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  If only she had all the money right now, she could go abroad. She screwed her eyes in disappointment. But Cebu will have to do for now. She could not risk another encounter with the lady detective. The secretary rushed out of her apartment, closing the door with a bang. She had to do one more thing before disappearing to the South.

  Boy Nunal called her cellphone, but she was not picking up. “The subscriber can not be reached,” said the metallic voice. After an hour, she finally picked up. She reluctantly agreed to meet. He gave her directions to his house in Sauyo Road, just off Quirino Avenue.

  The houses were usually empty during the day, as the occupants were away at work. There were no maids or drivers in his neighborhood. Cars, AUVs, and owner jeeps were parked on the streets. Most residents used them only on weekends to save on gas, and only a few houses had garages. Boy Nunal failed to spot the unmarked police car a few meters away from his house.

  It was the second day of the stakeout. Inside the car, Joshua fanned himself, waiting for his shift to be over. Tuason, who had been so certain that something was going to happen, had joined him earlier. But it had been a big fat zero so far. He shifted in his seat. Tuason was eating a chocolate bar, her eyes on the street. She had not bothered sharing the chocolate bar with him. It was her stress buster of choice and she felt that one had to earn them.

  Slowly, a car rolled past and stopped at Boy Nunal’s house. When the occupant emerged, Joshua had to adjust his binoculars to make her out. He still could not be sure. She was wearing big sunglasses and a floppy hat, obscuring her face. Dressed in a loose white shirt and jeans, there was no telling if it was the Secretary or Mrs. Villa. “If only she had worn a skirt,” he muttered. The secretary’s legs were unforgettable.

  They followed the woman into the yard, and pressed themselves against the walls. They heard an argument in progress. Joshua edged closer to the door, preparing to enter, but Tuason signalled that they should remain outside. The sound of arguing voices continued to drift out of the house.

  A man’s voice said, “I recorded our conversations. Here.” There was a click, followed by a woman’s metallic voice. “I’ll double your fee. Kill him instead.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.” The woman’s voice was muffled.

  “Oh yes, it does. I recorded everything.”

  “You bastard, you were prepared to kill me at first.”

  “Nothing personal. Now, you must pay up or I’ll tell . . . ”

  His voice was cut off by a single shot. The detectives shouldered the door open and ran inside. They found her crouched over the supine body of Boy Nunal on the floor, reaching for a recorder.

  “Police, hands up!” they shouted.

  The woman stomped on the recorder, spun around and shot at the police. She hit Joshua on the shoulder, the bullet exiting to hit a wall with a thud.

  Tuason ducked, and dragged Joshua behind a 70’s style overstuffed sofa as the bullets zinged around the room. From that cover, Tuason quickly took careful aim and shot the woman’s arm. The gun clattered to the floor. Mrs. Villa staggered, leaning on a chair. Tuason kicked away the gun.

  “It was self defense. He was trying to kill me!” Mrs. Villa shrieked. Gone were the carefully modulated notes in her speaker’s voice.

  “Tell that to the judge,” Tuason said. She slipped on latex gloves and cuffed the struggling woman, whose arm was bleeding.

  “This is a violation of my human rights! I should not be cuffed. My arm is bleeding.”

  “It’s just a surface wound.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s Henry’s fault. He was cheating on me with his secretary. I have them on tape. The bastard. I have put up with his cheating. Tried to understand him. But then he hired this lowlife to kill me. You have to believe me. The recorders are in my office. He wanted me dead.”

  “And yet, it’s your husband who’s dead.”

  “Ha. Serves him right.” She abandoned her helpless-victim-look. “When I learned that he hired Boy Nunal, I went to him and doubled his fee so he would kill Henry instead.” She sounded smug and triumphant. “I should have just done it myself.” She tilted her face toward Tuason. “It’s true what they say, isn’t it, Inspector? When you want something done right, better get a woman to do it.”

  Police for the next surveillance shift showed up. “Book her,” Tuason told them.

  “You’ll regret this,” Mrs. Villa said. “Once I’m in prison, I will have more converts. I may even run for public office. Then I’ll come after you.”

  As she watched them drag Mrs. Villa out, she thought, if this is the kind of inspirational speaker we have, God bless the country.

  Then she walked to the corner where Joshua was slumped, his right hand on his wounded left shoulder. “It’s just a flesh wound. Very far from the stomach.” She spotted a handtowel and with a gloved hand improvised a tourniquet. Her hands were gentle, and oddly comforting, surprising Rios through the haze of pain.

  “You’ll live,” She said, and the gentleness was gone. She tossed the latex gloves into an overflowing trashcan then handed him a chocolate bar. “Here, you’ve earned it.” She knew that a chocolate bar could never sweeten the pain of one’s first combat wound. “And what do you know, you took a bullet because of a scammer and his hired hand.” Her eyes fell on the body of Boy Nunal sprawled on the floor.

  “I wondered why we did not enter the house sooner,” Joshua said.

  Tuason pretended not to hear. She strode to where the recorder lay and retrieved it, hoping that whatever was on it could still be salvaged.

  SCAR WARS

  Queen Amidala lay on the dry grass, her pale mouth open in midscream. Her enormous headdress was askew, the humongous sleeves of her red gown partially ripped from the collar to the bodice. Police Inspector SJ Tuason’s eyes swept the crime scene. Then she knelt beside the corpse with its perfect bent-twig eyebrows and impossibly high cheekbones.

  “It’s not even Halloween,” she muttered, hiding a surge of pity.

  A Scene Of the Crime Operative, in the familiar black T-shirt with yellow markings was taking pictures.

  SJ, who preferred to be called by her surname, Tuason, peered at the victim’s bruised throat, the pinprick dots on her skin, and the bloodshot eyes, which were bulged in fear. She imagined Zaldy Bernal saying, “Note the petechial hemorrhaging, and the contusions on the throat…” The face was angled away from the street. Most likely strangled, maybe attempted rape, she thought. Probably killed last night. Bernal will narrow down the time. She texted him about the body. Then with a gloved hand, she pulled at the back of the collar to check for a label. The SOCO was about to say something about contaminating the body, but saw the latex gloves and the look on Tuason’s face. He changed his mind and instead started to fingerprint the victim, taking care not to disturb the substance beneath the fingernails.

  Tuason grimaced. There was no label on the gown. She squinted at the house shaped like a rocket ship ringed by an iron gate, in front of which the body lay. Talahib surrounded the house, their white tips rippling in the light morning breeze, like some odd rocket smoke. The spaceship was taking off without the Queen.

  Policemen in light blue uniforms—some pot-bellied, some fit and slim—shooed off the ubiquitous gawkers, the usiseros, or usis. A number of them gleefully posed for selfies. Others took pictures of the yellow and black police cordons. Tuason often wondered what these people did for a living so that they had the time to tarry around. Must be among the city’s unemployed. She clucked her tongue. Quezon City prided itself as being the entertainment capital of the country, employing countless in television and radio stations, restaurants, hotels, spas, music bars, comedy bars and even girlie bars located in the city. But on any given day, men and women of working age could be seen loitering around street corners, sari-sari stores or even lounging on chairs with matching tables set right on the streets which they had appropriated for their living rooms.

  Tuason’s partner, Police Officer 2
Joshua Rios, a prematurely balding young man in a crisp uniform walked to her side, shaking his head.

  “No luck with a bag or any other personal effects,” he said. “Seems like a mugging gone wrong.”

  Tuason stood up. She narrowed her gray-green eyes. “But what was she doing here, so late at night?” She asked. “And dressed like that?”

  Joshua shrugged.

  “Any of the networks doing a Star Wars thing?”

  “I’ll find out,” Joshua said. “But the latest Star Wars isn’t due out in months.”

  “So no ID.” Tuason’s voice was flat.

  “Afraid so,” Joshua looked at the SOCO putting away the fingerprint cards. “Hey, why couldn’t we have those things like they have on NCIS?” Joshua noticed Tuason’s raised eyebrow. He added, “You know, that TV series. They use this thing, looks like a cellphone, to get the fingerprint of a corpse right there in the crime scene, then they get the victim’s identity right away. And I mean like instantly.” He snapped his fingers.

  “You watch too much TV. First world TV.”

  “There was not much of a struggle.” He tried to recover, tried to sound more professional. The blades of grass were barely disturbed. SOCO were bagging evidence—candy wrappers, cigarette butts.

  “Did the neighbors see or hear anything?”

  Joshua shook his head. The houses were far apart and stood a few meters from the curb, with the usual tall fences. Aircon units would be running at night, insulating residents from the outside world and the tropical heat. The spaceship house stood on a particularly wide lot that had set it even farther away from the neighbors. “The killers chose a good spot. If not for the early morning jogger and his curious dog, we wouldn’t have found her for days. There are no CCTVs around.”

  “Did you question the jogger?”

  “The 117 dispatcher said he hung up right away. Like a typical Kyusi resident. At least he got involved enough to call it in.”

  “What about the usis, anything from them?”

  “No luck.”

  Tuason turned to the head SOCO. “Bag the body and bring it to the crime lab.”

  The SOCO looked doubtfully at Tuason. It was not usual for a body like this to be brought directly to the crime lab.

  “I’ve texted Dr. Bernal about this,” Tuason said.

  The SOCO nodded. She started to unfold a body bag.

  “Hey,” one of the first responders said. “The funeraria will take care of that.”

  “We’re taking it to the lab.” She tilted her head to Tuason.

  Tuason looked at the first responders. Her eyes had turned from gray-green to black. She had heard that the usual practice was for unidentified bodies to be referred to funeral parlors for a fee. Much like fleecing the dead. Autopsies were done only at the request or with the consent of next of kin. One of the first responders recognized Tuason. He whispered something to his companion. They both shrugged and said nothing. The SOCO proceeded to place the body inside the bag.

  The station was abuzz with the early morning ritual of booking vagrants and taking statements for traffic accidents. It was puzzling how many traffic accidents happened in a city where traffic virtually came to a stop at rush hour and moved with the speed of an injured turtle the rest of the time.

  Tuason gave a preliminary report to Chief Inspector Michael Christopher “Big Mac” Maquera, head of QCPD Station 13. The station had been nicknamed Lakeview after Typhoon Ondoy unexpectedly flooded the surrounding area, marooning a couple of cops. The air around Big Mac’s desk usually smelled of sampaguita and ilang-ilang, wafting from the leis adorning the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that stood on the console behind his desk. On Wednesdays, the odor of burning candles would mix with the floral bouquet, and around mealtimes, the aroma of burgers would overlay the scent of flowers. Big Mac told Tuason to speed up the investigation while the murder had not yet been picked up by media. “I don’t like to have something like the circus that surrounded the milk tea poisoning in Manila.” His brows were furrowed as usual. Tuason often felt that Big Mac was harder on her than on her male colleagues. Before returning to her desk, she gave Big Mac a salute, and said a silent prayer to the statue of the Virgin Mary.

  Joshua started a phone canvass of the TV networks and came up empty. Then he called costume shops in the metro. Three looked promising, having sold Amidala costumes lately.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Joshua frowned. This meant they would be driving through traffic. Or rather, that he would be strapped to the passenger’s seat as Tuason squeezed through traffic and drove as if aboard one of those cartoon cars that shrunk and expanded according to the available space. She was like a strict, headstrong tita, and he would rather not argue with her.

  They rode in Tuason’s 10-year-old Sentra. There was always a scramble for police cars with enough gasoline because of the difficulty of getting reimbursement for gasoline expenses. Unfortunately for Tuason and Joshua, they seldom had access to such rarity. Yet they would never go to the extent of asking victims’ relatives for gasoline money, like some of their colleagues were rumored to do. This practice was probably one of the reasons why unidentified corpses rotted away in funeral parlors or sold to medical schools, their deaths mere entries in police blotters, with no closure in sight. Tuason rued that the whole police force got tainted with this bad reputation in the public’s eyes.

  The Sentra’s interior was meticulously vacuumed and smelled of pine. But the aircon seemed to be drawing its dying breath. Joshua stole a glance at the panel, looking for a red warning light and relieved that there was none. Tuason fiddled with the stereo. Bon Jovi’s husky, slightly nasal voice filled the car. “I’m a cowboy on a steel horse I ride,” he sang.

  They drove through EDSA to Mandaluyong, to Guadalupe. But both shops had sold Amidala costumes to kids.

  “You didn’t think to ask?” Tuason said through gritted teeth. It was just her luck to be saddled with a rookie for a partner. He had topped his class at the Philippine College of Criminology, so he was hired as a Police Office 2, bypassing the entry level Police Officer 1. But Tuason felt he was proof of her belief that theory is a lifetime away from field experience.

  “Maybe she had it made by a neighborhood dressmaker. My Mom used to go to one of those.” Joshua said, letting Tuason’s rebuke slide. She was tough, verging on the abrasive. He suspected Big Mac assigned him to her as a form of torture, or a test, at best. Like some sort of hazing ritual. Joshua consoled himself that Tuason had one of the best closing records in the force. True, her efforts had been largely unacknowledged, and she had been passed over for promotion several times, but he knew he could learn a lot from her, and count on her to have his back, like she had, when they worked on the case of the poisoned pyramid scammer.

  “With the level of detail and the intricate headdress, I doubt it. The costume was made by a specialty shop. We just need to find it.” She pointed her car to New Manila in search of the last name on their list, Fabulosa of Kyusi. The shop was in the first floor of a converted old house along Balete Drive, a street said to be haunted by the ghost of a white lady. Getting there had been a challenge. The vehicle decongestion experiment on EDSA was snarling up traffic everywhere else. They were stuck in Aurora Boulevard for a long time. Tuason peered at the mass of vehicles all around them, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

  Inside the baby powder-scented Fabulosa of Kyusi, stood display cases of costumes that would make a cosplay junkie drool. Even the cosplayers who were creative enough to make their own get-ups would hyperventilate with longing.

  “That’s Oracle of Antarctica Online,” a perky young lady with a sunshiny smile said, pointing to a costume with a gold headdress. “And that’s Garland of Final Fantasy Dissidia.” She gestured to a robot-like costume with nasty-looking quadruple horns, as if expecting the detectives to know exactly who those characters were.

  “No White Lady of Balete Drive?” Joshua asked, with a hint of a
smile.

  The sales lady smiled back. “That’s so seventies, Sir.”

  Tuason identified herself and Joshua. “Have you made any Queen Amidala costumes lately?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, several,” she answered, still smiling. “The most popular are the red gown and the white and pink one. They’re both lovely.”

  When asked for a list of red Amidala clients, the sales lady’s smile faded. “Maybe you should talk to Sir MAM.”

  “Sir Ma’am?” Tuason echoed. This girl must be kidding, she thought.

  “Yes. Our boss, Sir Menandro A. Manuel. We call him by his initials. He used to be corporate.”

  They were ushered to a small room at the back of the shop. A slender man with well-styled hair and a button down shirt was sketching, a half smile on his face. He would be mistaken for a Makati yuppie if not for the cocktail rings on both hands, and a diamond stud on his left ear.

  He looked up from his sketchpad, the expression on his pointy face prompting them to state their purpose.

  “Would you give us a list of clients who bought red Queen Amidala costumes from you?” Tuason said, flashing her badge.

  He raised his left eyebrow in reply.

  “A body was found wearing a red Amidala costume and we’re trying to identify her.”

  MAM squinted, as though trying to think of reasons why he should not cooperate.

  Sensing his hesitation, Tuason said, “Here, take a look at her.” She showed him the picture she had taken with her cellphone camera.