Mail Order Bride, Chapter 2, Murder Suicide

Murder Suicide

The inevitable happened, all good things must come to an end. Flustered and panicky, Emma told Imelda she had to see her straight away. Emma confided in Imelda that her monthlies had not come.

“I think its Robert’s.”

“Didn’t take any precautions?” Imelda scolded.

“No, I didn’t, I came from the village and I didn’t know such things, because the Roman Catholic Church forbids such things as family planning and fornication”

“Emma! Emma! Emma! You are in New Zealand, not a village in Philippines.”

“What am I going to do? It’s already five months. The reason Norman did not notice was because I am fat.”

“You can’t have an abortion now as it is too dangerous, you just have to tell Norman and pretend that it is his child.”

Emma went to tell Robert about her pregnancy hoping that Robert would marry her. Robert told her he would be her de facto partner as soon as she got her permanent residence to live legally in New Zealand.

“Why you not marry me?” There was profound sadness, disappointment and unresolved anger. Emma didn’t understand why Robert won’t marry her after making her pregnant. In the Philippines, man would do that to save a girl’s honor.

“Sorry! Emma. I can’t marry you. I have a wife and two young children in Timaru,” Robert showed his true colors, leaving her baffled.

“You lie to me. You never loved me, you pretend all the time to love me.” Emma started to beat Robert’s chest.

“We both had a great time, didn’t we? I’d never said I loved you,” Robert gripped Emma’s hands.

“You bastard!”

“Listen Emma, the important thing is we don’t want to get Norman to revoke your temporary visa and have you deported.”

Emma went home with mixed feelings. With exhilarating anticipation that she could soon be together with Robert for the rest of her life even if she was only going to be in a de facto relationship. Kiwis do this all the time. On the other hand, she was sad that Robert told her he never loved her and he’d never told her about his wife and family. She didn’t understand Kiwi men.

“Damn Norman! He thinks $30,000 can buy me. Damn Robert! He only shags me when he misses his wife.”

Emma would just bear with it and wait and endure for a few more months, then she would get that precious piece of paper that would allow her to stay in New Zealand. Then she would be free. Damn the lot of them.

When Norman came home that evening, Emma was waiting with his bedroom slippers, a bottle of ice cold beer in one hand and started to mollycoddle him. She roasted his favourite leg of lamb, roast potatoes and pumpkin, and bread pudding.

“What have I done to deserve all these special attention? It’s not my birthday,” Norman asked in surprised.

Emma said quietly, “Norm, It will be nice if we have children.”

Norman, “It bloody is, I have to pay a fortune for those two brats.”

Emma, “I mean a baby of our own, you and me?”

Norman replied, “It won’t be bloody nice, I am far too old to have a baby at almost fifty, people will think I am the grand-dad.”

Emma said softly, “Norm, it already has happened, I am pregnant.”

Norman flung the bottle of beer at the wall. It broke into a hundred smittereens.

“You whore! You made me a cuckold. I paid a fortune for you to be my wife, and not for some bastard to shag you for free.”

Norman went ballistic and slapped across Emma’s face so hard that even his palm stung.

Emma said, “No!” and went out of the door and towards Robert’s door. Robert pretended to be the gallant hero rescuing a damsel in distress. He drove Emma to Imelda’s house.

Norman walked out of his flat in time to see Isabella jump into Robert’s car. He dashed back to the flat to grab his car keys, and backed the pick-up out of the garage and drove like a madman. He lost sight of Robert’s car but guessed that they could only have gone to Imelda’s house.

Norman was shouting and banging at Imelda’s door when Imelda came to the door.

Imelda came to the door, “What’s wrong with a woman have a bun in the oven? In Philippines, women get pregnant all the time when they are married.”

Norman shouted, “You tell the bloody whore, I had a vasectomy when my other whore had her second child. I can’t have no more bloody children. Whose bastard is it?”

Imelda and Emma had a quick discussion, but they had misjudged the situation and under estimated Norman. They thought if they told Norman the truth, he would go away. Instead Norman kicked the door down and grabbed hold of Emma and landed blow after blow.

“If you don’t stop now, I am calling the police,” said Imelda.

Norman said, “You mind your bloody business. Call the police and the immigration department to take this shameless illegal immigrant away.”

Norman sped back home, took a swig of his brandy, and another and another until the bottle was almost empty.

Robert had not braced himself for a kick to his front door. Norman burst in, and with a pistol hiding behind in his back, he pretended to persuade Robert to leave Emma alone.

“Emma is mine, I paid $30,000 for her. I went into debt getting her over here.”

Robert was not aware that the situation had escalated so fast and so badly. Robert didn’t think, in this day and age, Norman would resort to holding on to Emma when she didn’t love him any more.

“Your wife had left you long ago, she never loved you and she loves me. Yes, I am the proud father of her baby.”

“Over my dead body! You bastard! You want a Filipino whore, you pay for one yourself.”

Norman whipped out the gun and shot point blank at Robert. Three bangs. Robert slumped down leaving big pool of blood on his newly-laid beige carpet. Norman went back into his unit. He sat down and drank a bottle of beer, threw it against the wall, then he finished off his bottle of brandy and threw the empty bottle.

Norman began to cry like a baby, then he rang Gary, It was just after the ten thirty evening news. Gary was getting ready for his regular nocturnal escapade, with his computer having cyber sex when the telephone rang.

“Gary, I have done it. I have finished off the son-of-the-bitch who stole my whore from me. I went into heavy debt to bring the bitch over from Philippines and she betrayed me. She slept with the punk next door. She alienated my kids from me. Now I have nothing, nothing, nothing,” Norman cried like a big pussy cat.

Gary told him, “Just stay there and don’t do anything stupid,” and dialed 911.

When Gary and Joe arrived at Norman’s house, the ambulance and the police cruiser had arrived.

“Norman, open the door, it’s us Gary and Joe.”

There was no reply and the constables were about to kick the door when they heard a thunderous bang. Norman was sitting in his favourite arm chair, he had blown a big hole in his right temple. The bullet erupted from his left temple. Blood flowed down on the white sofa chair. There were broken glass shards all over the lounge, the dining table was up turned. Norman had gone on a rampage before he went to Robert’s apartment.

Gary felt remorseful: he was partly instrumental in this tragic scenario. He was the New Zealand agent of the Filipino Mail Order Bride organization. He earned a commission from these transactions. He knew, in most cases, the marriages would become estranged and breakdown because the girls had no intention of staying married to the man he had arranged.

Emma escaped serious injury, a broken jaw, four missing teeth, and a black eye, nothing the doctor couldn’t fix. But two men were dead. The cause of the crime was jealousy, a crime of passion. Norman thought he had bought Emma, and did not realize that money couldn’t buy everything.

Gary called Diane to tell her of the terrible news.

Diane said, “He can go to hell as far as I am concerned.” She felt laughing like a hyena. “The bastard, he deserved it.”

Despite her initial indifferent comment, Diane, Tom and Sarah were down in Norman’s flat in a jiffy just in time to see a constable scoop parts of his blown out brain into a plastic bag.

As the spur of the moment, Norman was so confused that he had a “mission”; he had to punish Emma for her crime, and Robert, the perpetrator and her partner in crime. When he got home, he knew his pursuers were near at hand. His end was a verdict, “Murder suicide.” Norman was a spurned husband who killed his wife’s lover. What a waste that the unexpected turn of events had become a double tragedy. The police cordoned off the building where the two units were located and the expertise of the forensic scientists was unnecessary. It was a straight forward police case. There were no suspects and no witnesses except Imelda whose slurred speech the police couldn’t decipher, and Emma, who kept quiet.

The embalmers had a difficult time preparing the late Norman and Robert for their loved ones to view. Robert had his handsome face blown from the front to the back. What was once a handsome face was now a gaping hole. Norman had big holes on the sides of his head. The embalmers pride themselves in their work and spent hours so that Norman and Robert would not appear as though they were performing in a rocky horror show. By the time the embalmers finished, they were exhausted and spent. Credit had to be given to them as Norman and Robert looked as though they were sleeping in their caskets. Norman had a toupee to cover his bald patch which was enlarged by the bullet.

The press and the television stations had a field day covering this crime of passion and did a feature on mail order brides in New Zealand. They splashed Emma’s photographs on the front page and national TV news.

Three days later, there were two funerals in Auckland. Despite being estranged and divorced, Diane was at Norman’s funeral with their two children. They held his funeral service at the Presbyterian Church in Balmoral. Norman had now been to church three times in his life, each time he was carried to the church. The first was when his parents carried him when he was a baby to be baptized. The second was when his friends carried him on his wedding day when he didn’t want to marry the pregnant Diane. And now the third time by his friends in a box. Joe and Gary led his mates as they carried his coffin and laid it in the newly dug grave at Purewa Cemetery at Meadowbank in Auckland.

Robert’s family laid him to rest at a private burial at Waikaraka Cemetery. Robert was a free thinker and he was not given a church funeral. His wife and children did not attend the funeral.

“He can rot in Hell, it’s none of my business. He wanted space to write his book when he left Timaru. He said I was stifling his creativity. This is what he got for messy with someone’s wife,” his young wife said.

These were no private funerals, a huge media circus was there with their cameras rolling and clicking, albeit at a respectable distance. Diane, the media wrote, was the protagonist, the cause of the disaster.

Diane standing stoically, she gave one comment, “He dug his own grave when he started womanizing and left his home sweet home.”

And grinned, trying hard not to say aloud, “The bastard!”

Four days later, the estranged children of Norman issued a press statement: “During the past few days, the rumor mill and intense media scrutiny helped kill our mother. The phalanx of photographers camped outside our house is causing a great strain on our mother. The TV cameras zoomed in on a very understandably distraught and visibly angered estranged widow at Norman’s funeral. Uncouth and unethical journalism painted her as being the architect responsible for this tragedy. Given the circumstances, we the children are struggling to understand what had happened. It was Norman who left our mum, his wife of twenty years. First, it was the Anelasini, the Tongan girl, then it was the Filipino mail order bride Emma. He paid with his life for treating our mum like shit. Mum is no Latte-swilling Jafa living in posh Mission Bay or Ponsonby. She is a small town Whakatane girl with a big heart living in Kingsland with good old fashion values, and exudes warmth and intelligence. She insisted that we went to the funeral because he was after all, our father. Mum is the real victim in this sordid case. This was our family’s worst case scenario and nightmare. We would appreciate more responsible journalism and appeal for the paparazzi to stop hounding her.”

Emma, the evil woman, the antagonist, was no where to be found. She was in hiding in Imelda’s house for fear of being hounded by the press. She actually enjoyed her one minute of fame when she was photographed coming out of the hospital with a bandaged jaw. She peeped out of the window at the constant surveillance by the paparazzi. She was tempted to tell them her story but Imelda told her she would be torn to bits if she went out. She would be like a trapped animal in a fox hunt. Imelda’s husband Jason came out to the reporters and threatened to call the police if they didn’t leave.

Anelasini, the little Tongan girl, hid at one corner of the cemetery. Norman did after all come into her life at one time, it was good while it lasted. He may have been rough and a boor, but he didn’t deserve to be cheated by a mail order whore and die because of that.

When the paparazzi had gone, Anelasini walked to Norman’s grave. She had a little jewelry box. She knelt down and removed the ear ring that Norman had given her. It was one of a pair, the other had gone missing long time ago. She kissed it, and put it in the box. With her fingers, Anelasini dug a little hole next to the timber cross and buried the little box.

“Goodbye! My big Pakeha boyfriend,” Anelasini sobbed uncontrollably, Anelasini walked away from Norman’s grave. “I didn’t mean it when I teased your little brother.”

When Emma’s wounds recovered, a female immigration officer accompanied her to the Auckland International Airport. She was given a one way ticket courtesy of the New Zealand Government to Manila International Airport.

Quietly she whispered, “I will be back!"