by Jake Needham
Lucinda talked and Tay listened until both their glasses were empty. Eventually Lucinda was talked out and a silence fell. Tay did nothing to break it. He merely sat and waited to see what might come next.
THIRTEEN
“MORE wine, Sam?”
“Not for me, thanks.”
“I notice you didn’t write anything down.”
“No.”
“It’s okay with me. I don’t mind. You can quote me on any of it.”
“I’m not trying to protect you, Lucinda. I just didn’t hear anything that was worth writing down, let alone quoting.”
Lucinda looked genuinely hurt and Tay immediately felt embarrassed he had spoken so brusquely.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that you’ve been talking about parties and clothes. You haven’t told me anything at all about Elizabeth Munson. Who were her friends? How did she spend her time? What do you know about her private life?”
Tay leaned back and waited, congratulating himself on his choice of words. He was thinking how much more subtle private life sounded than sex life, which of course was what he was really asking about.
“I really don’t know about any of that, Sam. Like I said, I just knew Liz to see her at parties. That’s all. Really.”
Tay watched Lucinda’s eyes slide away from his as she spoke. She’s lying, he thought to himself, although he couldn’t imagine why.
He tried another tack. “Was Mrs. Munson happily married?”
Lucinda hesitated. Tay noticed her eyes didn’t return to his.
“You’re really asking me if she fooled around, aren’t you?”
“I suppose so. Yes.”
Lucinda inspected the space above Tay’s head. He felt a shift in the air. It was slight, but perceptible.
“I don’t know how to answer that, Sam. I saw her at functions with her husband sometimes and sometimes without him, but that’s normal for diplomatic couples. When I saw them together they seemed fine…”
Lucinda stopped talking and reached back for a memory.
“But don’t we all seem fine to others who don’t know the truth about us?” she finished quietly.
“No other men in her life?”
“None that I know of, but then I really wouldn’t know.”
Tay nodded slowly. Lucinda was holding something back. He had no doubt of that now, but he wasn’t at all sure how to get at whatever it was. Trying to bully it out of her certainly wouldn’t get him anywhere. It would probably just guarantee she would never tell him.
Tay put his notebook away and they made polite conversation for a while. Whatever it was Lucinda was holding out, he would let her have a few minutes to think about it. Then he would come back and ask her the same questions about Elizabeth Munson all over again. It amazed Tay how many times people answered questions differently when you gave them a second opportunity and refrained from mentioning their original answers. It was sometimes as if the first conversation had never taken place at all.
“Let’s get back to Elizabeth Munson,” Tay said after he figured a decent interval had passed. “The Americans think this was a terrorist attack.”
“A terrorist attack on an ambassador’s wife? Here in Singapore? That’s ridiculous, Sam.”
“Yes, I agree. It doesn’t feel right to me either, but so far I can’t point to anything else that might even conceivably amount to a motive for murder. If I can’t, the Americans are going to have their way about terrorism. That’s why I need you to tell me what you know about Mrs. Munson’s personal life. Maybe something there will point me toward another motive.”
Lucinda hesitated. She was uneasy now. Tay could see that plainly and he had no doubt that Lucinda knew he could see it. It wasn’t just Elizabeth Munson’s death. He was sure of that. It was something in the questions Tay had asked that was troubling Lucinda.
“I already told you, Sam. I didn’t really know her very well.”
Tay watched Lucinda as she glanced away again. He didn’t say anything at all. He knew now that if he kept silent eventually Lucinda would start to talk again and tell him whatever it was she was reluctant to say.
“There were rumors…” she began.
Then she stopped talking and shifted herself on the couch, crossing her legs first to the left and then uncrossing them and re-crossing them to the right. Tay waited patiently. He was ready to wait until next week if it took that long.
“Oh God, Sam, I shouldn’t say this.”
Lucinda took a deep breath and then let it out.
Tay waited some more.
“Okay, look.” Lucinda uncrossed her legs one more time and sat up straight. “There were rumors that she was having an affair with a woman and that she was going to leave her husband for this woman. I have no idea who the woman was or even if it was true. There. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
For a moment, Tay was so flabbergasted that words failed him.
“Elizabeth Munson was gay?” he asked when he regained his voice.
“What?” Lucinda sounded genuinely annoyed with him. “Gay? Samuel Tay, I said nothing of the sort.”
“But I thought you just said—”
“I said I had heard stories that she was having an affair with a woman. That certainly doesn’t make her gay.”
Tay didn’t know what to say to that. What else did it make her?
“Oh, Sam.” Now Lucinda sounded sympathetic. “You really do need to get out more. A great many women have affairs with other women at various points in their lives. It doesn’t mean they’re gay. These things are just … well, things that happen and, usually, they end and these women go back to their men.”
The first thing that came to Tay’s mind was the unselfconscious ease with which Lucinda had imparted that information to him. Did that mean she herself had…no, surely not.
After all, he had gone out with Lucinda for nearly two years and, naturally they had slept together, although he had to admit they had done so rather less frequently as their relationship wore on. He would have known, wouldn’t he? Could Lucinda have also been sleeping with women at the same time without him knowing it? Even the remote possibility of that opened up a whole house of horrors for Tay, savaging his already fragile sense that he might know anything at all about women.
They talked on for a few more minutes after that, but it was obvious to Tay that Lucinda really didn’t know any more than she had already told him. He was so distracted now anyway that he jumped at the first opportunity he could find to end the conversation and take his leave.
Tay would have to do something to get to the bottom of the story Lucinda had told him, but he couldn’t imagine what he might find when he did. For the moment, all he knew was that Elizabeth Munson’s female lover was a rumor among the ladies who lunch, nothing more than that. Still, something must have started the rumor and, since it had apparently continued to circulate right up to the day that Elizabeth Munson died, perhaps it was really true.
Even if it were true, it probably had nothing at all to do with her murder; but then maybe it did have something to do with it. Maybe, if he looked closely enough, he would even find the seeds of a motive somewhere in what Lucinda had just told him.
Tay sighed heavily. He didn’t even want to think about where that might take him.
IN the taxi on the way back to his office, Tay shook a Marlboro out of the box. Before he could put it in his mouth, the driver began to chant “no, no, no, no,” stabbing his forefinger over and over at a No Smoking sign taped to the dashboard.
He hadn’t even intended to light the damned thing and just figured the feel of it might help him to think more clearly, but he returned it to the box without arguing.
Welcome to Singapore, Tay thought, the country where every man is his own policeman.
He briefly considered asking the taxi driver if, in furtherance of his duty to maintain public order, he might also like to take over the Elizabeth Munson case, but then he
thought better of it and said nothing at all.
When Tay got back to his office the autopsy report was waiting on his desk. He read it carefully, but it contained nothing new or unexpected. His conversation with Dr. Hoi had covered everything quite thoroughly.
Tay shuffled the other papers on his desk for a while without any great interest, thinking mostly about what Lucinda had told him. When he suddenly remembered he had more or less promised the OC he would send DeSouza a copy of their case file, it occurred to him he should do it now while there was almost nothing in it. Tay certainly wasn’t going to add anything about his little chat with Lucinda. Perhaps he would leave out the autopsy report as well, at least for now.
Sergeant Kang was out of the office examining the Marriott’s surveillance tapes, so Tay called the secretarial pool and asked one of the girls to take the file, make a copy, and courier it over to DeSouza at the American embassy. Tay briefly considered telephoning Kang and asking if he had found anything on the hotel’s tapes yet, but he decided that was silly. If Kang had found anything, Tay would already know about it.
Around five-thirty, Tay decided he’d had enough. If he left now, he could walk to Harry’s Bar to meet Susan Hoi rather than having to find a taxi. As a rule people in Singapore didn’t walk anywhere, but Tay walked whenever he got the chance.
Tay understood why most people thought he was crazy to walk anywhere in Singapore. It was hot out there, and sweaty. When he walked places rather than taking a taxi, he generally arrived at his destination with his shirt plastered to his back. Still, he thought it was worth it. He would have preferred walking in a cooler place, of course, but then he would not have the warm nights he loved so much, nights when the air itself seemed alive with possibilities. Maybe there was a city somewhere on earth that had cool days and warm nights. If he could find one, he would pack up and move there without a moment’s hesitation.
Boat Quay was a crescent-shaped strip of shophouses nestled in a bend of the Singapore River near the bottom of South Bridge Road. At night, workers fleeing the financial district overflowed its stylish restaurants and noisy pubs, but Tay had never been there before in daylight. He had the impression that during the day the area was frequented primarily by Australian tourists: heavy of leg, loud of voice, and clothed in their habitual uniforms of wrinkled T-shirts, baggy shorts, and flip-flops. Perhaps that wasn’t true, but just the threat of it had so far been more than enough to keep him well clear of Boat Quay whenever the sun was out.
Harry’s Bar was one of the oldest and best known of the pubs in the quay and it had a prime slot right at the beginning of the crescent. When Tay got there, the ground floor was already about half full of briefcase-carrying trendies. He checked the tables outside along the riverbank and then had a quick look upstairs. When he didn’t see Dr. Hoi in either place, he took a stool at the bar close by the front door and ordered a Campari and soda.
Lounging at a bar was an unexpectedly congenial feeling and it made him start to wonder if he really ought to think about getting out more. Had he even been a little unfair to Harry’s perhaps? Tay sipped at his Campari and glanced around, but before he could decide whether or not that was the case, Susan Hoi slipped onto the stool next to him and gave his elbow a little squeeze.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Just got here myself,” Tay said and raised his arm to attract the bartender’s attention. “What will you have?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Dr. Hoi said.
Tay wondered if she even knew what he was having, but he didn’t ask. Catching the bartender’s eye, Tay pointed first to his drink and then to the empty space in front of Dr. Hoi, wiggling his finger back and forth a couple of times. It was a bizarre gesture when he thought about it, but it apparently made perfect sense to the bartender since the man immediately reached for a bottle of Campari and began mixing another drink for Dr. Hoi.
They sipped their drinks and talked for a while, altogether pleasantly Tay thought. It was the sort of small talk that two people of opposite sexes made when they didn’t know each other particularly well, but it was nevertheless entirely agreeable. Still, as Dr. Hoi talked about her work and asked Tay questions about his, he grew more and more curious. What was it she wanted to tell him about the Elizabeth Munson case that was so important she had to tell him in person, and why was she stalling now that they were here? He eventually grew tired of waiting to find out.
“You said on the telephone that you had some ideas about the dead woman at the Marriott,” Tay said.
“Yes,” Dr. Hoi conceded, “I did.”
She didn’t say anything else right away and Tay thought she looked as if she had gone utterly blank.
“So what are these ideas?” Tay prodded her.
“None. I don’t have any ideas about the woman at the Marriott. None at all. Not a clue.”
“But—”
“I lied. I thought it would be pleasant to get to know you and that was the first excuse that jumped into my head. So I lied.”
Tay cleared his throat and looked off toward the other end of the bar where the bartender was drawing a draft of Tiger beer.
“Well,” Tay said, “I’m not sure what to say to that.”
“Are you angry?”
“No, certainly not angry. Surprised, I guess. You could have just asked me to meet you for a drink, couldn’t you?”
“I suppose so, but you would have said you were busy, wouldn’t you?”
She had him there, Tay knew, so he didn’t say anything.
“Yes, I thought so,” she went on. “You strike me as the kind of man who automatically deals with every unexpected invitation by saying he’s busy and then wonders later if he should have gone.”
What was that supposed to mean? Tay asked himself.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” she persisted.
“I don’t know,” Tay said. “Maybe.”
“Then I did the right thing,” Dr. Hoi said. “You’ve got to speak up for yourself if you see something you want, not just sit around and hope that it eventually comes to you.”
Tay was so flustered he didn’t have the first idea what to say. This was certainly his day to be set back on his heels by women, wasn’t it? Maybe Lucinda Lim and Susan Hoi were both crazy people. Perhaps that was all there was to it.
No, that wasn’t fair. They both probably thought he was the crazy one. After all, they were both perfectly nice women, young and attractive, the kind of women most men would turn cartwheels in the street to attract. And here they both were making plain their interest in Tay while he had stared back at them with about as much enthusiasm as if they had been reciting the day’s closing prices on the stock market.
Christ, maybe they were right. Maybe he was crazy.
Tay caught the bartender’s eye and pointed at his empty glass. It was either that or flee and stick Dr. Hoi with the check, and he didn’t think that would be particularly dignified. Still, he knew perfectly well that preserving one’s dignity usually came with a price tag attached. He was not at all certain what that price would turn out to be on this occasion, and he had no idea whether or not he could afford to pay it.
Screw it, Tay thought, as he sipped at the fresh drink the bartender brought him. Why was he being such a pussy about this? So a woman, two women if he were being entirely honest about it, had made it clear they were interested in him and would be pleased to have his company. It was about bloody goddamned time, wasn’t it?
Tay threw caution, or something, to the winds and turned toward Dr. Hoi. He resumed their conversation as though nothing untoward had happened. And, so far at least, he guessed it hadn’t.
FOURTEEN
ARTHUR Elliot Munson III felt beaten up. As a matter of fact, he thought he might have felt better if he had been beaten up.
It was nearly two in the morning, local time, before he made it back from Washington. His diplomatic passport greased him through immigration and while waiting for his luggage he
glanced out through the glass wall past customs and spotted Tony DeSouza waiting for him instead of his driver. He would bet his ass, he thought to himself, that didn’t mean anything good.
In the car DeSouza told him about the Interpol fingerprint inquiry; then he related the story of his Sunday visit with Inspector Tay and what he had learned from him. DeSouza laid out the details as dispassionately as he could and the ambassador didn’t say much. Munson was a bit surprised that an ID had come out of Interpol so quickly, although he supposed he shouldn’t have been. He was even more surprised how little he actually felt as he listened to DeSouza talk about Liz. Maybe it was because he was so tired, but then again maybe it wasn’t.
He asked DeSouza only one thing. Who else knew about Liz’s murder? And with that question he recognized he was thinking like an ambassador rather than like a husband. He needed to move quickly if he was going to get control of events rather than let them take control of him. That was his job. That was what he did.
DeSouza told him no one else at the embassy knew anything about the murder, at least not yet. Outside the embassy, of course, he couldn’t be certain.
“All I know for sure,” DeSouza said, “is that CID-SIS has the investigation and this Inspector Tay is in charge of the case down there.”
“CID-SIS?”
“Special Investigations Section of the Criminal Investigations Department. They handle the homicides and most of the other major investigations.”
“Do you know anything about…what’s this guy’s name again?”
“Inspector Tay. Samuel Tay. He’s a bit of an oddball, I hear. Frankly, he strikes me as a plodder, maybe even a little slow on the uptake, but he’s been with CID-SIS for a long time. He’s supposed to be about the best they have. Whether that’s saying very much is another question, of course.”