Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials (34 page)

Henry Sung closed his mouth. He turned to Doreen and the cold venom in his eyes shut
her up immediately.

Aunty Lee felt a strong sense of anticlimax. Once Doreen started babbling, there would
be no confessions. Commissioner Raja felt a strong sense of relief. The worst that
could come of this was a libel suit, he thought. He picked up a chicken wing. In times
of stress and times of relief, a spicy buffalo wing was a great comfort.

“Are we supposed to fake outrage and storm out?” Sharon Sung said. Her voice was steady,
controlled, and icily amused. “If you’ve finished, we’re leaving now. Come on, Dad.
Doreen can stay if she wants.”

Henry Sung rose, shaking off the hand Doreen had tentatively placed on his arm.

“Thank you for coming,” Aunty Lee said. Her mind was spinning. She was sure she had
guessed the facts but she had misjudged her criminals. If she could just try another
approach—her hostess autopilot kicked in at this point. “But you didn’t eat much.
I pack up some food for you to take home with you.”

“No thank you.”

“There’s so much here, don’t waste. Can keep in the fridge for up to one week—”

“Stop it!” Sharon snapped. “Nobody wants your stupid food!” People stopped talking
and turned to stare. Aunty Lee also stared, feeling a twinge of delight that she had
managed to provoke a genuine response from the young woman.

Without another word Sharon Sung turned and walked out, followed by her father.

“I’ll just take a quick look in the wine room if you’ve finished.” Mark seemed oblivious
to any tension. Perhaps he had chosen the best path after all.

Post-Party Problem

It was late by the time Aunty Lee stood on the walkway just outside her shop waving
as the dark green Volvo drove off. After Henry and Sharon left with Doreen, the party
had lightened up considerably.

Commissioner Raja had stayed to see Aunty Lee’s last guests leave. Even though Aunty
Lee had not shared her little plan with him (or even admitted she had a plan), he
had been curious to see if anything came of it. But even if her gambit had failed,
everyone had had a pleasant evening and left full of good food. There were far worse
ways to end a day.

Nina still had not appeared.

“Nina, come, let’s go. We can come in and clean up tomorrow.”

Nina did not answer.

Aunty Lee decided Nina must have got tired of waiting for her and started cleaning
up the kitchen. Once Nina got into her cleaning zone, she could lose all sense of
time. Aunty Lee knew how that felt. It was like what people described in running marathons—you
were in a zone beyond tired but you kept going. And then afterward, when you looked
over your clean kitchen or clean house, it was all worth it. Because you had pushed
your body beyond its comfort level and accomplished something.

Either that or she would find Nina poring over one of the books Salim had given her.
Despite everything Nina said to the contrary (“You are full of crazy dreams,” “Whoever
heard of a Mat lawyer in Philippines or Pinoy lawyer in Singapore!”), all the signs
showed Aunty Lee that the young woman was dreaming along the same lines—even if she
didn’t realize it yet herself. Nina might mock Salim’s dreams but she kept the stack
of books he had given her. That was another problem brewing, Aunty Lee thought as
she went back into the café. She would do all she could to help Nina of course, but—

But Nina was kneeling on the floor in front of the kitchen sink with her arms behind
her, beside the legs of Henry Sung, who was sitting on a chair.

“Nina, what—are you all right? Henry, you’re still here? I thought you left long ago!”

“It’s all your fault. If you didn’t come nosing around, everything would be all right.”

Sharon Sung was standing behind the kitchen door, which she now closed. And Sharon
was holding Aunty Lee’s favorite Korin Suisin High-Carbon Steel Gyutou chef knife
to Aunty Lee’s only (and therefore favorite) throat.

“Please be careful with that!” Aunty Lee said. “That is a carbon steel blade that
can slice through a two-centimeter-thick pumpkin shell as though it is tofu!”

“Oh, now you’re scared, are you? It’s about time but it’s too late now.”

“That is not a stainless-steel knife, you know. It will tarnish if you don’t rub it
with oil after washing it. The cloth I usually use for that is over there by the sink,
behind Nina. Nina, are you all right, girl?”

Nina nodded silently. She looked scared but otherwise unhurt.

Aunty Lee’s mind seemed to have jammed. All she could think of was that the whirring
from the wine cooler room’s air chiller was unusually loud. The door had probably
been left ajar again. Customers seldom realized they had to turn the lock after leaving
the room to close it properly. This had always annoyed Mark, who worried more about
the temperature of his precious wine than about someone getting locked inside the
cooler room by accident.

Aunty Lee shifted her attention away from the wine cooler room. The kitchen door leading
to the back alley was also standing open.

“You left and came back through the back door?”

“Which I made sure to unlock. I thought those people would never leave!”

“You should not have come back.”

Sharon laughed, shaking the knife point against Aunty Lee’s neck. Aunty Lee winced
at the sensation rather than from pain as the blade’s svelte point slid smoothly through
her skin and drew blood.

“Sharon! Be careful!” Henry Sung spoke for the first time. “Blood, your fingerprints,
these days everything is dangerous. Be careful, girl!”

Sharon ignored her father. “I want the bills you took. The ones you stole when you
went to see GraceFaith in the office that night.”

“Did I?” Aunty Lee looked as though she was trying to remember. “I went to see her
in your office, yes. But you gave me a cheque for the catering already, so no more
bills.”

“The electricity bills. Mabel’s payment records. She was a fool to keep them in the
office. Just now you said GraceFaith gave you something important when you saw her.”

“GraceFaith has relatives in Hong Kong. She told me she knows somebody that can get
me the secret recipe for Tian Tian XO sauce.”

“Don’t talk rubbish.”

“It’s not rubbish. It is a very special sauce they never sell outside the restaurant
and their employees have to sign contract saying they will not reveal the secret ingredient.”

“Anyway, that doesn’t matter now.”

Aunty Lee was counting on Sharon’s patience running out before she had meandered through
her old-lady stories. A lifetime in the kitchen had taught her that impatience always
made people careless. The problem was, Aunty Lee had no idea how to take advantage
of this until . . .

“Sharon, I really didn’t mean to kill your mother and brother, you know,” Aunty Lee
said piteously. She turned to look at Henry Sung, ignoring a second knife prick.

Sharon laughed. She pushed Aunty Lee roughly, making her fall onto the ground next
to Nina.

“Dad, did you hear that? This stupid old fool thinks we’re after her for killing Mabel
and Lennie!”

Henry Sung studied Aunty Lee, who tried to look like a helpless old woman struggling
to get up.

“My leg—”

“Aunty, what happened to your leg?”

“My leg so pain. I don’t know what happened—”

“Shut up, both of you. And stay down there.” Sharon paced around the kitchen, still
holding the knife.

“Don’t trust her,” Henry Sung said. Sharon ignored him. Aunty Lee thought that was
a good sign, though she had no idea how to make use of it. She fluttered to Henry:
“Henry you mustn’t be angry with me. I am so sorry. I swear I would never have done
anything to hurt Mabel on purpose. But you know what
buah keluak
is like . . .”

“I know you didn’t kill Mabel. I killed Mabel,” Sharon snapped. She was clearly annoyed
that Aunty Lee was paying more attention to Henry than to her.

Aunty Lee managed to look suitably shocked. “But you were telling everybody that I
poisoned your mother!”

“And you went around saying you didn’t and making trouble. If you had just shut up
everything would have been fine. And then now you turn around and say you thought
you poisoned her all along. You stupid old woman.” Sharon laughed again. She sounded
tired, Aunty Lee thought. She was probably very tired. That was not good. Tired people
were often irrational and self-destructive. And in this case likely to be destructive
of others too. “If you had just kept your loud mouth shut, everything would have been
all right.

“I put the Algae Bomb powder in Len’s
buah keluak
before making Edmond bring it up to the house for him,” she went on. “I only meant
to make him sick, really sick for once. To pay him back for lying around and making
everybody run around doing things for him all the time. And I thought if Edmond ate
it and got sick too, it would serve him right. He was so greedy, always sneaking around
and pinching things. How was I to know that it was poisonous enough to kill people?
It’s supposed to be for swimming pools, for goodness’ sake. And how was I to know
my mother would go up to eat with him? She never ate with me. Anyway, it was her own
fault. I’m not sorry.”

“You are saying you accidentally killed your brother and your mother,” Aunty Lee repeated
as though she was slow-wittedly trying to understand this. Actually she was thinking
fast of ways to distract Sharon, though she was not sure what good it would do. All
the shops in the row were closed and no one would be coming around till midmorning.
Nina was frowning with a faraway look in her eyes. Aunty Lee hoped she had not been
hit in the head. And Henry Sung did not look surprised to hear that his daughter had
murdered his wife and son.

“Sharon, if you tell people it was an accident, I’m sure they will understand.”

Sharon shook her head at Aunty Lee’s stupidity. “It turned out to be the right thing
to do. It was the only thing to be done. Now, without Leonard draining us, I can start
over with a clean slate and save the company. And you and your maid are going to help
us.”

Henry Sung was shaking his head. But he had been trained all his life to obey his
wife without question and now that she was gone he obeyed his daughter.

“Mabel set up the whole system. We just have to use it better than she did. People
need healthy organs, we can give them healthy organs—for the right price.”

“You want to take and sell our organs?”

“Not yours, old woman. We can use Nina as the donor body. And we are going to set
things up here so that everybody thinks that Nina killed you and disappeared with
all your money. This way we get rid of you and nobody’s looking for her. Or rather,
everybody will be looking for her as a criminal. Isn’t that brilliant?”

The girl was so desperate for approval, Aunty Lee almost felt sorry for her. “But
why—”

“Don’t talk to her. She’s mad,” Nina said. Almost casually Henry Sung smacked her
hard on the side of her head and she fell against Aunty Lee.

“Ow—my arm—twisted—” she moaned.

Henry Sung laughed. He was not a nice man, Aunty Lee thought. He probably kicked dogs
when he thought nobody was watching. She put an arm around Nina and helped her sit
up.

“Anyway, you don’t know anything,” Sharon said. “You don’t even know why I’m not sorry
I killed my mother!”

“Why aren’t you sorry you killed your mother?” Aunty Lee asked obligingly. What she
had felt in Nina’s hand made her even more eager to distract Sharon and Henry. “Mabel
was such a good woman. Such a dedicated lawyer and devoted mother.” She had heard
so many people say this over the past couple of weeks.

Henry Sung nodded. “God rest her soul,” he said automatically.

Sharon stared at him. Aunty Lee could not tell whether the expression in her eyes
was directed at her father or at the soul he spoke of.

“You have no idea what I had to put up with!” Sharon said. “Nobody knows. People fawned
over her and she thought she was the Virgin Mary and the Second Coming all rolled
up in one. And all the time I was the one staying back in the office doing all the
work that she took on, just to look good. And did she ever say thank you? Did she
even acknowledge who was doing all the real work? Ha! All she said was ‘You’re late
again’ and ‘Can’t you wear some makeup or something. People will think you’re one
of those butch lesbians.’”

“Girl, I’m sure nobody thinks that you—”

“Shut up, Dad.”

Henry Sung shut up, as he had been shut up by his wife throughout his married life.

“I thought Mabel making me partner meant she was finally realizing how much I’d done
for her. I thought she was finally remembering she had two children, not just one
useless son. I asked if I could look at the private company files and she said ‘why
not?’ and left. Idiot that I was, I was actually pleased. I thought that showed how
much she trusted me. But the truth is, she just didn’t care anymore.

“Mabel only made me partner because she was washing her hands of Sung Law. She dumped
it on me like she dumped everything she couldn’t be bothered with.

“I started reading her stuff and I couldn’t believe it. I went through all her back
files and ended up staying on in the office the whole night. It was all there. Sung
Law was going bankrupt. You didn’t know that, did you? Nobody knew except Mabel. That
was the last straw. She didn’t make me partner because she was proud of me. She just
wanted to wash her hands of it, so she dumped it all on me. She told GraceFaith she
was going to announce her retirement at the party and then she was going to cash out
her insurance. She already got GraceFaith to make an appointment with the insurance
people. Mabel was going to take Len on a holiday with the money that was left after
his operation. Can you believe it? The firm is broke, we’re losing the house, and
she’s showing him holiday brochures?