“Boy Anay.” She repeated, her muscles tightening.
Instead of answering, he bolted out through a back door. Tuason and Rios chased him through narrow alleys, whose stench worsened as they went deeper into the interior. Boy Anay was at least ten years older than Tuason, but was surprisingly agile for his age. He ran on long limbs through meandering alleys, jumping over puddles, as if his muscles had committed every dip and twist of the alleys to memory.
Tuason matched his pace stride for stride, even as she grappled with disturbing thoughts in her mind. This was the man whose face had haunted her for years. The man she had seen on previous investigations, but who was slippery enough to avoid jail. Tuason coaxed her legs to run faster. If she caught him, then she will have a spectacular solve rate. Less than 24 hours after a murder. Imagine that. This would surely be her ticket to respectability in a department that still regarded women as second rate. And more importantly, the start of her journey to peace.
Tuason’s lungs felt hot. Sweat trickled down her forehead. The man was like a cheetah, intimately familiar with the twisty, winding terrain. Then he ducked into a jagged opening in what looked like a concrete fence. Tuason followed, and had to pause and regain her balance at the sharp downslope.
“Careful!” she shouted at Joshua close behind her.
Boy Anay had put some distance between them. She forced a spurt of speed, the triumphant taste of catching her quarry filling her mouth, and trickling down her throat. Just a few feet more. She jumped over a puddle, in a rush to grab him. But she miscalculated. Her foot landed on mulchy earth. She flailed her arms, trying to regain her balance, instead of simply allowing her body to fall. Her legs gave way as she twisted her ankle and fell. She grimaced at the retreating figure of Boy Anay. Joshua, on her heels, nearly tripped over her. He stopped and tried to help her up.
“No, go… I’m fine. Don’t lose him!” Joshua hesitated. But coerced by Tuason’s glare, he went after Boy Anay.
Tuason stood up, sweat trickling down her face. The pain on her left foot was so bad that she could not put her weight on it. Joshua reappeared without Boy Anay. The pain intensified.
“Sorry, I lost him.”
“You shouldn’t have stopped for me. Next time I give you a direct order, you follow.” Her voice was harsher than usual.
“Sorry, Inspector. It won’t happen again.”
She glared at him, then limped to the car. Without a word, she tossed the keys to him.
Joshua drove to Lakeview Station in an uneasy silence. Tuason could not believe she had fallen so clumsily. She was pissed at Joshua for stopping and losing their quarry. They were so close to Boy Anay, and he slipped away. She fiddled with the car stereo, then gave up. She should have used her own car. There at least, she could listen to Bon Jovi. But she doubted if even Bon Jovi’s husky voice could take her mind off Boy Anay. When they arrived at Lakeview Station, Inspector Sison was in the parking lot having a smoke. He was the last man Tuason wanted to see.
“What happened to our Taekwondo expert? Did you lose a tournament?”
“No, we were chasing a suspect,” Joshua said before Tuason could reply. She shot her partner a look that was part anger, part disappointment.
“Hahaha! You tripped? You fucking tripped?” Sison continued to laugh, almost choking on cigarette smoke. “Hah. Women.”
“Not in the mood, Sison,” Tuason’s gray green eyes were turning black.
Sison threw away his cigarette, then looked at the police car. “And no suspect in custody?” He slapped his thighs, doubled over, cackling like a witch. “Wait till the Chief hears about this.”
“If you did your job instead of gossiping, then maybe you’d justify your rank and salary,” Tuason wanted to say, but she ignored him. Without even looking at Sison, she beelined it to the toilet where she wiped off what she could from her muddy pant legs and shoes, then washed her face to cool down the feverish rage she had been feeling since her fall. She walked to her desk, as quickly as she could without limping. As she passed the Women’s Desk, Officer Grace Vega said, “You should have that checked,” she pointed her chin at Tuason’s foot.
“I’m fine.” Tuason walked faster.
“Go get the hilot,” Grace told one of the junior administrative clerks, as if she had not heard Tuason’s reply.
Tuason wanted to say, “It’s the twenty-first century, you still believe in hilots who invoke enkantos and dwendes?” But Grace loved taking care of everyone in the station. Everyone, including malicious, annoying Sison. Telling her off would be like slapping Mother Teresa.
Grace walked over to Tuason’s desk and asked, “Is it true? Is Justin Sievert dead?”
“How’d you know? Oh never mind,” she glared at Joshua now seated behind his desk. “Yes. He’s dead.”
“Finally, a big case, huh?” Grace grinned. “But I just can’t believe it. He was turning his life around, and then this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Justin used to be half of the most bankable love team. Jusanda.”
Tuason cocked an eyebrow.
“Justin Sievert and Amanda May. You know, Justin plus Amanda equals Jusanda. They were so sweet, you’d think ants would be crawling all over them. Then Amanda disappeared. I mean from showbiz, not killed disappeared. The network said she was in a finishing school in Switzerland. But she had not posted anything on Switzerland. Not one lousy picture of the Alps. So, the rumor is, she’s pregnant.”
“Is an unwanted pregnancy still enough to ruin a showbiz career?” Tuason slowly flexed her injured foot.
Grace shrugged. “You know how fans are today. They demand authenticity,” she made air quotes at the word. “They don’t want a sweetie pie to turn into a baby mama then hide it. It’s the hiding that gets them. We’re in the confessional age. So, Justin’s career took a hit and he ran out of projects.” She shook her head, then continued like a showbiz reporter, “But now, one of the major networks is casting him as a lead in a teleserye and they are repackaging him as a tortured action hero. Something Justin knows shit about, so I heard he’s preparing for the role. That’s why he also went dark on social media. No tweets, no Instagram updates, nothing on Facebook. Just the teaser, ‘New Justin will be back shortly’. Meanwhile, they’re promoting a new love team with another young actress, Norliyen Blanca. Don’t ask me where they get those names.” She raised her hands in mock surrender. “And they’re calling the love team Julyen. So full of contradictions, don’t you think?”
“And you know all this how?”
“Because I have a life outside of Lakeview. You should try it some time. Come on, you can’t make this job the one and only focus of your life.”
Tuason sighed then stood up to go to Rolly the IT guy. “Wait,” Grace said, “there’s more,” like a home TV shopping voice-over. “The scuttlebutt is that Amanda’s lola is hiding her. She’s pissed at Justin and has vowed revenge. Must be karma catching up with Justin.”
Tuason puffed her cheeks then blew out air. “You didn’t think to lead with that?”
“Just buying time till the hilot arrived. I knew you’d fly off to see the lola the moment you heard of the connection.”
Before Tuason could leave, the hilot arrived. She was a slender girl in jeans and T-shirt, barely out of her teens. Tuason debated with herself whether she would have felt better with the stereotypical bent old woman with a wrinkled face. The hilot carried a backpack. She nodded at Grace and then, as if instinctively knowing Tuason was the patient, she asked her, “Ma’am, may I see the foot?”
Tuason sat down and gingerly raised her left foot. The girl had squatted in front of Tuason. She removed Tuason’s shoe and sock then ran warm, gentle hands on the injured foot, like a human diagnostic instrument. Nodding, she said, “Not too much damage. You must have strong feet.” She closed her eyes and mumbled a few words. Then from her backpack, she took out a bottle of ginger-infused coconut oil and poured it on her palms. She rubbed her palms together
to warm the oil. Next, she gently massaged the foot with soothing strokes. When Tuason was suitably relaxed, she rotated the foot first clockwise then counter-clockwise. She put strips of banana leaves sheened with coconut oil on the foot then wound bandages around it. “You’ll feel much better tomorrow. Meanwhile, try to rest the foot.” She took Tuason’s hands in hers and held the detective’s wrists. Her expression darkened.
“Something the matter?” Grace asked.
“I sense lots of disharmony and imbalance. Too much fire,” she said looking first at Grace, then at Tuason. “You have to come and see me, Ma’am,” she said, her eyes fixed at Tuason. Wisdom seemed to ooze from her.
“I’m fine. I just tripped, that’s all. Accidents happen.”
“Still,” the girl said.
“I told you I’m fine. How much do I owe you?”
“No, it’s okay,” the hilot said, standing. “Just think about what I said, Ma’am.” With a nod at Grace, she left.
A few minutes later, Chief Inspector Michael Christopher “Big Mac” Maquera arrived, back from an external meeting. Sison was by his side. Tuason was instructing Rolly the IT guy to find out about Amanda, her lola, and Ricky, but she still noticed that Sison’s mouth was working furiously, and that Big Mac’s eyebrows now resembled wriggling caterpillars.
When Tuason reported to Big Mac, he said, “So you lost your prime suspect?” His brows knit even tighter. His aquiline nose flared. Big Mac was a mestizo whose pale skin turned red when he was upset.
“We’ll get him, Sir.” She tried to keep the anger from her voice. That snitch Sison. He didn’t even give her the chance to tell Big Mac about losing Boy Anay herself. He’s probably angling to get this case, she thought.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Big Mac looked at her bandaged foot.
“You mean this turns out to be a high profile case and you want to reassign it? When you thought it was a poor nobody, I was good for it?” Tuason wanted to take back the words as soon as she uttered them.
Big Mac fought hard to maintain his composure. His neck had turned red with the effort. “Well, there are other detectives who are used to handling big cases. How do I explain your losing your suspect this early?”
“I can handle it, Sir. Just give me some time. Please.”
“Forty eight hours. If you don’t have anything by then, I will have to reassign the case.”
Tuason nodded, though he had given her less than the usual 72 hours. In her mind, she was giving the snitch Sison a roundhouse kick.
“Be prepared for a media onslaught.”
Tuason nodded again, but she felt a heavy coldness in her stomach, as though she had swallowed a bag full of ice. If media got wind of this and applied pressure, things could get worse. She stole a glance at Big Mac before leaving. Would he use a fall guy to relieve the pressure? Who among the toughies routinely picked up for questioning would be it?
Informing the next of kin was Tuason’s least favorite part of police work. She could handle seeing dead bodies covered in blood, or teeming with maggots, reeking so bad that grown men were known to gag. But she could barely bear witnessing the anguish, confusion and anger in the faces of victims’ relatives. It took a lot from Tuason to mask her true feelings during such encounters. But she was so good at it that none of her partners had ever noticed her distress.
On the way to Justin’s house with Joshua on the wheel, Tuason tried to clear her brain and prepare herself. But the words of Grace and the hilot looped endlessly in her mind. Was she really suffering some kind of imbalance? She did not feel any different, just annoyed that she had tripped in Looban. Her Taekwondo instructor would be disappointed that she had not fallen as gracefully as she should have. It must have been over-eagerness to catch Boy Anay, she told herself. She took a calming breath. No imbalance. Just over-eagerness. Once in a while, Joshua stole a glance at her, as though trying to figure out if she had forgiven him for losing Boy Anay, or if she had some sort of punishment waiting for him, like a high school principal meting out detention.
Justin Sievert’s house was in one of the fancy subdivisions in Quezon City where actors and actresses lived, to be near the major networks and movie studios. Justin built the house for his mother. It was all of three storeys high, in earth colors with lots of tinted glass and wooden accents. His father, a German whom his mother met in Boracay, did not even know he existed. But that had not prevented his mother from giving Justin the German’s family name once she started taking him to casting calls and eventually the star search where Justin was discovered. “It sounds more sosyal,” she used to tell her friends. And that absentee father had been a plus factor when Justin joined the star search. Sob stories always went well with the networks and with the fans. Underdogs were adorable.
Justin’s mother, Bianca Valdez was plump and wore make-up even at home, perhaps to compete with all the gold leaf furniture and gold-lipped jars that filled the house. All the restraint of the house’s façade clashed with the garish display inside. Bianca had been a standout beauty in her younger days. One wall of the house displayed pictures of her teenaged self in minor fashion shows. But she never made it to the big-time. When Justin was making millions, he financed his mother’s second try at celebrity by sponsoring a string of fashion shows for plus-size women where Bianca starred. But the collections never gained traction.
“No, no, that can’t be true. Not my Justin.” Bianca wrung her plump hands.
“Ms. Valdez, he was positively identified by his personal assistant, Ricky.” Tuason said.
“Ricky is mistaken. I want to see the body.”
“He had his license with him. And this picture.” Tuason showed her a picture with a baby in a shirt embroidered with the name “John” carried by a younger, skinnier version of Bianca. She sank on the chair.
“It’s that girl Amanda. I knew she was bad luck. She brought all this misfortune on my Justin. He was such a good boy.” More sobs. “She’s a bad influence, that girl. Getting herself knocked up to force my Justin to marry her.” Bianca’s lips curled, baring tiny white teeth.
“So it’s true then, she got pregnant?” Tuason asked, remembering what Grace told her about the pregnancy.
“Yes, that bitch. Then she made all that drama before agreeing to an abortion. That santa santita.” Her voice dripped with disgust.
“So Justin forced her to get an abortion?” Joshua asked, pen poised over his notebook.
In reply, Bianca cried like a wounded animal.
“Ma’am, is it true about the abortion?” Joshua repeated.
“Forced? No, Justin did not force her.” She wailed. “Oh my poor son. That woman is bad luck.” Her nose flared, as though she could smell something rotten.
Joshua called someone at Lakeview Station to take Bianca to the morgue and make sure she signed an autopsy consent form. From Justin’s house, they went to see Amanda’s lola. Rolly had texted them the address in New Manila, an area where rich people used to live, before relocating to Forbes Park and other villages in Makati. Tuason was deep in thought throughout the trip.
The house where Amanda May grew up was a brick colonial mansion accentuated with white woodwork. Though Amanda’s family had not been able to join the exodus to Makati, they were able to maintain their house in its stately glory. The roof, which was also made of brick was free of black mold. A huge door with stained glass accents opened to a wide foyer. On the console stood an Impy Pilapil sculpture and a silver tray with letters that the maid had not yet gotten around to passing to the master of the house. Tuason quickly flicked the envelopes and as expected, they were mostly utility bills from Meralco, PLDT, the works. Except for one letter in a textured envelope. The return address was that of a Sanatorium in the northern edge of Quezon City. Tuason committed the address to memory then followed the uniformed maid to the sala.
A white-haired woman of about seventy met them there. Assisted by another maid, she hobbled on an ivory-handled cane carved with roses.
She had an aristocratic stance despite her stooped shoulders. Her hair was poufed up in the 60s style. The maid helped her settle on a wingback chair.
“My granddaughter is headstrong, like her mother,” the old woman said in a nasal voice. “I didn’t want her to enter showbiz. As you can see, I can provide for her. Comfortably.” She waved her hand over the marble floor with mirror finish, the narra paneled walls, the Italian furniture embellished with elaborate marquetry, and the antique console with the twin Orlina sculptures. A Cobonpue suite peeked from the garden with a shimmering pool. “But when Amanda turned 18, there was nothing I could do.” The old woman’s jowls trembled. “She should have listened to me, not that hampaslupa. I disinherited her, but that hadn’t meant anything to a celebrity who was paid by the millions just for looking sweet and pretty.”
“Any other relatives?”
The old woman’s rheumy eyes blinked. “My daughter is an only child. Amanda is an only child too. They both broke my heart.” The fissures on her face seemed to deepen. “My only consolation is that my dear husband is no longer around to suffer this second heartbreak.”
“Where is Amanda’s mom?” Tuason asked.
The old woman’s nose flared in distaste. She’s in Poland, holed up with a poet she met after she had Amanda.”
“What about Amanda, where is she now?”
The old woman pursed her lips, then said, “She’s in Switzerland. I enrolled her in a finishing school.”
“So soon? Justin’s mother told us she just had an abortion. And Amanda has disappeared from social media. There is not one picture of Switzerland. And I understand that she used to tweet and post several times a day.”
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