Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials (8 page)

“It’s very expensive.” Edmond Yong appeared from the room next to the one Sharon had
come out of. Aunty Lee guessed he had been listening while Sharon shouted at her father.

“Don’t worry. My friend Rosie is very rich,” Doreen said dismissively.

“I’ll go see if I can find Mabel,” Edmond offered.

“If you find Mabel tell her she should be at the party with her guests. This is supposed
to be her party for me. Why isn’t she even at it?”

“Sharon, calm down. There are people here.” Edmond Yong smiled at Aunty Lee and Doreen
as he spoke, giving the impression of a nanny trying to ward off a childish tantrum.

“Who are you to tell me to calm down? Who are you afraid they are going to tell?”

Aunty Lee wanted to say she was not at all the sort to tell tales. Finding out things
about people was a hobby of hers, and if only Sharon explained what she didn’t want
told, Aunty Lee wouldn’t tell it. She turned to Doreen to back her up but Doreen had
gone. Doreen claimed to be a feeble old woman when it suited her but could move fast
when she wanted.

It was definitely turning out to be a very interesting party, Aunty Lee thought.

GraceFaith returned. Nobody paid much attention at first because GraceFaith was not
someone people generally took notice of. She rushed a few steps into the room, then
stopped abruptly. There was a strange frozen look on her face. Aunty Lee thought she
looked like someone trapped on a roller-coaster ride—incredulous, terrified, and about
to be sick. She was breathing with fast, shallow little whimpers, her eyes panicked
and pleading. Alarmed, Aunty Lee moved toward her. For once she was driven by concern
rather than curiosity, but GraceFaith shuddered at Aunty Lee’s light touch on her
arm and looked right through her.

Even Sharon and Edmond noticed something.

“Is something wrong with Lennie?” Sharon sounded prepared to be bored. “Again? What’s
he done now?”

“Your mother and Leonard are dead,” GraceFaith said. Her voice was dead calm. She
might have said they were watching television.

Aunty Lee gasped. She was dying to ask what had happened but held herself back as
the other two processed the information.

“Leonard? And Mabel? Both of them?” Sharon asked in disbelief. GraceFaith nodded,
the frenzied look still frozen on her face.

“Are you sure?” Edmond said. He gave a little laugh or cleared his throat. “You must
have made a mistake. Or it’s another of Lennie’s stupid jokes. He’s probably just
playing a trick on you.” He looked around for support but none of the women responded.
GraceFaith and Sharon had their eyes fixed on each other and Aunty Lee was watching
them both.

“Where’s Henry?” Sharon asked. Then, as though realizing her mother was not there
to be annoyed about her using her father’s first name, “Where’s my father?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him. Your mother and Len are on Len’s bed. There’s food
everywhere. I couldn’t wake them up. I know they are dead.”

For a moment Sharon didn’t move. Then, as Aunty Lee thought later, she seemed to shift
into gear, or rather into her mother’s role.

“We should save the food in the room,” Sharon said in a voice that echoed Mabel’s
bossy tone. “So it can be tested. GraceFaith, call the police. We shouldn’t touch
anything until the police get here. They should examine everything. And we should
make sure nobody leaves.”

“This is not some kind of TV mystery,” Edmond snapped at her. “Don’t drag the police
here for nothing. I’m going to check on them first.”

“Dad, where were you? Do you know what happened?”

Henry Sung came through the passage looking dazed. Doreen was with him.

“I thought they were praying,” Henry Sung said. “I went to get Mabel, to tell her
Doreen needed to talk to her. They were so quiet in there. Mabel is never quiet unless
she is praying. I was sure they were praying.”

“There are
buah keluak
shells all over the floor,” Doreen said. “As though somebody was throwing them.”

“For goodness’ sake!” Sharon Sung snapped. “GraceFaith, go and call the police and
tell them two people are dead. Tell them it’s Mabel Sung and her son. That should
make them come more quickly. And say they were probably poisoned by
buah keluak
.”

“No!” Aunty Lee said. “It could not have been the
buah keluak
!”

Inspector Salim

Inspector Salim Mawar, officer-in-charge of the Bukit Tinggi Neighborhood Police Post,
was in his office when the calls came in. This was not surprising. Salim, whose recent
awards and promotion to inspector should have catapulted him from this apparently
dead-end posting onto the main administrative track, was almost always in his office.

“Sir, I think you better take line two. It’s the commissioner’s assistant, calling
on site with DB.”

“Thanks, Neha.”

“And there was another call but the woman couldn’t wait and gave me a message to pass
to you—” Staff Sergeant Neha Panchal hesitated. This was a new posting for her and
she was still getting used to the casual way residents called or dropped in on the
station.

“The message?” Salim picked up his phone and pressed 2.

“She said to tell you it couldn’t have been the
buah keluak
. I asked her what she meant but she said she couldn’t talk now. She sounded a bit
funny, frankly, but I thought I better tell you just in case—”

Salim got his connection and gestured to her to exit and close the door. Panchal was
not sure whether her boss had heard her message. Or whether he had heard her and thought
her a fool for bothering to convey it. But Panchal had already been told off last
week for telling a Filipina maid she could not see Inspector Salim without filling
in a request form and having a woman officer present. She was not going to give him
another excuse to embarrass her. And just in case, Panchal was keeping a strict record
of all regulations she had observed Inspector Salim flouting. When he got into trouble
for treating this jurisdiction as his own personal domain, Panchal was not going down
with him, unlike the other officers in the station, who worshiped their boss. If she
handled things right she might even come out of it with a promotion, like her predecessor
Timothy Pang, now in a dream posting in International Affairs. Panchal knew Pang must
have discovered something on Salim (or someone even higher up) to have leveraged such
a promotion.

Staff Sergeant Panchal had researched Inspector Salim thoroughly even before starting
her current posting. Inspector Salim Mawar was a lucky man. Thanks to subsidized education,
he had graduated from the National University of Singapore with a basic degree in
Social Studies and then thanks to a Singapore Police Force Scholarship, acquired his
master’s in Management in Science. With these credentials, Salim should have been
rising through the public service ranks as an example of how meritocracy benefited
minorities. So why wasn’t he?

“You got a body?”

“Two—”

Inspector Salim took down the address he was given. “Fast response vehicle?”

“Three on the way. But CP is here and asked for you.”

Salim, on his feet and moving to the door, had already sent their destination and
a message to his driver to meet him by the car.

“You know who they are?”

“Mabel Sung and her son, Leonard. Apparently there was some kind of party at the house
and it may have been food poisoning.”

“
Kanasai!
How many guests present? Anybody else sick? Who provided the food?”

“No indication. The caterer is Aunty Lee’s Delights.”

“Ah.”

Salim knew Aunty Lee’s Delights well. The small café in Binjai Park was within walking
distance of Bukit Tinggi NPP.

Salim remembered the message Panchal had given him. He thought he knew who had sent
it.

“With me, Panchal.”

Though she should have expected to accompany him, Salim had to wait while she retrieved
her phone from its charger, locked her desk, and shut down her computer. All according
to regulations, of course.

It was at times like this that Salim missed Timothy Pang most. Timothy would already
have called up all available information on his phone and by the time they arrived
at the crime scene would know the ages, educational qualifications, declared and undeclared
income, and Pinterest loves of the people involved. Plus the way his new aide watched
him made Salim uncomfortable. He reminded himself that change was good. Panchal reminded
him to put on his seat belt.

There were other eyes on Inspector Salim Mawar. He might believe it was by his own
decision that he was still at the Bukit Tinggi Neighborhood Police Post. In fact his
being allowed to decline several offers of promotion and transfer was part of an as
yet unnamed Ministry of Home Affairs experiment. If all went well it would be hailed
as a successful step forward. If not, then all there was to see was an efficiently
run police post in an important residential area. Salim had declined to be promoted
to a higher level in a larger machine. His salary, power, and prospects would all
have improved, but it was made clear he would be a very small cog. At the moment he
was running things very well in his little kingdom. Crime rates were low and harmony
and goodwill were high. The idea was to gradually expand and replicate this success.
Like the Regional Public Libraries and Regional Post Offices set up following the
same principle that had combined individual voter constituencies so successfully into
Group Representation Constituencies or GRCs. Regional Police Hubs, starting with the
Bukit Tinggi Regional Police Hub, would be small enough for residents to feel a connection
with the officers but large enough that new officers could ride on the coattails of
their experienced seniors.

As things stood, calling Bukit Tinggi a “neighborhood” post was a misnomer, as its
jurisdiction stretched some way beyond Bukit Tinggi. And Inspector Salim had already
solved cases beyond the Bukit Tinggi district. Just weeks ago he had exposed and arrested
a group of international con artists in Chinatown, thanks to a
tai tai
in his district who told him about a wise man there who offered to bless her jewelry
and money to ward off bad luck. Most
tai tais
were idle wealthy women, but Aunty Lee, though wealthy, was anything but idle.

In any case it was not quite an official project. If anything went wrong it would
still be possible for top officials to deny the whole experiment. But if successful,
it could provide a template for things to come. Among the unknown factors was how
much the experiment’s success depended on Salim and his relationship with residents
in the area.

“What do we know so far?” Salim asked as they waited for the front gates of 8 King
Albert Rise to slide open for them. “Background on the victims, who found them, anything?”

Panchal looked at him blankly. “Do you want me to find out?”

Staff Sergeant Panchal

“This way, sir.” Salim’s men were already on the wide front driveway. Salim paused
for a moment, looking at the front of the enormous house and then turning to look
at what could be seen of the neighbors, which was not much other than high walls and
privacy shrubbery.

“Shouldn’t we go inside?” Staff Sergeant Panchal prompted.

Salim did not answer.

“Sir, shouldn’t we—”

“Security? Cameras?” Salim asked the officer who had let them in.

“Four cameras in the house, sir. Front and back gates, pool area, and the son’s room,
where the bodies were found. I’ll send someone round to ask the neighbors.”

Salim missed having Timothy Pang by his side at a crime scene. Or rather, Tim Pang
would not have stuck to his side. Panchal was acting like an eager dog on a leash.
Tim would have wandered off collecting impressions of people who didn’t notice him
and confidences from people who did. Being mistaken for an actor or model had embarrassed
Officer Pang but his good looks and open manner inclined people to trust him. Officer
Panchal, glaring suspiciously at everyone in sight, was not proving as helpful.

Inside the house, people looked at one another uncertainly and whispered but no one
said anything out loud. Commissioner Raja had arrived late and meant to slip away
early once he had congratulated the new partner of Sung Law. However, he had been
detained by the death of the old partner, and now as he watched his fellow guests
he was reminded of mission school boys waiting for the punch line to an off-color
joke. They knew something was coming but were afraid to guess exactly what in case
it revealed their ignorance, or worse—their knowledge.

“Commissioner?”

Commissioner Raja turned to see Inspector Salim with Staff Sergeant Panchal. Panchal
saluted him smartly and he responded with a nod.

“I’m here for the party, not for the murder,” Commissioner Raja said to explain his
green-and-brown batik shirt. “The Sungs are old friends. I got here right after the
bodies were found. Must have been just before noon. Thanks for coming down.”

“You are a friend of the Sungs?” Salim asked. He seemed surprised.

“You could say that,” Commissioner Raja said grimly. He had not liked Mabel Sung.
The woman had been good at manipulating people into supporting her causes, making
her both a powerful ally and a dangerous person to cross. “With some people it is
better to be friends than enemies.

“Anyway, this is your case, Salim. I can give you my statement but I want you to handle
the investigation. By the way, you’ll find some familiar faces here. I tell you, any
funny business in this district they are sure to be somewhere around.”

Familiar faces? Salim looked around and saw Aunty Lee, Cherril—and yes, Nina. Thank
goodness that aggressive Carla Saito woman had finally left Singapore. Salim had heard
she had gone on to China. Good luck to the Chinese, he thought.