Spiral (26 page)

Half a glance toward me. ”I seen them. Garbage.”

”The tapes?”

Biggs turned his head more toward me, the muscles on his neck stark against the sagging skin. ”The tapes was garbage, and that’s where I throwed them.”

”When?”

”Right after that little bitch tease me about how my son got the stutter with his hands like he do with his mouth.”

I tried to phrase the next question very carefully. ”So, before Veronica was killed?”

”Of course before she killed. How she gonna tease me about Kalil, she dead already?”

”Tell me what happened?”

Biggs went back to the train. ”We was at Spi’s crib, just finishing up trying to salvage one of his cowshit songs. I go out on the patio there—by the pool, where you and me sat—for a smoke, and Very sashays on over through those glass doors, sets her tight little ass down across from me.” Biggs had trouble with the rest. ”She say to me, ‘How come Kalil want me to do the strip for him, but not the tease?’ I say to the child, ‘You too young for that shit, both of you. Stay the hell away from my son.’ And Very say, ‘Kalil’s not so young, and I like some variety in my experiences.’ I say, ‘Just stay away from tempting him,’ and she say, ‘He can have me anytime he want, on television.’” Biggs swallowed hard. ”I like to swat that little bitch hard enough to send her into the wall, but I thought about what she say, and later on I ask Kalil what Very mean by ‘television.’ And he bring out these videos he shoot.”

”I know this isn’t easy for you, Buford, but it might help me if you could describe—”

”I ain’t gonna describe nothing. There was three tapes, and I burned them. But I tell you this. You seen the video Kalil do of Very singing for her grandfather at his party?”

”The police screened it for me.”

”Yeah, well, you picture the same kind of song and her in the same kind of outfit. Only now it just Kalil in the room, and Very not in her outfit very long.” Biggs blew out a breath. ”The little bitch was right about one thing. Kalil, he so excited, that camera musta been jumping on his shoulder, account of the way Very look on that tape.”

”The way she looked?”

”Like it was her and not her daddy Spi bouncing around the room from the nose candy.”

I thought again about the autopsy report. The train’s caboose finally whooshed by, and even the bells and whistles from the crossing gate couldn’t dent the silence I felt sitting next to Buford Biggs before getting out of his car.

Driving to the tennis club, I used the cellular phone to check my voice mail at the hotel. Nothing from Malinda Dujong, but Mitch Eisen was on it, asking me to call him as soon as possible.

After dialing, I heard a few clicks before ”Mitch Eisen.”

”Mitch, John Cuddy.”

”Hey, how’s the boy detective?”

”In need of a few more answers.”

”Well, I might have them, and you’re lucky.”

”Lucky?”

”I forwarded my office phone to my cellular, because I didn’t want to be out of touch riding to the beach. Where are you right now?”

I told him.

”Perfect. Just go down to Las Olas and take it east to the beach. Park wherever you can.”

”And you’ll be?”

”In the place on the Oceanside corner, second floor,” said Mitch Eisen. ”Can’t miss it, in both senses of the expression.”

At street level, a sign read
the elbo room.
An open-walled bar was packed, mostly by older males acting like college kids. The steps leading to the second floor felt sticky enough to have been slopped with leftover beer. Reaching the upper bar, I couldn’t see much change in the clientele. But a live band was playing surfer music from the sixties, many people chanting the well-worn lyrics. Altogether, it was just about quiet enough to hear a bomb drop.

From the railing overlooking the beach road, Mitch Eisen waved to me. I slalomed around clumps of swaying party animals, Eisen glancing at the bandage on my arm when I reached him.

”That from the mugging thing?” he shouted over the din.

”Primarily.”

”Well, I hope you’re feeling better.” He motioned with his hand in an encompassing way. ”So, what do you think?”

”Of what?”

”The Elbo Room. This is it, man. When Lauderdale was the Mecca of Spring Break, where you’re standing now was the holiest of mosques.”

I noticed Eisen had most of a beer left in a plastic cup. Leaning into him, I said, ”Can we find someplace quieter?”

He seemed shocked. ”But the view of history...” The hand now went out toward the palm trees and a white, two-foot-square wave wall separating the sidewalk from the sandy beach. ”Remember
Where the Boys Are
?”

I made a hitchhiking gesture toward the stairs I’d just used. Shaking his head, Eisen drained maybe half the beer remaining in his cup and waved a theatrical farewell to the crowd, though I didn’t notice anybody waving back to him.

When we were on the sidewalk, he said, ”There are some great new places just opened last year. Sloppy Joe’s, that Hemingway bar from Key West. Howl at the Moon, which is a franchise operation, but—”

”Mitch, how about we just sit on the wave wall over there, talk about some things?”

”Sure,” said Eisen. ”I’ve always been a people-watcher.” After crossing A1A, we found a spot fifty feet from our nearest neighbors, so nobody could eavesdrop on us. I brushed off the top of the wall and sat facing the ocean, my shoes in the sand.

Eisen eased himself down to my left, feeing the street but even enough with me that a single bullet could have gone through all four of our ears. ”I don’t know about your choice of viewing there, John. Kind of late for bikinis on the beach.”

”After the day I’ve had, I find it peaceful.”

Eisen frowned, his hair plugs inching downward. ”Things okay?”

”No, but I don’t need to tell you most of it.”

”Hey, I’m happy to hear what you got to say. Like I mentioned last night, it’d be good for me to stay ahead of the media curve on this.”

”Investment-wise.”

”Every-wise. What have you got?”

”Sundy Moran’s connection to Spiral.”

Eisen made a clucking noise in his mouth. ”Shit.”

”I’m glad to see you’re mourning her, too.”

”Frankly, I was kind of hoping that’d slide on through.”

”Her murder?”

”No. Any whiff that she was tied into the band.” Eisen turned sidesaddle to me, his left leg now bent at the knee but resting flat on top of the wall. ”Look, Cuddy. One death from an overdose twenty years ago, that was to be expected, the times and all. A current death of the little girl singer who’s gonna bring an old band back from the grave, that’s like... cachet, we can handle the spin right.”

”I heard enough of this angle back in your office.”

”Yeah, but you’re adding a new ingredient. We got to go for damage control here, and I can’t afford another leak in the good ship Spiral.”

”Which Sundy Moran’s connection with the band would spring.”

”Exact-o-mundo.”

”She came to you, didn’t she?”

Mitch Eisen could have been one of those modem statues cast from bronze and placed in casual positions on park benches. I’m not sure even his lips moved with ”Came to me?”

”When Tommy O’Dell was on the way out, didn’t you meet with Donna Moran, the mother?”

”The mother?” Eisen seemed to relax. ”Yeah, yeah. The mother. She claimed Tommy was the father of her little bundle of joy.”

”Some of the other band members might be able to back her on that”

”Hey, John, you gotta remember the times. Nobody ever heard of sexual harassment or date rape. Shit, you worried about statutory rape—account of a lot of these chicks looked legal—and maybe whether you’d get a case of lice or crabs.”

”But not a paternity suit.”

”Look, this Donna Moran comes to see me, belly like it oughta be carried in a wheelbarrow. Says she’s pregnant by Tommy, and I’m the manager, and what are we going to do about it?”

”We?”

”The band, Spiral. I told her we’d pay for an abortion— God bless
Roe versus
Wade
—but Moran says no, she wants the kid but we should pony up for supporting it. I tell her no way, and eventually she sees our side of things.”

”And what, just goes away?”

”Has the kid, gives it her own name, turns out. Never bothers us again.” Eisen leaned toward me. ”Frankly, I’m surprised she didn’t shoot her mouth off about it to the cops or die media once Very turned up dead.”

The cops. ”The police don’t know Sundy Moran was Tommy O’Dell’s daughter?”

Eisen cringed. ”Man, you keep saying that, don’t make it so. Girl’s gonna flash her boobies at some strung-out guy on stage she don’t know from a serial killer, how many other clicks you figure blazed the trail for Tommy’s?”

I kept my temper. ”Aside from coincidence, any possible connection between the killings of Veronica Held and Sundy Moran?”

”Hell, no. I read the paper and see the little piece about the Moran girl, all I can imagine is some high-school friend of the mother thinking, ‘Wait a minute, maybe I can get my fifteen minutes on Montel or Leeza, blow the whistle on who Donna thinks the daddy was.’ But that never happened, so I’m guessing the mother didn’t tell anybody about Tommy.”

”Did Sundy Moran ever know?”

”That Tommy was
—might
have been—her father? Beats me. She sure never came around to my office with her hand out, anyway.”

I thought back to something Buford Biggs had told me , the day before. ”Even if Sundy had shown up on your doorstep, though, Tommy O’Dell really didn’t have any ; estate to leave her, right?”

”Right,” a little too quickly.

”And that’s because all his composer royalties—”

”Lyricist royalties, actually.”

”All his royalties from Spiral’s music devolved under his will to you.”

Eisen swung back around, facing the street again. ”That was the deal we had. My original venture capital, their unrealized potential.”

”Which got ‘realized.’”

”Yeah, but only because of me.” Eisen began flaring. ”What those fuckheads had before I took them on was pie-in-the sky, over-the-rainbow royalties.”

Then he hung his head. ”You see this little strip?”

I swung my legs around to the sidewalk. Eisen was studying a snaking tube embedded in the wave wall. Something within or behind the tube made it glow pink, then blue, then green, then —

”It’s a nice touch,” he said. ”You drive north on A1A here at night, you can watch the little strips in the wall change color as you go by. I don’t know how the city does it, but it’s a nice trick.”

Mitch Eisen looked up at me now, his eager eyes seeming to belong more in a child’s face. ”Like you’re really getting near the end of the rainbow, even.”

A
guard—named Lenny this time—said, ”Ms. Dujong doesn’t answer, sir.”

Through the Cavalier’s open window, I looked up at him in the sentry box of the tennis club. Fiftyish, solid. ”No answer at all, or just her telephone tape?”

He thought about it, maybe whether or not he should tell me. ”Her machine.”

Same as I’d drawn when I tried to call her. ”How about Cornel Radescu?”

Lenny said, ”I know for a fact he’s playing a featured match on Court One right now.”

”Can you interrupt him?”

”No, sir.”

”Okay. Let’s go with Cassandra Helides.”

Lenny picked up the phone again. After a minute, he said, ”Sorry, no answer period.”

I was beginning to feel a little stupid. ”And there’s no way you can let me in without somebody vouching for me?”

”Correct, sir.”

”But I came in yesterday when Clinton was on duty.”

”Someone has to authorize a visitor for each day, and your name’s not in my book for this shift.”

I didn’t want to call Duy Tranh. ”Could you try Don Floyd?”

Lenny perked up. ”Mr. Floyd? Of course.”

A few seconds after he punched in a number, I could see Lenny’s lips moving against the receiver before he nodded and hung up.

I said, ”You reached him?”

”Yessir. Mr. Floyd thinks seeing you again might prove to be... interesting.”

Lenny gave me simple directions to the right building before raising the gate.

"You’re sort of lucky to catch me, John.” Don Floyd tilted his head behind him. ”I was about to walk over to Court One, watch an acquaintance of yours play some.”

Floyd Was dressed in another tennis outfit, and even the same Kangol cap, I thought, but the sweater vest of the day was a lemon yellow. ”I appreciate your vouching for me.”

”With Lenny at the gate? The visitor procedure’s a necessary precaution, but I remembered how you kind of stirred things up last time, so I figured you might be worth a second look.”

The wide smile that made him seem twenty years younger, but he dropped it when he looked down at my bandage. ”What happened to your arm?”

”Just a cut.” I lowered my voice. ”Actually, Don, I’m a little worried about someone else.”

”Who?”

”A resident here, Malinda Dujong.”

”Malinda? Fine woman, and a wonderful player. Won a couple of tournaments till she started spending more time on that spiritual advising she does.”

I explained about Dujong trying to reach me, then not returning my calls.

Floyd ruminated. ”Well, now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her around the courts for a few days, and that’s a mite odd for the lady, even with all her advising lately.” He looked at me squarely. ”Come on.”

We walked to one of the Mediterranean-style buildings, Floyd going up to a first-floor door and knocking. He put his ear to the wood, shook his head and knocked harder. ”Nothing?” I said.

Floyd looked at me, then walked over to the next door. His knock was answered this time, though I couldn’t see by whom.

”Why, Don,” said a very pleasant female voice through the open doorway.

”Shirley, how you doing?”

”Just fine. And you?”

”Couldn’t be better.”

”What brings you visiting?”

”Gentleman here’s been trying to get hold of your neighbor, Malinda. You seen her these last few days?”

The door opened wider, and an attractive woman in her sixties smiled out at me.

”John Cuddy,” I said.

”Shirley Nole.” Her face darkened. ”You know, Me Sue asked me that same question just this morning.”

I wasn’t sure I got the name. ”Me Sue?”

”Another player here, from Korea. She spells it ‘M-J S-O-O.’”

Floyd said, ”Did Mi Soo tell you why, Shirley?”

”I guess she had a game scheduled with Malinda for ten, but Malinda never showed up.”

Now Floyd darkened, too. ”That’s not like her, would you say?”

”No, not at all.” Nole looked from Floyd to me and back again. ”I have a key to Malinda’s door, for deliveries or watering her plants if she’s traveling.”

I said, ”Ms. Dujong ask you to water the plants recently?” A pause. ”No. No, she hasn’t.”

Don Floyd let out a breath. ”Shirley, I think maybe we should use that key of yours.”

Nole disappeared briefly, then came through her doorway, key in hand. We walked over to Dujong’s, Nole knocking and calling out ”Malinda” twice before sliding the key into the lock.

As she pushed the door open, I braced myself for that sickly sweet odor of decaying flesh, but all that greeted us was heat and stuffiness.

I touched Nole on the arm. ”Maybe I should go in first.” She turned sideways and let me pass.

I entered a foyer, kitchen to the right, living and dining areas in front of me. No sign of a struggle or even a search. In fact, everything was orderly to the point of immaculate, though the air felt as though the windows had been sealed for a year.

Behind me, Nole said, ”Malinda likes it warm in here, but not this warm.”

I walked by a closed closet door on the long wall to the left, tennis trophies dominating an adjacent entertainment center. Most of the other decorations were exotic, including some beaded, pendant talismans, I assumed from the Philippines.

I turned around. ”Can we check the bedroom?”

Nole nodded, gesturing to the left.

Just past the trophy shelf, a doorway stood open. The furnishings were very feminine. Bed made, plush comforter on top. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.

”Bathroom?”

”Master bath is that way,” said Nole.

I walked into the alcove for sink and mirror, separate shower beyond. Big enough for two people, with frosted glass doors so you couldn’t see into it.

I moved over to the handle, hearing Floyd and Nole coming up behind me. I slid open the door.

Nothing.

I leaned in to touch tile and soap, then checked the towel on a brass hatrack. All dry as a bone.

I looked at Nole. ”You said master bath?”

”Excuse me?”

‘You said ‘master bath’ before. Does that mean there’s another?”

”Oh. Yes, back this way.”

She led us to what I’d taken for a closet, but the door opened onto a separate suite with bath to the right and bedroom to the left. The bed was stripped, the bathroom feeling sterile.

I asked, ”Ms. Dujong doesn’t use this part?”

Floyd said, ”These two-bedroom units were designed so that owners could rent out a section during our high season.”

”Does she do that?”

”Not for a while,” said Nole. ”At least, I think I’d have noticed.”

The feeling in the air backed her up.

Don Floyd stared at me. ”So, John, what do you think?” I moved past them and into the living room. ”Ms. Nole-”

”Oh, Shirley, please.”

”Shirley, where are these plants you water?”

”Out there, on the porch.”

I crossed the living room to draperies on a pull cord. I drew them open. Beyond the sliding glass door, a six-by-twelve, screened porch contained eight or ten large plants in colorful pots.

Unfortunately, the pots were a lot more colorful than the plants.

”Oh, no,” said Nole. ”They’re dying.”

Several looked okay, but most were drooping or worse. As Nole went toward the kitchen, I said, ”Shirley, how long would it take for these to get like this?”

Over the sound of running water, she said, ”The southern exposure really bakes plants, though it also helps them grow faster. Malinda’s always had me come in every morning.” I’d seen Dujong late on the afternoon before, at Spi Held’s house. ”Could they get this way within twenty-four hours?”

”Maybe, but I don’t know for sure.”

Floyd said quiedy, ”I don’t like what I’m feeling, John.”

I nodded.

Nole came out with a plastic can, sticking its snout under leaves and sprouts. ”But I can tell you that Malinda would never have left these long enough for them to get so parched without asking me to tend them.”

”Anybody else she might have contacted?”

”Mi Soo, but like I said, she hadn’t heard from Malinda either.”

I could see an answering machine on a lower shelf of the entertainment center. ”Maybe we could listen to Ms. Dujong’s tape messages.”

Floyd and Nole exchanged troubled glances. She said, ”Her telephone calls, you mean?”

”Yes.”

Floyd shook his head. ”That’d feel mighty like intruding on Malinda’s privacy.”

Shirley Nole nodded, and I guessed I couldn’t blame either of them.

Don Floyd said, ”What else do you think we should do, John?”

Only one more thing. ”What kind of car does Ms. Dujong drive?”

The three of us walked separately over the entire parking area, but nobody could find Dujong’s yellow Toyota Celica. When we met back at her building, I told Floyd and Nole that I’d call the police, but not to expect much of a response, given the absence of evidence that anything suspicious had happened to her. As they thanked me for my concern, there was a loud cheer and some sustained applause from near the clubhouse.

Floyd looked in that direction. ”Well, somebody seems to have won their match.”

I said, ”The one with Cornel Radescu in it?”

”Timing’s about right.”

”I’d like to talk to him again.”

Don Floyd smiled. ”And I’d like to see that, but I’m afraid I’ll have to take a rain check. My bride and I scheduled an early supper.” He stuck out his hand. ”You need anything, John, you call me, hear?”

I thanked him and Shirley Nole both, then started walking toward the clubhouse.

There were about twenty people in the patio area between the pool and the tiki bar, but I spotted her right away. She stood behind him at one of the umbrellaed tables, kneading his neck muscles the way I’d seen her do once before. Though it’d been for her husband then.

From ten feet away, I said, ”Mrs. Helides.”

Both of them looked up at me. Cornel Radescu, shirt-less, opened his mouth, but his masseuse beat him to the punch.

”We ought to charge you for a membership. You’re here as much as I am.”

”I doubt it.”

There was a chair across from Radescu, and I sank into it.

From under his dark brow, he looked at my bandaged arm but just said, ”Why have you come back to this place?”

”Couple of reasons. Let’s start with Malinda Dujong.”

”Malinda?” said Helides.

”Yes. Either of you seen her recently?”

Radescu looked confused, Helides just vacant.

He gestured toward Dujong’s building. ”She lives over there, on the ground—”

”We’ve checked. No sign of her, and some indications that she hasn’t been in her unit for a while.”

Radescu put on a wary expression. ”If already you know this, why do you ask us?”

”Originally I thought the killing of Veronica Held was an isolated incident. Now I’m not so sure.”

Helides stopped the massage and came out from behind Radescu. ”Malinda was just giving Jeanette ‘spiritual guidance’ or something.”

”Partly because of Veronica’s death.”

”Yes,” said Radescu. ”But Malinda was not even there at the party that day.”

”So she told me.” I looked up at Helides. ”Do you know why?”

”Why what?” she said.

”Why Ms. Dujong wasn’t at your husband’s house.” Helides nearly stamped her foot. ”It’s my house, too, Mister.”

”But do you—”

”No!” barked Helides.

I noticed six or seven people turn to stare at us. ”Ms. Dujong told me she’d received a call to meet someone, supposedly referred to her by Jeanette Held.”

Radescu said, ”What difference does it make, the reason Malinda was not at the party?”

”It was a woman’s voice on the phone.”

”Okay,” said Helides. ”Maybe I’m stupid, but I don’t get what you’re talking about.”

I waited a beat. ”Did you make that call?”

”Me?”

”Yes.”

Fists to hips now. ”Why would I need a ‘spiritual advisor’?”

”Wait a minute,” said Radescu, coming forward in the chair, muscles bunching. ”Are you saying somebody kept Malinda from the party on purpose, and now has done something to her?”

”Pretty good summary.”

Helides looked to him, then back at me, the expression on her face like a kid accused of stealing a piece of somebody else’s candy. ”Well, I sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with it. Why would I?”

Time to test the waters. ”Sundy Moran.”

They exchanged looks again, but it was back to confused and vacant, respectively.