Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge (4 page)

Questions

“Somebody killed the puppy killer!” Aunty Lee announced, coming into the back kitchen where Nina and the helpers were packing food into bento-style meal packs. There were seldom many customers in the lull between brunch and high tea, but if anyone did come, Nina had a selection of “specials” for them to buy.

Nina had worked for Aunty Lee and her late husband for years. Back in the days when Aunty Lee sold yam cakes and pineapple tarts and
achar
out of her Binjai Park house, it was thanks to Nina she had not given away more than she sold. Now it was still the business-minded Nina who managed the shop accounts. Thanks to careful investments of her pay, Nina was already one of the largest landowners in her village back in the Philippines. On her last visit home it had seemed that every friend and neighbor had a potential husband for
her to settle down with. They could not understand why, if she no longer needed the foreign money, Nina wanted to go back to Singapore.

“What happened to her?” Nina had not understood the Singaporean rage over the case. With people in the world struggling to afford food and medicine, it was difficult to get worked up over a dog that had been humanely put down. Even now she had more important things on her mind than what had happened to the woman. “Why are you walking around? What are you looking for?”

“Salim didn't say yet. But I'm sure she was murdered or why would they send him here to question the sister, right? I want to give them something to drink. For the shock, you know.”

“I'll get it. You go and sit down.” Nina did not call her “madame,” and Aunty Lee, pleased, sat where she was.

While waiting for the kettle to boil, Nina put a mug of homemade soy milk in the microwave to heat for Aunty Lee. She was tired of being angry with Aunty Lee, but the old woman was like a puppy that had to be disciplined for its own safety.

“Why did your sister arrange this meeting and then not come?” Aunty Lee heard Salim asking as she hobbled back into the café followed by Nina pushing a trolley of drinks. “Did someone contact her? Was she threatened?”

“If she thought this is a dangerous place she would not send her sister here, right?” Aunty Lee asked. She paused by the two tables they had pushed together, with Panchal and
Salim sitting on either side of Vallerie. Brian pulled out a chair and seated Aunty Lee between himself and Salim.

“But we are not dangerous here. What would you like to drink? Must rehydrate to stay alert, you know. There's hot coffee, tea, and barley, and cold barley, soy, and sour plum water.” Aunty Lee pointed at Nina's trolley, which looked like a cross between a posh in-flight drinks service and a roadside
kopitiam
stall.

“No. We're on duty.” Panchal rejected the blatant attempt to corrupt a police officer. Salim accepted a black coffee politely enough, and then apparently forgot about it.

“You were telling us who changed your sister's mind about coming here today,” Salim prompted Vallerie, who was stirring a third spoonful of sugar into her tea. “Was she meeting someone else?”

“No. She didn't know anyone else here. She wanted to come. But then after she heard about the fire at the clinic this morning—the clinic where the dog was put down—she got scared. If the crazy animal activists attacked the vet clinic, she was afraid they would be out to get her next and she was afraid to leave the hotel.”

“Rubbish!” Josephine said to nobody in particular.

“What fire?” Cherril asked Brian, who shrugged.

“Can you tell us how your sister learned about the fire at the Sunset Healthy Pet Clinic?” Panchal interrupted, speaking clearly for her phone recorder.

“I don't know—the radio or people talking or something—I can't remember. After hearing that, she was afraid to come and meet with the crazy animal activists here in case
they kidnapped her or something. I didn't believe her and now she's dead!” Vallerie wailed.

“The crazy animal activists meaning Josephine DelaVega and Brian Wong?” Inspector Salim tried to draw Vallerie back to the subject. “And Cherril Peters? Why did your sister think they wanted to hurt her?”

Vallerie just wailed wordlessly.

Brian Wong spoke up. “No one wanted to hurt Allison Fitzgerald—”

“Allison Love,” Vallerie stopped in mid-wail to snap.

“Nobody wanted to hurt her,” Brian continued. “The Fitzgeralds left Singapore, the Animal ReHomers closed down, Allison was out of sight and out of mind until she wrote to Josie and told her she was suing the three of us for breaking up her marriage. She cited some American case where a woman got nine million dollars from an alienation of affection lawsuit. We didn't think it would come to anything but we agreed to meet her here today. We were all here waiting for her but she never showed up.”

“She got a threat saying ‘you're next' from these people!” Vallerie pointed at Josephine and Cherril. “They were sending her threats. When she heard about the clinic fire, she knew she was next!”

They both spoke up denying this, but Salim held up a hand to quiet them. “What threats? Did you keep any of them?”

“They were threatening phone calls,” Vallerie said. “Nobody other than these people knew she was here or where we were staying. It had to be them.”

“What happened at the vet clinic?” Aunty Lee asked.

“The Sunset Healthy Pet Clinic was attacked,” Vallerie said with some impatience. “Don't you people know anything? That's the vet clinic Allison brought that blasted dog to—”

“There was a fire there this morning,” Cherril said. “It was on the news. They said they got all the animals out safely.”

“I also heard about the vet clinic fire.” Aunty Lee had listened to Nina read details off her newsfeed. “I thought they said cause of fire unknown.”

“Pure coincidence,” Brian Wong said firmly. “The clinic fire was probably an accident and nobody was hurt. What probably happened today is somebody broke into your hotel room expecting to find it empty. Your sister was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Allison was scared. She thought she would be safer in the hotel—that's why I came to ask you people to meet her there. She should have known there was nowhere in Singapore she would be safe!”

“Are you sure she was killed?” Aunty Lee asked. “Maybe a heart attack or something . . . Vallerie, when you came in you said your sister wasn't feeling very well, right? Could she have come down with one of those viruses that are always killing National Servicemen training in the sun? Or could she have picked up Ebola on the plane? Salim, how did she die?”

“I cannot say, madame,” Salim said. “But it was not a virus.”

It must have been a violent death, Aunty Lee guessed, or the police would not be so certain of what had
not
been the cause of death before there was time for an autopsy. “Was anything taken from her room?”

“When Miss Vallerie is feeling up to it we would like her
to help us by looking around the hotel room and telling us if anything is missing.” Salim looked at Vallerie. “I'm sorry for your loss, but we also need you to come and identify your sister's body.”

Vallerie shook her head without answering. “I can't. Get somebody else to do it. I'm never going back there again. I can't bear to.”

“Does she have to identify her sister?” Aunty Lee asked.

Salim nodded. “There is no one else here who knew her, I'm afraid.”

“It's that damned ex-husband of hers,” Vallerie said suddenly. “Mike Fitzgerald. If these psycho activists didn't kill her then he must have done it. I'll bet you he's been plotting with these people. He wants Allison dead so that he can marry again, and he wants to marry one of these sluts!”

There was a stunned silence after this.

“You should have called the police after the threatening phone call,” Aunty Lee said thoughtfully. “They can trace the call and find out who threatened your sister. Here the police are very good at listening to phone calls and catching people. Maybe they can look at her phone and see who called her.”

“They called the hotel. Allison didn't have a phone for Singapore and neither do I. Anyway, Allison didn't trust the Singapore police. She tried calling you a lot for help when trespassers were threatening her on her private property, and your so-called police took their side and called her a liar!”

“Your sister was a liar.” Josephine was cold and precise. “And it wasn't her property. She even tried to blame the land
lord, told the newspapers she had to get rid of the dog fast because the landlord insisted. But they interviewed the landlord who said it wasn't true. His previous tenants had had Rottweilers that dug up the fence, so he kept their deposit to fix it, but he was an animal lover and would never tell anybody to get rid of a dog. In fact he contributed to our campaign and said he would not renew their lease.”

“And we weren't threatening your sister,” Brian added. “We just wanted to contact the friend she said she gave Lola to.”

“Another lie,” Josephine interjected.

Brian ignored her, but Vallerie's eyes stayed on Josephine even as he continued. “The Animal ReHomers never threatened her. Some people said things online, but nobody took those seriously. Your sister made a lot of people very angry. They were just letting off steam.”

He looked at Vallerie with the dispassionate calculation of a farmer debating whether a pig was ready for slaughter, and Aunty Lee felt suddenly afraid of him. Vallerie Love didn't seem to notice anything. In fact she seemed most comfortable talking to Brian, perhaps won over by his looks and manner. Or perhaps Vallerie Love considered other women and uniformed civil servants beneath her notice.

“Allison was happy in Singapore until the blasted dog business erupted. After that everything else in her life just fell apart. She came back hoping to find some kind of closure. Instead look what happened. She's dead and you lot are going to get away with it over again!”

Salim did not want to drag things out too long. Now that Vallerie seemed to have calmed down he nodded to Panchal,
who said, “That will be all for now. We will be in touch with all of you for your statements. Miss Love, we will bring you back to the hotel now. They said they can arrange for another room for you to stay in.”

“I don't want to go back to that hotel. I'm never going back to that hotel!”

“Would you like us to find you another hotel?” SS Panchal asked, tapping efficiently on her phone. “I can get you a list of hotels in a similar price range.”

“Or you can stay with friends if you prefer,” Inspector Salim suggested, “as long as we know how to contact you.”

“I don't know anybody here!” Vallerie wailed, her hysterics threatening to return. “I only came because Allison wanted me to, and now she's dead! My knees hurt and I can't walk any more!”

As someone also having trouble walking, Aunty Lee felt a bond with Vallerie. Perhaps, despite her bung ankle, she could help her?

“Drink some more tea,” Aunty Lee urged. “You just had a terrible shock. You must keep up your blood sugar.” She signaled to Nina, who disappeared into the back kitchen. Aunty Lee thought Vallerie looked like a stress eater. So many people reacted to stress by abusing their bodies with cigarettes, alcohol, and jogging on treadmills, so why not food? It did good food a great disservice, but right then the poor woman deserved any comfort she could get. Losing a sister was bad enough; losing a sister in an alien country with no friends was much, much worse.

“We'll get you something to eat. You must keep up your strength, you know. You just had a terrible shock.”

“I can't eat local food,” Vallerie said mechanically. “Local restaurant food is so spicy, it makes me sick. There's a McDonald's near the hotel but I don't want to go back there. I never want to go back to that hotel!”

SS Panchal had left her seat to confer with Inspector Salim. “Nonemergency ambulance?”

Cherril, looking worried, was whispering to Brian and Josephine, who looked bored and was tapping on her mobile phone. Aunty Lee made up her mind before Nina returned from the kitchen to dissuade her.

“You must come and stay with me,” Aunty Lee said firmly. “My house is just up the road and I have lots of space. Inspector Salim can tell you I can be trusted, and when you are feeling better he can come to talk to you in my house.”

Aunty Lee knew Vallerie had no reason to trust her. But she had no one else to trust, and surely a plump middle-aged (or even elderly) widow with a twisted ankle must appear less threatening than a strange police station or the hotel one's sister had died in. She smiled at Vallerie and did her best to look old and harmless.

“My house is very comfortable and very safe. The police have my address so they will know where to reach you. Would you like that?”

Vallerie hesitated, then nodded damply. “Yes.”

88 Binjai Park

Straits Financial Daily:

The woman who was found dead in the Victoria Crest Hotel yesterday has been identified as British citizen Allison Love. Formerly known as Allison Fitzgerald, Ms. Love was the focus of controversy in Singapore five years ago when she claimed she was justified in having an adopted puppy put down. The subsequent Web outrage led former Cabinet minister Cheng Yee to caution against extreme overreactions on the Internet and suggest Internet monitoring procedures. Mr. Cheng, who is the first Cabinet minister to lose a group representative
constituency (GRC), could not comment on whether the two events were connected.

Seen on the Scene:

[Shots of a covered body on a stretcher being carried out of the hotel and old photographs of Allison Fitzgerald raising a middle finger to the press camera, Josephine posing with Lola the puppy, and blurred shots of Cherril and Brian covering their faces.]

Allison the Puppy Killer is back—and dead. Is this karma or overkill? Let us know what you think! We want to hear your comments!

The next morning found Aunty Lee, as usual, sitting at the antique marble-topped table on the sheltered side porch of 88 Binjai Park. Over the past fortnight, Aunty Lee had been grumpy with frustration at the sight of her garden and the many things an ankle stabilizer and crutch barred her from doing; her ripe mangoes had not been collected (reminding her of the excess waiting in her kitchen), lemongrass was invading the screw pine leaves, and giant kaffir limes had been left to ripen on the bushes instead of being plucked and pickled . . . but today when Nina placed a cup of hot tea on the table, her employer smiled at her and said, “Good morning. Going to be nice and sunny. Clothes will dry well.”

Nina was less cheerful. She did not mind houseguests but preferred them to come without murderous connections.
Murder investigations disrupted opening hours at the café and sleep and housework cycles, and were bad for both business and health. Still, it was good to see Aunty Lee perked up, and hopefully the presence of a guest would prevent her from climbing onto things.

Vallerie had not appeared since being put to bed in Mathilda's old bedroom the day before.

“Have you heard any more news about the murder? Did Salim say anything?”

“Madame, this is not your business. Your business is to get better and look after your café.” Aunty Lee's Delights was not opening till 11
A.M.
for brunch, so Aunty Lee shrugged that off.

“Yesterday Josephine said they should have killed that woman—and now that woman is dead! She said it in my café so of course it's my business.”

Nina was unimpressed. “I also say like that what. Last week I told the egg deliveryman if he is late again and I got to go one more time to buy eggs from 7-Eleven I will kill him. If he gets heart attack are you going to call police?”

“Did Allison Love die of a heart attack?”

Nina started back into the house without answering.

“Is our guest awake yet?”

“Just now she go to the bathroom but never come downstairs yet.”

“Ah.”

Nina left Aunty Lee to her newspapers. Today, in addition to her regular paper, the
Straits Times,
Aunty Lee had asked for the
Business Times,
the
New Paper,
and
Today
. Fortunately
the nearby 7-Eleven was well stocked with papers (as well as fresh eggs).

Unfortunately for Aunty Lee the newspapers proved sadly disappointing.

There was nothing on the murder she did not already know. Aunty Lee studied a photo of the dead woman. Allison and Vallerie looked very alike, though it was not immediately obvious with Vallerie being so much larger in size.

“I wish I knew how to make those spy drones,” Aunty Lee said in grumpy frustration. “I would make them small, like mosquitoes. And just make them fly around checking on people. I'm sure so many crimes could be prevented. And they could chase away mosquitoes so dengue fever also no more.” But she was not really disheartened because there was still Vallerie Love asleep upstairs.

The reporters had not had a chance to speak to Vallerie. Aunty Lee had spent much of the previous day comforting and soothing the woman as she swung between furious, wild accusations and miserable wailing. Vallerie was not only in shock over her sister's death but clearly terrified for herself. Aunty Lee hoped she would be calm enough to answer questions today. Though Vallerie insisted no one other than the Animal ReHomers and Allison's ex-husband could have wanted to hurt her sister, she might remember someone Allison had met or mentioned. Despite her temporary handicap, Aunty Lee was sure she could do better than the police (certainly better than SS Panchal!) gathering information in this case.

Aunty Lee did not believe any of the former Animal ReHomers could have killed Allison Love. Cherril had been in the café all morning, and surely neither Josephine (whom she had known as a child) nor Brian (so polite and so handsome) could have had anything to do with it. That left the unknown ex-husband.

Vallerie rolled on her bed and stretched out on the clean sheets. Despite the shock and horror of the past twenty-four hours and her resolution not to let her guard down, sheer exhaustion had relaxed her, and though she had not expected to, the bereaved sister had slept well. She would have liked to stay in bed now. But she had to think about what she was going to do next.

The room they had given her looked like a room a child had grown up in and then moved out of. The books on the shelves ranged from childhood favorites to philosophical texts, and there were graduation photographs on the wall. Once alone she checked carefully for bedbugs, cockroaches, and other horrors she suspected Singaporeans of keeping in their homes. Fortunately it seemed clean enough, and once she locked herself in she felt safe for the first time in that terrible day. The windows looked down on the large back garden of the house and carefully placed trees concealed the other houses that surrounded them. There was an attached bathroom with a shower and toilet, the mattress was firm and the bedding clean, and all in all she knew taking the risk to stay here had been the right decision.

Vallerie knew Allison would have had reservations about
accepting the fat old café cook's invitation to stay with her. Allison would have preferred a decent hotel with standards of cleanliness to live up to, even if she didn't have the means to pay for it. But Allison was not around anymore, Vallerie reminded herself. She, Vallerie, had to make her own decisions now.

Allison might be gone, but she still had to think about what she could do for her.

And she was hungry.

Of course murder was a terrible thing. But when the victim was not somebody you had known personally it became like one of the crime shows on television—an interactive show that they had front row seats for. Which made it extra frustrating because Aunty Lee was right in the middle of the action but had no idea what was happening.

“Maybe you should phone Salim,” Aunty Lee suggested when her helper came out with hot tea. “Just to find out what they've found out so far. For Vallerie's sake, of course. The killer must have attacked her sister while she was in the taxi coming to our place yesterday, can you believe it? If only her sister had come with her she might be alive now!”

“Or maybe the killer would have followed them to the shop and killed them both there,” Nina suggested. “And all of us too. Or taken us hostage. Again.” Nina had not enjoyed her firsthand experience of being taken hostage, which she blamed on Aunty Lee's meddling and interfering.

“I'm sure Salim will want to talk to Vallerie again. You should call and tell him he can talk to her here. It will be less
stressful for her. If you heard her in the toilet just now she must be awake. She'll probably be hungry. Can you make her a breakfast that will put her in a good mood?”

“What are you going to do with this woman, madame?”

What Aunty Lee wanted to do was find out why Vallerie's sister had blamed Josephine, Brian, and Cherril for the breakdown of her marriage. There might be nothing in it, of course. Aunty Lee felt sorry for the late Allison Fitzgerald. Losing a husband, whether to death or divorce, was difficult. And people in crisis often created and clung to a personal view of reality, however warped. It was a matter of survival, when the only stable thing in your life was an object you could focus your hatred on. But why had she blamed the former Animal ReHomers?

But intrigued as Aunty Lee might be by Allison's death, at the moment her immediate concern was Vallerie. Vallerie Love was terrified and traumatized and a guest in her house, and Aunty Lee was first and foremost a good hostess.

“I'm going to take care of her while she's here.”

Having a guest to occupy Aunty Lee while her ankle recovered was a good idea, Nina thought. She only wished Aunty Lee had guests who were interested in batik and orchids rather than murder and lawsuits.