Spiral (6 page)

Justo hung up the phone and joined us. ”A man?”

”Shaggy hair, dark clothes. He got a look at me, then—”

”David,” said the Skipper. ”My son’s painfully... shy. From his depressive condition.” Helides inclined his head toward Tranh. ”I’ve instructed Duy to have David’s doctor speak with you. Henry Forbes is from an old-line family down here, and he’s a third-generation psychiatrist himself-Once you’ve talked with Henry, you can approach David.’ Approach. ”If that’s what you think best, Colonel ”

”I believe it’s what Henry will. The business with the police investigators threw David into an episode. His behavior with you just now, for example.”

I caught myself stifling a yawn.

”Lieutenant, I must be slipping. We’re not the young soldiers we used to be, eh?” The Skipper looked to Justo. ”If you could take over, I think Lieutenant Cuddy would benefit from a good meal and a soft bed. Duy?”

Tranh moved smoothly to help Helides out of the chair and onto the single brace. Arrhythmic heart or not, a sign of significant strength under the rugby shirt and athletic pants.

The Skipper extended his good hand to me. ”John Cuddy, I’m much in your debt for deciding to help with this tragedy.”

For better or worse, we shook on it.

Justo Vega said, ”I would take you to my house for dinner, because Alicia is anxious to meet you, and our little girls must be seen to be believed.”

We were in his Cadillac coupe, a small Cuban flag standing proudly on the dashboard, its fabric fluttering in the breeze from the air vents. Justo maneuvered us over the quaint little bridge spanning the canal and turned right onto the boulevard Pepe had called ”Las Olas.”

”But you have had a long trip, John, and a longer day, and Miami is at least an hour away during the best of rush hours.”

From the passenger’s seat, I thought about the Skipper’s concern for attracting danger from his case to Justo’s family. All I said, though, was, ”A raincheck, then.”

”Only as to the home-cooking. Tonight we eat out, just the two of us.”

”Alicia won’t mind?”

Justo glanced over at me. ”She was one of my calls from the Skipper’s library.”

”
They do seafood well here, but many places in the area can boast of that. And the baby-back ribs are to die for.”

We were in a restaurant called Flanigan’s, on that Andrews Avenue divider road. It had light-wood walls, with fishnet as hangings and small floats hooked into the nets. Photos of what appeared to be an extended family posed with various kinds of saltwater trophies on decks and docks. A blond waitress in a green polo shirt with the restaurants name and a bearded man’s face on the front took our order of a bucket of Killian’s Irish Red and two full racks of ribs, with cole slaw.

Writing on her pad, she said, ”Fries with that?”

There was a touch of Southern accent in her voice, but it was her choice of terms that made me begin to question Justo’s choice of place. ”They worth the cholesterol?”

”This is South Florida, hon’. Cholesterol’s right up there with fruits and grains as one of our major food groups.” But she was smiling wisely as she spoke the words.

”Fries, then. Thanks.”

”You won’t be sorry.”

After she’d walked away, Justo said, ”C
ubana.”

I looked in her direction. ”How can you tell?”

”Those in the first generation born here have no Spanish accent, but neither do they develop the full Southern lilt”

I decided to take his word for it, then thought about the little flag on his dashboard. ”Pepe talked with me about conditions on the island. How are things going here in South Florida?”

”For Cuban-Americans, you mean?”

”Yes.”

The shoulders rose and fell an inch. ”The census bureau says that in fifty years, one quarter of the United States population will be ‘Hispanic,’ but that is mostly because of the high birthrates among Mexican-Americans.
Cubanas
contribute only about two percent of those babies, so we will always be a small minority within a large minority. However, here in Florida, we prosper. Our own businesses, social circles, even country clubs. One of us was again the mayor of Miami, and he a graduate of the Harvard Law School. Those of my parents’ generation—who gathered up their children and fled to this country when Castro’s Revolution overwhelmed them—the old ones still dream of a
Cuba libre,
but those our age? We are Cuban-Americans, John, but now more the latter than the former.”

”And the Marielitos?”

A small smile. ”Some of us still think of them that way, but the bad criminals Castro inflicted on President Carter and this area are now mostly dead or in prison forever. And many of the others have become as successful as our generation of immigrants. It seems hard to believe, John, but the Marielitos have now been here nearly as long as my parents had been when the Marielitos arrived.”

Justo was right. It was hard to believe that so much time had passed so quickly.

Our waitress arrived with the pitcher of red ale and poured about ten ounces into each frosted mug.

After she told us the ribs would be out shortly, I lifted my Killian’s. Thinking of our time together in Saigon, I clinked the rim of my mug against Justo’s. ”To absent friends.”

At which point, Nancy’s loss hit me like a ton of bricks.

”And to present ones,” said Justo, I think before he saw my face. ”John, what is the matter?”

I debated inside for what was probably too long.

”John?”

I set down my mug without drinking from it. ”Since Beth died, there’s been only one other woman in my life.”

”The assistant prosecutor you told me about the last time you were in Florida.”

”Yes.”

Justo sipped his ale. ”Troubles?”

”She died, too.”

He froze, the mug only halfway back to the table. ”John, no.

“That plane crash, off San Francisco.”

Justo blinked. ”But the catastrophe was only... ten days ago?”

”More like twelve.”

Finally, he set his mug down, too. ”And yet, my friend, you are here.”

”Because of the Skipper. Mostly, anyway. But partly also for a change of scene, to keep my mind occupied.”

Reaching his right hand across the table, Justo squeezed my forearm. ”Does the Skipper know about your loss?”

I shook my head. ”I haven’t told him, though I’m probably showing it.”

”Only to one such as I, who has seen you recently.”

Get off the subject. ”Justo, a question about the case?”

”Of course.”

”Anybody benefit financially from Veronica Held’s death?”

Justo’s turn to shake his head. ”Not that I can see. Her presence in the band was an advantage to everyone, and any other money flows from the Colonel downward, not from his granddaughter upward.”

”Another question then, about the Helides house.”

”If I can answer it, I will. But remember, I was not there on the day of the party.”

”I meant more about the current conditions.”

Justo darkened a little. ”Go on.”

”Putting aside what we just talked about, I was basically propositioned by the Skipper’s new wife.”

Justo darkened more. ”Not so ‘new,’ John. And not even ‘news,’ in its own right.” He paused. ”Did she invite you for a shower at her tennis apartment?”

”Her tennis...?”

”Apartment. Cassandra—or the Skipper, as a matter of record—owns a condominium at the Tennis Club of Fort Lauderdale.”

”She was wearing tennis clothes when I first saw her.” Justo nodded. ”The woman... propositioned me as well. Some time ago.” A frown. ”Apparently, her shower there is... large enough for two.”

I pictured the ones in the suites I’d seen at the Helides house. ”You have any reason to believe we’re the only ones?”

”That Cassandra has approached?”

”That’s what I mean.”

”No. No, I fear it is endemic with her.”

”Does the Skipper know?”

Justo seemed to weigh something. ”A man reaches a certain age, John, he tends to see only what he wants to see.”

”And hear only what he wants to hear?”

”Do you mean, did I advise him about Cassandra targeting me?”

”Or has anyone else?”

”Not that I know of. The Skipper is a proud man, but perhaps the stroke has caused him to... ignore what even his senses try to tell him.” Justo looked away for a moment. ”Also, his condition is causing him to become nostalgic.”

”The album from our service days?”

”An example, but such began even before Veronica was killed. In early January, Colonel F. J. Kelly died. Do you remember him?”

”The Special Forces commander in Vietnam?”

”Exactly so. When the Skipper read Colonel Kelly’s obituary, he called me.”

”Why?”

”To talk with someone about all the soldiers in his generation dying.”

”Wasn’t Kelly older than the Skipper, though?”

”By seven or eight years. But they knew each other, and his passing hit hard.” Justo smiled sadly. ”So, it may be the Skipper is concerned about more things than his wife’s time at an athletic club.”

I thought about the roster of party guests. ”That tennis pro at the birthday party?”

”Cornel Radescu.”

”Do you think he’s been one of Cassandra’s targets, too?”

”I cannot say, but I believe she is at the club every day for several hours. You will want to see Mr. Radescu, I assume.”

”Yes, but I’ll need a car first.”

”Of course. We will rent you one at the hotel.”

”Fine.”

The waitress brought our ribs, not leaving the table until I tried one of the fries and pronounced her advice sound.

When we were alone again, Justo attacked his rack with a knife and fork. ”It is as I remembered. At the slightest touch, the meat falls off the bone.”

When he finished chewing his first mouthful, I said, ”Would you have some time tomorrow to introduce me around?”

”Introduce you...?”

”To the investigating officers on the case.”

A nod. ”After breakfast, Pepe or I will drive you to the Fort Lauderdale station.” Justo Vega paused before resuming his meal, the darkening coming back over his features. ”I can tell you now, though. You will not mistake its Homicide Unit for the Welcome Wagon.”

I was kneeling in the bow of a black inflatable boat, the kind commandoes use, at least in the movies. But the people in it with me were men and women of all ages and dress codes, even some children, which made no sense at all.

And each of them, youngest to oldest, was crying.

The fog around us hung thick, shrouding everything but your hand in front of you. A nautical bell tolled nearby, and I somehow knew it was a lighthouse.

Suddenly, through a narrow rift in the fog, I could see Nancy, right by the side of our boat. She
was
at the surface, her head bobbing some in the chop. I leaned over the rubber gunwale, reaching out and calling for her to take my hand. But Nancy just smiled at me—a wry little smile—and then she began to sink, her black hair billowing up behind her head like seaweed in a current. I screamed her name now, the bell tolling louder and—

I sat bolt upright, the bedsheet, heavy from sweat, peeling off and falling into my lap. When I picked up the telephone, the electronic voice told me it was my requested wake-up call and to be sure to have a nice day, now.

Before showering that Wednesday morning, I ordered break-fest from room service. Shaving while I waited for the knock at the door, I thought about my dream. Or nightmare.

I hadn’t had any during the whole time in Boston after flight #133 went down, despite all the nights I’d passed out from the booze. So why now? Maybe it was the reduced alcohol intake the last few days, coupled with sleeping in a strange bed after a long day of flying and dealing with the Skipper’s problem.

I hoped that was all it was.

Breakfast arrived as I wiped my face free of residual shaving cream. When I opened my door, the bellman was tugging a local paper called the
Sun-Sentinel—
packaged in a plastic bag—off the outside knob. After I finished eating and read the first section of what appeared to be a pretty good daily, there was still half an hour until Justo or Pepe was to meet me, so I decided to rent a car while I waited. ^

Before leaving the room, though, I walked over to my bureau and touched the photo I’d unpacked. The one of Nancy and me, her mugging for the camera.

”I remember how you like the old-fashion guns, maybe you like old-fashion cars, too.”

Pepe had been sitting on a lobby chair near the rent-a-car counter when I walked up to it. As he came over to me, I said, ”You could have called me in my room rather than wait here.”

A head shake. ”Mr. Vega, he say to me, ‘Let the man sleep after his hard trip.’” Pepe gave me a different look. ”How you feeling, Mr. Whatever?”

”Better,” I said automatically, then realized—despite the nightmare—that I really did.

A nod before Pepe glanced at the woman behind the counter. ”What I say before about the old cars is true. In Havana, we have them, but no gas, like I told you yesterday. Here, we got the old cars, but with the gas, too. You want a sixty-four Caddy convertible, I got this friend—”

”Pepe, thanks, but I think something less conspicuous might be better.”

”Less con-spic-u-
ous
, huh? So, like some little shitbox, four doors and no performance package.”

”Like that, yes.”

”Okay. You see the nice lady behind the counter, I wait on the chair, then drive you to the police station.”

”I’ll have my own car, Pepe. Can’t you just lead me in yours?”

”Mr. Vega, he tell me to drive you this morning so he can meet you there. I don’t argue with Mr. Vega, you don’t argue with me, okay?”

”Okay.”

”This Fort Lauderdale, she’s a pretty nice town, you don’t mind the murders now and then.”

We’d left my Chevy Cavalier—four doors of teal-blue anonymity—in the garage beyond the hotel’s pool. With the air temperature hovering around eighty again and a cloud-patched sky smothering us in humidity, I’d shrugged out of my suit jacket before getting into Pepe’s Ford Escort. When we turned onto West Broward Boulevard, he set the air conditioner on high, its motor or fan ratding a little. ”Thanks,” I said.

”I figure, you still on Boston weather, Mr. Whatever, you need it. But you better get used to this Florida stuff, you gonna be down here a while.”

I turned sideways in my passenger seat. ”Pepe, a question?”

”Sure, man.”

‘You know any of the people at the birthday party for Colonel Helides well enough to give me your take on them?”

”‘My ‘take’? You mean like, do I think they maybe not right, somehow?”

”We can start there.”

Pepe thought a moment. ”I see a few of them, but the onliest one I talk to is Berto —Umberto Reyes, the security guy? He is
cubano,
too, so I think he okay.”

”Would you bet your life on it?”

Another moment of thought. ”No, but I would bet the life of a very good friend.” Pepe grinned at me.

He eased the Escort over to the center lane, then turned left into a parking lot that ran the length of a sprawling, multilevel building. Light gray exterior walls sported powder-blue trim and awnings while palm trees swayed above tended beds of brightly colored flowers.

I said, ”This is the police station?”

”You got it.” s

”Looks more like a resort hotel.” I opened my door, but Pepe stayed put. ”You’re not coming in?”

”Uh-unh,” he said, gazing out the windshield at the traffic on Broward. ”Police places remind me too much of
Presidente
Castro’s Courtesy Inns. Mr. Vega meet you on the second floor, though. You got to go first up to the counter, then they buzz you in the doors.” j

”Pepe?”

”Yeah?”

”You don’t like being in police stations, how come you know so much about the layout of this one?”

He turned toward me this time. ”Mr. Vega tell me.” Turning back and glancing in his outside mirror, Pepe said, ”And remember, in this country, the policeman is your friend.”

The interior of the building didn’t look like a resort hotel.

In a lobby of gray cylindrical pillars and gray formed chairs, one wall was hung with glass cases bearing yearbook-like photos and captions such as
police employee of the month
. Another wall had a different array of more candid photos marked
please help—missing children
.

I
walked to the information counter on the left as a uniformed officer in a chocolate-brown shirt and gray pants with brown piping passed me, the small radio on his epaulet squawking. Two women were behind the counter, enclosed in thick—and probably bulletproof—glass. One of them got me through two security doors, the second of which led to a staircase.

I climbed the flight and wound up in a smaller reception area with a beige metal door and a window covered by the kind of roll-down grating you’d see over a pawnshop. The window was closed most of the way down to its ledge, an elderly woman sitting sidesaddle behind it and an equally old sign saying something about ”It’s freezing in here.”

Justo Vega rose from one of the chairs in the reception area. ”John, you slept well?”

”Pretty much.”

A grave nod. Reaching into his suit coat, he came out with a folded paper. ”This is the list of all who attended the Skipper’s birthday party, with addresses and telephone numbers.”

I took it from him. ”Thanks, Justo. Are we ready to go in?”

”The detectives will see you, but only if I am not present.”

”Wait a minute. They’ll see me but not you?”

”For several reasons, I think, though they mentioned none to me. First, I am a lawyer, and they are sick to death of lawyers on this case. Second, I believe if I were in charge of the investigation, I would want any ‘discrepancies’ in recollection from your interview to be a verdict of two against one.”

Made sense from their standpoint. ”How do we proceed, then?”

Justo tilted his head toward the counter behind him. ‘We give your name to the nice lady, she buzzes you in, and the detectives spend as much time with you as they like. I will wait for you out here.”

”Okay. What are these people’s names?”

The squad room at the end of the corridor measured maybe thirty-by-thirty, with lots of old wooden desks and black swivel chairs dragged toward modernity by a couple of computers. High, clerestory windows let in surprisingly little of the Florida sunshine, the air smelling of moldy documents, possibly in the light brown folders or dark brown accordion files. The parts of the walls not playing host to bookshelves were the same beige as the metal security door, and the overall impression I drew from the room was one of dreary routine.

Sergeant Lourdes Pintana sat behind a desk covered by papers the way snow covers an alley in Boston. Her complexion was the color of honey, her hair two shades darker and pulled straight back but long enough to brush her shoulders. She wore gold-framed half glasses partway down her nose, watching me over the tops of the concave lenses. Her suit jacket shaded toward light green, and I thought from the texture it might be linen. The desk hid whether Pintana was wearing skirt or slacks, but her torso was slim, and the hollows under high cheekbones gave the woman a fashion-model look well into her thirties.

Detective Kyle Cascadden, on the other hand, looked as though he swung from tree to tree via strong vines. Standing to Pintana’s left against one of the bookshelves, he had a craggy brow under sandy hair that was short on top but tumbling over the back of his collar. The fish-pattern tie was tugged down almost to the second button on his shirt, a short-sleeved Kmart special that showed tattoos on each forearm including the eagle-and-anchor of the Marine Corps. At the right side of his belt I could see a badge and some kind of magnum revolver. His nose had led the charge more than once, a scar line running through the left eyebrow as well.

From the visitor chair in front of the desk, I gave them my best smile. ”A pleasure to meet you both.”

”Pity we cannot say the same,” said Pintana, an icing of Spanish on her words.

”I’m glad to see we’re off to such a good start.” Cascadden pushed his butt away from the shelf. ”I throw you through one of those windows up there, just how far you think you’d bounce?”

Southern country accent. ”Probably from here to the nearest federal courthouse, where civil-rights suits eat civil-service pensions.”

Cascadden showed me some teeth, rottweiler fashion, but Pintana raised her hand in a ”Down, boy” gesture. ”Mr. Cuddy, we are meeting here instead of my office because it is more comfortable.”

”Doesn’t give me much hope for your office.”

Pintana lowered her hand. ”Do you know why we are meeting with you at all?”

”Because somebody you respect was told by somebody you don’t that this was to be a command performance.”

”A what?” said Cascadden.

Pintana canted her head at me but spoke to her partner. Like when Elton John plays for the Queen, Kyle.”

He showed me more teeth. ”Yeah, well, nobody fucking commands’ me to do anything. We don’t just have this Held killing. There’s a whore got herself slashed to death in a hot-sheet joint, maybe because she wouldn’t do some
John’s
‘joint.’ Then there’s a vehicular over on Federal Highway, hit-and-run of this tourist from — ”

I said, ”No offense intended, Detective. I was military Police for a while, and I know how it can be in a department.”

”How far did you get?” asked Pintana.

”In terms of rank or geography?”

Just the barest twitch of a smile. ”I had a brother went to Vietnam, and you’re the right age, so how about just rank.”

”Lieutenant mostly, captain for a while.”

Cascadden said, ”And that’s supposed to make you some kind of expert?”

I leaned forward in my chair, elbows on knees, hands spread. ”Look, we can spar, and probably you can win this round. But that means I go back with thin soup for a report, and you’ll get told to entertain me all over again, only with a little more enthusiasm. So, why don’t we just get to it, save everybody another sit-down?”

Cascadden glared at me. Pintana picked up a pencil and began tapping its eraser against gleaming, even teeth. She said, ”Let’s see your identification.”

I passed the Boston version across the desk, Cascadden leaning over her left shoulder to read it. I could see his lips moving as Pintana said, ”We were told you’d have Florida papers.”

”My guess is that Justo Vega will be able to produce them for you by the end of the day.”

Cascadden shook his head, the hair at his collar picking up dull light from the windows. ”I say we throw this bozo out till he comes up with righteous ID.”

”We could, Kyle,” Pintana rising partway to hand my identification holder back to me. She had carefully manicured nails, short enough so that computer keyboards and gun trigger guards wouldn’t present a problem. ”But as Mr. Cuddy said, it would only postpone the inevitable. I say we talk with him and be rid of it.”

Cascadden didn’t reply for a moment. Then, ”You’re the one passed the sergeant’s exam.”

Pintana nodded to me. ”What do you want to know?”

”Might save all of us time if I got to see your file on this.”