Crimetime

by Maria L. M. Fres-Felix

  He blinked. “Karding Tenga.” He whispered, then glanced up at Tuason, and focused on her ears. “You must be the little girl that Karding’s wife used to drag to the house.”

  “Yes, and you’re Boy Tangkad. But your new name suits you better, Boy Anay,” she spat out his name like pesky fishbones.

  A vulpine smile crossed his pitted face. “All grown up, smart-mouthed and carrying a gun.” He smirked.

  “Why did you kill him?” Her head throbbed. She kept her hands palms down on the table to keep from punching him.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Try again.” Her voice turned raspy.

  “Okay, okay. Your father was a snitch. A double-dealing snitch. A criminal pretending to help the police. Traidor. All of Looban hated his guts. Just because you lived in the apartment doesn’t put you above us. Ever wondered how he could have afforded the rent from his tricycle earnings despite his gambling? As I said, all of Looban hated his guts. Me? I just took his money. Lousy gambler.”

  Tuason looked at him with loathing. Her fists now clenched, her breathing ragged. “Where were you the night he died?”

  “Twenty years ago? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Tuason rose from her seat and grabbed him by the collar.

  “I was nowhere near him, that’s for sure.” Boy Anay croaked. “And as I said, I want a lawyer.”

  From the door, Joshua’s eyes widened when he saw Tuason’s hands on Boy Anay’s neck. “Here’s your water,” he said. “Are you alright now, Inspector?”

  Tuason shoved Boy Anay back to his seat. She could not meet Joshua’s eyes. They left the interrogation room avoiding each other’s eyes.

  “Did you get a confession?” Big Mac asked.

  “He lawyered up, but we’ll get him.”

  “Better do it fast. News of the murder is all over. I told you we can’t put a lid on it forever. You’ll have to give an interview sooner than you think.”

  Tuason’s stomach, still clenched from the interrogation, soured. She hated media interviews. She would rather work her cases silently. Big Mac must know this and he was making her suffer through those interviews.

  “Don’t worry, Sir,” she said with a confidence she did not feel. “Even if he doesn’t confess, we have him. Several witnesses saw him beat up Justin and we will have Bernal’s report soon. Cause of death will nail Boy Anay for sure.”

  Big Mac unwrapped a burger and waved Tuason and Rios off.

  “Are you all right?” Joshua asked Tuason as they walked out of Big Mac’s office.

  She frowned at him, but remained silent.

  “Okay, I know things aren’t going well.” He took a deep breath and said in a rush, “But we’ve had worse and you‘ve never been like this. You have to take it easy with Boy Anay. Don’t let him get to you. Hadn’t you drilled that into me? Not to let suspects get the better of us? And to keep looking?”

  “If I need a lecture, I’ll attend a training seminar.”

  “Come on, Inspector. We’re partners. You’re my guru. Didn’t you tell me letting the suspects get to us leads to mistakes?”

  As though she had not heard him, she said, “Stay here and help Rolly get more information on Ricky and the VP. Get me something on Boy Anay. I’m going to see Bernal. It’s about time I get something good.”

  Joshua let the admonition slide. “Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself?”

  She gave him another dismissive frown. “Just do your job.” She walked towards the door.

  Joshua shook his head. She’s just having a bad day, he told himself. Remember, she saved your life from that crazy gun-toting motivational speaker. She’s just acting tough.

  In the crime lab, Bernal was hunched over Justin’s body. Reflexively, he covered it up when he heard Tuason enter.

  “Lots of hearts will break when they find out about this,” he gestured to the body. “Hmm, you look bad. Don’t tell me you’re one of his fans.” He cocked his weary face at her.

  “I’m okay,” she tried to smile.

  “But you look more beaten up than usual.” He was a head taller than she was, and he bent slightly to look closer at her, then turned his attention back to Justin’s body.

  “I’m on a deadline,” she lied. It was Boy Anay’s accusation that was getting to her. He called her father a snitch, a criminal, and a traitor. Though she told herself many times not to believe the words of someone like Boy Anay, that she should verify and get corroboration, she could not help but wonder. If what he said were true, then she had criminal blood running through her veins. At the very least, a traitor’s blood. Was that why she so easily lied and coerced suspects and witnesses alike? Why she smacks them around? Why she has stubbornly focused on Boy Anay for Justin’s death? Was she really better than the criminals she put away? She sighed, then laid down her offering of a Toblerone on the counter.

  Bernal nodded his thanks. “Well, the good news is, the mom signed an authorization for autopsy. The bad news is, this boy was pretty beaten up. He suffered injuries to his internal organs. The brain was swollen.”

  “So he died from the beating?”

  “Subsequently, he would have. I can’t tell for sure. But direct cause of death is suffocation.”

  Tuason tried to form words in her mouth.

  Finally, she said, “What is… what is the margin of error on that?” She loathed second guessing him, but she hated even more the thought that someone other than Boy Anay could be the killer.

  Bernal swallowed his displeasure. Anybody else who questioned his findings would have been thrown out of his lab and banished from it forever. But this was his friend Tuason who had tracked down his father’s killer. Bernal sensed that she was under a lot of pressure.

  “There’s always a margin, SJ,” he said. He was the only one who could get away with calling her that. “But I’d say it’s quite slim.” He lifted the sheet to just above Justin’s shoulders. “See how this is paler than the rest of the face?” He pointed to the area around the nose and mouth. “He was suffocated. There was a struggle. He fought off his attacker. That’s why he had bits of flesh under his nails. I’ve also collected some fibers from his nose and lungs.”

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, biting into a Hershey bar.

  He slipped off his latex gloves. “Let me print out the report for you. Sit.” He gestured with smooth hands that contrasted with his sun-worn face.

  She slumped on his visitor’s chair, her shoulders sagging. “But couldn’t the beating have resulted in a hemorrhage that could contribute to his death?”

  “That’s a conjecture.” He rubbed his reddish eyes.

  “Yes, but the prosecutor could argue that the beating, the hemorrhage could have contributed to his death.”

  Bernal angled his head at her, as though trying to read her mind.

  “I know, it’s up to the fiscal.” She swallowed the rest of her chocolate bar then tore the wrapper off another.

  “Justin died of suffocation,” Bernal said mournfully, as though the death was his fault.

  Tuason bit savagely on the chocolate bar.

  Bernal had never seen her this broken up. She looked almost like a lost child. It was a funny way to describe Tuason. She usually struck people as someone who came to the world fully formed, like Athena out of the head of Zeus. He rubbed his eyes, then punched some keys. The paper was still warm from the printer when he handed it to Tuason, who barely looked at it.

  “Thanks, man,” she said unsure if she meant it. As she backed out of the parking space, she did not feel like returning to Lakeview and facing Big Mac. But she forced herself to. This was the last day. Big Mac will transfer the case if she does not show any progress. Maybe to that suck-up Sison. She glanced at Bernal’s report. The cause of death was blank. But the report was signed.

  This was the first time he had handed her such a report. He had always been so precise. And it dawned on her that she had been presented with a gift. Tw
o, actually. The gift of time to think, and the gift of choosing the cause of death. The report Bernal gave her meant she could make a case for the beating or the suffocation, whichever way she wanted. Her chest pounded crazily. She could make a case against Boy Anay.

  She drove to Lakeview, consumed with memories of her mother. She used to lament that her husband’s killer remained free after his death. She had always been certain that the thug Boy Tangkad, now known as Boy Anay, had killed her husband. As the old gambling operator’s son, Boy had been an apprentice of sorts, who also acted as bouncer for the gambling den. When Tuason joined the force, she had requested for a reopening of her father’s case, but it had been denied. Her subsequent personal efforts at digging into the case were unsuccessful.

  Back in Lakeview, Tuason walked to Rolly’s desk, where Joshua was hovering. “Justin’s life insurance was increased recently. The beneficiaries are his mother and the agent,” Joshua said.

  Tuason looked at the printout. “Kinda strange leaving such a big amount to an agent,” she said.

  “Yeah, and Rolly dug up something. You have to see it.”

  Tuason moved behind Rolly to watch some clips of audition videos on his computer screen. Justin and Ricky had auditioned for the star search. They both passed the first screening. Justin was cut on the second pass, where Ricky won the challenge. He was given a pick of who among those cut he would give a second chance to. He picked Justin. When Ricky was cut in the fourth screening, there was no more second chance. By that time, Justin had become so popular, with a love team in the works.

  “So he tried to make it all up to Ricky by hiring him as his personal assistant,” Tuason said. Generous Justin, as his agent had said.

  Joshua and Rolly nodded.

  Tuason saw Grace Vega coming out of the file room and asked her to join them. “You know about Justin and Ricky’s audition?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about it. But do you know what I heard just last night? That Amanda was involved with the network VP. A love triangle.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “The VP is old enough to be her father.”

  Tuason looked at Joshua, remembering what Amanda had said. She turned to Rolly. “Do you have the addresses of the VP and Ricky?”

  Rolly handed her a piece of paper.

  In the car, Tuason said, “Remember what Amanda said, ‘he forced me.’ What if Amanda and the VP did have an affair and Justin found out, then he used it to blackmail the VP into giving him the teleserye?”

  “Yeah. But for Justin to be able to blackmail him and demand such a steep pay-off, he must have hard evidence, or maybe something stronger than an affair.”

  “Maybe it was the VP’s child, and maybe Justin got greedy,” Tuason said. “That’s a pretty strong motive.”

  Ricky lived with his parents in a government housing project. It was a small bungalow now dwarfed by its neighbors—houses with added extensions or those rebuilt into multi-storey structures. His mother was watering the plants in the garden when Tuason and Joshua arrived. She squinted at them when they rang the doorbell. Through the low gate, she asked what they wanted.

  “We need to speak to your son Ricky,” Tuason said.

  “What is this about?” She switched off the nozzle of the hose.

  “We’d rather discuss it with him, Ma’am.”

  “Is he in trouble?” She wiped her hand on her daster. “He had been so busy helping Justin, I don’t think Ricky has any time to get into trouble.”

  “It’s somewhat related to Justin.”

  “I should have known,” she frowned. “They used to live there.” She pointed her lips to the house across the street, which was a mirror image of theirs. “But even after they moved, when Justin made it big, Ricky helped him. He was such a loyal friend. I told him, go, find something of your own. But he didn’t listen.”

  “Is Ricky home?”

  She exhaled. “He left for the studio. Something about seeing the VP in charge of teleseryes. Haay, naku, even in death, Justin affects Ricky’s life. I hope my son will finally break free.” She clasped her hands as though in prayer.

  The detectives thanked her and left for the network station, only to be stuck in traffic.

  “Do you think that Ricky went to confront the VP about Justin? If Justin blackmailed the VP and he killed Justin in retaliation, Ricky would want to avenge his friend.” Joshua checked Waze to figure out the best route to the studio. But everywhere, cars and other vehicles were stuck to the road like flies on flypaper.

  Ricky who had taken off on his motorcycle earlier, zigzagged his way through the traffic mess and so made better time. In the studio, the secretary ushered a grim-faced Ricky into the VP’s room.

  The VP looked up from the script he was reviewing. He adjusted his reading glasses, then jerked his chin at Ricky to prompt him.

  “I think you need to send your secretary off for what I came here to tell you,” Ricky said.

  “Not necessary. She can’t hear us.”

  Forearms crossed, Ricky stared at the VP, not saying a word, till he sent his secretary home.

  “Is it true that you’re building up a new love team for Justin?” Ricky asked.

  “A little too late for that question, but yes. With Norliyen Blanca.”

  “But what about Amanda?”

  “Punyeta!” The VP slammed his hand on his desk. “Don’t tell me you’re here to blackmail me too, like your pal Justin.”

  Ricky remained silent.

  The VP smirked. “Well, it didn’t work out so well for him, did it?”

  A vein throbbed in Ricky’s forehead. “You son of a bitch!”

  “Ricky, Ricky, why can’t you just let sleeping dogs lie and all that crap? So sentimental.” He shook his head. “Justin is dead, and Amanda is damaged goods.”

  The throbbing vein on Ricky’s forehead looked ready to burst. His lips curled, baring his teeth. Then quick as a viper, he lunged at the VP. “You animal. You use and discard people!”

  “Get off me!” The VP tried to pry off Ricky’s fingers from his neck. He trashed about, upsetting the picture frames and ink stands on his desk.

  Tuason and Joshua heard the commotion and seeing that there was no secretary around, barged into the room.

  Ricky was pummeling the VP with his fists.

  “Get this animal off me,” the VP yelled at the police. Joshua pulled Ricky off the older man. For such a skinny guy, Ricky was quite strong. The VP’s nose was bleeding, his eyes were beginning to swell.

  “You bastard, after everything I’ve done for you!”

  “Old man, you’re worse than a bastard. Coercing young girls to have sex with you, pressuring them to kill their babies then tossing them aside like used tissue paper.”

  “Quiet, both of you,” Tuason said. “You,” she turned to the VP. “Is Ricky telling the truth about Amanda?”

  “I did not coerce her. She was a willing partner.”

  Ricky turned livid. He tried to punch him, but Joshua held him back.

  Tuason pushed the VP down on one of the chairs around the conference table. Joshua did the same to Ricky.

  “Was the baby yours?”

  The VP stared at the door, as if contemplating an escape. Tuason swiveled the chair around so the VP would be forced to face her. Her eyes had grown dark. The VP took a deep breath, then flinched as though smelling the rage ooze from Tuason. He nodded slowly. Ricky shot him dagger looks, and squirmed under Joshua’ restraining hands.

  “Was Justin blackmailing you?”

  The VP nodded. “He said I had to make up for that thing with Amanda.”

  “And what did you do to retaliate?”

  “Nothing, I swear.”

  “We’ll see about that. You’ll have to make a statement at the station,” Tuason said.

  “I want my lawyer.”

  “Suit yourself,” Tuason said. Then she turned to Ricky. “You, you’re also coming.”

  Ricky refused to budge from his seat. “Why?”
/>   “I think you know why. You’re also under suspicion.”

  “No way. We were like brothers.” He crossed his arms.

  “Ever heard of sibling rivalry? I bet you got tired of following Justin around, cleaning up after him. Always staying in the shadows while his star shone bright, living in a palace, while you’re still a nobody stuck in that tiny starter house.”

  “You’re wrong. I never envied him his money, his house, his stardom.” His jaw was rigid and he never looked as defiant as he had now.

  Bernal’s report sat like a hot rock in Tuason’s pocket. Ricky’s denial sounded steely. She could still make a case against Boy Anay. Put him away. Thanks to Bernal. She remembered her father’s lifeless body slumped in an eskinita, his blood crying out for vengeance.

  Tuason stood in front of Big Mac’s desk, waiting out his silence. He steepled his hands and said, “Are you sure about this?”

  “We have his signed confession, Sir,” Tuason said. She clenched her fists as she thought of Boy Anay.

  “Good job then,” he said somewhat reluctantly. “But you need to be more careful in dealing with suspects.”

  Had he found out about how she had behaved with Boy Anay?

  “Okay, then,” Big Mac dismissed her with a nod.

  She walked to her desk, doubtful if this solve, the quickest so far in Lakeview, will change things at the station, or give Joshua his dream of big cases. Her mind went back to the interrogation room.

  Tuason studied the suspect. “I know where you got those. Justin struggled.”

  He sat in rigid silence.

  “So, you didn’t care about the material things,” she said, narrowing her eyes at a stone-faced Ricky. “But you cared about Amanda. I know you visit her regularly. Alone. Because Justin had abandoned her.”

  Ricky’s face started to sag.

  Tuason inched closer to him. “Those scratches. You didn’t expect Justin to struggle when you suffocated him. You must have thought he was asleep.” In the silence, she continued, “We have your DNA under his nails. You used his pillow. The crime lab has matched fibers from Justin’s nostril, throat and lungs with the pillow.”