra being involved. Perhaps Calvin wanted to protect his mother from his father and didn’t have many people he could trust. He knew his uncle would back him up since Sandra was his sister. Or maybe he didn’t mean to actually hurt his father, maybe he just wanted to scare him straight. I wondered what their argument was about the night that Ronnie was killed.

  I made a mental note to talk with Calvin about the last conversation he’d had with his father.

  Just then the food bell sounded again, jolting me out of my concentration. I jumped, nearly losing hold of the tray in my hands.

  When I came back to the present, Peter was gawking at me. “Lana … don’t even think about it.” He waved his spatula at me.

  “Think about what?” I asked.

  “You’re not fooling me, man. I know that look on your face. And whatever you’re thinking about, stop it.”

  Over the course of the past few months, Peter had learned how to read me really well. I shrugged, pretending not to know what he meant, and rushed the food out to the Matrons.

  CHAPTER

  14

  After work, I hurried home to meet Megan. She was dressed in a cream-colored button-down silk blouse with cap sleeves, a navy pencil skirt, and matching navy heels. Her hair was wrapped up in a loose bun and her makeup was conservative. She did a spin for me as I entered the apartment. “Well, what do you think? Do I look like an insurance agent?”