Spiral (30 page)

I felt the ice under me getting a little thin, but I said, ”Because?”

A resigned laugh. ”He thinks he’s this real liberated guy. ‘Woodstock showed us the way,’ you know? Well, I’ve seen videos of that, and it looked to me like everybody was just muddy and stoned. Besides, Spi’s a throwback on the husband/wife thing. ‘Stay at home, raise our daughter, and spend the rest of your time in the kitchen.’ I told him, ‘Wrong squaw, white man.’”

”Were there any other strains on your marriage, Jeanette?’ Another laugh, this one jaded. ”What, you asking if Spi s been fucking around on me?”

Bowie seemed to sense the change in tone, but just lifted his head without making any sound.

I said, ”If that’s what you suspect.”

Held started to drink more coffee, then spit it back into her mug. ”Cold.” She got up, went to the microwave, and put Goofy into the enclosure. As the timer beeped merrily along, Held turned back to me. ”Look, Spi’s been in a rock band since the time he was—what, fifteen? It’s the only life he knows. Hell, it’s probably the only life he thinks exists. Would Spi pork some teenybopper who came on to him at a club? Sure. That’s how I met him, for Christ sake. But, was he ready to bail on Very and me for another ‘tunnel of love’? No, especially not with Spiral’s comeback and all.”

”Wouldn’t being separated from you make his life on the road... easier?”

”You mean, for fucking around? Maybe, but Very would have put the wood to him if she’d noticed, and he’d know that. She was my baby, but she enjoyed having power over people. And besides, Spi screws around too much, maybe the Colonel pulls out of the angel business, leaves us all high and dry.”

The microwave binged a
ready
signal. Held didn’t seem to notice.

I said, ”Any other people beyond your husband who put stress on you?”

”Well, it’s not the easiest thing in the world being in the same house as his brother.”

”David.”

”Yeah, David. I mean, he’s like a ghost who’s real, you know?”

”Meaning you’re afraid of him?”

”Meaning he’s just... there. Every time we’d go over to the Colonel’s, you’d either see David ducking around a corner, or think you did.”

I knew what she meant. ”But no danger from him?”

”David? The only thing scared of him ought to be any bugs that try to eat his plants.”

”Any other sources of stress, Jeanette?”

”On me?”

”Right.”

She glanced out the sliding glass doors, toward where Buford Biggs was still lying on the lounge. ”Try living with your husband and three other guys think they’re twenty-one again. No.” Held came back to me. ”No, that’s not fair. Ricky Queen’s got his head on straight, even if he is queer. But at least he’s got some maturity.” A grunted laugh this time. ”Think about that, will you? The most mature guy in the band is the youngest by a couple of decades.”

”Have you talked about these people with Ms. Dujong?”

”Yeah. Well, not all at once.”

”What do you mean, Jeanette?”

”I mean, I talk with her about whichever one’s giving me the hardest time at the moment.”

”And how often have you been seeing Ms. Dujong?”

”Before Very got...” Held cleared her throat. ”Before, Malinda was coming over once a week for an hour or so.” The binger sounded again, and Held finally seemed to remember her coffee, taking it from the microwave. ”After Very... died, every day.”

Expensive, even with a health... ”Did your insurance cover that?”

Held blew on her coffee, apparently too hot now. ”Spi’s father did.”

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. ”You said Ms. Dujong talks with you, and occasionally holds your hand or rubs your temples.”

”Right, right.”

”Anything else she does?”

A shrug. ”Tells me stories sometimes.”

”Stories?”

”About growing up in this little village in the Philippines, way out in the Pacific.”

I thought back to Dujong’s account of being paralyzed as a child. ”What kind of stories, Jeanette?”

”Well, I don’t know if they’re real or not. More like faiiy tales or—what does the Bible call them?”

”Parables?”

”Right, parables.” A tentative slurp from the mug. ”Those touchy-feely stories you’d hear in church about shepherds protecting their sheep or some girl’s father ananging a wedding. Those kinds of stories.”

”But Ms. Dujong’s are from the Philippines.”

”Yeah.”

”Do you remember any?”

Another slurp. ”There’s a corker about her not being able to walk, but this witch doctor got the evil spirit to come out of her.”

Having heard that one, I said, ”Any others, Jeanette?”

”About this crab-monster-thing lives in a big, dark cave place, doesn’t want anybody else to find out he’s there, so he makes sure people get lost in it.”

Knew that one, too. ”Mrs.—”

”Or about these monks, and how the Spaniards tortured them.”

”Monks?”

”Not Catholic ones. One of those weird religions from China that the Spaniards didn’t like, although what people from Spain were doing all the way out in the Pacific Malinda’s never said.”

I decided to forgo a history lesson. ”Anything else?” Held seemed to return to the present, and not happily. ”What difference does any of this shit make? Fairy tales didn’t kill my baby.”

”Did Ms. Dujong act strangely before she failed to show up yesterday?”

”Strangely?” Now Held slammed her mug down onto the butcher block. ”Ever since Veronica was killed, I’ve been lying in the living room like David the Zombie, losing the days. How am I supposed to judge strange?”

”Coffee. I gotta have some of that—”

Jeanette Held looked up at her husband, standing in the doorway, palms braced against each side of it. ”There’s probably enough left for you.”

Spi Held had lost the wig and—judging from the way he lurched across the kitchen—most of his sense of balance as well. When he got to the coffeepot, his fist came down on the counter. ”Mug.”

”Try the dishwasher,” said his wife.

He opened it, the door banging down so hard it nearly torqued into the tile floor. Pulling out one of the wire drawers, he found a mug with Pluto on its side and poured from the pot into it. The coffee overflowed, and Held dropped both mug and pot, screaming and running to the sink with his hand out as everything shattered on the floor.

Bowie bolted from the room, though more noise-frightened than coffee-scalded, I thought. Both Helds were cursing so hard, loud, and fast that you almost couldn’t understand them.

Holding his hand under the water now running from the faucet, Spi Held finally overrode his wife. ”I don’t give a fuck about your fucking pot, your fucking mug, or the fucking floor. This is my fucking career, if I’m burned so bad I can’t play.”

”Your fucking career? What career? Last night—or pardon me, five fucking hours ago—you said your fucking career was over.”

”Get out!”

Jeanette Held slid off the stool, walking stiffly on her bare heels around the puddles of coffee, the shards of porcelain and glass. ”Fuck you, and clean this up before Bowie comes back in and cuts himself.”

”He can fucking slit his wrists with it, all I care.”

Spi Held watched his wife until she disappeared into the corridor. He shook out his hand before shutting off the water and turning around. ”And what the fuck are you doing?”

”Same thing I’ve always been.”

A woozy grin. ”Playing surrogate son?”

”What?”

Held reached for a dish towel. ”Hey, don’t go dumb on me, okay? The great ‘Colonel Helides’ was always off playing soldier with guys like you instead of home playing daddy with me. Or even fucking David. Then, when I told my brother the truth about how he killed Mom by being born, my ‘hero’ father throws me out, cuts me off without a dime. And if I let ‘the Colonel’ know I don’t care how much he wants to play daddy now that he’s old and sick....”

I kept my temper as Held began wrapping the towel around his hand.

”...the bastard’ll cut me off again, especially with Very gone.”

”Maybe not, if I can figure out who killed her.”

”Yeah, well.” Held looking up from his first-aid. ”I don’t see you’ve done anything more than the cops. Those pigs may suck, but at least they work for free.”

”Like it’s your money paying my bill?”

Held stared at me, a shadow of the drug haze creeping back. ”Someday, maybe.”

Stupid thing to say if he was the one who tried to trigger a terminal attack in his ailing father. ”You ever speak with Malinda Dujong about Veronica’s murder?”

”Yeah.” Held finished with the dish towel. ”I told her my fucking wife wasn’t crazy enough before this, she’s probably gonna crack like a fucking egg over it, so keep an eye on her.”

”Did Dujong tell you anything?”

”Me? I don’t need any of her oriental New Age shit.”

”I didn’t necessarily mean advice. Maybe more information.”

”About what?” said Held.

”Your daughter’s death.”

”Very’s...?” Both hands dropped to his side. ”The fuck could Malinda know about that?”

"I m sorry?"

”She wasn’t even there that day, man. What could Malinda tell you about Very getting drowned?”

That’s when it occurred to me. The way I could maybe—

Held took a step toward my stool. ”I said, what could Malinda—”

I got up and turned away from him. ”I wasn’t there either, but I’ve learned a lot about it.”

As I went back through the sliding glass door, Held yelled, ”Learned what?”

Leaving the door open so that Spi Held could follow me if he wanted, I stepped onto the patio. Instead, he stamped across the kitchen and rammed the door shut so hard, I thought its glass would shatter like his wife’s coffeepot.

From the lounge, Buford Biggs watched me. Quietly, he said, ”You not be brightening anybody’s morning, babe.”

”Just my own.”

”What you find out, make Spi go bullshit like that?”

”The same thing Malinda Dujong did. And I finally know how to use it.”

As I started walking away from him, Buford Biggs said, ”What you talking about, babe?”

I didn’t answer him this time.

Generally, I prefer to think things through more thoroughly before setting any kind of trap. Be a little more certain that the message would get circulated among all the people I’d want to have hear it. But the timing seemed just right, and if I didn’t seize the moment, I thought another might not come along.

I also thought that the first person out of the Held house would be the one.

Drawing the Olds Achieva even with a sprawling shade tree three blocks away, I pressed all four window buttons to get some natural cross-vent. Then I waited, using the rearview mirror to watch the driveway behind me as I went over my logic.

Somebody decides to kill Veronica Held for a motive I can’t isolate. The same somebody figures that the Colonel’s birthday party would bring together a wide array of potential suspects to deflect attention from that motive. But the killer also has some fear—maybe founded, maybe not—that if Malinda Dujong were at the party, the ”spiritual advisor” would be able to ”sense” why Veronica might be a target. So the killer enlists or threatens Sundy Moran, a woman with a blood connection to Spiral from the old days, to call Dujong and thereby keep her away from the Skipper’s house. Moran can tie the killer to that call, though, so Moran has to die as well. And, once she does, Dujong couldn’t pick her out of a voice lineup.

Only then Nicolas Helides brings me into it. I start rattling cages on Tuesday into Wednesday, and Moran’s boyfriend Ford Walton comes visiting with a knife on Wednesday night, apparently believing I murdered his girlfriend. The killer must have given him my name, and that knife as well, because it had Moran’s blood on it Due to my ability to identify Walton, though, and the police lab’s ability to match his prints on the knife used to kill Moran, Walton becomes a liability, too. And I might have softened him up enough for the killer to finish him, dumping his body in that warehouse district

Which is where Dujong comes back into it. Somehow, she can link the killer to Veronica Held’s death, despite the elimination of both Moran and Walton as potential witnesses. So the killer takes Dujong, too.

But maybe, just maybe, hasn’t killed her. There’s no corpse yet, and the murderer might keep Malinda Dujong alive to find out how she discovered the link to Veronica’s death. Especially if word gets back that a hired investigator has stumbled onto the same link himself.

Of course, the only way that gambit could work is if it flushed the killer from the woodline. By targeting me as the next risk to that person getting away with murder.

Ten minutes turned into twenty, and twenty into thirty, but nobody left the Held house, either by car or on foot. I decided to give it another half hour, using the cell phone to call the answering service for my Boston office. There were a dozen condolence messages about Nancy and a few regarding cases up there. I returned only the business ones. The final message was from Drew Lynch, a simple, ”Please call us when you get a chance.”

I wasn’t up to talking with Nancy’s landlord either. Whatever he wanted, it could wait till I went back north.

After pushing the
end
button on the cellular, I checked my watch. Seventy minutes since I’d planted the seed with Spi Held and Buford Biggs.

I started the Achieva again and headed toward the southeast quadrant of Fort Lauderdale.

”You’re always in,” I said.

Mitch Eisen looked up at me from the big judge’s chair as he slid a pair of earphones down over his jawbone, giving himself a high-tech necklace. ”What?”

I pointed to the cord running back to some stereo equipment. ”Last night’s show?”

”Last...?
”
He fingered the cord.
”
Oh, you mean the Alamo?
”

”I thought the name of the place was—”

”Not the name. The metaphor.”

”That bad?”

”Worse. At least the Mexicans had the decency to kill everybody they found there. Spiral, on the other hand, lives to suck another day.”

I took a chair, asking a question I’d already heard answered. ”Anything specific?”

”What, you mean about the band stinking the place out?”

”Yes.”

”No. No, we’re talking a real
team
effort. Gordo was high, Buford was nervous, and the kid, Ricky, tried for most of the first set, then just mailed in the second. But Spi was the real star of the show. Pissing off the houseman about the P.A., dissing the audience when they didn’t leap to their feet in idolatrous enthusiasm, and sniffling so bad that you’d think he’d somehow figured out a way to snort a line off his microphone.”

”So where does that leave them?”

”Dead in the water, far as doing warm-ups in this town.” Eisen settled his narrow shoulders back into the chair. ”Of course, if his old man’s still willing to play Daddy Warbucks—hey, that’s kind of clever.”

”What is?”

”The Daddy Warbucks thing. I mean, his father was in Vietnam, right, and he did make a lot of money afterwards, so the name kind of—”

”Different name.”

”Different?”

”Malinda Dujong.”

Eisen’s hair plugs did their march forward. ”I didn’t see her last night.”

”Last night.”

”At the gig. Shit, even Jeanette didn’t bother to show, which kind of tells you her view of the situation.”

”Mitch?”

”Yeah?”

”I know what she found out.”

Another hair maneuver. ”What Jeanette found out about what?”

”Not Mrs. Held. Ms. Dujong.”

”Malinda? I doubt she ever even heard Spiral practice. She wasn’t into music that I could tell.”

Wasn’t. ”There a reason you used the past tense, Mitch?”

”The past tense?”

”In talking about Ms. Dujong.”

”I don’t even know what
you’re
talking about.” Eisen shrugged. ”Okay, I grant you, Malinda might have heard them out at Spi’s house, although that studio there is fucking state-of-the-art, accoustically speaking.”

”Meaning soundproof.”

”Right. Which is why I didn’t think Malinda would’ve—”

”I’m talking more about what she found out regarding the murder of Veronica Held.”

Eisen stopped, started to say something, then stopped again before, ”We negotiating here or what?”

”Maybe.”

He seemed to relax a little, as though the conversation had returned to more familiar ground. ”Hey, Cuddy, granted I told you I could use any information like that. But, with Spiral going into the toilet last night, I don’t know that who killed Very’s going to be worth a bonus for you anymore.”

A great act on something he’d anticipated, or maybe just innocence. ”Well, give me a call if you change your mind on it.”

”Sure thing. Hey, and good luck with the bad guy, huh?”

I’d parked outside the Mail Boxes, Etc., next to Mitch Eisen’s office. Sitting in the Achieva, I watched the doorway to his building. In the lot to my right, I could also see about half of his orange-and-cream Corvette.

An hour later, I was still seeing it.

Thirty minutes after that, I turned the key in my ignition and headed for the next station down the line.

”Hello?”

Holding the cell phone, I said from the driver’s seat, ”Mr. Tranh, John Cuddy.”

”I am quite busy at the—”

”I’ll be there by one-fifteen.”

”That is impossible for—”

”The Colonel will want to hear what I have to say, and I think you will, too.”

No reply now.

I said, ”See you shortly,” before clicking off.

As he closed the gate behind my car, Umberto Reyes said, ”The Colonel wants me to call him as soon as you arrive.”

I waited until Reyes drew even with my window again. ”Don’t you always?”

”Always?”

”Call him about arriving guests who don’t live here.” Reyes colored under the blond crew cut. ”Yes, I do. What I meant was, he wants to be the first person you speak to, I think.”

”Who else is in the house right now?”

”Mrs. Helides, Mr. Tranh, and my sister, Delgis.”

”David Helides?”

”He left.”

”How long ago?”

”An hour, maybe.”

”To go where?”

Umberto Reyes turned toward his gazebo. ”Mr. Helides never says.”

”Lieutenant, you’ve caused quite a stir.”

Nicolas Helides kept his mangled voice as steady as possible, but his eyes were afire. He sat in the den, blanket over his legs, brace within easy reach. Next to him stood Duy Tranh, wearing a black shirt and black pants outfit. Popular fashion today, though regardless of the race of the person wearing the clothes, they always remind me of the pajamas the Vietcong used as battle fatigues.

I said, ”Mr. Tranh, I’m glad you could join us.”

The Skipper didn’t look up at him. ”At your suggestion, Lieutenant.” Then a different tone. ”My son tells me you’ve discovered something important about Veronica’s death.”

”Your son?”

”Spiro. He called me several hours ago, claiming that you told him something you hadn’t yet told your client.”

A little edge there. ”Colonel, it’s a lead I’ve been developing for a while, but it just fell into place this morning.”

”What is it?” the edge growing sharper.

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the door. Helides called out ”Yes?”

Delgis Reyes opened the door with one hand while balancing a tray with what looked like three lemonades in the other. She hesitated, maybe sensing the tension in the air.

Using a gender tone, the Skipper said, ”Delgis, please come in.”

As Reyes nodded shyly and moved toward us, I addressed Helides and Tranh. ”I’ve found out what Malinda Dujong did.”

Tranh started to speak, but the Skipper rode over him. ”Did to whom?”

I shook my head. ”No, sir, what she herself found out”

”About—Oh, thank you, Delgis,” accepting a glass from her. Tranh and I did the same. As Reyes left us, Helides tilted his mouth to the left and took a sip of his lemonade, swallowing carefully before saying to me, ”Found out about what?”

I was speaking with the Skipper, but watching Tranh. No reactions visible.

”Your granddaughter’s death,” I said.

Nicolas Helides drew in a breath. ”Then let’s have it.”

”I can’t, Colonel.”

A jump in his eyes, like I’d just slapped him across the cheek. ”I... I couldn’t have heard you right just now, Lieutenant.”

I looked up at Tranh, his eyes a little wider as he glanced down first at his employer, then stared at me.

”Sir, what I’ve found out is still just logic until I can put some proof to it, but I’ll have that evidence by tomorrow.”

”Mother Goose!” Helides tried to bring himself under control. ”Then why did you come to my son with the information this morning?”

”Because it was something he said that closed the circle.”

”The circle?”

”Of the logic, Colonel.”

Helides moved his good hand up to the functioning side of his face. ”Lieutenant, are you all right?”

”I believe so, sir.”

”I mean”—the hand went back down to his lap—”that concussion in the fight you had with... His name again?”

”Ford Walton.”

”Walton, yes. Are you sure you’re now thinking clearly?”

”Reasonably, but I’m not absolutely certain. Which is another reason I want hard evidence before I spell out anything further.”

Duy Tranh spoke for the first time. ”If you are concerned about evidence, Mr. Cuddy, perhaps you should consult with a lawyer.”

”I plan to call Justo Vega.”

”If you can’t reach him,” said Nicolas Helides in an iron voice, ”he’ll be here tonight by seven, and so should you.”

”Mr. Cuddy, wait!”

In the corridor outside the den, I turned around as Duy Tranh closed the door behind him. After six determined strides, he reached me.

”I have things to do, Mr. Tranh.”

”In addition to what you already have done to the Colonel?”

”What
I’ve
done to him?”

An angry flash from the black irises. ”He loved his granddaughter, for all her faults. And ever since Veronica’s death, he has lived for the moment someone will bring him her killer. But just now, in that room, you... teased him.”

”How do you mean?”

”I mean just what I said! The Colonel is a proud old man with one remaining, defining goal. And you play games with that, and with his feelings. Even in front of a house servant like Delgis.”

An awfully good deflection, but then, I’d come to believe that Duy Tranh was a very clever player. ”I’m sorry if it came off that way. Not every investigation progresses in a direct, linear—”

”I am not talking about your methods of investigation. I am talking about the spirit of an elder whom you serve in one way and I serve in others. That spirit must be nurtured, not... toyed with.”

”Mr. Tranh, take this one to the bank: I’m not toying with anyone involved in Veronica Held’s murder.”

”God, talk about the bad nickel.”

I watched Cassandra Helides come around the opposite corner at the back of the house. She wore a thong bikini bottom and not much more on top, the implants she’d mentioned standing unnaturally forthright under the faux-leopard fabric.

”Mrs. Helides.”

She stopped two feet in front of me when, given that we were outdoors and not sharing a secret, three feet would have felt more comfortable. But then, I didn’t think Helides was trying to make me feel comfortable.

Her left thumb and forefinger went up to the spaghetti strap of material running from her shoulder toward her breast. Then the fingers slid down the strap like a firefighter going down a pole. ”I figured I missed you.”

”Missed me?” I said.

”Coming here. After Spi called in a huff a couple hours ago, I waited to see you, but I had an appointment that I don’t like to miss.”

”At the tennis club.”

A saucy smile. ”At the spa, actually.” The right hand stroked her thigh as she gracefully shimmied toward the grass, then back up again, the hand following suit. ”Wax job. Go ahead, feel. Smooth as silk.”

”I’ll take your word for it.”

”Your loss.” Saucy gave way to coy. ”So, what did you find out about Very, our little dead lesbo?”

”The same thing Malinda Dujong did.”

”The fortune-teller? What could she know about it?”

”I thought you were the one who recommended her to Jeanette Held?”

”I did.” Helides changed hands and straps, but the effect was the same. ”A couple of girls I know at the club swore by her. And I even talked with Malinda a few times myself.”

”Until?”

”Until she told me things I didn’t need to hear.”

”For instance?”

The left hand came over to me, its fingers doing the same thing they had been on her bikini. ”That I should ‘close’ one chapter of my life and ‘open’ another. Love ‘people,’ not ‘things.’”

”Meaning?”

”Meaning turn my back on a fortune and instead settle for short money that wouldn’t last me five years.” Her fingers pinched a littie, playfully so far, urgently soon. ”I’ve waited this long for the lottery, though, I can wait a little longer.”