Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge

by Ovidia Yu

  “So are you all having my nasi lemak buffet? Brian?” Aunty Lee gestured toward the buffet spread. Even though other hands had prepared today’s dishes, she had guided the process as both composer and conductor and she was very proud of it.

  “It looks fantastic,” Brian said with automatic, almost convincing politeness as his eyes scanned the people in the crowded room but missed the food. “Allison’s not here yet? I was afraid I might be late.”

  “You are late. Very late,” Josephine snapped, though she had arrived barely ten minutes earlier. She fumbled with her bag and pressed two Panadol capsules out of their foil casing, swallowing them with the last of her ice water. “God, I’ve got such a headache. Can I have more water?”

  “Josephine only just arrived. Cherril was sitting here by herself for at least an hour!” Selina reached rudely across Josephine with a jug and filled Brian’s glass first. “Are you here for the buffet too?”

  “Only half an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes!” Cherril murmured.

  Forgetting her ankle for a moment, Aunty Lee jumped up on seeing all the ice in Selina’s water jug had melted, but sat down immediately, wincing.

  Brian was the only one who noticed. “What’s wrong? Aunty Lee, are you all right?”

  “She has a sprained ankle,” Selina said. “She fell. She’s lucky she didn’t break it—or something else! Old people are always falling down and breaking bones. Maybe now you’ll take things easy!”

  Aunty Lee refused to be distracted from the nugget of information that she had caught. “This Allison you are all waiting for is the bloody woman you wish you had killed like a dog?” she inquired with the air of a helpful child.

  Cherril gasped and giggled. Josephine invoked fecal matter. Brian looked taken aback then laughed. “I’m with you there”—he pulled out his phone—“but I’m sure we’ll be able to work things out without killing anybody. I’m just going to take this outside—better signal.”

  “Brian Wong is such a nice boy,” Aunty Lee said as soon as the door closed behind Brian. She looked meaningfully at Josephine. “Why is he here today? Are you two . . .” She tapped her forefingers together before entwining them.

  Josephine had closed her eyes and looked as though she was praying for her painkillers to work.

  “Why are all of you here today? Are you having a business meeting?”

  “Aunty Lee, you’re so . . .” Cherril started, and stopped. Being called kaypoh was generally an insult but one Aunty Lee embraced cheerfully. After all, knowing everybody’s business was necessary if she wanted to feed everybody good food, and surely there was nothing wrong with that. It surprised Aunty Lee that more people did not feel that way.

  Josephine’s eyes remained closed as she said, “Allison Fitzgerald is filing a lawsuit against the three of us for breaking up her marriage. She found an American lawyer who got his last client nine million U.S. dollars on a similar lawsuit. She’s coming to meet us here.”

  2

  Puppy Killer

  “Alienation of affection? This Allison woman got divorced and wants to sue you all?” Aunty Lee’s eyes darted between Cherril and Josephine before settling on Josephine. “She thinks you stole her husband? What did you do with him?”

  “Aunty Lee! It’s nothing like that!” Cherril did not give her friend a chance to answer. “This woman and her husband adopted a dog—a puppy—from us when we were running the Animal ReHomers. Now she claims that dealing with the Animal ReHomers stressed her into a nervous breakdown and led to the breakup of her marriage. Since the ReHomers organization doesn’t exist anymore, she’s suing the three of us because we’re the ones she dealt with.”

  Aunty Lee looked puzzled. “She didn’t like the dog?”

  “She agreed to return it to us if she couldn’t keep it. But instead she had it put down and then lied that she had given it to a friend.”

  “I remember her now! The puppy killer!” Aunty Lee thumped her stick against Josephine’s chair in delight at remembering the case. “The puppy killer! It was in the newspapers!”

  It had also been all over social media and even international newspapers. After all, nothing unites Singaporeans like getting really angry at something or someone, especially when they can feel self-righteously patriotic about it.

  “But I didn’t know you all were involved. Tell me all about it!”

  Josephine smiled and excused herself to make a call as Cherril began.

  Five years ago, Allison and Mike Fitzgerald adopted a small mixed-breed puppy from the Animal ReHomers, a volunteer society dedicated to improving the lives of Singapore’s abandoned and unwanted dogs. In Singapore only one dog of an approved (small) breed is permitted per Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat under threat of a S$4,000 fine. Given the tendency of new puppies to appear and dogs to grow, and the fact that 80 percent of Singapore’s population lives in HDB flats, finding new homes for dogs is a constant process. The adoption agreement signed by the Fitzgeralds for the puppy, Lola, stipulated it would be returned to the Animal ReHomers should the adoption not work out.

  Allison Fitzgerald would later say to reporters, “I thought that was just to make sure they would take the dog back. I don’t know what I signed. Who reads all those damned papers they make you sign?”

  Allison called the ReHomers two months later.

  “I was the on-duty that day and I took her call. She said she wanted to return the puppy she’d taken. I looked up the records and said sure, but asked if she would be willing to keep Lola a few more days or help with boarding costs till we found another home for her. It’s the standard response we were supposed to give. They were always short of money and space at the shelter. And quite often people changed their minds. I mean, you get fuming mad when a puppy pees on your Persian carpet or chews the heels off your Louboutins, but given time to cool down you realize it never meant to, right? I mean, would you give away a child who scratched your car or something? Anyway, Allison said she would get back to us.

  “That was just after Josie was crowned Miss Singapore–Business Galaxy. The Animal ReHomers was one of the charities she had to support as titleholder. She wasn’t on the volunteer schedule, but she would come and be photographed with the dogs that were up for adoption and say how cute they were and how much she wished she could bring them all home. She was very good about it. I was impressed.”

  “Impressed?”

  Cherril laughed. “Because she actually didn’t like touching the dogs, didn’t like getting fur on her clothes and doggy smells on her hands. But for the pictures she would cuddle and kiss them and let them lick her face—she was very professional. She was my role model, you know.

  “Anyway, Josie was in the office two days later when I called Allison back to arrange to collect the puppy, Lola. Allison said not to bother because a friend had taken it. That was good news but I was surprised. I asked for the friend’s address because we always kept records on the dogs we found homes for, but Allison hung up on me. I asked Brian Wong what to do. Brian wasn’t just a volunteer; he was one of the founders of the ReHomers. And I think he had a bit of a crush on Josie, so he asked if she wanted to come with us to the Fitzgeralds’ Clementi Crescent house to get details of the people who had taken Lola. So Josie and her photographer came—she usually brought a photographer when she came to help.

  “Allison refused to tell us who had taken Lola. We were outside her gate saying all we needed was a phone number or an address. Brian thought she had probably passed Lola to one of her neighbors, so if we knew where she was we could check up on her. But Allison started shouting at us for harassing her. She even called the police and said she was being attacked! But when the police came we showed them a copy of the agreement Allison had signed and they also asked her where the dog was. So then Allison started shouting and swearing at them, and she even slapped herself and said she would report them for police brutality. It was like she was crazy! By then quite a few neighbors had come out to see what the shout
ing was all about, and a reporter friend of Josephine’s showed up and interviewed them about the dog, and Allison’s husband came home . . . and then Allison finally admitted she had lied. The puppy was not with a friend—it was dead. The day she called me, right after she hung up, Allison had taken Lola to the vet across the road and had her put down.”

  Cherril was silent for a moment, remembering. “Poor Lola. She was such a sweet, goofy puppy and she never had a chance. Josephine found some old photos of herself with Lola and posted them with pictures of her crying after finding out Lola was dead. And there were photos of Allison shouting at the police and giving them the finger. Even then things might have died down, but Allison sent a seven-page letter to the press saying she had a right to euthanize what she called a savage dog, and accusing us and the police of harassing her, and complaining that despite all her calls the British High Commission had not done anything to defend British citizens, and what a shitty place Singapore was. Josie wrote back of course. So did Brian, and the story went viral online with about fifty thousand comments, most of them telling Allison that if she hated Singapore so much she should leave and stop killing our dogs.”

  “Mathilda was back in Singapore on vacation,” Aunty Lee said, remembering how upset her stepdaughter had been. “She and her friends all got so worked up. I made dog-shaped cookies and Mattie sold them online to raise money for the campaign to make the puppy killer apologize to the Animal ReHomers. She called them Lola Cookies. They were chocolate and ginger flavored and had raisin noses.” Aunty Lee herself had not fully understood what all the commotion was about. In the old Singapore Aunty Lee had grown up in, there had always been several dogs keeping wild pigs out of the vegetable garden and barking warnings of snakes and strangers, and fed on leftovers from the outside kitchen behind the main house. As a girl, Aunty Lee had paid no more attention to the working dogs outside her father’s house than to the servants working inside it. Now Nina’s friendship had changed her thinking on domestic helpers, just as Anne Peters’s Tammy was changing her attitude toward dogs.

  Cherril stared at Aunty Lee. “How can you remember something like that?”

  “I remember the Lola Cookies,” Josephine said, coming back to the table. “I didn’t realize you’d made them. People said they were too cute to eat but they were delicious.”

  Aunty Lee glowed with satisfaction. “I thought the puppy killer and her family had left Singapore.”

  “They did,” Josephine snapped, “swearing never to return. But she’s back.”

  3

  Death of a Puppy Killer

  The door chimes jangled and they looked around and saw a large Caucasian woman with curly dark hair. She wore a billowing blue-and-green batik sundress and stopped in the doorway to look around the room. Aunty Lee saw Cherril nudge Josephine, Is that her? Josephine barely glanced at the woman before shaking her head.

  Brian pushed rudely past the woman without seeming to notice her. “Allison Fitzgerald isn’t coming. She’s dead.” He stood by the table, looking at Josephine as though waiting for instructions.

  Cherril’s laugh was an automatic reflex. “That’s crazy. You called the number she gave you? Who answered? What did they tell you?”

  “I called the hotel. The police are there. They just found her dead in her room. They’re looking for her sister, who came with her. Apparently she booked a taxi to bring her here.”

  “Here?”

  “Aunty Lee’s Delights in Binjai Park. Here.”

  “Who is dead? The puppy killer?” Aunty Lee wanted to know. “Who is coming here?”

  “Yes, the puppy killer is dead,” Brian said. “Allison Fitzgerald, or Allison Love as she calls herself now—called herself, I mean.”

  They had forgotten about the new arrival. Selina approached the woman with, “Do you have a reservation?” but was flicked away like a mosquito. Now the woman approached their table.

  “Excuse me. Are you Brian Wong?”

  Brian rose to his feet. “Yes. I am. And you are—are you Allison Fitzgerald’s sister?”

  “I’m Allison Love’s sister.” The woman looked around their table. “Allison Love, not Fitzgerald. My name is Vallerie. Allison isn’t feeling very well. She doesn’t want to leave the hotel, but if you all come over to the hotel with me she’ll talk to you there.”

  They stared at her. Even Aunty Lee was speechless.

  “It’s the Victoria Crest Hotel. I’ve written down the address and room number for you. Just get the reception to phone up to Allison when you get there.”

  “She doesn’t know!” Cherril started laughing hysterically. “She doesn’t know! She doesn’t know! She doesn’t know!”

  “Allison Love is dead,” Josephine told the woman, speaking for the first time since hearing Brian’s news. “I’m sorry.”

  Vallerie stared at her with a loathing that made Josephine wonder how this stranger could tell she was lying.

  Fortunately the door jangles sounded again.

  “Aunty Lee, I could have phoned from the station but I thought I better come round,” Inspector Salim said. Aunty Lee felt a huge flood of relief on seeing him.

  Inspector Salim Mawar was the officer in charge of the nearby Bukit Tinggi Neighborhood Police Hub. A quiet, upper-middle-class residential area in a good school zone, Bukit Tinggi seemed the ideal preretirement posting for an older officer who could keep wealthy residents happy. But not only was Inspector Salim far from retirement, he had solved several murder cases in his time there. Salim was very aware how much having a busybody like Aunty Lee on the side of the law had helped him. He was also very aware of her cooking (which he considered second only to his mother’s) and of her assistant, foreign domestic worker Nina Balignasay. There was something about Nina that made Salim feel contentedly stupid when she was around. Salim told himself it was important to get to understand and bond with “outsiders” like her. Singapore had been home to Salim’s family for many generations, but he was aware his country’s strength and dynamism came from its ability to attract the best and brightest of foreign talent. Like he had learned as a boy breeding guppies, for the best colors you had to constantly add specimens caught in different canals to vary the gene pool.

  “Salim, you are just in time,” Aunty Lee said. “Somebody’s dead! Only we don’t know what’s happened yet. But you look hot. Tell Nina to get you a cold drink.”

  “I’m here on official business.” Salim paused and looked around at the people still in the restaurant. By now, most of the brunch crowd had finished and left, and Nina and the temporary servers were sorting leftovers and tablecloths and folding napkins for the tea/dinner guests under a barrage of instructions from Selina. The few stragglers deep in their own conversations paid them no attention.

  “You’re not here to accuse me of poisoning somebody again, are you?” Aunty Lee meant it as a joke but he didn’t laugh.

  “A woman tourist was found dead in her hotel room.”

  “No!” Nina, who sometimes seemed to have supernatural hearing, held a drying cloth up to her mouth and looked round to see if any customers had heard him. A young couple was staring and she flew into action. “You want bill? So sorry! Coming right away!” Nina would get the remaining customers out—probably with free takeaway desserts to keep them happy. Aunty Lee turned her attention back to Salim.

  “The response team said the dead woman’s sister told hotel staff she was coming here. Our station is the nearest so they called and asked us to come around to find her and make sure she’s all right. Her name is Vallerie Love.”

  Aunty Lee nodded to where Cherril had pulled a chair from the next table for Vallerie. Aunty Lee was careful to keep her voice low. “That’s Vallerie, the sister. She just heard the news. What happened?”

  “Ms. Allison Love was found dead in her hotel room. That’s all we know.” Salim looked back to the entrance clearly expecting to see someone, but there was no one there.

  Right on cue, Staff Sergeant Neha Pancha
l appeared through the kitchen area. “The back entrance is secure, sir,” she announced, ignoring Selina’s “only staff allowed here” protests. SS Panchal always followed proper procedure when she could.

  Inspector Salim and most of his colleagues from the Bukit Tinggi Neighborhood Police Post were great favorites at Aunty Lee’s Delights, though lately they seemed to turn up as often to interrogate her customers as to enjoy her cooking. But that didn’t matter to Aunty Lee. She thought of them as nephews and nieces who went off to other countries to study or work (or who just went off to do their own thing and never had time to call). No matter how long ago was the last time they came home for dinner, you still remembered their favorite foods, and if you had advance notice those dishes would be ready on the table. That was why even if they only ordered drinks (and hardly touched them), Aunty Lee knew Nina would already have Salim’s favorite flaky mushroom and (halal) chicken pastry squares in the oven and Staff Sergeant Panchal’s favorite juicy shrimp wontons in the steamer. They would be presented later, as takeaways “on the house.”

  “Come, she’s here,” Inspector Salim said. He would have preferred to break the news on his own, but regulations strongly recommended the presence of a female officer, as that female officer had reminded him. He went over to the plump Caucasian woman.

  “You are Vallerie Love, sister of Allison Love?”

  Vallerie nodded.

  “You’ve just learned that your sister is dead?”

  “They’re lying.” Vallerie looked from Salim and Panchal to the table where Josephine and Brian were sitting. As Cherril moved back to join them she added, “They told me she’s dead but it’s not true. I just left her at the hotel.”

  It was the shock, Aunty Lee thought. Despite the dramatic reactions portrayed in the media, she had observed that the most common response to bad news was denial. Even now she could tell Vallerie knew her sister was dead—she just didn’t want to believe it.