Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge (24 page)

“Yes, madame. But Miss Vallerie likes to shout and cry, very difficult to listen if she wakes up. You press there—call.
No, you must use the mouse. This is not touchscreen like your iPad.”

It took some time for the connection to be linked. Then the camera came on and there was a lot of fumbling.

Then a woman's voice said, “Christ, do you bloody know what time it is?” to the accompaniment of a child screaming protest. “It's Mummy! I want to talk to Mummy!”

“No, dear. Your mum's not there.”

A boy's face loomed large on the screen. “I want to talk to Mummy!” it shrieked. “Mummy's calling to talk to me!”

“Mike, is that you? I wish you'd warn me before calling.” A woman's face appeared on the screen. “Mike?” She did not seem able to see them.

Mike's sister? Aunty Lee wondered. She heard another child's voice in the background: “You're not supposed to tell anybody Mum called. Especially not Dad!”

“I don't care. I want to talk to Mum. I don't want to go to the dentist tomorrow! I want to run away like Mum!”

And the connection was broken.

“They couldn't see us?”

“No. I switch off camera,” Nina said. “Enough? Satisfied?”

Aunty Lee was relieved. “I need to think.”

Nina switched off the computer and left her there, returning silently to place a bowl of pu-erh tea on the desk. Fermented pu-erh was Aunty Lee's favorite thinking tea.

“I will go to the shop first. I put Miss Vallerie's breakfast in the dining room.” Her boss nodded, barely hearing her. Nina felt hopeful. Whether Aunty Lee thought their guest a murderer or merely a liar about using her computer, her pre
occupation with Vallerie's secret calls suggested the woman's stay would be drawing to an end.

For Aunty Lee the process of reverse engineering a dish or perfecting a recipe was often more important than the final dish.

The same ingredients went into a rich, hot, savory soup and a delicately chilled meat jelly. Pigs' head or calves' foot jelly, for example. But there was such a difference in texture depending on whether the dish was heated or chilled. And people felt so differently when you offered them a cow's feet or head instead of a steak cut out of its side. Was that because they preferred not to be reminded their crown roast or tenderloin had come from an animal?

The theme that was running through Aunty Lee's head just then was how people saw themselves and their situation. It was all a matter of perspective. And what seemed the same situation could have very different effects on the people affected. Like the story told of two boys born poor; one stayed poor and turned to crime because he never had a chance, while the other worked up to become a rich philanthropist helping the poor because he knew what it was to be poor.

But Aunty Lee took the story further. If the poor boys had been brothers, they would also have influenced each other. The one who stayed poor might have done badly because in addition to all the other factors, he was full of resentment that his brother who was doing well was not helping him more. And the more he was eaten up with resentment at his brother, the poorer he got, to emphasize the unfairness of
his brother not helping him. And what if they had been sisters instead of brothers?

“From what those Woons in America said about Vallerie, I can understand her coming to Singapore with her sister. But I still can't understand why Vallerie changed so much after getting here.”

Belinda Bao: Chill to Set

Belinda Bao's autumn special moon cake boxes matched the one that had been sent to Josephine. The one containing the moon cake that had poisoned her. They also matched the box that had been found in the Love sisters' hotel room.

“Yes, these are the ones that Brian Wong ordered this year,” Belinda Bao said. She was a fair, plump young woman with pink cheeks and a pink streak in her dyed blond hair.

“Brian bought a box of moon cakes from you? Are you sure?” This particular ingredient did not fit into the recipe Aunty Lee was concocting for this murder.

“Oh yes. Brian orders at least ten boxes every year. This year it was fifteen boxes. We have a delivery service, but Brian liked to deliver them himself. He says—said—everybody else gives clients and family members hampers at Chinese New Year, so to stand out, he did it at the Moon Cake Festival.”
Belinda smiled. Then as the sides of her mouth pulled downward the rest of her face crumpled and she started to cry. “He was such a sweet guy. I think I was a little in love with him. In a fairy-tale prince kind of way, you know?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Aunty Lee said soothingly. “Good people like Brian, they go to their reward.”

“People are saying Brian killed himself. They're saying that he confessed to killing a whole lot of people and then killed himself, but I don't believe it! I mean, when I saw him he was so funny and sweet and normal.

“Oh, I forgot—” Belinda wiped her face on a white towel she pulled out of her apron. “Brian took sixteen boxes this year. He ordered fifteen and picked them up, no problem. Then the next morning he called me, said he very urgently needed one more box and he would come round and pick it up. So it was sixteen in the end.”

“What day?”

“Saturday.”

“Ah.” The recipe was coming together at last, Aunty Lee thought. She still did not know how it would turn out, but she had just managed to pick up a vital ingredient.

“Toxicology tests were not performed previously as the cause of death was obvious. But samples had been taken during the autopsy, so when a request was made for further tests . . .” Here Commissioner Raja gave Aunty Lee a small, wry smile.

Aunty Lee was almost bouncing on her seat in her anxiety to hear the results. “What? What? What?”

“Results show Allison Love was drugged before she was strangled with the cables and hit in the face.”

“Ah . . .” Aunty Lee nodded. Finally things were beginning to fall into place. And perhaps it wasn't too late.

“Allison Fitzgerald was taking off-label antipsychotics as sedatives, for her insomnia and to calm herself. She was also taking sleeping pills. It seems most likely that she took a dose, felt it wasn't working fast enough or simply forgot, took another dose, and another, until she passed out.” He stopped, but Aunty Lee sensed he had more to say. Indeed, she would have been disappointed if he did not.

“It's also possible that her sister gave her the medicine. Maybe just to calm her down. We know that Allison Love could be difficult, and Vallerie might have given her too much by accident.”

Or not even by accident. Given what Aunty Lee had heard about Allison Love, the need to calm her down or put her to sleep for a while must have been very strong, even if the people at the hotel had seen a different side of her. But the way Vallerie handled difficult situations troubled Aunty Lee. She was someone who flared up in a burst of anger and almost went crazy. People like her attacked other drivers in road rage or threw noodles on stewardesses in sky rage or killed their partners in crimes of passion. Such a person would have shouted at her sister rather than feeding her calming pills. And the way Vallerie talked about her sister and kept score of all the wrongs done to the dead Allison was almost worshipful.

“What if Vallerie killed Allison?” Aunty Lee asked. “And Josephine and Brian found out so she tried to kill them and frame them.”

Aunty Lee had no reason to dislike Vallerie, who was her guest, a victim, a helpless stranger in a strange land. But even less did she want to believe Brian Wong had been responsible.

Commissioner Raja did not answer immediately. This may have been because he was engrossed in his menu. After her excursion to Holland Village to see Belinda Bao, Aunty Lee had asked him to meet her at a restaurant there, which she had wanted to visit for some time because of its name. “Original Sin” sounded more like a den of iniquity than the classy vegetarian restaurant it turned out to be, and its name blended nicely with the theme of sibling murder running through Aunty Lee's mind. If Cain could kill Abel, why could Vallerie not have killed Allison?

Commissioner Raja might have been reflecting. Or it might have been because he thought it safer not to answer.

“You're thinking I just don't want to believe Brian Wong killed those women even if he confessed. That's not true. I just can't believe he could have tried to poison Josephine.”

“All I was thinking is that the spanakopita looks interesting. Look here, Rosie. There was a time when Allison Fitzgerald had thousands of Singaporeans, not to mention people from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and as far away as Finland and Norway sending her hate mail. It was cyberbullying. And Josephine, Cherril, and your Saint Brian were responsible for that. It's not acceptable.” He held
up a hand to forestall the protest that was bubbling out of Aunty Lee. “This started with them. They were responsible.” He turned both hands palms down on the table as though to signal the matter closed.

“It must be tough for you, having the sister staying with you for so long.” Commissioner Raja threw this out as an unspoken offer:
Do you need help getting her out of your house?
In a choice between loneliness and strangers, Raja Kumar would pick loneliness every time.

“It's not too bad,” Aunty Lee said. Aunty Lee herself would have picked strangers. Being Aunty Lee, they would not remain strangers for long. “She's eating better and feeling better. I don't know what she was eating before coming here, but now she is eating less processed local foods and her headaches and allergies don't seem so bad. But she still has difficulty sleeping.” Aunty Lee had not been sure whether the insomnia that sometimes drove Vallerie to walk around the house at night was caused by guilt, fear, or some underlying medical condition. But then she had seemed much more relaxed after news of Brian's confession and suicide, so it seemed fear had been the cause . . . though she had become surprisingly agitated when Aunty Lee pointed out that the dead vet could not have been at the hotel to see Brian because of the fire . . .

It was well after lunchtime when Commissioner Raja dropped Aunty Lee back at the café and there were no customers in. If Aunty Lee had not been her own landlord (as well as landlord of several other shops along the row), the absence of
customers might have bothered her. As it was, she happily went to sit by the café's front corner window. This was the table Cherril, Josephine, and Brian had been sitting at the Saturday it had all started. Aunty Lee did not want to believe any of them had killed a woman in cold blood. But someone had—two women, in fact.

The reason cold dishes were complicated was the multiple cooking methods involved. All the individual ingredients had to be prepared in all their individual ways and carved from bones or excised from shells. Then professional cutting skills were needed as the morsels were trimmed into shapes that looked appealing when suspended in the gel. And at the very end, serving skills made all the difference. Any flaws around the rim could be disguised with decorative bits and the gravy—tested for seasoning—poured over. Unlike a stew or a stir-fry, which were open to receiving whatever was in your fridge, a cold, savory mold called for design, execution, and presentation.

It was the same thing with creating the perfect revenge.

Dinner Climax

The next evening Aunty Lee arranged a special dinner at her house. It was to celebrate the end of the suspicions against Mike and introduce him to Josephine's family and friends on neutral territory, she said when she invited the young woman to bring Mike, warning her that not only would her parents be coming—along with Cherril, Mycroft, and Anne Peters—but that Vallerie was not expecting them. Otherwise her guest would probably leave the house in order to avoid them.

“But I think it's a good idea for her and Mike to be in the same room at least once before Vallerie leaves.” Mike seemed keen, so Josephine agreed. She didn't see any point to it, but it would be just one evening.

Commissioner Raja and Inspector Salim were also present, but not in uniform, which left it unclear whether they
were there officially. Salim had disappeared into the kitchen, possibly to help Nina, but it was also possible he was keeping an eye on the back door.

Mike Fitzgerald and Josephine were the last to arrive. As soon as Nina showed them into the dining room, Vallerie immediately got up to leave.

“Oh no, wait—don't go,” Aunty Lee said.

“You can't bully me into staying. Tell the servant to bring my dinner upstairs.”

The “servant” stood quietly in front of the dining room door, effectively barring Vallerie's exit. She sent a little smile in the direction of Salim, who had moved casually to the sliding glass doors leading to the patio, now closed because of the air-conditioning, once Josephine and Mike were inside, effectively blocking it as well. This had not been planned; they had instinctively moved into the best positions to survey the people already around the table.

The long, polished table was set for dinner and Commissioner Raja was seated at one end with Aunty Lee on the other. Anne Peters was next to Commissioner Raja, with Mycroft and Cherril beside her, followed by Joseph and Constance DelaVega, who were seated by Aunty Lee. Mark was by the sideboard with his bottles of wine, and Selina, who had been sitting by Vallerie, also rose to her feet. She had not known Josephine was coming either.

Mike stepped forward, eyes on Vallerie. “Hey, I'm sorry about what happened to Allison. But I had nothing to do with that, honest.”

“Please sit down,” Commissioner Raja said, managing to direct his words at everyone standing.

“Why, are you going to give a speech?” Vallerie remained standing. “Save it for my sister's funeral!”

“But not for Allison Love's funeral,” said Aunty Lee. Vallerie had looked really terrified, afraid for her life, on first seeing Mike Fitzgerald, but now she looked both smug and puzzled. “Vallerie Love is dead in a freezer in the morgue of the Singapore General Hospital.”

“What?” Josephine was startled out of the mask she had been wearing since coming in. She stared at the large woman. “But if Vallerie is dead, then who—”

“This is Allison Love, formerly Allison Fitzgerald. Allison has been pretending to be her sister, Vallerie,” Salim interjected, carefully not looking at Commissioner Raja. “The fingerprints of the corpse did not match the fingerprints of Allison Fitzgerald processed five years ago when she was taken in for biting and scratching a police officer. No charges were pressed but her prints remain on file. Aunty Lee suggested we compare the fingerprints of her houseguest on a water glass she supplied, and it was a match.”

“Allie?” Mike looked uncertain. “I thought—I told the children that you—” He started toward her but Josephine's grip on his arm yanked him back to her side.

“Mike, you coward, you never backed me up.”

Mike stared, openmouthed.

“You idiot, you fool. I never wanted a divorce.”

“You did. You left—”

“I wanted to teach you a lesson. I wanted you to see how much you needed me. Instead, you stupid idiot, you ungrateful bastard, you went running to that skinny bitch. I knew she was after you!”

“You knew?”

The woman's snort of disdain prompted Aunty Lee to fill in what she had learned. “Thanks to Skyping with your son, you knew that your husband was seeing Josephine. You knew Josephine had been to visit them in England. And you wanted to catch them together in Singapore and confront them.”

“You killed your own sister?” Mike asked.

“You think you're so clever.” Allison Love turned to stare at Aunty Lee with loathing. “Well, you're not. Of course I didn't kill my stupid sister.”

Hatred could make people forget their own pain just as love could, Aunty Lee thought.

“I hated my stupid sister but I never killed her. Why would I? And whoever killed her thinking she was me is going to be after me now, thanks to you. If I get killed now it's going to be all your fault!” Hearing her own words she looked wildly around the room and wailed. “He's going to kill me now! Him and his bitch slut! What difference does it make whether he killed me or killed my sister? I was only protecting myself. I thought that if he thought he already killed me he wouldn't come after me again and I would be safe! I only pretended to be my sister because I was scared of him. I was always scared of him. You can ask anyone. Ask my kids, my son will tell you.”

Josephine stared, stone-faced. Mike looked baffled.

“We had a lovely time but we really have to be going,” Constance DelaVega murmured icily. She half-rose from her seat and tapped at her husband's shoulder, but Joseph DelaVega, looking between Aunty Lee, his daughter, and his daughter's boyfriend's ex-wife, ignored or possibly didn't notice her. Constance sat back down, her mouth in a tight line. Observing her, Aunty Lee thought how much Josephine took after her mother.

“I didn't want that poor animal to live the rest of its life in a cage, that's all. I was thinking of it. And you viciously destroyed my life and killed my sister because of it,” Allison said to Josephine.

“We should go.” Josephine echoed her mother's words. Like her father, Mike Fitzgerald did not move. “Look, you've got her. You know she's Allison Love. Why don't you just arrest her and take her away?”

“Vallerie was the fat sister while you were growing up, but she blossomed after she made a new life for herself in California. She was teaching yoga and working with herbal cures and she had made new friends. When you went to see her in Long Beach she wasn't the ‘fat sister' anymore. You were.” Aunty Lee spoke to Allison's back, but the woman nodded. “Maybe it was being mistaken for Vallerie that gave you the idea. Everyone knew Allison was the slim, smart sister. Vallerie was the fat, stupid younger sister.”

“It started as a joke,” Allison said. “People kept getting us mixed up. People who used to know us, who knew Vall was the fat sister. They automatically assumed I was Vall. So I said
let's turn the joke back on them. Vall thought it was a huge joke. She could be so stupid but she was a good sport.” Her voice cracked as her face crumpled. “Oh, Vallie!” It was the first honest statement about her sister this woman had made, Aunty Lee thought. But she had other points to make.

“You wanted revenge on the veterinary clinic so you threw a glass bottle of kerosene with a lighted candle into it. And you invented the threats against yourself to make it look as though the Animal ReHomers were targeting you. I'm guessing you drugged your sister when she objected. Did she wonder what you were doing with kerosene? Where did you buy it—the provision shop behind the hotel?” Salim gave a small nod, confirming this was so.

“Did you see the vet who put your dog down at the clinic on the day of the fire? Was that what made you think of her as soon as you heard a vet had been killed?”

Allison looked surprised, then confused. “I might have. Someone called out my name, but more like a question than knowing it was me. I ignored her. After all, what could she do about it? There was smoke and noise and animals all over the place, and the fire engine was blocked from the car park by the construction lorry. She can't have been sure it was me. Even if she was, what could she say—that she had seen me there? She couldn't prove that I had done anything! So I just left.”

“After Allison went back to England she killed animals by feeding them rat poison when she got angry with them or their owners. She boasted to her husband about it, didn't
she, Mike?” Josephine said. “She killed the vet just like she killed her sister.”

“Tammy?” Anne Peters whispered. “Did she poison my Tammy?” Cherril put an arm around her mother-in-law's thin shoulders.

Allison didn't bother to contradict her, not turning as Aunty Lee rose to her feet behind her, leaning both hands on the table for support.

“After drugging Vallerie, Allison went down to the reception to call a taxi to bring her to Aunty Lee's Delights for the meeting. She had to go down because she couldn't communicate with the Mandarin-speaking receptionists over the phone. Downstairs she learned that someone had dropped off a box of moon cakes for them, which had been brought up to the room. Her sister was in a drugged sleep and Allison had disconnected the phone, so just to check she returned to her room and found her sister dead, strangled by the cable ties. She knew at once whoever it was had meant to kill her. She had to think fast.”

Allison took over the narrative. “I dashed back up because I was furious at Vall. I had made her promise not to tell anyone we were coming to Singapore, but if someone was sending her moon cakes, I knew that she must have broken her promise. I found Vallerie dead, her face all black and her lips swollen with bubbles and something tight around her neck. I knew at once I was the real target. I took the fire extinguisher from outside the room and smashed it in her face—if the killer wanted to kill ‘Allison' then I would become ‘Vallerie' and let
‘Allison' be dead. I thought that was the safest thing for me to do. But I didn't kill her. You have to believe me. She was already dead or I wouldn't have hit her. That was just to make sure people thought she was me.”

“I believe you,” Aunty Lee said. “There were too many clues pointing to you. That's why I had to find out where the moon cakes came from. That's why I knew you didn't kill your sister, Vallerie.” Even Allison turned to stare at her.

“But someone tried to poison Josie,” Constance DelaVega said. “That poisoned moon cake that Brian sent to her shop. She almost died! They tested the cake and found the same poison that Brian used to kill himself!”

“That's what made me suspicious,” Aunty Lee said. “Josie, why did you eat so little of the moon cake? I thought you like moon cake.”

“It tasted funny.” Josephine did not look at her parents or Mike. She could have been alone with Aunty Lee the way she smiled with persuasive, girlish charm at the older woman. “I do like moon cake, but when I took a mouthful it tasted funny so of course I stopped. Luckily for me.”

“The poison in the moon cake is tasteless.” Aunty Lee did not smile back. “You wouldn't know it was poisoned by tasting. You wouldn't know unless you injected the poison in the moon cake yourself after you cut out that piece. You must have used one of the syringes you use to inject preservatives into your flowers. Of course there was nothing wrong with the mouthful you ate. You were pretending, to frighten Mike into raising the alarm and rushing you to hospital.

“Brian wanted everything sorted out to make everybody
happy. He did all he could to help Josephine end up with Mike,” Aunty Lee said softly. “That's why he went to Allison's hotel with you. Did he think you were going to apologize to Allison and defuse the situation and thereby the lawsuit? Then when the hotel receptionist refused to tell you which room Allison was in, you asked him for one of the boxes of moon cakes in his car so that you could watch which room they were brought to. He had just picked up the special moon cakes he ordered for clients. That's why he had to go back to Belinda Bao's shop to get a replacement box the next day.”

“That's ridiculous,” Josephine said. “I wasn't at the hotel.”

“You strangled Vallerie thinking she was Allison. You were convinced that as long as the woman was alive she would never leave you and Mike in peace.

“Brian waited for you downstairs—one of the hotel staff remembers him. Did you tell him Allison refused to see you, or that she had already left? In any case you told him not to mention you two had gone to the hotel in case it made Allison think you were worried.

“But news of Allison's death probably made Brian uncomfortable. And when you learned we were looking for the source of the moon cakes found in the room, which would lead us to Brian, you decided to silence him. He didn't suspect you, did he? But you didn't want to leave any trails that would lead to you. And all the facts in Brian's suicide note were true. Because you were the one who wrote that suicide note after poisoning Brian.”

“If only Vallie had woken up, she would have told you she wasn't me,” Allison said. There was real pain in her voice, but
she was more calm and focused since the first time she set foot in the café.

“She did. She woke up and said she wasn't Allison, but I knew she was lying,” Josephine said. “It was years ago but I recognized her at once. You're all lying and trying to trick me! She was the only bloody woman in the room, of course it was her!”

Cherril rose, almost unaware she was moving, to stand at Aunty Lee's side. “I thought you were worried about the lawsuit. I thought that's why you didn't fuss about her being late. You're usually so impatient. You said you had a ‘nervous stomach' because of meeting Allison. Brian accepted that because he always accepted everything you said. That's what you told him when he waited for you in the hotel, isn't it? Then you probably told him you felt silly or embarrassed or something like that and asked him not to say anything to me, which would be just like you, and he would have swallowed it. You just wanted him on the premises to be another suspect, but he turned out more useful as an alibi. Until he started telling you that you should both come clean about what had happened at the hotel. He told me he had something to tell me, but he had to sort it out with you first.”