Spiral (29 page)

I woke up Friday morning at five-thirty, as though my body was punishing itself. Lying under and on the sheets made clammy by my own sweat and the hotel room’s recycled air, I had a strobe memory of the dream I’d been having.

The churning sea again, the body sinking through the water below me, the dark hair billowing upward. But this time, when I finally dived down far enough to grasp the hair, the face that tipped upward belonged not to Nancy, but Malinda Dujong.

Which at least gave me a reason to get out of my bed and on with the day.

The fleet of parked cars had returned to Spi and Jeanette Held’s house. When I pressed the button at the front door, though, no one came to answer it, despite the song chords chiming inside.

After two more tries, I walked around the side of the house to see if I could raise anyone at the sliding glass doors to the kitchen. Once I came in sight of the pool, though, I spotted Buford Biggs, apparently asleep on a lounge chair. He wore a sweatshirt and sweatpants, reminding me of David Helides.

Except for being out in the morning air.

As my shoes hit the tiles of the pool apron, Biggs opened his eyes. When I reached him, he closed them again, a sour smile curdling his lips.

”Didn’t see you at the slaughter last night, babe.”

I said, ”The slaughter?”

”Our gig at that place you caught us doing the sound check.”

There was a patio chair close enough that I didn’t have to move it. Sitting down, I said, ”Things didn’t go well.”

”‘Well’? Babe, thirty years ago, we would of got lynched, white boys included.”

”What happened?”

”What didn’t?” The eyes moved under his closed lids, like a dog dreaming fitfully. ”Even after Ricky talk with the houseman, the mikes and the P.A. system for the audience still all fucked up. And it didn’t help none that Spi figured he needed a toot on the drive over, Gordo not letting any of the lines go to waste.” Biggs moved his head slowly, left-right-left. ”The groups that come back, they don’t do that nose shit no more. Their drug of choice be golf now.” His head stopped moving. ”And then Spi start ragging on the crowd, chase most of them out before we could do a second set.”

”That go any better?”

”Some, but not enough.” A sigh. ”Problem wasn’t just the P.A. and how we sound coming over it, though. Or even Spi and Gordo cruising the ozone. Uh-unh. Problem is, the new songs just plain suck, and ain’t no sound system or musicians in the fucking world gonna save bad material.”

”You sound pretty philosophical about it.”

Biggs opened his eyes. ”Philosophical?”

”For a man who told me how much he needed the money from Spiral making this effort.”

”My best hope.” The eyes grew troubled. ”And Kalil’s. But when hope die, you better off digging the grave soon’s you can, and move on.”

”To what?”

Buford Biggs closed his eyes again. ”Remain to be seen, babe. That remain to be seen.”

The sliding glass doors were unlocked, and inside the kitchen, things were quiet enough to hear a clock ticking. It felt as though the rest of the house’s occupants were sleeping off the bad night before.

As I walked into the hall, I heard a cough from the direction of the living room. A sound I thought might belong to the person I’d come to see.

When I got to that open doorway, Jeanette Held was lying on the couch. She wore an oversized T-shirt with a Mickey Mouse pattern on it. From the way the bottom of the shirt clung to her, I didn’t think she had anything on underneath.

Bowie, lying on the floor near her, growled as I said, ”Jeanette?”

She started, then sat halfway up, thinking after a moment to tug the T-shirt farther down her legs. ”What do you want?”

”I’m sorry to bother you, especially after hearing how badly things went at the club last night.”

”Yeah,” she said, swinging her feet down onto the floor and rubbing her eyes like a cranky child. ”That’s what I heard, too. But not before three in the morning.”

”You weren’t there?”

”What, at the big ‘comeback’ show? No, I couldn’t see the point.” Held left her eyes alone, raking at her reddish-blond hair with the left hand. ”You haven’t been around here enough to get a sense of just how shitty Spi’s new stuff is. Believe me, I have. But even if I’d never heard a note or a word, Spi was happy to let me know how everything that went wrong last night was because of the ‘fucking asshole on the control board,’ or the ‘fucking college pricks don’t know what the Beach Boys and Beatles did for the music,’ and so on till I couldn’t stand him anymore.”

”So you came down here to sleep.”

”And he was probably too zipped on the snow to even notice I was gone.” Held seemed to register something. ”Hey, I asked you before, what’re you doing here?”

”Can I sit somewhere, Jeanette?”

She collapsed back into the cushions of the couch, the T-shirt riding up, her seeming not to notice. ”At this point, I guess I just don’t fucking care.”

Bowie watched me take a chair to the side of her. Once seated, I put my necessary question. ”Have you heard from Malinda Dujong yet?”

”Malinda? No, and she can find somebody else to ‘spiritually advise,’ she doesn’t even return my—”

”I was there.”

Held looked confused. ”Where?”

”At her condo, when the police and I played back her tape messages.”

Confusion became concern. ”The police?”

”Yes. No one seems to have seen or been contacted by Ms. Dujong for a couple of days now, and she’s broken more appointments than just yours.”

Held said, ”Christ.”

Bowie growled again.

”Jeanette, do you know anybody named 'Wendy’?”

”Wendy? I suppose I must have gone to school with some, but... nobody down here, if that’s what you mean.”

I nodded, feeling better about Pintana’s and my speculation at the Homicide Unit. ”Did Ms. Dujong ever mention the names ‘Sundy Moran’ or ‘Ford Walton’ to you?”

”Sunday...?”

”Moran, a woman. And Ford Walton.”

Held raked her hair again. ”No. No, I don’t think so.”

”They’re both dead, Moran close enough in time to your daughter that I thought they could be related. Now I more than think it.”

”What... what did this Moran woman have to do with Very?”

I explained about Tommy O’Dell and Donna Moran. ”Christ. This wasn’t bad enough as a nightmare, now I’ve got to worry about some dead guy Spi used to play with?”

”And write songs with, though I don’t know whether that’s another connection or not. What I suspect is that Veronica’s killer used Sundy Moran to call Malinda Dujong as ‘Wendy,’ a friend of yours.”

Confused now. ”A friend of mine?”

”I think the killer thought of it as a play on words, Jeanette. Sundy like Sunday, Wendy like Wednesday.”

”But what... what would this woman be calling Malinda for?”

”To keep Ms. Dujong away from the birthday party that day.”

”Keep her... away?” More confused. ”Why?”

”For the same reason that I’m afraid Ms. Dujong is missing. The killer somehow felt she could tie him to Veronica’s death.”

”Malinda?”

”Yes”

”And now...” Held shook her head. ”And now you think something’s happened to her?”

”I do.”

”Well, I don’t see how I can help you. Or Malinda. She never said anything about who killed my baby.”

”Jeanette, once the person who murdered Veronica also killed Moran and Walton, I don’t see a reason he’d have to silence Ms. Dujong, too.”

”I...” A helpless shrug. ”I don’t follow you.”

”Moran and Walton maybe could tie him to your daughter’s death, but at most Ms. Dujong could recognize Moran’s voice if the police ever had a lineup.”

Held nodded, trying. ”And if this Moran woman was dead, Malinda couldn’t hear her voice as—what, the one calling her, you said?”

”Right.”

”So?”

”So I think Ms. Dujong could have figured out who the killer was, even without being at the party to ‘sense’ something.”

Held shivered, hugging herself across the chest as Bowie lifted his head and whuffed. ”If Malinda had been there, Very might still be alive?”

Bad path to start down. ”We’ll never know that, Jeanette. But I think you may be able to help me.”

Held sank back to confused. ”How?”

”Ms. Dujong advised you, both before and after... the Colonel’s birthday.”

”Yes.”

”If you can tell me how she goes about that, maybe I’ll be able to see the way Ms. Dujong sensed who the killer was.”

”You mean, like, how Malinda does what she did with me?”

”Right.”

”Christ,” said Held, losing it a little. ”If I knew that, I wouldn’t have needed her.”

”Please, Jeanette. You’re kind of the last hope for me.”

”Hope.” The woman in front of me seemed to regain some ground. ”Not a lot of that going around anymore.”

As I thought about Buford Biggs at the pool, Held said, ”We’re gonna go through all this shit, I’m gonna need coffee.” She stood. ”A bucket of it.”

It smelled like Frangelico liqueur in the kitchen, but probably because Jeanette Held had emptied a coffee bag she called ”Vanilla Hazelnut” into the fancy grinder.

Held brought a steaming mug with Disney’s Goofy baked onto it over to the island counter, taking a stool diagonally across from me, as though the extra distance from the source of her current misery could ease the cumulative pain. I sat over a tall, cylindrical glass glazed the color of a Christmas wreath and filled with orange juice. Bowie lay on the tiles between us, chin on his white forepaws.

Held took a long, loud slurp from her mug. ”How Malinda helps me.”

”Or what she does, the process.”

”Process.” A shorter slurp, just as noisy. ”At the beginning—months ago—I was just kind of thrashing around. My husband didn’t seem too interested in our marriage thing anymore. My daughter was in her own world at school before Spi got his fucking brainstorm about bringing her into the band. I guess I was mired in the typical, ‘I’m pushing forty and life sucks,’ you know?”

”I think so.”

Held set down her mug. ”Well, Malinda was a real help there. Cassie knew her from the club, said this spiritual-advice stuff had really helped some of her friends there. So,

I decided to give it a try.”

”What happened then, Jeanette?”

”First time Malinda came over, she had me talk to her in each room for like ten minutes.”

”Each room of this house?”

”Right. I asked her why, and she said she’d tell me later. Well, an hour, hour and a half after we started, Malinda said, ‘Let’s go back to the living room.’ And as soon as we did, I started to—I don’t know exactly, but kind of... relax? It was like I suddenly felt that was where I ought to be talking to her. And when I said that, Malinda just smiled and told me she sensed it, too.”

”Meaning Ms. Dujong was comfortable as well?”

”No, no. Meaning she could sense that I was comfortable there. And so we’ve had our little interludes in that room.”

‘”Interludes’?”

”Malinda’s word for what the shrinks call ‘sessions.’”

”What do these interludes involve?”

”Mostly talking.” Held took some more coffee. ”Sometimes we’ll be sitting like we are now—across from each other, I mean, but facing each other, too. Other times, Malinda has me lie down on the couch—the way I was when you came in before.”

”And still mostly talk?”

”Yes. Oh, maybe once in a while, Malinda will walk over and kneel down next to the couch, hold my hand. Or move her fingers in circles on my head.”

”Circles?”

”Like so.” Held put down her mug again, then brought both middle fingers up to her temples and massaged gently in a circular motion. ”But mostly we just talk. Or I do.”

”Ms. Dujong doesn’t say much herself?”

”No.” Held lowered her hands to the countertop. ”Malinda’s way of advising is more asking you to tell her how you feel, where the stress is coming from, and then finding out how you can vent it.”

”The stress.”

”Right. Exercise, diet, even confronting the people causing it.”

”Confronting them, Jeanette?”

”Actually, that’s my word.” More coffee. ”Malinda’s always nudging me to talk things out with people, get their side and show them mine.”

Pretty much common sense. ”What’s the spiritual part of it?”

”Not to keep things in. Malinda says it muffles the spirit, takes oxygen away from the flame we all have burning inside us. She’s told me, you use your mouth to let out the bad feelings, the head and the heart won’t burst.”

”So, who have you talked with?”

A strange look. ”Malinda.”

”I mean, who were the people causing you stress?”

”Oh. Spi’d be number one.”