Coconuts and Crooks

by Christy Murphy

  “Everybody is,” Joshua said.

  “True,” I said, but inside all I thought was that a certain handsome detective wasn’t on Facebook.

  6

  Butts and Boats

  We woke up early the next morning to catch our boat. The early hour demanded caffeine, and I lamented that Bo’s cafe wasn’t close to our hotel room so I could get a half-caf. When we got to the lobby of the hotel, our doorman was there, but the cafeteria wasn’t open yet. No diet soda.

  Our doorman took a photo of the three of us in front of the hotel sign. Wenling said she “needed” it. She hadn’t posted anything on social media in eight hours.

  “How about getting a picture of Christy and Sam?” Mom said. At first I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I realized Sam was the doorman.

  Being without coffee or Coke Light and hence no energy to argue, I succumbed to yet another uncomfortable photograph. We exited the hotel to find Buboy waiting for us with the Mystery Machine. The ride from the hotel to the port to catch our boat was less than ten minutes. We could see the Ocean Jet ferry from the hotel. I would’ve thought that Buboy would have been excited to have several days off since Mom had negotiated a weekly rate, but he was sad to have to take the Mystery Machine sign off his pedicab for the weekend. He told us if we decided to come home early to text him, otherwise he would be waiting for us at the pier on Monday.

  The pier was crowded, and I worried the ferry would be sold out. When we got to the ticket counter, the woman said the Cebu “open air” tickets were all sold out, and we could get “tourist class” tickets that were only a few hundred pesos more.

  I looked at the sign and noticed there was another class of ticket called “business class” that was not much more.

  “What about business class?” I asked.

  “Plenty of seats,” the woman said.

  “We don’t need those,” Mom said and bought our tickets in “tourist class.”

  We boarded the boat, and one of the crew members pointed us toward the lower deck that was outfitted with bunk beds. At first it seemed nice. Mom, Wenling, and I had a lower bunk. The room was hot and dark. The television sets were in the far corners. The rows and rows of bunk beds began to feel like rows of mini death traps. It was odd to have to sit on a bed and not have a back. We’d managed to score two bottom bunks across from one another. Mom and Wenling shared one, and I had the other. We would have talked, but the feet hanging over the side from the upper bunks made it a little weird.

  More people boarded. The cabin grew hotter. A man in the upper bunk across from me decided he couldn’t sit in the bunk and opted to stand and lean against it. So it was feet on one side and the man’s butt on the other. Tourist class—more like tourist…we’ll go with butt.

  “Kid,” Mom said to me, ducking and maneuvering around the pairs of feet dangling between us. “I’ll see if they have Coke Light and ask if any of the crew remembers the judge traveling on this boat on Wednesdays.”

  I nodded and hoped there was Coke Light. I bet the judge rode business class, and on the trip back, I vowed we’d go business class, too.

  Mom texted Abigail when we arrived, and she gave us the address of a café near the hospital. We waited outside for her to arrive. The small café had lots of customers, many of them doctors and nurses from the hospital.

  “I think that’s her,” Mom said, pointing to a slender young woman just a few inches shorter than me wearing green scrubs.

  “Tita Jo?”

  “Abigail!” Mom said, reaching out for a hug.

  We all hugged hello. Wenling took a photo of us, and we headed inside to have lunch.

  “She looks so much like you when we met,” Wenling said as she logged into the cafe Wi-Fi and posted the photo to Facebook.

  “But taller,” Mom said.

  “My mother used to say that,” Abigail said.

  A pang of sadness stabbed at my heart. Abigail had been young when her mother died. I wondered what my aunt was like. But since everyone else was in an upbeat mood, I kept my thoughts to myself and continued with lunch.

  We did the how have you been and other catching up and getting to know you talk. The conversation flowed easily.

  Despite being so successful at a young age with her nursing career, Abigail wasn’t at all conceited about it. Being in the medical profession was a highly respected position in the Philippines. I remembered how much Mom had hoped that I would choose to go into medicine when I was in school.

  “I heard you wrote a song, and it’s on the radio and everything!” Abigail said.

  “I co-wrote it with my ex-husband. He did the music, and I wrote the lyrics,” I said.

  We talked about the song, and she asked if I’d planned to write another. I said I might, which surprised me. It never occurred to me to write more lyrics until that very conversation. But I’d enjoyed writing that song. I even wrote little poems all the time just for fun.

  Talk turned to the case.

  “I’m so glad you were able to come all this way,” Abigail said.

  “I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner,” Mom said.

  “I think it’s best. I was in school up until two years ago, and I finally am settled in my job and married now. If we’d tried to talk about it too soon, well,” Abigail said, looking down.

  Mom reached over and grabbed her hand.

  “I think it worked out for the best,” Abigail said. “And this way I got to meet my cousin and your fellow TV star.”

  Wenling blushed. “I was only on a few seasons.”

  “And you’re a world-famous meme maker,” Abigail said. We all laughed. Talk drifted to everyone in the hospital seeing it. It turns out that one of Abigail’s coworkers is friends with Dar-Dar on Facebook and started following our page. She shared it, and it got all over the hospital.

  “Dar-Dar is a big star here in Cebu. He won the Miss-Mister pageant,” Abigail said.

  “I know. He showed me his sash,” I said. “He’s house-sitting for us now.”

  I went on to tell stories about him hogging the bathroom, and Abigail talked about her husband and thanked Mom for the gift she sent a few years ago. I didn’t even know that my cousin had gotten married. That was around the time things started to go south in my marriage. I’d never let myself be so distant from my family again. It’s one thing to be absorbed in a new life and happy marriage, it’s another to be constantly chasing something just because it’s running away. I’d taken my family for granted. It’s important to hold on to the good times while they’re here.

  “So the judge is dead,” Abigail said.

  “We saw the body,” Wenling said, excited to share the news.

  “That’s too bad,” Abigail said.

  Mom shot her an inquisitive look.

  “He came to the funeral,” Abigail said. “He said he tried to make his peace with us before my mother died.”

  “Did she ever get to see him?” Mom asked.

  “She called me after he visited,” Abigail said. “She said he’d given her the power of attorney forms. The ones that were forged. She said they weren’t even signed by anyone. Blank, but I’ve gone through all of her things and haven’t found them. My only guess is she had them with her during the accident. Her leather case wasn’t found at the scene. I don’t know what happened to it.”

  “Maybe the man who crashed into her stole it,” Wenling said.

  “So you don’t think that accident was an accident?” Abigail asked.

  “I’d always found it suspicious that right around the same time that your mom found out the truth after all this years, she gets into an accident,” Mom said. “And now it looks like it was down to the very day.”

  “We think the judge planned it,” Wenling said.

  “He seemed genuinely sorry at the funeral. He said he hoped my mother would forgive him,” Abigail said.

  “So he confessed to arranging the accident?” Wenling said.

  “I think he meant so
rry for hiding the document and you know, being a crook,” Abigail said. “Although being as old is he is, he kept calling me Jo. I think he thought I was you.”

  “You do look alike give or take thirty or forty years,” Wenling said with a laugh.

  Mom didn’t think that was funny.

  “So how did the judge die?” Abigail asked.

  “You can’t tell anybody. Captain is head of the police now, and he’s already worried about what the public will think,” Mom said.

  “I won’t say a word,” Abigail said.

  “He was shot,” Wenling announced, stealing Mom’s thunder. “Right in the head.”

  “Oh my!” Abigail said.

  Mom glared at Wenling, but Wenling didn’t notice or ignored it. She was too excited to share the story. “It was very disturbing. Your cousin remembers everything. You can ask her all the details,” Wenling volunteered on my behalf. She was right. I did remember all the details, but I didn’t feel like talking about it over lunch.

  “That’s okay, I don’t need to know any more,” she said.

  A waiter walked by with a tray of coconuts with purple ice cream inside. “What’s that?” I said, marveling at the dessert.

  “That’s halo halo in a buko shell,” Mom said. For the record, it’s spelled like the word halo as in headgear for an angel, but the A is pronounced like the name Hal.

  “Should we get dessert?” Abigail asked.

  “Great idea,” I said, knowing that there was a certain angelically-named coconut-shelled dessert with my name on it.

  We ordered four halo halos and continued to catch up.

  “I appreciate the money you sent for the apartment to help us. It would have been hard to move again after we’d just moved so we could be closer to the university for Danilo,” Abigail said. I hadn’t known Mom had sent money to Abigail and her brother, Danilo.

  “I wish I could have been here for the funeral,” Mom said.

  “It’s so far. I’m sorry about your husband,” Abigail said.

  Mom nodded. “How is your brother?”

  “It was hard for him to finish his degree. He’d just started when Mom died. It was easier for me, because I was only in high school. But he rallied after the first year and now he’s an aircraft mechanic in Singapore. If it weren’t for your help though, we would have never made it.”

  “I’m so glad you and your brother were both able to graduate and find good jobs,” Mom said. “It’s so hard over here for that.”

  “We are very fortunate,” Abigail said.

  I couldn’t help but think of my college dropout status. My cousins managed to do it after the death of their mother when their father had died so many years before. And I just decided to stop going because I’d let some guy take up all of my time. Mom forgave me and never held it over my head, but in that moment as the shame stung in my chest I realized I hadn’t forgiven me. I’d thrown away something precious, and maybe it was time to think of getting it back.

  “Where you guys staying?” Abigail asked, noticing our luggage. “You’re welcome to stay at our house.”

  “We didn’t want to miss your lunch, so we came straight here. Besides, we can’t check into the Ocean Vida until after two,” Mom said.

  “Oh! Ocean Vida. Very nice,” Abigail said. “The beach there is beautiful.”

  “We were thinking you and your husband could come and visit us this weekend,” Mom said.

  “That will be so fun!” Abigail said.

  She told us about the resort, which sounded like it would be a lot of fun. It would be great to get a little vacationing in with our crime-solving—especially because the crime-solving didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  “By the way, do you think you could introduce us to Dr. Rinaldo if we stop by the hospital?” Mom asked.

  “We think he might know who the judge’s mistress was,” Wenling added.

  “The judge had a mistress?” Abigail asked.

  “We don’t know for sure. We just know that he left the hospital early every Wednesday, and there were rumors. Dr. Acostas said he saw the judge with Dr. Rinaldo here in Cebu, and I found out from the crew on Ocean Jet that the judge traveled here almost every week,” Mom said.

  “That’s why no one on our island knows who his mistress was,” Wenling said.

  “I never saw him with a woman, but I have seen him with Dr. Rinaldo.”

  “Do you think we can talk to Dr. Rinaldo?” Mom asked.

  “Actually,” Abigail said, turning around and looking throughout the restaurant. “He just sat down over there.”

  “Let’s go ask him how to get in touch with the judge’s mistress,” Wenling said, standing up.

  Mom stopped her. “We’re going to have to be a little more subtle than that. Let’s wait until he’s had time to order.”

  Wenling gave me the rest of her halo halo. She’d been more excited about taking a picture of it than actually eating it.

  “He’s ordered,” Wenling said, staring at the doctor. “Let’s go over now.”

  “We can’t all go over. That would be weird,” Mom said. “I’ll go over by myself. Abigail will introduce me.”

  “I never get to do any of the fun stuff,” Wenling said.

  “You got to see the dead body,” Mom said.

  “I guess so,” Wenling said, disappointed.

  “You can listen from here,” Mom said.

  “Then I’ll take your seat,” Wenling said. “It’s closer.”

  Abigail and Mom went over to the doctor’s table. “Doctor Rinaldo,” Abigail said. “I’m Abigail. I work in geriatrics.”

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Good afternoon.”

  “I just wanted to introduce you to my Aunt Jo. Aunt Jo, this is Doctor Rinaldo, the head of neurology at the hospital.”

  Mom and the doctor shook hands. I overheard Mom giving Dr. Rinaldo condolences on the death of his friend, Judge Hernandez.

  For a moment I thought the conversation was going to turn adversarial, but Mom had a way keeping things friendly. They talked quietly in Visayan, and I couldn’t follow them.

  “Have you heard her mention the mistress?” Wenling asked.

  I shook my head no and dug into my dessert. “What do you think this purple ice cream is made from?” I asked.

  “Ube,” Wenling said. “It’s a purple yam.”

  “Oh,” I said, not knowing how to respond to the idea that this delicious ice cream was flavored by a yam. I like yams, but I never would have thought of a yam-flavored frozen dessert.

  Mom talked to the doctor, and I decided it would be a shame for her halo halo to go to waste. Halo halo was like a sundae, but with more than just sprinkles. They had gummi bear-like Jell-O things in there, crushed ice, ice cream, sweetened milk, sugar-cured fruit, sweetened beans, and what seemed like corn flakes. It sounds weird, but it was amazing. And then when you get a little more room from eating all the good stuff, you can scrape out the tender coconut meat off the sides of the young coconut. So good. Wenling decided to order a coffee to take another photo.

  They didn’t have decaf, so I stuck with my Coke Light. Wenling got her coffee but was disappointed in the foam art on her latte. “Only a heart,” she said, but took a picture anyway.

  Mom and Abigail returned to the table. “I ordered you coffee,” Wenling said, pushing her latte over to Mom.

  “Thanks,” Mom said.

  “What did you find out?” I asked.

  “Nothing much,” Mom said. I could tell from her expression that she was still deep in thought.

  “Did you find out about the judge’s mistress?” Wenling asked.

  “He wouldn’t talk much about the judge. Every time I brought him up, he would change the subject or say,” Mom used her fingers to make the quotation sign, “I couldn’t say.”

  “Why can’t he say?” Wenling said.

  “He was probably just being polite,” I said. “It’s just a phrase.”

  “I better get back to work,”
Abigail said, standing up and reaching into her purse for her wallet. Mom waved off her money, and we all said goodbye. Mom stayed to finish her coffee, and I stayed to finish my coconut.

  “Maybe when we talk to the pedicab driver when we get back, we’ll get a lead on the one who drove the truck,” Wenling said.

  Mom nodded. “Since we’re right across from the hospital, we can check if anyone knows anything about the judge there. Maybe the security guards.”

  The waitress asked us if we needed anything. Mom signaled for the check and as an afterthought she asked Wenling to look up a picture of the judge on the internet. Wenling found something of a recent photograph. When the waitress came back Mom showed it to her and asked if she’d seen him in the restaurant or around town.

  The waitress nodded yes.

  “Have you seen him here with a woman?” Wenling asked, excited.

  “No, just with men,” the waitress said.

  “Oooh,” Wenling said. “Maybe he had a boyfriend.”

  The waitress shook her head no and spoke with Mom in Visayan for a little bit. Mom told her she could keep the change for the check, and the waitress smiled and left.

  “What did she say?” Wenling asked.

  I gathered Wenling’s understanding of Visayan wasn’t as in depth as I’d originally thought.

  “She said that the judge had been here a bunch of times, but never with a woman. Only with a younger man that she thought might be his son or his assistant and Dr. Rinaldo.”

  “And that doctor won’t tell us anything,” Wenling said. “I hope the resort is better than this investigation,” Wenling said. “We’re getting nowhere.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Mom said. “We just need to keep challenging our assumptions and looking over all of the clues.”

  “You’re just saying that to get my hopes up,” Wenling said, but I wasn’t sure. I’d seen that expression on Mom’s face before—like she looking for the missing piece to the puzzle.

  At the resort, I was able to check our website and keep in touch with Dar-Dar on the cake orders. Mom’s meme generated a lot of interest in the case, and people were writing to see if I could post some updates on what was happening on the website.