The Ambassador's Wife (12 page)

When Tay told the taxi driver where to drop him off, he saw a flash of suspicion in the man’s eyes. He wondered briefly if he should show the driver his police warrant card to prove that he wasn’t a burglar casing his next job, but the idea of that was so humiliating he quickly pushed the thought aside. After he got out of the taxi, the driver gave him a long look. Tay just stared back without saying anything until the man finally drove off.

When he pushed the intercom button on the gate box there was no answer, but the gates began to swing open and he walked down the driveway toward the house. Even before he got there, Lucinda burst out the front door and stood watching him with her hands on her hips. He crossed the red graveled parking area at the front of the house and mounted the stairs to the veranda.

“You still don’t own a car, Sam?”

“No car. But I did buy a bicycle. That’s almost the same thing, isn’t it?”

Lucinda stared at Tay as if she was deciding whether or not he had gone completely mad, then broke into an enormous grin, threw her arms around him, and kissed him on both cheeks.

“God, some people never change, do they?”

He pecked at her cheeks in return.

“I keep trying,” he said, “but nothing much happens.”

Lucinda grabbed his hand and pulled him inside, closing the door behind them. Her hand felt warm and smooth. It was also somehow smaller than he remembered it.

“Come into the living room,” Lucinda said. “Would you like a drink? Champagne? Yes, of course. Let’s have some champagne, Sam.”

“Just a glass of wine maybe. I don’t like to drink during the day.”

“Ah yes, I forgot. The stalwart Inspector Samuel Tay manning the ramparts of the country, single-handedly repelling the onslaught of the barbarians and keeping us safe from criminals and the lower classes.”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly that way.”

“Of course not, silly. That’s why I did.”

When they reached the living room, Lucinda waved Tay toward the fireplace where two silk-upholstered couches and two wing chairs formed a cozy-looking group.

“Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

Lucinda disappeared through a door Tay knew led to the kitchen so he took his time crossing the living room and stopped to examine two paintings that had appeared on the walls since the last time he had been there. He didn’t recognize their style so he bent to try and decipher the artists’ signatures. Not surprisingly, that didn’t help either since Tay knew almost nothing about art. Lucinda, on the other hand, seemed to know a great deal, at least enough so that he had no idea how much she actually knew and how much was just bluffing.

He had just seated himself on one of the couches when Lucinda returned with two glasses of white wine. Handing one to Tay, she took the couch opposite him, curled her legs up under her, and lifted her glass in a toast.

“To old friends.”

Tay summoned up a small smile, but avoided catching Lucinda’s eye as he lifted his own glass and drank.

“Okay, Sherlock.” Lucinda took another sip, then put her glass down on the coffee table between them and folded her arms. “So what’s going on?”

“Does the name Elizabeth Munson mean anything to you?”

“You mean the American ambassador’s wife?”

Tay nodded and put his own glass down on the coffee table.

“Are you telling me she has something to do with your murder case?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What?”

“She’s the victim.”

Lucinda’s right hand flew to her mouth. It was a movie pose, a stagey and artificial gesture, but somehow Lucinda made it look natural.

“Liz is dead?”

Tay nodded.

“Murdered?”

Tay nodded again.

“Oh, God.” Lucinda shook her head as if to clear it. “What happened? Can you tell me?”

Tay did.

“Oh, God,” Lucinda said again.

She took her hand away from her mouth and folded her arms, pulling them tightly around her body as if that would keep her safe from the malevolent forces loose in the land.

“I need to know whatever you can tell me about Mrs. Munson,” Tay said.

He thought he saw something like a flicker of wariness behind Lucinda’s eyes, but he might have been mistaken.

“Such as what?” she asked.

“Anything really. If I can start building up a picture of her life, it would be a start. Without that I can’t even begin to guess at a motive.”

“I only knew her socially.”

“How else is there? She was an ambassador’s wife. She didn’t have a professional life, did she?”

“No, I guess not.” Lucinda hesitated. “What I meant was that I didn’t really know her personally. I just saw her at parties now and then.”

“Go on,” Tay said.

He leaned back on the couch and took a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket.

“I’m interested in where you saw her,” he said. “Who she was with, what she was doing, that kind of thing. I’m also interested in what you may have heard about Elizabeth Munson in general, you know, around town.”

Lucinda raised one eyebrow at that.

“Why, you old gossip. You’re here because you want to hear the dirt, don’t you?”

Tay shrugged. “You never know what might be useful.”

Lucinda uncoiled herself from the chair and leaned forward.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“I haven’t any idea. Start wherever you like.”

Lucinda picked up her wineglass in both hands. She held it, not drinking while she seemed to think, and then she began to talk.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Tay heard all about last year’s Red Cross ball, the opening of the concert season at the Esplanade the year before, the Fourth of July party given by the American ambassador, and the charity premiere of the new Jackie Chan movie that was being planned for later in the year. He heard about small dinner parties and large cocktail parties, he heard about symphonies and operas. He even heard about a charity sale of used designer dresses and a golf tournament, the details of which he blocked out as well as he could.

Lucinda talked and Tay listened until both their glasses were empty. Eventually Lucinda was talked out and a silence fell. Tay did nothing to break it. He merely sat and waited to see what might come next.

THIRTEEN

“MORE
wine, Sam?”

“Not for me, thanks.”

“I notice you didn’t write anything down.”

“No.”

“It’s okay with me. I don’t mind. You can quote me on any of it.”

“I’m not trying to protect you, Lucinda. I just didn’t hear anything that was worth writing down, let alone quoting.”

Lucinda looked genuinely hurt and Tay immediately felt embarrassed he had spoken so brusquely.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that you’ve been talking about parties and clothes. You haven’t told me anything at all about Elizabeth Munson. Who were her friends? How did she spend her time? What do you know about her private life?”

Tay leaned back and waited, congratulating himself on his choice of words. He was thinking how much more subtle
private life
sounded than
sex life
, which of course was what he was really asking about.

“I really don’t know about any of that, Sam. Like I said, I just knew Liz to see her at parties. That’s all. Really.”

Tay watched Lucinda’s eyes slide away from his as she spoke. She’s lying, he thought to himself, although he couldn’t imagine why.

He tried another tack. “Was Mrs. Munson happily married?”

Lucinda hesitated. Tay noticed her eyes didn’t return to his.

“You’re really asking me if she fooled around, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

Lucinda inspected the space above Tay’s head. He felt a shift in the air. It was slight, but perceptible.

“I don’t know how to answer that, Sam. I saw her at functions with her husband sometimes and sometimes without him, but that’s normal for diplomatic couples. When I saw them together they seemed fine…”

Lucinda stopped talking and reached back for a memory.

“But don’t we all seem fine to others who don’t know the truth about us?” she finished quietly.

“No other men in her life?”

“None that I know of, but then I really wouldn’t know.”

Tay nodded slowly. Lucinda was holding something back. He had no doubt of that now, but he wasn’t at all sure how to get at whatever it was. Trying to bully it out of her certainly wouldn’t get him anywhere. It would probably just guarantee she would never tell him.

Tay put his notebook away and they made polite conversation for a while. Whatever it was Lucinda was holding out, he would let her have a few minutes to think about it. Then he would come back and ask her the same questions about Elizabeth Munson all over again. It amazed Tay how many times people answered questions differently when you gave them a second opportunity and refrained from mentioning their original answers. It was sometimes as if the first conversation had never taken place at all.

“Let’s get back to Elizabeth Munson,” Tay said after he figured a decent interval had passed. “The Americans think this was a terrorist attack.”

“A terrorist attack on an ambassador’s wife? Here in Singapore? That’s ridiculous, Sam.”

“Yes, I agree. It doesn’t feel right to me either, but so far I can’t point to anything else that might even conceivably amount to a motive for murder. If I can’t, the Americans are going to have their way about terrorism. That’s why I need you to tell me what you know about Mrs. Munson’s personal life. Maybe something there will point me toward another motive.”

Lucinda hesitated. She was uneasy now. Tay could see that plainly and he had no doubt that Lucinda knew he could see it. It wasn’t just Elizabeth Munson’s death. He was sure of that. It was something in the questions Tay had asked that was troubling Lucinda.

“I already told you, Sam. I didn’t really know her very well.”

Tay watched Lucinda as she glanced away again. He didn’t say anything at all. He knew now that if he kept silent eventually Lucinda would start to talk again and tell him whatever it was she was reluctant to say.

“There were rumors…” she began.

Then she stopped talking and shifted herself on the couch, crossing her legs first to the left and then uncrossing them and re-crossing them to the right. Tay waited patiently. He was ready to wait until next week if it took that long.

“Oh God, Sam, I shouldn’t say this.”

Lucinda took a deep breath and then let it out.

Tay waited some more.

“Okay, look.” Lucinda uncrossed her legs one more time and sat up straight. “There were rumors that she was having an affair with a woman and that she was going to leave her husband for this woman. I have no idea who the woman was or even if it was true. There. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

For a moment, Tay was so flabbergasted that words failed him.

“Elizabeth Munson was gay?” he asked when he regained his voice.

“What?” Lucinda sounded genuinely annoyed with him. “Gay? Samuel Tay, I said nothing of the sort.”

“But I thought you just said—”

“I said I had heard stories that she was having an affair with a woman. That certainly doesn’t make her gay.”

Tay didn’t know what to say to that. What else did it make her?

“Oh, Sam.” Now Lucinda sounded sympathetic. “You really
do
need to get out more. A great many women have affairs with other women at various points in their lives. It doesn’t mean they’re gay. These things are just … well, things that happen and, usually, they end and these women go back to their men.”

The first thing that came to Tay’s mind was the unselfconscious ease with which Lucinda had imparted that information to him. Did that mean she herself had…no, surely not.

After all, he had gone out with Lucinda for nearly two years and, naturally they had slept together, although he had to admit they had done so rather less frequently as their relationship wore on. He would have known, wouldn’t he? Could Lucinda have also been sleeping with women at the same time
without
him knowing it? Even the remote possibility of that opened up a whole house of horrors for Tay, savaging his already fragile sense that he might know anything at all about women.

They talked on for a few more minutes after that, but it was obvious to Tay that Lucinda really didn’t know any more than she had already told him. He was so distracted now anyway that he jumped at the first opportunity he could find to end the conversation and take his leave.

Tay would have to do something to get to the bottom of the story Lucinda had told him, but he couldn’t imagine what he might find when he did. For the moment, all he knew was that Elizabeth Munson’s female lover was a rumor among the ladies who lunch, nothing more than that. Still, something must have started the rumor and, since it had apparently continued to circulate right up to the day that Elizabeth Munson died, perhaps it was really true.

Even if it were true, it probably had nothing at all to do with her murder; but then maybe it
did
have something to do with it. Maybe, if he looked closely enough, he would even find the seeds of a motive somewhere in what Lucinda had just told him.

Tay sighed heavily. He didn’t even want to think about where that might take him.

IN
the taxi on the way back to his office, Tay shook a Marlboro out of the box. Before he could put it in his mouth, the driver began to chant “no, no, no, no,” stabbing his forefinger over and over at a No Smoking sign taped to the dashboard.

He hadn’t even intended to light the damned thing and just figured the feel of it might help him to think more clearly, but he returned it to the box without arguing.

Welcome to Singapore
, Tay thought,
the country where every man is his own policeman
.

He briefly considered asking the taxi driver if, in furtherance of his duty to maintain public order, he might also like to take over the Elizabeth Munson case, but then he thought better of it and said nothing at all.