Spiral (31 page)

”For your husband to die.”

”For nature to take its courts.”

I stayed on the point. ”Like it did with Veronica Held?” Cassandra Helides withdrew her hand. ”Mister, you didn’t know Very. I did. And given the way she acted, I’d say her getting killed was pretty natural.” She turned and walked toward the back door, each buttock rolling independent of the other in her caricature of a showgirl. Reaching for the handle, Cassandra Helides glanced back at me. ”Nature’s a fucking dangerous place to live, you know?”

I didn’t stay to watch her climb the steps.

One of the houses down the street from the Skipper’s had the look of a family off on vacation, though if somebody lived on the Isle of Athens, it was kind of hard to see how they could improve their recreational hand by traveling somewhere else. I backed the Achieva into the driveway far enough that its snout became hidden by some large, red-blossomed bushes.

I waited only thirteen minutes this time before Cassandra Helides blew by in shades and a baseball cap, the Porsche Boxster probably hitting sixty before I could start after it.

I nearly lost her three times.

Once was thanks to a delivery truck that Helides almost sideswiped but that pulled out after the Porsche and blocked my view of it. I could hear the driver’s curses, though, even from fifty feet back and over his engine and mine. The second was when she came within a hair’s breadth of clocking a couple of kids on skateboards, other cars swerving to avoid the chain reaction she’d set in motion. The third time was another two miles on, when Helides started taking side streets in a quartering way northwest. At first I thought she’d spotted me, then I realized where we were. Chalking up her evasive tactics more to a shortcut that avoided traffic lights, I arrived at the gate of the tennis club just as her car bounced over the most distant speed bump.

A different guard asked if he could help me. This one was African-American and very polite, his nametag reading
benjamin
.

”I’m here to see Shirley Nole.”

”And your name, please?”

”John Cuddy.”

Benjamin dialed, waited, and spoke into the telephone. Then he turned to me. ”Ms. Nole wants you to tell me who you were here with last time.”

Cautious lady. ”Police Sergeant Lourdes Pintana.”

A nod as Benjamin went back to the receiver, and another nod as he hung up. ”You know her building, sir?”

”I do, yes.”

”I don’t, no.”

We were sitting in Nole’s apartment, and I’d just asked her if she knew of any special relationship between Cassandra Helides and Malinda Dujong.

”Shirley, how about between Cornel Radescu and Ms. Dujong?”

”No. I mean, you say ‘special,’ and maybe that’s what’s throwing me. We all know each other here, but Malinda’s so much better than Cassie, and Cornel’s so much better than Malinda that they’d never play together.”

”Actually, I was looking for any relationships beyond tennis.”

Nole seemed troubled.

I said, ”I already know about Mrs. Helides and Mr. Radescu.”

”Then what don’t you know that you think I could tell you?”

”Any arguments, or the opposite. Did Ms. Dujong ever mention Mrs. Helides to you, that sort of thing.”

”Well, no. I mean, nothing special, the way I think you mean. But maybe you should talk with Mi Soo.”

”Malinda’s tennis partner?”

”Opponent, more.” Shirley Nole relaxed just a little. ”They’re still young enough to play singles.”

”You want a drink?”

”Iced tea would be great.”

At the patio tiki bar, Mi Soo Temkin put in my order and hers, the male bartender saying, ”You have time to let me brew some fresh?”

I nodded from my stool, and Temkin said from hers, ”Fresh, Joe, thanks.”

Then she tilted the sun visor back on her forehead. Early thirties and Asian, Temkin wore a conservative swimsuit under a short robe. I wouldn’t have known how tan she was except for her bare feet, which were pale enough where anklet tennis socks must cover that they reminded me of the white paws on the Helds’ Australian shepherd.

Temkin said, ”Shirley tell me about you trying to find where Malinda is.”

”Any ideas?”

”I don’t see her for maybe three days now. I worry, because Malinda never break a match with me unless she call first.”

”Any problems between Ms. Dujong and Mr. Radescu?”

”Cornel? Why he have problem? He have life of Riley.”

I must have looked at her oddly.

Temkin smiled knowingly. ”I too young for those shows, but in Korea, I learn English from Americans at Army base. I never read Shakepeare except in my language, but television, movies, I could be on
Jeopardy
game.”

”So, no problems between—”

”—Malinda and Cornel? No, I think she tell me.”

”How about Ms. Dujong and Mrs. Helides?”

”Ah, different story. I don’t think they give each other Christinas presents.”

”Do you know why?”

”I ask Malinda once. She tell me, Cassandra not like the way Very—her granddaughter—behave here sometimes. Cassandra think maybe Malinda tell her bad things.”

”That Ms. Dujong told Veronica Held bad things?”

”Yes, but not about Cassandra. More like, advice for life.”

”Advice for Veronica’s life?”

A nod as our iced teas arrived in plastic beer cups. ”I think Very talk to Malinda, ask her questions.”

”About what?”

Temkin tried her drink, then reached for a sugar packet. ”Malinda never say. She is professional, not tell on her clients.”

”Veronica was a client of Ms. Dujong?”

A shrug as Mi Soo Temkin stirred in some sweetener. ”That was word Malinda use.”

When Cornel Radescu opened the door to his unit, I said, ”No need to get me a drink. I brought my own.”

He stared down at what was left of my iced tea, then back up at me. Radescu wore a dirty T-shirt and raggedy shorts. There was plaster dust in his long black hair, the kitchen behind and over his shoulder all torn up.

I said, ”Renovating?”

”What do you want?”

A familiar voice behind him said, ”Me, probably.” Radescu’s eyes closed for just a second. ”Cassie, I told you not—”

”Oh, Cornel, the bastard’s a detective. He can probably sense I’m here, just like Malinda can.”

I spoke to Radescu. ”May I come in?”

He stared at me a little more, his features so blank I really didn’t know what answer he’d give. ”Why not? It seems to be the way of my life now.”

The living room beyond the kitchen was a lot bigger than the one in Malinda Dujong’s place. I didn’t see any bedrooms, though there was a four-by-four hole in the ceiling that a man with an eight-foot vertical leap could have jumped through.

”Cornel’s putting in a spiral staircase.” Cassandra Helides had taken off her sunglasses, but was still wearing the ball cap. And, at least so far, a sleeveless mauve pullover and skin-tight white slacks. Rolling her shoulders against the back of the sofa in basically the same way she’d rolled her rump at the back of her house, she said, ”Very romantic, don’t you think?”

I took a barrel chair that contrasted nicely with the colors of the other furniture. Radescu stayed on his feet.

”Mrs. Helides, you mentioned Malinda Dujong.”

”Yeah. That’s your flavor of the day, right? I mean, when that call from Spi came in this morning, you’d have thought Nick finally got the word that those Vietdongs had won.”

Only half-correcting her, I said, ”They did win.”

A flip of her hands. ”Then whoever.”

Radescu said, ”You asked us yesterday after my match about Malinda. Now everyone around the clubhouse says she is missing.”

”So far as we can tell, nobody’s heard from her since sometime on Wednesday.”

”We?”

”The police are involved, too.”

Helides started doing leg lifts, knees locked, toes pointed toward the hole in the ceiling. ”I wouldn’t worry about the cops. They still can’t figure out who dunked our little Very, and there weren’t more than a dozen of us in the house that day.”

I waited a bit before saying, ”You don’t seem worried about Ms. Dujong, either.”

”Hey, like I told you back on the Isle, I didn’t have much use for her advice, so I’m not exactly holding my breath till you find out what happened to her.”

”What makes you think anything has?”

Dropping the leg lifts, Helides began rotating her feet while keeping the calves stationary. ”The way you keep coming back here.” The coy smile. ”Unless it’s just to see me?” Radescu said, ”Only Mr. John Cuddy comes to this unit, not yours.” Then, in my direction, ”What is it that you want, really?”

”To know who killed Veronica Held, and what’s happened to Malinda Dujong.”

”Very died five, six miles from here, and Malinda was not even at the party that day.”

”But a lot of other people were,” I said, ”and maybe one of them was worried that Ms. Dujong would find out something.”

”What?”

”The same thing I have.”

Radescu stared at me searchingly, then finally smiled. ”You’re bluffing.”

”Why would I?”

A broader smile. ”He’s bluffing, Cassie.”

From the sofa, Helides said, ”How would you know?”

”I crawl on my belly under the guns of border soldiers, I know when somebody can shoot you and when they can’t.” Radescu turned back to me. ”And you don’t have any bullets in your gun.”

”We’ll find out tomorrow.”

A cloud came over Radescu’s eyes. ”Tomorrow?”

”When I’m going to get the hard evidence to back up what I’ve already figured out.”

”It’s still a bluff,” but without the smile now.

”You’ll be the first to know.”

As I walked toward his door, I could hear Cassandra Helides say behind me, ”Hey, Malinda’s so into New Age shit, maybe she can just beam you a message from her brain.”

There was a parking lot for some charitable organization fifty yards west of the tennis club’s gate. A dozen or so people were moving boxes and clothes from car trunks and pickup trucks into a building. Most of the people were black, one white and one Latino. Two of the blacks and the Latino asked if I needed help carrying anything in for the ”drive.” I said, thanks but no, I was just waiting for someone to come back out.

And, in a way, I was.

Traffic ebbed and flowed through the club entrance, but I knew Radescu’s Checker and Cassandra Helides’s Porsche. I also figured her boyfriend would be pretty distinctive behind the wheel of any vehicle, even at my distance from the gate.

At least, that’s what I figured.

After two hours, neither showed. I told myself I’d give it another.

When my watch read 6:30, I started the Achieva and headed back toward the Isle of Athens.

The January sun was long down, so sitting outside didn’t seem a viable option. I was getting pretty tired of the den, but Nicolas Helides seemed to prefer it over his living room. And, given that latter area was where he’d last seen his granddaughter alive—despite what she’d been singing to him about, and how—I could understand the preference. What I couldn’t understand was Justo.

From his signature chair, the Skipper looked at a clock on the big desk for maybe the third time in five minutes. Seven-forty-five
p.m.
now, the news from it not getting any better.

Helides said, ”I have never known Lieutenant Vega to be late.”

Duy Tranh nodded from the corner of the couch, sitting himself for a change, though not looking particularly comfortable. ”At least without calling.”

At seven-fifty, I said, ”You have Justo’s phone number handy?”

Tranh stood up. ”Office, home, or cellular?”

I locked my eyes on his. ”We’ll try all three.”

The answering service at Justo’s office told me he was gone for the day to an appointment and not reachable. His cellular number rang four times, then just forwarded to the service again. I dialed the home one and drew a familiar voice answering in Spanish.

”Pepe?”

”Who is this, please?”

”John Cuddy.”

”Hey, Mr. Whatever, how you doing?”

”I’m doing fine, but we’ve been waiting for Justo at the Colonel’s house for nearly an hour.”

Very quietly, Pepe said, ”Mr. Vega, he tell me he suppose to be there at like seven.”

”You weren’t driving him?”

”No. He don’t like it so much when one of us not with his wife and little kids in the nighttime.”

”And you haven’t heard from him?”

A woman’s voice spoke some Spanish in the background, Pepe answering her briefly with a laugh in his voice. Then he said into the phone, ”Give to me your number. I cannot talk so easy here.”

I was still exchanging stares with Nicolas Helides and Duy Tranh when the phone rang a minute later. I picked it up, Pepe speaking before I could.

”Talk to me about what you know, man.”

I told him the same things about Justo that he’d heard in my call a minute before.

Pepe said, ”Mr. Vega, he no tell you he going anyplace else?”

”No.”

Only silence from his end.

”Pepe?”

”I got to think, man.”

His voice was tight, like a dog wheezing while straining against a leash. When Pepe came back, though, his tone was more resigned. ”Mr. Vega, he worry about the
comu-nistas
coming after him. Always he say to me, ‘Pepe, I am gone with no reason, this is what you do.’”

”I don’t see how Cuba could be—”

”Mr. Vega say, ‘Pepe, you take my wife and my children, and you go to this place, soon as you can.’”

”Where, Pepe?”

”I no can tell you, man.”

”Pepe—”

”No!” The tightness in his voice again. ”Mr. Vega, he say I don’t tell nobody.”

”Pepe, listen to me, okay? I don’t know what’s happened to Justo, but another person involved in this case has also disappeared, and so I—”

”Man, you hear what I saying to you? Mr. Vega tell me to do something, I do it.”

I remembered both Justo and Pepe making a point of that. ”I’m not trying to—”

”And you hear something else, too. You got to find Mr. Vega, man.”

”Pepe—”

”I do what Mr. Vega say, you do what I say.”

That last was spoken with the resonance of a blood oath. ”Is there anything...” But then I stopped, realizing that Pepe had broken the connection.

”Lieutenant?”

Hanging up, I looked over to the Skipper. ”Pepe doesn’t know where Justo is.”

Tranh said, ”What about the rest of your conversation with him?”

”Instructions that Justo gave him for security.”

Helides shook his head. ”And no help to us.”

”I’m afraid not.”

Now the Skipper glanced up at Tranh, who was looking only at me. ”Duy?”

No reaction.

”Duy.”

Tranh looked down now.

Helides said, ”Do you have any ideas?”

”Just one, Colonel.”

”What is it?”

Duy Tranh now looked back over at me. ”That Mr. Cuddy seems to have made a bad situation worse.”

* * *#

”In a way,” I said, ”he’s right.”

Tranh had left us in the den, the Skipper asking me to pour him a scotch, straight up. As I extended the glass toward his chair, he said, ”In what way, Lieutenant?”

I sat down across from Helides. ”When I got here Tuesday afternoon, only two people were dead, your granddaughter and Sundy Moran. Since then, Ford Walton’s joined them. And now probably Malinda Dujong, and possibly even Justo as well.”

The Skipper stopped the scotch before it reached his chin. ”You’re not certain Malinda is dead?”

”No,” and I told him why I’d run the bluff on his son and the others.

A suckling sound as Helides tipped the glass toward the good side of his mouth. ”So, you thought spreading the word that you’d discovered what Malinda had found out might spook our killer.”

”Into going where he’s holding her.”

”Or making him come after you.”

I nodded, and the Skipper nodded back.

”Colonel, anything at all that you haven’t told me?”

His eyes showed over the rim of the glass. ”About Malinda?”

”About anything at all.”

Helides rested the drink on the arm of his chair. As I was about to ask him if he was all right, the Skipper said, ”After I lost Nina—my first wife—I didn’t go to any kind of psychotherapist. Or ‘head-shrinker,’ as I thought of them in those days. Then, when David’s condition was... obvious, I couldn’t see that the doctors he saw helped him much. Even Henry Forbes, who’s top-notch in his profession. But after Veronica a... was killed, I asked Malinda if she’d speak to me.”

”Malinda?”

”Yes. Through my... grief, I could see that she was helping Jeanette. Had helped her, even before... that day, in coping with Spiro and his lifestyle.”

”So you thought Ms. Dujong might be able to help you as well?”

A slow exhalation. ”At that point, Lieutenant, I couldn’t see what harm it could do.”

When the Skipper didn’t continue, I said, ”What did you two talk about?”

”My dreams.”

He spoke the phrase so quickly, I almost missed it. ”Your dreams?”

”Oh, not what happens when I sleep at night.” A pause. ”If I sleep. No, more what I had hoped for in my life. The grand strategy—my words, not hers.”

”Sir, I don’t mean to pry, but—”

”Prying is what I’ve asked you to do.”

Almost a smile from him.

”Essentially,” I said.

Helides suckled some more scotch. ”My dreams, Lieutenant, were to grow old with Nina and have a son in Spiro that we could be proud of. Well, I think now my personality was more suited to being a commander than a father. It never really registered with me that you couldn’t give orders—even good ones—to your son and still expect him to respect you. So I began to focus on the new baby God was about to give us. Then, when David arrived and Nina... died, I foreshortened those dreams considerably. Did what I could for David in terms of treatment, especially after Spiro ran out on us. Watched from a distance as my older son became more and more successful with his music. And all the while, I tried to keep my younger son out of the very institutions every well-meaning friend told me I should relegate him to. A few years later, after Spiro frittered away his success and crashed his life to boot, I kept him afloat financially. With Mitch Eisen’s complicity, of course.”

”I don’t understand, sir.”

Now an actual smile, small but genuine. ”I asked Eisen to approach music halls, give Spiro a place to play.”

I turned that over. ”With you footing the bill.”

”The only way. Eisen told Spiro that because of Spiral’s former status, the smaller clubs were willing to pay a premium. Despite apparently poor performances and sparse audiences.”

”Colonel, did your son ever find out?”

”That I was paying his... salary, so to speak?”

”Yes.”

”Eisen assured me not. But, who really knows?” Another slow exhalation. ”Nina and I had such... expectations for our sons. The first had the ability, but circumstances—what I’ve told you plus my being away at the wrong times and the unpopularity of our war—pretty well scuttled Spiro’s turning out as I had dreamed. And David... Well, some life in
this
home is better than any life in
a
home, don’t you think?” ‘Yes.” I hesitated, then, ”And you told Ms. Dujong about all these feelings?”

”I did. Over three or four sessions. Sorry, that would be Henry’s phrase for them. Malinda spoke of them more as ‘interludes.’”

Jeanette Held had used the same phrase. ”What would Ms. Dujong do?”

”Work me through my grieving. Give me a chance to meditate on what had happened before, what dreams had already not come true.”

”The flying pan over the fire.”

”Basically.” Some more scotch. ”And she did help. In fact, I suggested she work with David, too.”

”David?”

”Oh, without telling Henry, of course. And without supplanting him, either. I can’t imagine what my son would be like without those mood-leveling drugs. No, Malinda would be more a
supplement
to what Henry could provide David, an additional window into his situation.”

As the Skipper drank again, I said, ”Did Ms. Dujong ever speak with your son?”

”I don’t think so.” A cough that at first I thought came from some scotch going down the wrong pipe, but what I then realized was the verge of a laugh. ”At least, she never sent me a bill for it.”

After Colonel Helides went off to bed, I stayed in the den and on his telephone, confirming through a supervisor at the answering service that Justo Vega had not checked for his messages. I tried the house in Miami again, but got nothing. Not a person, not a machine.

I pressed the plunger and dialed Sergeant Lourdes Pintana’s cell-phone number. On the third ring, I heard a forwarding pickup and ”This is Detective Kyle Cascadden.” Give it a shot anyway. ”Sergeant Pintana, please.”

”Out of the office.” Then about enough time for the light to dawn before, ”Beantown, that you?”

”Yes. I need to speak with her.”

”Well, boy,” the sneer coming across the wire. ”I guess you’re gonna have to settle for me.”

”This is serious, Cascadden.”

”So am I. Talk, or I’ll go back to my dinner here.”

Not much choice. ”You know Malinda Dujong is missing?”

”Who?”

I counted to three. ”The woman who was counseling Jeanette Held.”

”Oh, right, right. That Chinese girl.”

”Filipina.”

”Same difference.”

I let it pass. ”Justo Vega seems to have joined her.”

”Justo...? That lawyer from down Miami with the stick up his ass?”

I counted to five. ”Cascadden, he’s a friend of mine, a good friend from the service, and I’m worried.”

”He’s probably just stuffing himself with some of that
cubano
roast pork and beaned
arroz.
Y’all have that rice plate up in Beantown, Beantown?”

”His security man and family and answering service haven’t heard from him.”

”So he’s swilling some
vino
along with his meal. That’s the way they get, you know?”

I counted to seven.

”Beantown, you still with me?”

I said, ”Cascadden, you have any idea of what it would cost the city, you could have saved Justo Vega and instead just threw me ethnic slurs about him?”

”No, I sure don’t. But I do know this. I took a bullet once for this here municipality, and there’s people in high places remember that.”

”Cascadden—”

”And besides, who’s gonna know what we been talking about anyways?”

I heard the click before I could finish counting this time.

On my way to the back door, I heard it opening. When I reached the kitchen, David Helides was just closing it behind him. He still wore a sweatshirt and pants, but these were smudged with dirt, as were his hands and cheeks as he turned into the light.

And jumped back like a scalded cat.

”I’m sorry ,” I said. ”Didn’t mean to scare you.”

One of the hands went to his chest, naturally rather than theatrically. Then his eyes cast down toward the floor. ”I am just not used to... strangers in the house.”

”I’m not so much a stranger anymore.”

”No.” A glimmer of smile. ”No, you are not.” Then it seemed as though a jolt went through him as his head jerked back up. ”My father, is he...?”

”He’s all right.” I decided to chance it. ”But someone else is missing.”

Helides squinched his eyes shut. ”Who?”

”Malinda Dujong. And now Justo Vega.”

The eyes opened. ”Malinda... Mister... How?”

”I was hoping you might know.”

”Me?” Eyes back to floor. ”How would...?”

I said, ”I’d like to talk with you about that, but do you want to change first?”

”Change?”

”Out of those clothes.”

”Oh.” He looked down at himself, wiping both hands vigorously on the thighs of the sweatpants. ”Oh, no. I always come back like this.”

”Back?”

”From my plants.” He gestured behind him. ”But we can sit outside... if you want.”

”Outside.”

”I like it by the water... at night. When no one can... see who I am.”

I watched David Helides drag a white resin chair from the perimeter of the external portion of the pool toward the Intracoastal Waterway. He positioned the chair in the shadow of a large-crowned tree, the big sailboat creaking against its dock.

I followed Helides with a matching seat for me. By the time I reached the tree, he was already sitting down, legs stretched out rather than bunched, shoulders loose rather than tensed.

Lowering myself into the second chair, I said, ”You seem a bit more relaxed.”

From the shadows, his voice was as hard to hear as his face was to see. ”Like I told you, I enjoy it by the water. The tree”—he moved his hand over his head—”protects me.”

”What kind is it?”

”An alien.”

I paused. ”An alien?”

”Not indigenous to Florida, an immigrant.” Then some hesitation. ”My father prefers simpler trees that need little care.”

”He was always a low-maintenance kind of man.”

”With a... high-maintenance kind of son.”

I didn’t reply.