Aunty Lee's Chilled Revenge (14 page)

“I'm not against this Mike Fitzgerald being white, divorced, or much older than Josie.” Constance DelaVega's voice came quietly over the line. “I am concerned about my daughter marrying a man who may have treated his first wife badly.
The newspapers quoted the sister—Vallerie Love, right?—saying how badly Mike always treated Allison, his first wife. Men like that get into a habit. They don't even consider it wrong. To them it is just the normal way men behave.”

“Vallerie may have a habit of exaggerating,” Aunty Lee pointed out. “Vallerie has also been saying their parents—her and Allison's parents—treated Allison so badly while they were growing up, but she was talking about things like not giving her opportunities and not encouraging her, so it's possible that after Allison's death, Vallerie feels so bad for her that she thinks everyone, including the husband, mistreated her sister.”

“So you think that Mike's bad behavior may have been exaggerated?” There was wry doubt in her voice.

“Josephine is bringing Mike here to talk to me. Would you like to come and meet him at the same time?”

“They didn't arrest him? I thought they did. Where is he now?” Aunty Lee heard real fear in Connie's voice. “Is he staying with Josie? Do you know if that's where he is?”

“No, he's not,” Aunty Lee said, having asked the same question herself. “He's got a room at the Grand Hyatt.” The Grand Hyatt on Scotts Road was part of the Orchard Road prime district and in a far higher and far more expensive class than the Victoria Crest Hotel.

There was a silence over the line. Then, “Can you meet him and tell us what you think of him?”

Aunty Lee considered telling Connie she ought to see for herself—bringing Aunty Lee with her to keep the peace, of course—but just then Nina interrupted.

“Madame! Did you order a lot of mangoes online?”

“Mangoes? Oh, Nina, you won't believe the price they were going at. And they had Thai and Indian mangoes as well as Malaysian mangoes—”

“Madame, there is over twenty boxes—”

“Connie, I have to go. Do you like mangoes?”

Mike Fitzgerald

To Aunty Lee's surprise, she liked Mike Fitzgerald.

After all she had heard, Aunty Lee had expected to meet a dangerously seductive killer. But Mike Fitzgerald turned out to be more like a middle-aged lawyer or businessman. He had the look of a successful man gone paunchy, the posture of a tired one, and he was not what Aunty Lee considered “handsome,” with a bald head that made her think of a healthy brown egg.

“So you are the husband of the dead woman,” Aunty Lee said when Josephine introduced them. She had called Aunty Lee about bringing Mike over before Aunty Lee had had a chance to think about her mother's request. “Do you like mangoes?”

“Of course! And I like you, the wonder woman who got the
police to let me out.” Mike Fitzgerald brushed over the question. There was definitely some charm there, she thought.

“You have been in Singapore for some time.”

“He got in last week to meet with Cherril. We told you that,” Josephine said with some impatience.

“Not last week. At least two weeks, maybe more. Look at the color of his skin on the top of his head. He has been eating local food and going out in the sun.” The signs were obvious to Aunty Lee.

“That's crazy. He's been traveling for work in—” Josephine automatically started to defend her lover. Then she stopped.

Mike ran a hand over his head, sweeping hair over the emerging egg of his thinning crown. Aunty Lee estimated he was coming to the end of his forties. Quite a bit older than Josephine. But then who was she to talk? ML had been quite half a generation older than she when they married. And his friends—including Raja Kumar, Aunty Lee remembered with a smile—had been concerned about the age difference though they had all been too well bred to say anything openly. The young Mrs. Rosie Lee had been aware of how her husband's fuddy-duddy old friends felt about her. And she had thought them all old and stuck in their ways.

Aunty Lee was older now than they had been then. And yes, she was doing to Josephine what she had resented them doing to her. And more. Unlike her late husband's friends who had been always punctiliously polite and merely radiated disapproval through their eyes and body language, Aunty Lee meant to ask questions and probe into the man's motives and any murderous intent. That was the real reason
she had asked Josephine to bring Mike round to Aunty Lee's Delights. “You are a bit older than Josephine, aren't you?”

“Oh yes. Fortunately she's quite a bit older than my two kids, so that's one minefield avoided,” Mike said languidly.

An old egg that wouldn't crack as easily as a fresh one, Aunty Lee thought. And hard-boiled old eggs were always difficult to get out of their shells. Aunty Lee was momentarily distracted by how much she missed having her own chickens. Perhaps she would speak to Nina about that. It would be nice having chickens in the back garden again even if they didn't produce many eggs and what eggs did come out of them couldn't be officially certified “free range” or even “organic” though they would be. Chickens would be one more diversion in her old age, which suddenly seemed round the corner.

“That's why you wouldn't let me phone you,” Josephine said to Mike. “That's why you always had to be the one that contacted me on Skype. Did everybody know you were in Singapore except me?”

“You believe some old woman who looks at my skin and tells you where I've been?” Mike asked genially. Clearly Josephine did. “Josie, I told you it's complicated.”

Mike threw Aunty Lee a half-humorous, half-pleading look. The message was clear:
Go away and give us some privacy—time for a heavy couple conversation.
But Aunty Lee chose to ignore this. There was no telling what nonsense the man would feed Josephine if Aunty Lee and her lie detector weren't there to keep an eye on things.

Aunty Lee wondered whether Josephine had told Mike
about the baby yet. Somehow she didn't think so. The girl was still young enough to think that she could handle everything herself if only she made more of an effort. It was the result of the competitiveness in schools that told children it was more important to “try harder to come out on top!” than work together and help each other. But that was not relevant right then. It was also not really relevant that Aunty Lee did not believe in couples telling each other everything. You could end up doing nothing but talking and analyzing each other. And anyway, being told things was never as interesting as finding them out for yourself. Much as Aunty Lee loved reading recipes, she did not enjoy being regaled with recipe details every time she sat down to a meal.

However, some things like “I killed my ex-wife” and “I am having your baby” definitely needed to be said if you wanted a marriage to work.

“Why did you come to Singapore earlier than you told Josephine you would? She is supposed to be the woman you say you are in love with and want to marry,” Aunty Lee asked.

“Because I wasn't sure the job with your company—the franchising and everything—would work out. Since I was going to be in the region, I thought, Why not get in early and talk to some other people? I met with someone from an Indonesian company and another guy from Thailand. I didn't want Cherril to know in case it put her off me for this business. I knew if I said anything to Josephine she would have told her. That's what women do, isn't it? They talk about things. They just can't stop talking.”

It took a great effort, but Aunty Lee said nothing in re
sponse to that. She would not validate his absurd statement by opening her mouth to reject it. But Mike's opinion of women did not bother Aunty Lee as much as his assumption that Josephine would go along with any plans he made for them without consulting her.

“Did you know about your ex-wife's lawsuit? Why didn't you warn Josephine and the others?”

“Allison had trouble letting things go sometimes.”

Aunty Lee found Mike's choice of words curious. Someone else had used that phrase recently—it had been Brian, speaking of Josephine. When the Animal ReHomers merged with the local SPCA after the puppy killer incident, most of the volunteers had been glad to move on, but Josephine had not wanted to.

“I thought it was just one of her threats. She throws them out and makes a huge fuss, but then if you don't react she doesn't usually follow through. Even the children knew what she was like. If they give me any trouble I tell them I'm shoving them off to live with their mother, is that what they want? And that's usually enough to shut them up. With Gemma, anyway.” He paused. “Nick missed her more. Anyway, I never believed she would come back to Singapore. When we left she said she wished the whole island would disappear under a nuclear bomb. No offense.”

“Her sister said you took out a restraining order against your wife—why?” Aunty Lee saw Josephine start to interrupt her, then turn to watch Mike, waiting for his answer.

“I was worried for their safety. When she first moved out she used to come over to spend time with them while I was at
work. One day I got a call from a neighbor saying that Allison had been shouting and the children crying for almost an hour. It wasn't a complaint. Mrs. Ameeta may be a nosy old fart, but she's a good-hearted old bag. When I'm not around she calls the kids over and gives them their tea. Anyway, when I got home Allison had wrecked the whole place: windows, TV, right down to carving up the backs of the cabinets with a kitchen knife. She was looking for bugging devices, she said. I wanted to call the mental health people but Nick begged me not to put his mum in the madhouse.

“Anyway, she's dead now. I want the children to remember her good side. She tried to be a good mother. I'm sorry you don't like me, but I really don't—”

“Stop.” Aunty Lee said quickly. “I didn't say I don't like you. All right, when I heard about you I didn't like you, that's true. But that's past tense. Meeting you is like eating tangerines. You know what tangerines are, right?”

“Sure, but—”

“If you eat tangerines after you eat ice cream, then you will say they are so sour, they make your teeth sensitive, all kinds of bad things. But if you eat the tangerine first, then you will think, Oh, quite sweet, quite fresh, and quite delicious. After meeting your wife's sister, who had all kinds of good things to say about your late wife, even if you turned up here as Saint Francis we would have looked at you and said, ‘What a terrible man, so bad to his wife and to animals.' But after a while the ice cream wears off. You know what I mean?”

“I think I do.”

Strangely enough she thought he really did.

“We should all brush our teeth more often. Before we eat, in fact. Like you wash hands before eating, should wash mouths also, right? I don't know why people only brush their teeth after they eat. Like they cannot wait to get the taste of food out of their mouths. But anyway, I don't think you are so bad. Josephine is a nice girl. She has a good heart but she is not stupid. If she likes you that means you are not all bad. Anyway, you are her risk to take.”

“Thank you. I think.”

Mike Fitzgerald knew he had been left with some kind of compliment. Or it might have been a threat. He was not sure. But at least he was part of the discussion now and that was a definite step forward.

“Inspector Salim will be joining us for dinner.”

“Oh Christ, more questions?”

“Last time he had to ask you questions as a suspect. Now you will both be my guests. Are you hungry?”

“I'm always hungry.” Mike took Aunty Lee's hand in his. “I know you are keeping an eye on Josephine and keeping her safe and I must thank you.” He raised her hand and touched it to his lips. “I owe you.”

She smiled and he knew he had given the right answer.

“Dinner won't be until seven thirty. Some other people who met you before will be joining us.”

“Brian? I remember him. We've been in touch, actually. Will be good to see him again.”

Aunty Lee caught the surprise on Josephine's face and the embarrassment on his after she nudged him hard on the ribs. If those two ended up together, it would be a good
thing if they learned to talk to each other. She changed the subject: “Did Josephine tell you that Allison's sister is staying at my house?”

“Yes, she did. Actually I don't know Vallerie very well. I just know she's fat and moved to the U.S. before Allie and I got married. She didn't even come back for our wedding. Said she was down with food poisoning or something. I remember Allie said it was just like her to get sick at the worst time. I met her when she visited Allie here in Singapore, before all hell broke loose. I should thank you for taking her on too.

“I was hoping to meet her here today, actually. I guess she doesn't want to see me?”

“If she thinks you killed her sister, that's not surprising,” Josephine said.

“I didn't. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to go on saying this, but I didn't kill my ex-wife.”

“Vallerie must have been close to her sister,” Aunty Lee said. “She seems very upset. I think she's having some kind of breakdown.”

“I don't think so. They didn't really stay in touch. Allie used to get very upset with Vallerie for being such a mess. She was so organized herself.”

“What kind of a mess?” Aunty Lee wondered. She had assumed Vallerie Love's mood swings were due to the shock of her sister's death, but had she always been that way?

“Her weight for one thing. And her refusing to come back to England for our wedding.”

“So you really don't know her very well? They weren't close?”

“They must have been once. If you look at their baby pictures, you'll see how alike they were. If you compare the photos of Allison at five years old and Vallerie at the same age, it's difficult to tell which was which. And just to complicate things their mother used to dress Vallerie in Allison's old clothes. You know how fast children grow, and Vallerie was just over a year younger, so I suppose that was natural. But then of course Vallerie started getting fatter and fatter, until they had to buy new things for her because she couldn't fit into Allison's old clothes. And Allison refused to wear fat-girl clothes, so from then on it was two sets of everything for them. Not so different from having a boy and a girl, I suppose.”

Aunty Lee wondered whether the young Vallerie Love had deliberately used her size to get out from under her sister's shadow. She had heard of women who deliberately starved themselves skinny because their bodies were the only things they had any control over (some of them seemed to think they looked good as skeletons, but did anyone believe that?). Had Vallerie Love done the reverse, asserting control by growing larger than her sister? It did not feel likely, but Aunty Lee would have to think about it. In her experience, unless there was already something wrong with your body, giving yourself free rein to eat as much of everything available usually resulted in more discrimination and less indulgence. Animals overeat because they are conditioned to eating to excess after a kill and then fasting till the next successful hunt. Humans overeat because they remember scarcity in their past and fear it in their future. But if these fears were laid to rest, the
human body was very good at detecting and selecting what it needed and in the quantities needed.

But Mike Fitzgerald did not look like he needed a lecture on Aunty Lee's pet topics of eating and appetites. Old photos taken at the height of the puppy-killing furor had showed a slightly overweight, slump-shouldered man. But now, despite his thinning hair, he looked better than he had five years ago.

Aunty Lee wanted to believe Mike Fitzgerald. She had nothing staked on him, but Josephine did and Aunty Lee was fond of Josephine, even if the girl had made some doubtful choices along the way. Still, she had survived and that was the main thing. Aunty Lee was not in favor of staying with safe choices. It would be like eating nothing but rice and steamed egg and spinach soup day after day after day. And given how many other things there were in Singapore to eat, that was an almost criminal waste.