The sunrise on May second was a couple of minutes late. Fog enveloped the city,
more so in those swampy areas with non-flowing water and heavy vegetation.
Mount Mayapay was not visible through the dense clouds. If this kept on, the
noon PAL flight may have to be diverted to Cagayan de Oro again.
He wore his old tennis shoes, loose running shorts, the same white undershirt
that he slept in and was carrying a switch fashioned from a half inch diameter
tapered guava twig to ward off roaming, sometimes mean, dogs. Twenty eight year
old accountant and not a single ounce of extra fat and was proud of it. Today,
as usual, he would be avoiding the main thoroughfares and would be jogging
around City Hall and Doongan passing that mansion-like house with a basketball
court at the side and completing his daily morning ritual by way of the
Employees. Village Road.
Perspiring heavily, he loved it whenever he perspired heavily, endorphin, his
own natural home-made morphine. He slowed down to a fast walk as soon as he
passed Weegol's and continued on westward. He started slowing down even more
when he saw half a dozen malnourished stray dogs hovering over something near
the clump of fruitless banana trees. He recognized a couple of the dogs, seen
them often before, and he thought somebody must have thrown garbage there again
and that the animals were scavenging for whatever food they could find. He
raised his guava switch, made shooing noises, to scare them off but the dogs
did not pay any attention to him. He went closer and slammed the stick on the
gravel road and all the dogs hesitatingly moved away.
"Damn! It's not safe around here anymore. What if they are rabid? I must call
the worthless City Pound again today." He did not finish his usual litany of
complaints against the City when he saw what had spiked the animals' interest.
He stared. His heart pounded a hundred and ten. Ten feet away from him was the
cadaver of a young girl, left arm slightly elevated, multiple cuts showing
indecent red bare flesh, mouth half open, pupils dilated, unresponsive to the
rays of sunshine now sprinkled on the side of her pretty face, completely
naked, dumped on a bed of tall crumpled grass, regal even in death.
There was that unmistakable smell of blood although he could not see any and an
unmistakable nauseating stench of death filled the stagnant air. He started
retching as he backed away and croaked, "Police!"
He could not even hear himself because his voice came out to no more than a
whisper. He tried again, this time it was a blood curling scream!
"Hello? Is this the Sgt. Burgos' residence?"
"Yes, this is he and this better be good." Loloy answered grumpily. It was
around six fifteen and he usually enjoyed his self-induced dreams and fantasies
during this time.
"Sir, somebody just found a body."
"What!"
"Sir, a body, a dead body, a woman!"
"Where? What's your name?"
"A body of a dead woman!" voice trembling.
"Yawa, I heard you the first time! Now, calm down. What is your name and who
found the body where?"
Bert, General Robert to his friends, was new in the force and he began
stammering out a half coherent report. Sgt. Loloy had to dig out information
from him item by item.
"All right, stay where you are and don't let anybody get near the body. And I
mean nobody. You understand?"
"Yes. yes, Sir."
"I mean, nobody, not even the President. That includes you."
"Yes Sir."
"And don't touch anything. Keep the media vultures away. If you can find rope,
cordon off a twenty foot perimeter. Don't leave the scene. You understand?"
"Yes Sir. I think so, Sir."
"Damn it! Just stay there. Don't do anything. Let me put my pants on and I
shall be there in fifteen minutes."
Sgt. Loloy was there in ten minutes. He had to go back to his vehicle when he
saw whose the body was. He felt a vertigo that he had never had before and had
to sit down. Jennifer!!! He immediately thought of Tony and was undecided about
what to do. He could not hide this from him forever, but he was worried about
Tony's reaction to this tragedy. He remembered distinctly . "Loy, from now on,
forget about me. Your main responsibility is to watch over Jennifer." Sgt.
Loloy at first suspected that Tony wanted him to spy on the girl and then
realized that it was really to protect her.
"Aye, aye, boss. With my life." And he was not kidding. For the last three
years, Amado, Tony's father, had been preoccupied with business and other
personal matters and was out of town more often than not. It was no secret that
he was harboring another family in Cebu. Tony and his mother had come to rely
on Loloy for almost everything. A surrogate father. A surrogate husband
although he was always discrete about this that not even the housemaids
suspected anything. Specially not Tony.
He knew he could not shield his ward from this and decided to confront the
problem head on. Tony was already awake when Loloy got to him. Loloy heard the
anguish in the silence that followed that was so prolonged that he thought Tony
had hung up on him. "I'm on my way," was all Tony said.
Tony did not know what to do when he got to the scene. There were only a few
curious on-lookers. In a daze, he was pacing back and forth between the body
and Loloy, unthinking and unbelieving, tears from his eyes and snot flowing
from his nose This must only be a bad nightmare!
He sat, fell, on the wet grass, pulled his own hair out, shouting "God, why?
God, why? God why?" Everyone was paralyzed. No one said anything. No one wanted
to disturb him in his grief. He saw the cuts and felt them in his own heart. He
tried to reposition the left breast that was indecently dangling to the side.
He took off his jacket and covered the body with it. He could not dare look
into the lifeless eyes as he took off his shirt to cover her face. He now only
had his sleeveless undershirt on, looking very much like a Chinese hopia
vendor. He did not see Jin, his mother, slowly walking towards them. She had
driven her own car, only one uniformed maid carrying an umbrella to protect her
from the drizzle that had just started to flutter unevenly down, her bright red
cheongsam out of place among the drab, shabby spectators in this lonely,
colorless, godforsaken place.
Unfathomable grief, rage and anger - "I told you to watch over her." Tony
suddenly lashed out at Loloy who was standing ten feet away.
The bearer of bad news, Loloy was taken by surprise. "Bossing, you told me to
go to Ampayon last night, remember?"
"Don't you dare answer me!" He drew his 9 mm. pistol, cocked it, and pointed
the barrel at Loloy. A flash of red, Jin reacted reflexively and swiftly ran in
front of Loloy.
"Anak, no!" she yelled hoarsely.
The other people ran for cover. General Robert did not know what to do.
Instinct told him not to draw his own weapon as he stepped back out of the way.
He knew of the temporary insanity that can be brought about by an
uncontrollable grief.
Tony saw everything clearly now. Somebody just killed his future wife, his
father had abandoned him, his most trusted friend had betrayed him, and his
mother------. "Oh, grandfather, please help me!" as he finally crumbled, crying
uncontrollably, falling on his knees, kissing Jennifer's blood stained cold
feet again and again.
There were more people now and everybody was crying from what they were
witnessing, a big grown up Chinaman, racked with sorrow, kissing the feet and
ankles of a corpse. A ten month old baby started crying, too, not knowing why,
except that her mother was sobbing.
The coldness of her feet and the explosive release of his own emotions finally
calmed him down. Jin reached out to him and embraced his back while Loloy
gently took the gun away and uncocked it.
"Mama, forgive me." He did not say anything to Loloy but just looked at him and
he saw not only pity in the older man's eyes.
"Sarge, please help me."
"Yes, of course. I will make all the necessary arrangements. Bert, call the
medical examiner and get an ambulance."
"Ma, go home. I'm okay."
"Are you sure? Do you need anything?"
"Mother, please just go home. I'll join you later." Then addressing Loloy. "
Let's go to Jimmy's house and let the family know."
"Are you up to this?"
Tony Lee did not answer him, just walked briskly to his vehicle, waiting for
him to do the driving, putting on another shirt that he usually kept in
reserve. T. Calo was not too far away. He did not have enough time to compose
the sentences to say to Maria and Jimmy. But Jimmy was not at home. Maria was
all alone, the other kids had left early for school for the Monday morning
flag-raising ceremonies.
"Nang, Jennifer's gone."
"Huh?" Maria did not know what he was talking about.
"Nang, Jennifer's gone. She's dead. Somebody killed her last night or this
morning. Her body is in Doongan."
"What are you talking about? I don't believe you. She can't be. She was just
here last night!" But Maria knew deep in her heart that he was telling her the
truth. Now she knows why she did not come home last night. She had always come
home before midnight.
The two just stood there in the little sparsely furnished living room, looking
at each other, not knowing what else to say.
Tony turned and told Loloy to get money from the car.
"Nang, here's a million pesos. Please take this money and use it for whatever
you need. And please, just tell me if you need something else or anything
more."
Maria stared at Tony and stared at Loloy and the gun on his hip while holding
the thousand peso bills on her hands.
"Are you trying to bribe me? Are you trying to buy me?" she shouted as she
backed up. Pointing to Tony's gun, "Are you going to kill me, too? It's you. I
know it's you. You killed my daughter. Get out! Get out of my house! I never
trusted you, you foreigner." She threw the money at him and started looking for
her sewing scissors, wanting to stab his face with it. Tony could not
understand the savagery directed at him. "Insik sibai, kaon kamay, patay. Inom
ihi, buhi." All over again. He stood frozen where he stood and it was Loloy who
pushed him out of the house.
"Tony, let's just get out of here."
"But.but I just wanted to help."Despondent. Confused.
"Let's just leave her alone for now. Let's just come back later."
In the car, "Take me home." Tony was about to cry, somehow, got hold of
himself.
"Take me home." he said again.
Back to Table of Contents
Next - Chapter 18
