2
“Fran,” Porter said, tugging on her sleeve. “Come on.”
The room fell completely silent. Lacey grimaced and said, “Hey, Francine. Hey, Porter.”
Porter didn’t reply, which was very unlike him. He was usually like a golden retriever, his entire being filled with unbounded joy.
Francine snorted. “Don’t ‘Hey, Francine’ me, you—you—what are you doing here?”
Lacey shrugged. “I’m with Keith. I’m his fiancée.” She lifted her hand to show a diamond the size of a cough drop.
Josephine felt faint. She’d given Keith Nainai’s old ring, a family heirloom, and he’d promised that when he found the right woman, he’d propose to her with it. This monstrosity on Lacey’s finger was definitely not Nainai’s ring. But never mind Nainai’s ring, she told herself. What in the world was going on with Francine?
Keith cleared his throat. “Maybe we can have a chat outside, Fran? In private?”
“I have nothing to say to this conniving bitch,” Francine said.
A few people gasped audibly.
“Oh, come on, Fran,” Lacey said. “We don’t have to resort to childish name-calling.”
“Childish name-call—let me at this bitch.”
Before Josephine knew it, her sweet, nerdy niece Francine was lunging forward, a determined look on her face. Luckily, several other family members were possessed of faster reaction times and pounced on Francine before she reached Lacey.
“Whoa, whoa,” someone said. “I think she’s had one too many whiskey sours.”
Josephine nodded, but it was clear to her that whatever was going on with Francine had a lot more involved than just plain alcohol. The crowd ushered Francine into the dining room, leaving Josephine, Adam, Keith, and Lacey in the foyer. For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Keith said, “Well, xin nian kuai le!”
Well, it was the New Year. The tension broke, and Adam clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Come on in, you two. Let’s get you fed.”
It was impossible not to find your eyes glued to Lacey. There was something about her that drew one’s attention inexorably toward her, like she was a rare flower that was about to bloom for the first and only time. Or like she was a car wreck, Josephine thought as she watched Lacey interacting with everyone for the next couple of hours.
Lacey was a beautiful girl, a stunner, really. She was tall and slender and had the natural grace of a dancer, and her eyes were doe-like and her skin had that springy, collagen-rich shine that everyone longed for. But more than her outward beauty, she had a certain quality about her that naturally drew the eye. Some might call it a certain je ne sais quoi; others might call it X factor. Whatever it was, Lacey had it in droves, and Josephine did not approve.
And that was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it? Because Josephine had prided herself on being the anti–tiger mom. She was always so painfully aware of every Asian stereotype, and so careful to avoid being any of them. She’d never once even suggested to Keith that he might like to pursue medicine or law or engineering as a career, no! It had simply been a happy happenstance that Keith wanted to go into finance. If he’d chosen a career in the arts, Josephine would’ve stepped aside and let him. No, really, she would’ve. And so, naturally, Josephine had always seen herself as a gracious future mother-in-law, one that her daughter-in-law would rave about to her friends.
“I don’t know how I got so lucky!” her future daughter-in-law would say. “She’s so cool and so hip, and she’s basically the mom I always wished for!”
But now here Josephine was, studying her future daughter-in-law like she was a germ under a microscope. A particularly hairy, unpleasant germ that she would love to douse in alcohol and watch shrivel up. She wasn’t this person. It was just something about Lacey, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something was off about her. She needed to speak to Francine. But poor Francine had been sequestered in a corner of the living room, well away from Lacey—and everyone else, for that matter—and another niece was keeping watch right next to her, plying her with roast Peking duck and reassuring arm pats.
Josephine narrowed her eyes at Lacey. She was certainly good at making a stir. She was like a wooden spoon and the entire roomful of people a thick batter she was mixing. Josephine did not miss how Lacey changed the entire makeup of the room, how everyone, including Keith, gravitated toward her like she was the moon and they were the ocean. She noted, with dismay, the cruel way that Lacey joked, always ready with someone as the butt of her jokes and anecdotes, and how she always had a long-nailed hand resting on Keith’s arm. Dear lord, Josephine thought, there could not be a worse daughter-in-law to be had. An obvious delinquent she could deal with. But this? A devious charmer? Disaster.
“Are you all right?” Yolanda said to her in Mandarin, and Josephine nodded. She was quite shaken, but she put up a good front.
“Well, it’s quite a surprise from Keith,” she murmured.
“Yes, it is,” Yolanda said. “I know all about nasty surprises.” She was glaring at Lacey as she said this, and the venom in her voice took Josephine aback.
Josephine chewed her lip. Yolanda and her husband, George, had filed for divorce about a year ago, and though Josephine ached to ask what the reason was for the split, she was too well mannered to be so forward. She trusted that their sisterly bond made it clear that she was always there if Yolanda ever needed a listening ear. But the truth was, here she was almost a year later and still none the wiser. She should ask Yolanda, she really should, but her attention was caught by Lacey, who was placing her hands on Keith in such a way that made Josephine’s skin crawl.
I should get the desserts ready, she thought weakly. She tried not to think of the way Lacey’s long fingernails had pressed into Keith’s arms. The same arms that she, Josephine, had moisturized so gently many years ago, so religiously, because Keith had eczema and she’d read that daily moisturizing was key in keeping it away.
As Josephine lurked in the kitchen, fussing unnecessarily with the steamer, a piercing scream rent the air. She was so deeply embedded in her stubborn own world, her insistence that everything would turn out okay, that it took someone to grab her shoulder to shake her out of it. She snapped to attention. “What is it?” she warbled helplessly.
“I don’t know. Come.”
She galloped out of the kitchen and into the dining room. A crowd had formed there, a circle like a whirlpool, with a silent center. And right there in the very middle of the chaos, still as a stone, was the rapidly cooling body of Lacey.
“Everybody stay calm!” Josephine cried. She cleared her throat and reminded herself not to sound so shrill. She tried again, in a more somber voice this time. “Everyone, it’ll be okay.”
“Oh my god,” Keith sobbed, shaking Lacey in his arms. “She’s dead. She’s dead!”
“Oh, my dear boy—” Josephine began, but she had no idea what else she could say beyond that. It was clear that whatever Lacey was, she was also very much dead. Her eyes were open, for one, staring glassily at nothing. There was foam at the corners of her mouth.
“Poison,” someone in the crowd cried out, and a few people gasped.
Josephine’s stomach twisted, and she almost dry heaved.
“I’ve called 911,” someone else shouted.
Within minutes, sirens filled the air, and there was a heavy knock on the door. Adam went to open it, and everyone scattered as paramedics flooded into the house. Aiya, Josephine thought faintly, they are wearing their shoes in the house! But she managed to stop herself from asking them to take their shoes off. She watched, helpless, as these tall strangers tromped all over her lovely home and heaved Lacey’s lifeless form onto a stretcher. Then, all too soon, Lacey was gone, and the paramedics were replaced by police officers, who were so much worse than paramedics. They strode around like they owned the place, asking people impossible questions.
Among the horrified cries and occasional sobs, Josephine caught suspicious murmurs about what could have poisoned Lacey when everyone else had had all the same food. “It must have been put in her drink. Someone was targeting her.”
She looked over at Keith, and to her horror, the officer questioning him was staring at him with such a pointed look that she immediately went up to them.
“—your relationship been rocky lately?” the officer was saying.
Oh god. What was going on? “It’s always the boyfriend or the husband,” wasn’t that a thing they said? But how could anyone look upon this tragic scene and suspect Keith? Then again, if they were used to pinning it on the boyfriend or husband, how could they look upon this scene and see any other suspect but Keith? After all, no one even knew who Lacey was.
No one, that was, except for Francine.
Right. That was it! That was who Josephine had to question. After all, it was Francine who’d been plying everyone with whiskey sours all night, and like Cousin Todd pointed out, it must’ve been put in her drink.
“Eh, you don’t talk to my son without his lawyer present,” Josephine snapped.
They all stared at her. Keith, who was in tears, said, “I—I’d only proposed two days ago! We were talking about the wedding, and—and she wanted to go to Phuket for our honeymoon, and I said I wanted to go to Santorini, and—everything was going so well, and—”
Stop talking, Josephine wanted to shout at him. But there was no use. She had to go talk to Francine. She scanned the room for her. It took a while for her to spot her; the girl was in a dark corner of the room, clutching her glass with shaking hands.
Taking a deep breath, Josephine walked over to her. She laid a gentle hand on Francine’s arm, and Francine’s entire body jerked and stiffened, as though she hadn’t noticed Josephine approaching her.
“Fran, come talk to Auntie,” Josephine said softly.
Fran’s eyes were wild, but she nodded and abruptly stalked off into the den. She whirled round once they were in there and blurted out, “Is she really dead?”
Josephine nodded, and a sound that was half sob, half shrill laugh burbled out of Fran’s mouth. What should she say next? Did you have anything to do with it? seemed a tad direct and would most likely offend her. Aiya, this sort of thing had never been Josephine’s forte. She was always direct, throwing out statements that could never be misinterpreted, like bullets. She would have to channel her inner Adam. How would Adam handle such a situation? Ah, yes. Reaching out, she patted Francine’s shoulder gingerly. “Are you all right?” It was obvious that she wasn’t, but this was the thing people liked to say in these situations.
Fran shook her head and made that really awkward sound again, the sound that was something between crying and laughing. It made Josephine uncomfortable, but she forged ahead anyway.
“What happen between you and Lacey? In past, I mean. You are so angry when you see her, why?” She hoped that wasn’t too forward to ask.
Fran uttered a sigh that was way too long-suffering for someone her age. “God, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“The two of you ... I sense that maybe there is some romance there?” When Fran turned sixteen, she’d announced to the larger family that she was pansexual. This did not, as she later explained to Josephine, mean that she was attracted to pans but rather that she was attracted to people regardless of their gender.
Fran nodded, not meeting Josephine’s eye. “It was more than just something . She was my—I was—we connected on a different level. She called me her soulmate. It really felt like I’d finally met the person I was supposed to meet all along, you know? It was beyond special. She was always touching me—not in a sexual way, Auntie, but like when we walked, for example, she’d give my ponytail a little tug, or slide her hand up and down my back, or twine her arm around mine ... it was like we were two pieces of a single unit and she couldn’t bear to not be connected to me. We even got matching tattoos!” She lifted her sleeve to reveal a small tattoo on the underside of her arm that said S-O . “Hers says U-L ,” Fran said dully. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Cheesy as hell, I know, but we were in love. Or at least, I was.”
“And Lacey, she cheat on you?” Josephine ventured a guess. From the way Fran’s expression contorted, Josephine knew she’d hit the nail on the head. A jilted lover. People had been murdered for much less than that.
“She didn’t just cheat on me, she—”
“Fran!”
Josephine stiffened with guilt at the sound of Yolanda’s voice. She straightened up, taking a step away from Francine as Yolanda marched into the room. Josephine could barely look Yolanda in the eye. Even from where she stood, she could feel Yolanda’s anger radiating from her. Yolanda must know what Josephine had been up to. Guilt shriveled Josephine’s insides. She wished she could explain to Yolanda, but then what explanation could she possibly give for questioning Yolanda’s daughter in private? That she was trying to pin the blame on Francine so that Keith would be off the hook? In the end, Josephine said nothing.
“Come on, Francine,” Yolanda said tersely, putting an arm around Fran’s shoulders and leading her out of the den, away from Josephine. As they walked past Josephine, Yolanda shot her a look and said, “Why don’t you talk to Porter instead? He’s the one who was running a whole company with Lacey.”
Of course. Yolanda was right, as usual.
Josephine strode out of the den, her chest puffed with indignation. Like a torpedo, she locked her eyesight on Porter and marched toward him. People scattered out of the way, and Porter, sensing a disturbance in the air, looked up. “Uh,” he managed to say before Josephine grabbed his arm and said, “You come with me now.”
This time, she led Porter to the kitchen instead of the den. Porter was a simple soul who was motivated by food. Once they were inside, Josephine plopped a barbecued pork bun into his hand and said, “We talk now. You eat this.”
Porter looked at the bun and gulped audibly. “Um, I don’t know, Auntie. I mean, Lacey’s literally dead from poisoning—”
Josephine’s eyebrows rose until they threatened to disappear into her hairline. “Are you calling my food poison?”
“Wha—no, no! I just, I mean, we don’t know what it was that poisoned her ...”
“Oh, this is big accusation, you are saying I am such a bad cook I poison my guest—”
“No, Auntie, that’s not what I—you know what, I’ll eat it. See? Mmm.” Porter looked like he was about to cry as he chewed the mouthful of pork bun. When he finally swallowed, they both looked at each other for a long moment, as though expecting him to drop dead then and there. The moment passed, and they both let out a long breath.
“Porter, Lacey was business partner?”
Porter nodded, a forlorn look on his face. “Yeah. We met in college. We’d been friends for years before we decided to do the start-up together. I introduced her to everyone—Fran, Keith, the rest of my friends and family.
“I thought she and I worked well together, but then she basically swindled me out of my own company, so that was that.”
“What? How?”
“I got a bit careless. She’d give me these forms to sign and tell me they were lease renewals for our office space or insurance forms and all that boring crap, and I ...” Porter’s gaze met hers, and he looked like such a sad little boy that Josephine wanted to reach out and hug him. “I never read them. I hate legalese. I just signed whatever she handed me. And one of the things I signed over was my own shares of the company.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Stupid, right? There was no highly cunning plan, no high-stakes anything. I literally signed my company away. It’s my own fault.”
Josephine’s heart went out to him. “Oh, no, no. You silly boy. Is not your fault.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Well, you are very careless, yes. And if Keith do that, I throw my sandal at him, but don’t forget, the real villain is Lacey. How she can do that to you? That is a very bad person, to do that to own partner.”
“I’m actually in the process of suing Lacey for my rightful share of the company. I’ve hired a lawyer, and ... yeah. Anyway, it’s messy. I didn’t know she was seeing Keith. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought her into my circle. I had no idea she was going to work through our family like a virus, infecting one person after another. It’s all my fault.”
“No, silly boy, not your fault,” Josephine muttered.
Porter’s mouth quirked into a small smile. “Thanks, Auntie. You know, you’ve always been my favorite aunt. Don’t tell Auntie Yolanda, though.”
It felt as though there was a knife stabbing into Josephine’s gut. She made herself smile even as she thought, A betrayed business partner, that’s good motivation for killing someone, isn’t it?
And now that she had two extremely viable reasons for two different people to want to kill Lacey, she could simply go to one of the officers still tromping around her house and tell them that Keith was innocent. But Josephine found that her legs did not want to move. Her entire body fought her all the way out of the kitchen. She stood in the doorway, looking at the chaotic scene in front of her. Many of her guests had left, and she realized with a pang of sadness that this would likely be the last time she hosted the reunion dinner. Then she scolded herself for having such a frivolous, silly thought. She had to focus on the important stuff. Stuff like proving her son’s innocence.
But was she really going to do it by betraying her niece and nephew? She wrung her hands and chewed on the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t. No, she could not leave them to the wolves like that. She’d never be able to forgive herself.
“Ma’am,” an officer said, startling her.
“Yes?”
“You are the homeowner?” the officer, a woman with very pale blue eyes, said.
“Yes?”
The officer frowned. “Yes or no?”
“Oh, I mean yes. Yes, I am. With my husband, Adam.”
“Right, we’ve spoken to him. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Was she now under suspicion? She almost laughed at the thought. Her, a middle-aged Chinese mother, suspected of murder? Ridiculous.
But obviously the officer did not share her sentiment, because she drilled Josephine with unrelenting questions. Had she cooked everything? Where did every ingredient come from? Who else handled the food? Who handled what, exactly? She couldn’t remember? How could she possibly not remember? What about the drinks? Francine brought the whiskey? What about the mixers? What about the ice cubes? Did she have a good relationship with Lacey? First time they met? And Lacey was engaged to her son already? Wasn’t that weird? Did that upset her?