Spiral, page 8
part #13 of John F Cuddy Series
I thought back to what Duy Tranh had said to me about planning. ”Premeditated rather than opportunistic.” Cascadden seemed confused. Pintana picked up her pencil again before adding, ”Worse than that.”
”How do you mean?”
”Drownings are generally tough cases to make. Hard to determine whether it was intentional or accidental.”
”But I’m told the Held girl was an excellent swimmer.”
”Even excellent swimmers drown, especially if they get high before they hit the water.”
”High?”
”Lab reported cocaine in her system.”
Christ. ”We know where she got it?”
Cascadden said, ”Her shitbird father, probably.”
I stayed with Pintana. ”But the lab also reported those latex tracings from both—”
”Think about it, Mr. Cuddy. You just want to kill the girl, you leave her swimsuit on and keep her under the water by holding it. Chances are, little or no trace evidence, and the death is closed as accidental.”
I did think about it. ”But by taking off the suit, and using a condom and gloves, the killer makes it obvious.”
Pintana nodded.
I said, ”We were supposed to know it was intentional.”
Cascadden grunted. ”Less the perp’ just had to get his jollies, like I said before.”
Neither Pintana nor I acted like we’d heard him.
I said to her, ”And the killer knew in advance that the birthday party would provide perfect timing...”
Pintana pointed at me with her pencil... because the band member’s son wanted the house security cameras off when he made his video.”
”That’s what I’m thinking, too.”
When Pintana didn’t break eye contact with me, I said, ”Any chance of my getting a look at Kalil’s video?”
Cascadden said, ”Oh, sure thing, Beantown.”
His sarcasm was still dripping when Sergeant Lourdes Pintana tapped the pencil eraser against her front teeth and said, ”Why not?”
Kyle Cascadden threw up his hands and left the room. Either he’d forgotten his sports jacket or he didn’t believe in wearing one.
I said, ”The party’s already under way.”
”Sí.” The only Spanish word Pintana seemed to use. ”Buford and Kalil Biggs did not arrive at the very beginning of it.”
We were in her small office now, each of us with half our rumps on respective front comers of the desk, both of us staring at the monitor above her VCR.
I said, ”The house cameras were turned off by this point?”
”Approximately thirty minutes earlier. We were told that Veronica wished it so, and her grandfather made it so.”
I watched the silent images on the screen.
”Audio?”
”Kalil told us he forgot to engage it.”
The images bounced and shifted as whoever was carrying the camcorder—Kalil, probably—tried to pan the living room and the party-goers in it.
Pintana said, ”You have seen the interior of the house?”
”Yes.”
She pointed to a corner. ”That is the entrance to the corridor leading to the pool area.” The focus shifted away. ”Unfortunately, the entire tape is like this. Plenty of time for one of the guests to enter the pool area without being on camera.”
”Veronica, too?”
”Yes and no. I think he preceded her there, though.”
”You’re assuming a male did the killing?”
Pintana kept her eyes on the screen. ”I would not like to think that a woman—the ones at the party, anyway—would mimic a rape in killing another female.”
I thought about Cassandra Helides’s apparently avid interest in sex, but kept my own counsel on it.
Then I started counting the people onscreen that I could recognize. The Skipper and his wife. Duy Tranh. And now a brash, sassy girl with cornrowed, reddish-blond hair that I vaguely remembered seeing pictured on the television in a Boston bar the week before. Her gold lamé blouse was tucked into the waist of spandex tights, the material stretching over her upper thighs and buttocks. She looked at least seventeen.
”That’s Veronica?” I said.
”Sí.”
”I thought she was only thirteen?”
”Twelve and ten months, actually.”
Veronica and a number of adults ebbed and flowed across the none-too-steady lens. ”You’ve analyzed how much time each person is offscreen?”
”To the tenth of a second. It is hopeless. Apparently Kalil Biggs was striving for a ‘stream of consciousness’ in his cinema verité.”
”James Joyce meets Martin Scorsese.”
After a moment, Pintana said, ”Kyle would really hate you as a partner.”
Within ten minutes, there was food and drink being taken from a lavishly stocked buffet table that Kalil’s camera panned in the adjoining room. I could see what Pintana meant about the tape not being very helpful in locating who was where when.
Then we were back in the living room, focused on Veronica Held. Suddenly, she tore off her own blouse, showing a tank top underneath, budding breasts pushing against it. And Veronica began a suggestive, languid dance, her mouth and throat cords implying that she was singing.
I said, ”Is there any—”
”Kalil Biggs remembers now to click on the audio.”
And suddenly a piercing, achingly adult voice filled Pintana’s office. It wasn’t that the volume was turned up too high; it was more that Veronica’s voice carried so well. Maybe the reddish hair spurred the memory, but I was reminded of the signature song from Annie, ‘Tomorrow,” I think it’s called.
Except the a cappella lyric coming from Veronica Held’s mouth was anything but naively optimistic.
I said, ”She’s singing a song about sex with an older man on her grandfather’s birthday?”
Pintana said, ”Not for long.”
You could hear the thunder of the Skipper’s voice even through the garbling caused by his stroke. And while Veronica pouted—in a pretty fair imitation of Cassandra, her ”stepgrandmother”—the girl did stop singing before talking off, the camera following her until she was lost in the broader adult bodies. A stocky man in his forties with a
Manchu mustache hurried after Veronica, a woman in!*er thirties with flowers in her hair—literally—following ehind him.
”The parents?”
”Sí. Spi Held and Jeanette Held.”
”Can you identify the others for me?”
”If I hurry.” Pintana leaned forward, pressing the pad of an index finger to the screen over the face of a thin African-American man. ”Kalil’s father, Buford Biggs, the band’s keyboardist.” The finger moved to a fat, bald man and a stolid, sandy-haired woman. ”Gordo Lazar, the band’s bass player, and Delgis Reyes, Veronica’s au pair.”
I watched Lazar and Reyes. ”They seem closer than just joint guests.”
”Each told me they are involved with one another.” A pause before, ”Romantically.”
Another skinny man—white, with a bad hair transplant—came across the screen, a drink in his hand. Pintana said, ”The band’s manager, Mitch Eisen.” Cassandra Helides followed him, also carrying a drink, this one sloshing over the sides of her glass.
”And she is the wife of Nicolas Helides. Cassandra.” Next I got a couple of frames showing a guy in his twenties, the hair wildly platinum and orange, before the VCR made a clicking, whirring noise, and the screen went to snow abruptly.
”Who was that last one?”
”Ricky Queen, the band’s drummer.”
”Kalil have to switch tapes?”
”No. You have seen all he gave us.”
Didn’t seem right. ”How many minutes of running time after Veronica left the room?”
”One minute, thirty-two seconds. The reason I told you I would have to be quick to identify the other guests.”
I checked the digital timer on Pintana’s VCR. ”That says we’ve seen a total of only twenty-five minutes of tape?”
”Right.”
”You ask Kalil Biggs why he stopped rolling on his epic?”
”Sí. He said to me that he got bored with the party.”
I looked at Lourdes Pintana. ”Shortly after Veronica left it.”
The homicide sergeant just nodded.
”Let me give you my cellular number so you don’t have to play phone tag with the voice mail, okay?”
We were in the corridor leading to the metal security door by the reception area. I watched Pintana in front of me take a business card from the side pocket of her green, maybe-linen jacket.
At the door, she handed the card to me. I read the information on it, then looked back up at her. ”Good cop, bad cop.”
The twitch that was almost a smile. ”Polite cop, difficult cop.”
”Use whatever adjectives you want, but I have the feeling you and Cascadden were kind of playing me, him stonewalling so I’d be even more appreciative of whatever you gave me.”
Pintana did smile this time. ”I am playing you, Mr. Cuddy, but Kyle is not. He is what he seems, but he took a bullet for the city once, and he came back from it maybe a little harder than wiser. So I try to temper him, but I do not pretend to control him.”
”Yet he stays on Homicide?”
”The politics of heroism.”
”That’s pretty blunt.”
Her smile grew wider, as though my comment were a compliment. ‘Then allow me to be blunter still. The reason I am playing you is that this is the most problematic kiling I have seen in my time in the department, much less running Homicide. The captain I report to dumps on my head all the shit which is dumped first on his. I would like to really work this case, not shuttle to another press conference every time one of our esteemed politicians has a ‘promising lead’ for the police to follow. The force in Miami Beach suffered from the Cunanan-Versace media circus, and I myself have studied the Ramsey case in Colorado until my eyes cross. The fact is, though, that every one of the people at the Helides party may have put in the same amount of study, because they all either have gotten lawyers or claim to be dumb as fenceposts, and the forensic evidence doesn’t give me squat to use as leverage with any of them. If you can make better progress, I would welcome it, and I would hope you would share your results with me.”
”With you, not Cascadden.”
”Do not underestimate Kyle, Mr. Cuddy. A man who would step in front of a bullet is capable of many things.”
”He stepped in front of one?”
”Sí.” She pushed open the security door, ushering me into the little second-floor reception area. ”One meant for me, in fact. And Kyle does not appreciate another male showing him up before the woman he saved.”
By the time I turned around, the beige metal door was closed enough that I couldn’t see Lourdes Pintana’s face.
”And who are you showing up?” said Justo Vega as we went down the stairs toward the first floor.
”Long story. Will Pepe be outside?”
”I have never known him to fail in an instruction I have given him. Where do you wish to go?”
”Back to the hotel, pick up my rent-a-car.”
”You feel sufficiently familiar with the area now?”
”I can still read a compass.”
Justo gave one of his musical laughs. ”What did you think of Sergeant Pintana?”
”Smart and tough. Maybe even smart enough not to feel she has to show just how tough.”
”And a genuine beauty, a woman who grows more attractive the more one speaks with her. If I were not married already, she would be a good choice.”
I looked back at Justo before being aware of how my face must have looked to him.
”Oh, John. Forgive me, please. I — ”
”No forgiveness is necessary among friends.”
The grave nod. ”Perhaps not, but an apology is still appropriate, and I extend it.”
My turn to nod, and then we went through the doors that could remind you of an airport terminal and into the heat of the nearly midday sun.
SIX
After Pepe dropped me back at my hotel, I stopped by the front desk to see if there were any messages for me. The clerk seemed a little nervous, but dutifully checked his computer before saying yes, a ”Mr. Tranh” had called a while before.
I thought I should return it from my room, so I went up there. Once inside, I touched the beach photo atop the bureau again on my way to the bed. Using the mattress as a seat, I dialed, and Tranh’s voice answered midway through the second ring.
”John Cuddy, returning your call.”
”You are at your hotel?”
He sounded miffed. ”Yes.”
”Before trying you there, I dialed your cell phone, but without success.”
I stared at bottom drawer of the bureau, where I’d left the portable. ”I didn’t have it with me.”
”Mr. Cuddy, do you even have it turned on?”
Now a sardonic tone to Tranh’s voice. I waited a moment before saying, ”No.”
He took an equal amount of time, then said, ”I dialed your cellular as a test, to be sure the Colonel could reach you if necessary. As he cannot always be available himself for a return call from your hotel room, could you please keep the cell phone fully charged and with you—power on—at all times?”
”I’ll do my best.”
”Thank you again. I see no need to trouble the Colonel with the reason for my reminder to you.”
Favor supposedly owed. ”I appreciate that.”
”Good-bye, Mr. Cuddy.”
I started to say the same before realizing that Duy Tranh had already hung up on me.
Rising from the bed, I went over to my bureau and retrieved the cell phone from its drawer. When I pushed the button marked PWR, the tiny window lit up with a pale green background, telling me the phone’s own dialing number. A bar graph on the right-hand side showed the battery as fully charged.
I slipped the unit into my inside jacket pocket and went to the door. When I pulled it open, something like a battering ram hit me square in the chest.
Backpedaling, I registered Detective Kyle Cascadden’s following through with an open right hand to my breastplate. Granted I wasn’t expecting it, he’d still managed to drive almost two hundred pounds of me to the edge of the bed eight feet into the room.
I stayed on my feet as the back of my knees hit the mattress. Cascadden had slammed the door with his left hand and kept coming, bringing his right up to my throat and grabbing hold. Not choking me, just getting my attention and keeping it.
”All right, Beantown, now here’s the program. I got the room clerk by the short hairs, account of he’s got an old drug conviction I know about but the hotel don’t. So he called me soon’s he knew you were back up here. I got that kind of stuff on enough people, I can find you wherever you go in my town. We clear on that?”
I gave what I thought Cascadden would take to be a weak nod.
”Rest of the program. I don’t much like you coming into my squad room, showing me up with your high-handed Yankee power-trip. You were working for some dogshit defendant, I’d have to give you a mite of leeway, account of the courts won’t let me tell witnesses not to talk with the accused’s investigators.’ But you’re just butting your nose in where it don’t belong, and I don’t like that either. Fact is, I don’t much like anything about you. So, I catch you even just a bitty-bit dirty—like maybe you carrying unlicensed?—and Beantown, I’m gonna be on you like flies over horseshit. We clear on that, too?”
Another weak nod from me.
Cascadden started to squeeze harder on my throat. ”And I don’t mean formal, neither. I mean I come out and see you personal, like now, only maybe you gonna walk away with worse than some ache in your Adam’s apple.” A grin. Or, maybe you don’t walk away at all.”
Sagging a bit in my shoulders, I flopped my left hand up toward his right elbow under the shirtsleeve, my thumb and middle finger lightly probing on each side of the joint for the right spot. The one the unarmed-defense sergeant showed us in the sawdust pit back in Military Police Officer Basic.
When Cascadden squeezed harder still on my throat, I pinched my fingers into the flesh.
His right hand went limp against my collarbone as his eyes bugged and his face drained of color. Then he folded over at the belly, drawing in a ragged breath. When Cascadden let out the breath, he wheezed.
I said, ”This amount of pressure, you almost can’t think from the pain, right?”
One abrupt nod.
”A little more pressure, and you’d drop to your knees, maybe throw up all over my carpet here. Are we communicating?”
Another nod, more abrupt.
”All right, Cascadden, the difference between us is, I’m doing this to you only because you ran your routine on me first. I didn’t ask for the job I’m doing here, but I’ll do it, and things might be better for both of us if you could see your way clear to cooperate. If you can’t, though, just stay the hell away from me, and save the rousting for the college kids come Spring Break. Okay?”
An even faster nod than the first two, almost as though his head wanted off his neck.
I let go of the elbow, and his arm drooped to his side. Still doubled over, Cascadden stumbled backward a few steps, his left hand going up to the right elbow, massaging it tentatively. ”Mother-fucker... Mother-fuck-er.”
”Sticks and stones, Cascadden. Now get out of here.”
He turned and awkwardly used his left hand to open the door, letting the spring carry it shut behind him rather than slamming it as he had on his entrance.
That was when I caught myself in the mirror over the bureau. Grinning in a way I never thought I would.
The way that says you enjoyed what you just did.
* * *
I recognized him, but I also realized I’d have had a hard time describing him.
The nervous desk clerk was handing an older woman an envelope across the counter, using his hands to give her some kind of directions. He was about five-nine, with fine features and hair slicked back with some kind of gel. I waited until the woman walked away before going up to him. When he caught my movement, he looked up, smiling professionally.
