Spiral (4 page)

I realized Helides was waiting for me to reply. ”It’s been a long time, Colonel.”

”And nearly as long since I merited being called ‘colonel,’ though I appreciate the courtesy and would understand if the old way is more comfortable for you.”

”Thank you, sir.”

Helides gestured with his good hand. ”Quite the view, eh?”

Until then, I hadn’t looked to my left. Through a picture window twelve feet long and nearly as high, I could see a big yacht putting along the canal behind that moored sailboat. Even moving slowly, the yacht created a three-foot wake that rolled toward us.

Helides said, ”The Intracoastal Waterway, Lieutenant. A water taxi could pick you up from here and deposit you at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach, a good twenty-five miles south.” He looked up at the Asian man. ”Mother
Goose,
I’m forgetting my manners.”

Mother Goose. The man who never cursed.

Helides gestured with the crabbed right hand. ”This is Duy Tranh. He’s been with me since the Fall.”

I didn’t have to ask whether the Skipper meant our prior autumn or the last helicopter out of Saigon in seventy-five. ”Pleased to meet you. Is 'Tranh’ your family or given name?”

”We can talk about that when you have a paper and pencil so you can get it right.”

His accent gave the words a clucky overlay, but the man spoke without inflection, so I couldn’t tell quite how insulting he was trying to be.

”Stroke,” said Helides.

I turned back to him.

He waved with the good hand this time. ”Thought you should know. Happened in the summer, out on Court One at the tennis club. Went to swing my backhand and remember the green clay surface coming up to hit me instead. Had a greenish-purple tint to my chin till Christmas, something about the dye in the clay.” Helides exhaled through his nose. ”Not the worst news, either. When I woke up in the hospital, the whole right side of my body was paralyzed.”

I pictured the Skipper in action—in virtually constant motion—during the nightmarish time of Tet. Then I pictured that poor man at the airport departure lounge again, watching the debate over his coffee, and I think I realized for a moment how humiliating this scene had to be for Helides. He said, ”They call them ‘brain attacks’ now.”

”Sir?”

”Strokes. I suppose to remove some sort of stigma, make the brain seem more like just another organ subject to nature’s aggression. Heart attack, gall bladder attack.” The Skipper paused. ”Every minute in this country somebody suffers a stroke. Every four minutes, somebody dies from one. There’s even an 800 number for those of us who survive, and a few, like me, regain some degree of...”

He raised the crabbed hand again, a tremor passing through it.

To change the subject, I said, ”Justo mentioned you wanted to see me... professionally.”

Helides shot his eyes up at the lawyer.

Justo shrugged. ”I followed your instructions, Colonel, and I am sure Pepe did as well.”

The Skipper came back to me. ”They told you nothing about my problem?”

”Nothing.”

”And you don’t know about it from the media jackals?”

”Only what I saw a few minutes ago in front of your gate.” Helides changed the focal point of his eyes somehow, and I felt as though I were a side of beef being scanned by an experienced meat inspector. He said, ”Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

”Sir, I’ve just been out of touch for a while.”

The Skipper wasn’t buying that, but his eyes changed again, as though he needed other answers. ”My older son is Spi—short for ‘Spiro’—Held.”

I didn’t get it, and Helides clearly expected that I would. ”Your son changed his last name?”

Justo said, ”John?”

”Yes?”

”The news coverage on the killing of Very Held.”

”Her name was ‘Veronica,’ Lieutenant.”

”Sorry, sir,” said Justo.

I must still have looked like a dunce to the Skipper, because he said, ”My son’s daughter, Veronica, was... performing as the singer in his rock-and-roll band, ‘Spiral.’ She died in this house on my birthday.”

Rock band and... ” Your granddaughter was the little girl who drowned in a pool?”

Helides flared. ”No, Lieutenant, she did not ‘drown.’ She
was
drowned, and not in
a
pool, but in
my
pool. And I would greatly appreciate your helping me identify the... bastard who did that to my family.”

The first time I could ever remember the Skipper cursing.

Justo had just finished helping Tranh make drinks for all four of us. I sat in a brass-tacked, red-leather chair, Justo on
i
ts matching couch. The Skipper had never left his seat, and Tranh remained standing, having taken one small sip after his boss had raised his glass in the good left hand and said, ”To old soldiers.”

I lowered the vodka/rocks in my crystal tumbler. ”Colonel, are you sure you want to hire one as a private investigator?”

To drink, Helides tilted both his glass and his head slightly to the left, enlisting gravity in the fight against the slack right cheek. ”I’ve tried everything else. Lieutenant?” Justo took his cue. ”John, the Colonel has met with the investigating officers on die police force and spoken with die State’s Attorney’s office, our prosecutor here. He has even—”

”—hired a profiler,” finished Helides. ”As in that horrible JonBenet Ramsey situation from Colorado. Golly Moses, Lieutenant, the man charged me fifteen thousand dollars to generate a report that said we should be looking for some orphaned drifter driving an old station wagon.”

I said, ”Who may have broken in here?”

”What?” said the Skipper, clearly confused.

Slowing down a little, I chose my next words carefully. ”From the things I’ve heard about profiling, the killer is usually a loner who wanders a great deal, partly for his own reasons, partly to throw off any—”

”You don’t understand, Lieutenant,” from Helides, shaking his head in a motion that more resembled a shudder. ”Veronica wasn’t killed by some transient maniac peeping through a window.” The Skipper swallowed hard. ”She was murdered by someone attending my... birthday party.” Now just a hollow stare, the right side of his face like a Halloween mask. ”By an invited guest in my home.”

I gave it a long beat before, ”Colonel, I think you could do better hiring someone other than me for this.”

”I don’t, and I’ll tell you why.” Helides straightened himself in the chair. ”After retiring from the service, I went into investment advising. I even took my own advice, to the point where I don’t need it anymore. I have a lot of money, Lieutenant. For present purposes, an unlimited amount. Which can be a dangerous... distraction in South

Florida.”

”Distraction?” I said.

‘Yes. That profiler only confirmed what I already suspected, that I’d be seen as a doddering old fool who could be ripped off by any charlatan offering his snake oil with some snappy patter. I need an investigator I can trust absolutely, someone who’ll treat me loyally rather than royally.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought Tranh flinched at that. Then I looked over to Justo. ”Sir, it seems that you have the right person already.”

”Agreed, but only for certain aspects of this situation. Lieutenant Vega is an excellent lawyer with exceptional judgment, but he hasn’t been an investigator since our time in Saigon together.” A pause. ”Also, he has a family himself.” I wasn’t sure I understood that one. ”Meaning?”

The Skipper sighed, the right side of his lip flapping a bit, some spittle running down onto his chin. As Tranh moved toward him, Helides swiped at it with the back of his good hand, then swiped again. ”Blasted stroke, makes me drool like an infant.” He refocused on me. ”Lieutenant, I’m more than a little concerned that any investigation I commission could make the killer take another life.”

I turned that over. ”Another reason to stay with the police investigators already assigned to the case. Not many killers would go after a badge.”

The Skipper closed his eyes a moment, the right lid fluttering when he reopened them. ”Lieutenant, the police have had this case for over a week, and if they are telling me the truth, they’ve discovered nothing. I need a fresh approach, and I need it...” Another hard swallow. ”... soon.”

I was pretty sure that this time I got what he meant. ”Colonel—”

”At least let me walk you through what we believe must have happened. Then decide.”

I owed Nicolas Helides that much. And a lot more.

Since the stroke, I pretty much confine myself to the downstairs rooms.”

Not hard to understand, as I followed the Skipper and Duy Tranh along a wood-paneled corridor, Justo staying behind in the den. Like someone with polio, Helides grasped a single aluminum brace in his left hand, but he used it more as a ski pole than a crutch, pointing it forward and then vaulting a little when its white rubber tip made contact with the beige carpet.

”And now to the right.”

The Skipper turned as he said the words, that dank smell of chlorine noticeable as I reached the branching hallway. The carpeting gave way to tile laid in a blue and ivory checkerboard pattern, and Helides preceded me into a gleaming, humid space with a glass wall on the side facing the Intracoastal and the moored sailboat. We moved more deliberately on the damp tiles, coming to a stop near the end of a pool that was Olympic-size in length and four lanes across.

”Before the stroke, I used to swim every day. Now Duy helps me walk through the water at the shallower end. Physical therapy for the muscles that still work.” The Skipper pointed his wobbling brace at the far corner of the pool—the northeast one, if the Intracoastal ran due south by the house. ”Veronica was found there.”

”By who, Colonel?”

”By me,” said Tranh.

I glanced at him, got a neutral stare from the dark eyes. ”How long had she been missing from the party?”

Helides shook his head. ”Not that kind of a party, Lieutenant. Not so formal, I mean. People drifted in and
around the house all afternoon, and just about everyone had been in the pool at some point before Duy came in here.”

I looked away from Helides. ”Were you going for a swim yourself?”

Tranh maintained the neutral stare. ”No.”

”You just happened to—”

”I realized the Colonel’s granddaughter had not been in my sight for some time. I thought I should look for her without alarming anyone.”

”Veronica wasn’t a good swimmer?”

”The Colonel’s granddaughter was an excellent swimmer,” said Tranh. ”But she was also a thirteen-year-old girl who would run about, and the floor here can be slippery.”

”So you were afraid she’d had an accident.”

”I was not afraid. Only concerned.”

”And when you found her?”

”From here I saw her bathing suit on the edge of the pool.”

”You saw her suit before you noticed Veronica?”

”I noticed it first. It was... neon chartreuse, in the pattern of a tiger’s skin.”

Something in my reaction made Helides break in. ”I told you my son Spiro was using Veronica in his band.”

”Spiral.”

”Yes. Apparently Spiro commissioned a series of outfits—provocative outfits—for her to help with their ‘comeback.’ But the police believe the bathing suit was off her that day because she’d been... molested.”

Nobody said anything for a moment.

The Skipper spoke his next words in a monotone. ”The autopsy gave reason to believe that she was raped while the killer held her underwater.”

Quietly, I said, ”Forensic evidence?”

Helides shook his head. ”The chlorinated water—and Duy’s efforts to save Veronica—destroyed what might have...” Suddenly, the Skipper sounded very tired. ”The police can give you any further... details.”

I went back to Tranh. ”A minute ago, you said you’d noticed Veronica’s bathing suit before seeing her body.”

”Correct.”

”So, you believed she was dead?”

”Veronica was facedown in the pool and not moving.”

”What did you do then?”

”I jumped into the water and swam to her. When I pulled her out, she was not breathing, so I ran to the phone. There.”

Tranh tipped his head toward an arrangement of patio furniture and wicker sideboard with some towels the colors of the tiles. I could see a cordless phone on one of the wicker shelves.

Without looking back at Tranh, I said, ”You didn’t try to give Veronica CPR?”

”I was never trained to do it.”

Now I turned my face back toward his. Throughout my questioning, I couldn’t remember Tranh so much as blinking.

”Lieutenant?”

I glanced at the Skipper. ”Sorry, Colonel.”

”Don’t apologize for doing your job.”

Helides said it in a way that sounded like a hint. I glanced around the room, finally seeing the bracketed mount high on the wall behind us.

A video camera. ‘You have the attack on tape?”

Helides shook his head. ‘The camera was generally engaged, as a safety monitor on anyone in the pool. However, that day it had been turned off.”

”Why?”

”Buford Biggs—one of the players in Spiro’s band—has a son who is intrigued by filmmaking. Kalil wanted to take footage of the party toward editing it into a video.”

”I don’t understand, Colonel. Wouldn’t that mean the camera up there should have been working?”

”No,” said Helides, sounding even more tired. ”No, Kalil—and Veronica—wanted only his
own
footage.”

”So, no tape from the pool camera.”

”Nor from any of the others in the house.”

I looked to the glass wall, steamed by ambient humidity to the point of being translucent instead of transparent. ”And no one on the waterway or across it would be able to see in here.”

”That’s right. In the winter, we keep the door closed.”

”The door?”

”That glass expanse is more door than window, Lieutenant. It’s designed to allow the entire pool to be used on summer.”

”What do you mean by ‘entire’?” I said.

”You’re looking at only half the surface area. The rest is outdoors, the glass wall dividing the warmer, interior water from the colder exterior.”

I stared at the point where the glass wall met and extended down into the water, seeming to be sealed shut against the bottom of the pool. ”Can the wall be opened?”

”Only from the inside,” said Helides.

I was about to say something more when a subtle, skittering sound came from behind us. I turned around but didn’t see anyone.

The Skipper spoke to me. ”That was just David.”

”David?”

”My other son. He’s younger than Spiro by ten years, Nina...” A twinge of pain crossed the good side of his face. ”Their mother died bearing him.”

”Where does David live?”

”Here.”

”He came home to be with you?”

”What?” said Helides, another look of confusion replacing the pained one.

”After your granddaughter died, your son came here to be with you?”

A tone more tired than any so far. ”David never left home, Lieutenant.”

Before I could ask why, Nicolas Helides shivered. ”It’s chilly here. Let’s go back to the library.”

Afternoon sunlight slanted through the big window opposite the fireplace, near where Justo Vega was speaking quietly into the telephone, his shoulders rolling a little with his internal music. Tranh repositioned the Skipper’s chair so that the rays from outside fell across the old man’s torso without shining in his eyes. Even so, a plaid stadium blanket materialized from behind another chair, Tranh spreading it over Helides’s legs.

The Skipper waited until he was finished, then motioned me to the brass-tacked couch. ”The party was on January eleventh, a Sunday. Because my pool is indoors, we held it here so people could enjoy themselves despite the cold weather. The television forecasters say this winter’s so lousy because of El Nino. You getting any consequences of that up by you?”

”Yes,” I said, trying not to show any further reaction. Helides just nodded. ”Well, we’d had a fine time. Wet bar, buffet, a lot of people playing in the pool. Veronica even sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, sitting on my lap, before everybody else joined in for a verse.” The Skipper shivered
again, as he had in the pool area, then cleared his throat. ”The house was teeming with guests who all knew each other. Nobody could have gained access past Umberto without being noticed as a stranger.”

”Who’s Umberto?”

”The security guard at the gate. Cuban despite that blond crewcut. He arrived during the Marielito boatlift, enlisted in the army, and came out an MP, too. Made something of himself, and a good man.”

I glanced at Justo, but he didn’t give me any signals. ”Umberto’s last name?”

”Reyes,” said the Skipper. ”He’s Delgis’s brother.”

”Dellas?”

Justo spelled it for me. ”She was the au pair for Veronica, John. Delgis lives at Spiro Held’s house.”

I thought about the granddaughter being thirteen. ”Wasn’t Veronica a little old to need an au pair?”

”I didn’t think so,” said Helides.

Topic closed, I guessed. ”And Delgis was here for the party?”

”Yes.”

”Umberto the only security?”

”My other security man—Jack Byrne, also an ex-MP— had moved to Tampa, take care of his aunt.”

”That’s been verified?”

”By the police here and there,” said Justo. ”No way Mr. Byrne could have committed the crime.”

”And his being away was known to the people you’d invited?”

The Skipper nodded. ”We’d talked about Jack having to leave for—oh, a few weeks, anyway.”

”Who actually attended the party?”

”Spiro and his wife, Jeanette. The other members of his band.”

I tried to dredge up what little information I’d retained about Spiral from twenty-some years before. The couple of hits the band had enjoyed. Some crazy drummer, and ”Spi Held” as lead singer. ”I never knew he was your son, Colonel.”

”While I was overseas, Spiro ran away from the housekeeper I’d hired after his mother died. He was only fifteen, but it was the late sixties, remember, so a lot of kids just disappeared into the hippie/rock culture.” Helides seemed able to speak about it without any bitterness clinging to his garbled words. ”Spiro came to South Florida and changed his name—supposedly to distance himself from me and the ‘establishment’ I represented, but more I think to make him marketable as ‘Spi,’ founder of ’Spiral,’ rather than the offspring of Greek immigrants.”

Some irony in the voice now, but still no bitterness. ”Anyone else at the party that we haven’t talked about?” Justo said, ”I can give you a list, John, with names, addresses, and telephones. But the band’s manager was also here. And Mrs. Helides.”

I looked at the Skipper. ”You remarried?”

‘Yes. You may as well know now, Lieutenant. My wife’s name is Cassandra, and her tennis instructor came to the party as well.”

Some bitterness now. ”This tennis pro—”

”Lieutenant?” said Helides, but not to me.

Justo seemed uncomfortable. ”His name is Cornel Radescu. From Romania, originally.”

I didn’t say anything.

The Skipper nodded. ‘You find it a bit odd that my wife’s tennis instructor would be attending her husband’s birthday party, don’t you?”

After a moment, I said, ”Yes.”

A crooked smile, only the left side of his face changing. ”I’m glad you still have the capacity for speaking awkward truths, Lieutenant. But in fact, it was Veronica who insisted that Mr. Radescu be invited to my party.”

‘Your granddaughter?”

”Cassandra had been taking Veronica to tennis lessons at the club we belong to, and Veronica had grown to like Mr. Radescu enormously.” A pause. ”When you meet him, I think you’ll see why.”

”No other family at the party?”

Now sadness. ”David, briefly.”

When Helides didn’t continue, I tilted my head toward the man standing next to him. ”And Mr. Tranh.”

The Skipper grew a little stem. ”In fact, Lieutenant, I do consider Duy ‘family,’ but we’d already mentioned his attendance.”

I let that leach from the air for a minute before saying, ”Colonel, what happened here is a tragedy. If you’re right about the security aspect, the killer does have to be somebody invited to the party. But since that’s a finite list, I still don’t see what I can do for you that the police can’t.”

Justo said, ”Everybody has lawyered up, John.”

I looked at him.

Helides said, ”My ‘guests’ took their lesson from the Ramsey case in Colorado, Lieutenant. Everyone has hired an attorney, or refuses to speak to the police without one.”

”And that’s... working for them?”

Justo shook his head. ”The police cannot force any of people here that day to speak with them, because each can reasonably claim to be a suspect.”

”Lieutenant Vega, I find the use of the word ‘reasonably’ to be offensive in this context.”

”Sorry, sir.”

”Colonel,” I said, ”offensive or not, if the police can’t crack the circle, what makes you think I can?”

Helides came back to me. ”There wasn’t a man, woman, or child at that party who isn’t beholden to my fortune for a significant part of his or her well-being. I’ve offered each a simple choice: Speak with my chosen investigator privately, or have the resources at my disposal devoted to the destruction of the person involved.” Not bitterness now, nor irony. Just determination, a force of will that transcended the physical limitations imposed on him by the stroke.