by Ovidia Yu
“When are you going to talk to them? Do you have to tell them that we told you? Will you tell us what they say?”
Inspector Salim touched his intercom and instructed, “Get me Josephine DelaVega on the phone.”
But Inspector Salim did not get to talk to Josephine that night.
Aunty Lee called him in great excitement. “Josephine’s been poisoned! She’s in observation at NUH and they think she is going to be all right. They wanted to pump out her stomach but she said no need. Connie—her mother—just told me. She said Mike told her it was the moon cake because it’s the only thing she ate that he didn’t. Luckily she stopped eating when it tasted funny. They sent the leftover cake for testing but no results yet.”
Josephine was under observation at the National University Hospital. Just before it was time to go to her parents’ house for dinner, Mike had found her curled up on the bathroom floor moaning in pain. Josephine told him she had vomited and was all right, but Mike was not taking any risks. He called her parents and rushed her to the nearest hospital.
Commissioner Raja and Aunty Lee found Connie and Jojo DelaVega with Mike Fitzgerald in the corridor outside Josephine’s hospital room.
“More questions?” Mike Fitzgerald said. The tension was clear in his voice and he looked as though he would have liked to be anywhere in the world other than Singapore. It was natural, Aunty Lee thought, given that Singapore had accused him of murdering his ex-wife and might yet accuse him of poisoning his current girlfriend. At least Josephine’s parents looked as though they had decided to do their best to accept him. Losing a daughter to an ang moh husband was nothing compared to the threat of losing her altogether. Mike looked as though he had not shaved in some time, though Aunty Lee knew that with Caucasian men it was difficult to tell. “Josie’s all right, thank god. But I really don’t think she’s up to answering any more questions,” Mike said in response to the question Commissioner Raja was starting to ask. He added, “The hospital took the rest of that damn cake for testing.”
“We just want to make sure she is all right,” Aunty Lee said. “Raja is my dinner date. We were just getting ready to go out for dinner when we got the news. He drove me over here because I wanted to make sure she was all right.” She looked around them at the open door of the room. “Is Josephine awake?”
“I’m awake . . .” Josephine called weakly from inside the room. “Aunty Lee, is that you? Please come in. I just told my parents to go out and get some dinner. Tell them you’ll stay with me while they go and eat.”
Aunty Lee made her way into the room without waiting for a second invitation. Josephine, propped up in the hospital bed with a saline drip in her arm, looked tired but not dangerously so.
“The doctor said it was lucky that I thought the cake tasted funny and didn’t eat more of it. I probably already vomited most of it up before it could affect me. They pumped out my stomach just in case, just to be on the safe side.”
“Moon cakes?” Aunty Lee’s attention was caught.
Josephine said the box of moon cakes had been left on a table in her shop and she assumed a satisfied client or delivery person in a hurry had left it. There were many food gifts being sent out before the Mid-Autumn Festival, so she didn’t think much of it. “I didn’t have time for lunch, so I decided to taste it. It tasted a bit funny but I thought it was just some fancy flavoring. Then I started to feel sick. I told Mike to call my parents to cancel dinner but he told them he was bringing me to hospital.”
In Singapore in September moon cakes were everywhere. Most would say it was impossible to trace the supplier of a particular moon cake. But Aunty Lee remembered the box in the hotel room and wondered.
“At least that proves Josie didn’t have anything to do with Allison’s death!” Mike Fitzgerald said. “They’re after her too. Are we just supposed to wait around while somebody picks us off one by one?”
Commissioner Raja started to say something, but as Aunty Lee held up an imperious hand he remembered he was there as a chaperone rather than as a police officer and held his tongue.
“You think this is linked to what happened to your wife, Allison,” Aunty Lee said. “And the vet.”
“Of course it is. What else could it be?”
“What exactly happened when you were in Singapore? Can you think of anybody else who was close to Allison and might have got involved?”
“My bosses laughed about it at first and told me to shut up and lie low. They said it would blow over. Boy, were they wrong. Allison couldn’t shut up. She defended herself, which only fanned the flames. She got very angry with me for not being more upset; in fact she accused me of being behind the attacks, of being in league with the web vigilantes. She wasn’t well. That was all part of her breakdown; I can totally see that now. She thought everybody was against her. She even blew up at Nick for saying he had liked the dog. She slapped him so hard I was afraid she might have snapped his neck. And then she tried to . . . but luckily Mrs. Ameeta—she’s a retiree who lives next door to us in the UK—she called me at work and I got back in time . . . But no, no one else was involved. She refused to talk to anyone else.
“But we hadn’t talked for some time, just through the kids, you know what I mean? I don’t even know how much she knew about me and Josephine.” He smiled and took Josephine’s hand. “If Allison suspected that I cared about you she would have gone crazy. So I’m guessing she didn’t know.”
It might have been someone out to hurt Mike Fitzgerald who had killed Allison and tried to poison Josephine, Aunty Lee thought. But why would that person have attacked the vet?
“What happened that day when your neighbor Mrs. Ameeta phoned you at work?” Aunty Lee already felt a kinship with the woman. Nosy old aunties from all over the world had to stick together and follow up on each other’s stories.
“Good thing she called me. Allison had locked the children up in one of the bedrooms and was trying to set the house on fire. She had stacked up newspapers and started burning them outside the room but it didn’t spread. It totally destroyed the flooring and the walls in the corridor and it cost me a bundle to fix it up, but that’s one thing about old brick houses: they’re not so easy to burn down. And because she locked them in, the door blocked the fire from getting into the room, thank god. And Gemma had the sense to open the window for air and to stop Nick from jumping out. When I got back Allison was in the kitchen trying to start up a fire there as well. Luckily we’re not on gas or she would have Sylvia Plath’ed them. I tell you, reading poetry doesn’t do anybody any good. It just makes the crazy ones crazier. And Mrs. Ameeta called the cops after calling me, so they turned up around the same time as I did and they got the fire rescue people in and put out everything—another bloody mess. I swear the foam stuff made a greater mess of things than the fire did. The kids were okay, which was the main thing. I owe Mrs. Ameeta big time, I tell you. Big time. Allison couldn’t start up a proper fire to save her life, but who knows what she would have tried next. The police wanted to take Allison in, of course. And she started screaming that the police were against her and were assaulting her in her own home . . . One of the policemen asked if she was on medication. Nick said, ‘Don’t hurt Mom,’ but Gemma wasn’t having any of that. She said, straight out and in front of everybody, ‘You tried to kill us, I hate you.’ After that is it any wonder I wouldn’t give her time alone with the kids? Mrs. Ameeta watches the two of them after school when I’m at work. She gives them their tea and calls the police if Allison shows up and throws things at her house.” He turned to Josephine. “That’s why I had to keep us a secret. I didn’t want her starting on you too. And the fastest way of making her do that would have been to let her know I cared about you.”
Josephine had been looking shocked, but that last sentence melted her. She put her hand on his arm and smiled at him.
To Aunty Lee’s surprise she found herself liking Mike Fitzgerald. It was difficult to judge people who survived great natural disasters, and
Allison certainly sounded like a great natural disaster.
“Why didn’t she move on with her life? What was she living on?”
Josephine took Mike’s hand in both of hers protectively. Allison might be dead, but her hatred still echoed. Josephine’s parents, who had come in to stand on the other side of the bed, joined hands, and her father laid a gentle hand on the corner of his daughter’s bed as though to cover it with his protection.
“I was still giving her an allowance. She hadn’t been able to get a job since Singapore. She went for some interviews, but then every time they got to the subject of previous employment, Allison would go off on a rant and then it was ‘there’s the door, don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ It was like she didn’t want to move on, you know? That puppy killer thing was the first time she had been in any kind of spotlight. The problem here was that everybody was looking at her. Then back in England she couldn’t get used to nobody looking. Being notorious was the closest she’d come to being famous. It was like a drug rush almost. I think that’s why she kept harping on it.
“Anyway, I was paying all her bills. Her rent, her car, the medical bills—though she wasn’t turning up at the consultations. She was supposed to go for a full psychiatric consultation and follow-ups. It was one of the conditions of her getting off with a fine. And of course I didn’t press any charges and I persuaded Mrs. Ameeta not to either.”
It showed a different side of the man from what Aunty Lee had been seeing. But if Allison Love had been his burden even after their divorce, it just gave him more reason to murder her. And of course it wasn’t just Mike who had reason to want Allison Love dead—Josephine DelaVega had a very good reason too. Even if Mike could afford to wait for Allison to settle down, Josephine and her baby did not have that luxury.
“If someone wanted to send out moon cakes to her clients, where would she order them from?” Aunty Lee asked as soon as she got home. There was no sign of Vallerie, and Nina had been preparing vegetables in front of the television while waiting for her.
Nina did not pause in her tailing of bean sprouts. “Clients she wants to impress or to say thank you to?”
“Both I suppose. Without spending too much. She’s doing well but she’s not one of those big banks sending out gold pieces inside moon cake boxes.” Aunty Lee sat down on the sofa and swung her legs up.
“Madame, you sit down now very hard to get up later! You should shower and go to sleep! Traditional or snow skin or crazy new recipes?”
“She didn’t say they were special, so I think they must have been traditional.”
“Probably somewhere like Bao’s New Moons, where they personalize and deliver and don’t charge too much. And Belinda Bao is a friend of Josephine’s, right?”
“That’s what I thought.” Aunty Lee was pleased with the confirmation as well as with how far Nina had come. When Nina first arrived in Singapore she had not liked moon cakes, finding them far too heavy for her taste. Since then she had become quite a connoisseur.
Aunty Lee herself did not order moon cakes to send to friends and clients. She always baked a few herself, just to keep her hand in. She only made the traditional sort with salted egg yolks and lotus paste because they were the ones she had learned to make when ML Lee teased her for not knowing how to make a basic Chinese cake. Aunty Lee had always loved a culinary challenge. She would get in touch with Belinda Bao. It was too late to try that night, and anyway there was no hurry.
24
Changing Portraits and Perspectives
“Miss Vallerie not awake yet?” Nina was back from the wet market. She appreciated the convenience of Singapore’s twenty-four-hour supermarkets but, like Aunty Lee, her first loyalty was to food that appeared according to daily as well as yearly rhythms.
“She hasn’t come downstairs yet.”
“I put the chee cheong fun I bought for you on the marble table outside. And there’s some sweet bean curd and fresh youtiao. You should eat while it is still hot. Shall I call Miss Vallerie?”
If she could be persuaded to try it, Aunty Lee knew Vallerie would enjoy the smooth, silky sheets of chee cheong fun—rice paste rolled around juicy fillings of shrimp and scallops and steamed. And she would definitely enjoy the deep-fried crispy youtiao, or dough fritters, even if she rejected the delicate, sweetened tofu pudding.
“I’m sure she will be down soon,” Aunty Lee said. She did not feel up to facing Vallerie yet. On hearing Josephine had been poisoned, Vallerie had abruptly declared her intention of leaving Singapore immediately, not even waiting for her sister’s funeral and cremation. She had asked Aunty Lee to book her a ticket to London as soon as possible, without even a pretense of offering to pay. Perhaps she felt Singapore owed her board, lodging, and travel costs for her sister’s death. Or, Aunty Lee thought more likely, Vallerie simply chose not to think about it. From what Josephine and Mike said, Allison had shared this blindness to her own responsibilities. Not for the first time, Aunty Lee wondered about the parents and environment that had produced these sisters. Or had coming east out of their comfort zone brought out this side of them? But Vallerie had moved away from England on her own years ago . . .
“Why London?” Aunty Lee wondered aloud. “Why would she go to London now?”
“Why not London?” Nina came in with a bucket of clams and other things on her mind. She wanted to get her boss and guest fed so she could start on the work for the day at the café. “You buy me free ticket to London I also want to go. See? I found stingray and lala today.” Lala, or thin-shelled clams, were a seasonal treat that didn’t last long, so finding them in the market automatically made them a special.
Aunty Lee was distracted by the prospect. “We can steam with golden mushroom and lemongrass, or just fry with salt and pepper and garlic. Better put on the website so people know that today we have.”
“Already put on the website, madame!” Nina’s Internet prowess might make Selina uncomfortable, but her menu updates boosted customer flow to Aunty Lee’s Delights.
“I remember as children we would go wading on the mudflats at low tide with our little spades and pails digging for these. We called them baby bamboo clams. And my father would do a cookout and throw them onto the grill next to his steak and satay, and we would grab them off once they opened . . .”
“Before cooking, the lala must scrub clean properly.” Nina was already getting down to it with a fierce-looking brush. “Then we can leave them to soak in salt water until time to cook for lunch. And we can cook some with your chili sauce, madame.”
“Sambal lala!” Aunty Lee said. “Lala with my ginger and yellow bean sauce. Special seafood noodles with lala and—did you get fresh prawns and scallops, Nina?”
“Of course got, madame.” Nina sounded offended to be asked.
At the café that day, Vallerie eschewed the clams but agreeably arranged cubes of colored cake and agar-agar on large, round, woven wicker trays lined with parchment, eating any that she deemed too large, too small, or lopsided. She did not look up as Aunty Lee limped around the table to look at her handiwork, though Aunty Lee could tell the woman was aware of her; her exaggerated focus on the dessert tray gave that away. It was beautiful, the bright colors of the kuehs contrasting with the translucent jellied agars. The woman had an artist’s eye for color.
“It looks beautiful,” Aunty Lee said. “Good job.”
Vallerie looked surprised, but she automatically dismissed the compliment. “They’re just stupid cakes. Fattening.”
“Once imported ingredients like sugar, butter, and white flour were expensive so cakes and desserts like this were a luxury, only made for special occasions, to show people had money. Nowadays people can afford the ingredients but they cannot afford the time. Making kueh like that is a dying art nowadays. Did you make your own cakes in California?”
Vallerie looked blank for a moment. “Of course not. There are professionals there. And they make beautiful cakes, gâteaux and things. It’s not just homemade
stuff like here!”
After lunch, when Salim’s dropping in prompted Vallerie to go back to the house for a nap, Aunty Lee asked the young inspector to look up Vallerie Love’s connections in America. All along they had only been trying to find connections to Allison in Singapore and England, and all they came up with was that she had filed complaints against her neighbors, school boards, and temporary employers.
“The sister? Why?”
“Vallerie Love talks a lot about her sister but nothing about herself,” Aunty Lee said. “I think we should find out more about her.”
“Ah.” Salim thought he understood. “She is ready to go home and you want to make sure there is somebody there who will look after her.”
Sometimes Aunty Lee thought the young man was too nice to be a good policeman. Surely you had to have a more suspicious mind and sharper nose to do a good job. But then that was why there were people like herself to sniff around and make sure all the nice people blindly following set recipes didn’t get thrown off by bad ingredients. Because Aunty Lee did not trust suppliers without checking out their sources, especially when the products smelled a little funny . . .
“I just want to get in touch with someone, anybody, who might know Vallerie. She’s lived in America for how many years—about thirteen years at least? She must have made some friends there.”
“That’s true. You think Miss Vallerie is going to go home soon?”
“She says she wants to go as soon as possible. She doesn’t want to attend her sister’s funeral if the husband is going to be there—and he is. And you people—the police—aren’t keeping her here, right?”
“Oh no. We told her she is free to go as long as we can reach her.”
“I was thinking, sometimes the best way to find out what somebody is like is to see what kind of friends they have. I asked Jacky about numbers called from their hotel room, but they didn’t make any.”