Spiral, page 15
part #13 of John F Cuddy Series
”What kind of stuff?”
Biggs broke in. ”Things like painting or photography, babe, shit that don’t need no talking.”
I looked over at him. ”Mr. Biggs, please?”
”I pay for the speech woman to help him, I can tell you what she think.”
”Yes, you can. I’d just rather hear it from Kalil, okay?” Biggs sat back in the chair, reaching for his cigarette pack before catching himself.
I returned to Kalil. ”You enjoy videotaping?”
Tiny nod.
”Have you been doing it long?”
A shrug.
”How long, Kalil?”
He looked over toward his father. ”Daddy got me the camera for Christmas, when my specialist said it was a good idea.”
”So, as of the time of the birthday party at Mr. Helides’s house, you’d had the camera for only a few weeks?”
”I guess.”
Might explain why he didn’t turn on the audio at first, but I asked anyway.
Kalil shook his head. ”Just forgot, with everybody running around the house.”
”Where around the house?”
”Everywhere. The living room, the kitchen, the p-p-p-p...”
Neck and jaw.
I said, ”The pool, Kalil?”
A nod.
”Did you go swimming that day?”
Another nod.
”Tell me about it?”
”We all went, mostly.”
”Who didn’t?”
”I don’t know. Just didn’t see everybody there when I was.”
”Was Veronica in the pool when you were?”
Again the nod.
”Why didn’t you use your camera then?”
Kalil looked up, and his father came forward in the third chair.
The son said, ”What?”
”Why didn’t you shoot tape of the pool part of the birthday?”
”Camera’s not supposed t-t-to get wet.”
Biggs said, ”I pay near fifteen hundred for that thing, babe. Damn well not gonna get it ruint.”
I glanced at him, and he sat back again.
”Kalil, why did you want the other cameras turned off during the party?”
A head shake this time.
”I mean the security cameras in Mr. Helides’s house.” He looked at me, then his father, then me again. ”It’s like I t-t-told the p-p-police.”
”Told them what?”
Hesitation. ”Was Very’s idea.”
”Veronica wanted the other cameras off?”
A double nod this time.
”Kalil, did she give you a reason?”
Just one nod now.
”What was it?”
”Very said I was supposed to have only mine.”
”Only yours?”
”Only my t-t-tape of her singing, for her granddaddy.” Which was when Kalil had turned on the camera’s audio. ”Did Veronica tell you why?”
”She just wanted it her way. Very was like that.” Something clicked for me. ”Didn’t it strike you as odd?”
”I just t-t-told you. She was—”
”Odd that Veronica wouldn’t want her grandfather to have a videotape of his own birthday party?”
A shrug.
Buford Biggs said, ”Could of just dubbed him one, after Kalil took the original.”
I looked at the father. Even though what he said was true, I didn’t think it was the truth.
Back to his son. ”Kalil, why didn’t you keep filming the party after Veronica sang?”
”Didn’t seem much sense t-t-to, everybody mad and all.”
”I don’t think that’s it.”
A stare this time, for the first time.
”I think Veronica told you to start the audio only when she began singing, and to stop the tape after she finished.” Kalil’s mouth opened as his father said to me, ”The hell you talking about, babe?”
”Your son didn’t just forget to engage the audio part of the camera at the beginning of the party. Veronica wanted him to do it that way, so she’d be the center of attention, even on the tape of her own grandfather’s birthday celebration.” I turned to my right. ”Kalil, that’s what happened, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure what would come out of the young man’s mouth until he began to wail, jumping up from the chair and running toward the sliding glass door.
”Very wanted me t-t-to have it, like the others. She was so b-b-beautiful.” Kalil couldn’t get the door to move. ”She d-d-didn’t have t-t-to d-d-die.”
He finally slid the door open, then didn’t close it after running inside.
Buford Biggs stood abruptly in front of me, his hands more fists at the end of his stringy forearms. ”Mother-fucker, you see what you done?”
I didn’t get up with him. ”Did your son take any other videos of Veronica Held?”
”You can piss shit, Mr. Mother-fucker, before me or my son talk to you again.”
”Mr. Biggs, where were you and Kalil after Veronica left her grandfather’s living room?”
I watched Buford Biggs stalk off toward the open doorway, sliding it violently shut behind him. Then I stayed in my chair a little longer, but not to wait for the hummingbirds this time.
I’d risen about halfway from my seat toward going back inside the house when the sliding glass door opened again and Malinda Dujong stepped out onto the patio. As she slid it back into place and came toward me, I stood all the way up and paid more attention to what she was wearing: a bright, silky dress that seemed custom-tailored as it floated with her strides, the shoulders padded a little above the delicate bone structure, the hem riding just south of her knees. Dujong’s calves were slim and perfectly shaped, heeled sandals on her feet. The closer she got, the more her eyes arrested me again, set deep in a face framed by lustrous black hair.
Dujong said, ”Kalil and then Buford go by me inside. They are very upset.”
I gestured at the chair Biggs, Sr., had been using. ‘Tour concern for them spares me trying to find you. Sit, please.”
Dujong looked at both empty chairs, then took the one I’d indicated, crossing her legs and smoothing the dress down over her knees. ”You say something to them?”
”I asked Kalil questions that he and his father didn’t like.”
A measuring stare, the irises seeming almost as black as the pupils. ”I hope I am not wrong about you, Mr. Cuddy.”
”Wrong?”
”When I believe that you do not hurt innocent people intentionally.”
”Innocence is a relative quality.”
”Relative.” A different stare. ”You make fun that Buford and Kalil are father and son?”
”No. I mean that there are degrees of innocence, just like there are degrees of guilt.”
”I understand now.” Dujong blinked twice. ”Why do you want to talk with me?”
”I’d like to find out what you know about Veronica Held’s death.”
”But I was not at the Colonel’s birthday party.”
Given the welter of people I’d seen on the video in Sergeant Lourdes Pintana’s office, I hadn’t noticed whether Dujong was there or not. I reached into my inside jacket pocket and took out the list of guests Justo Vega had made for me. She wasn’t on it.
Without leaning forward, Dujong said, ”The names of the people at the party?”
I folded the paper and slid it back into my pocket. ”Are you psychic as well as a spiritual advisor?”
”Yes.”
No hesitation, no hint of humor. Just quiet confidence in the answer. ”Then what am I thinking now, Ms. Dujong?”
”That you do not believe I am either one.”
Not exactly a stump-the-band question, though. ”Jeanette Held believes otherwise.”
”Because I have been able to help her.” A third stare. ”Perhaps I can do the same for you.”
”Help me with the case?”
”No. No, I mean with your loss.”
”My...?”
”The person you care about so deeply who you have lost so recently.”
My turn to stare. ”Who told you that?”
”You did, Mr. Cuddy.” Dujong waved a hand behind her. ”When we are inside the living room here.”
I tried to keep my voice steady. ”I think I’d have remembered.”
”Perhaps, though you did not use words.”
”Meaning, you can read my mind, too?”
Dujong remained perfectly still, but closed her eyes. ”Meaning I can sense such things. Body language, tone of voice, aura.”
”Aura.”
She opened the eyes, and I felt drawn into them. ”Because you wish not to believe me does not mean I am wrong. You are a man who has suffered many losses, but I think only one other more... difficult than this new one.”
I almost said, ”Beth,” before catching myself.
Dujong smoothed her dress again at the knees. ”It is painful for you to be doing this thing for Mr. Helides. Perhaps I can make it easier.”
”A minute ago you said you weren’t at the party.”
”That is right. However, I know some things which you might wish to know, also.”
I leaned back in my chair. ”Go ahead.”
”I am spiritual advisor to Jeanette, but much of what we talk about is her daughter.”
”Veronica.”
”Yes. Jeanette for a long time was very worried about her.”
I felt as though a confidence was being breached, but I wasn’t the one charged with protecting it. ”Worried how?”
”Many things. Jeanette does not like Veronica singing for her husband’s band.”
”Because?”
”Because of the way her daughter learns to... move her body, use her body to...”
”Give off an aura?”
Malinda Dujong stopped, her face perfectly neutral. ”You now make fun of what I do?”
I shook my head. ”A little, probably. I’m sorry.”
A smile showing bright, short teeth. ”A man who can apologize is a man who can learn.”
”Philippine saying?”
Better smile. ”Malinda saying.”
Back on track with a quality-control question. ”If Mrs. Held didn’t like Veronica being in her father’s band, why not pull her out of it?”
Dujong stopped, no more smile for me. ”You already ask Jeanette this question.”
”She told you.”
”No. I just feel you did.” The questioning stare. ”Please, Mr. Cuddy, do not play games with me. There is something very dangerous here.”
”Veronica’s killer.”
”Yes, but more than this only. Something... evil.”
”You feel that, too?”
Dujong’s face sagged, and she suddenly seemed older than the thirty or so I’d estimated. ”I know about evil, Mr. Cuddy. My village in the Philippines is small but close to the ocean. My father, my mother, my brothers go to the beach for fish, for sun, for... life.
”But there is also death, of course. And stories of it, too. The crab-monster, who lives in a cave and kills anyone who enters it because he wants the cave all to himself. And the jungle-monster, who hangs a person by the feet from a tree and eats one part at a time, every day. But for what happens to me, there is no story, just truth.”
Dujong drew in a long breath, let it partway out. ”One time when I am four years old, my family go to beach for fun. My brothers find a piece of driftwood, beautiful but strange. They carry home this piece, put it next to my bed that night before they try to find a rich person or tourist to buy it. I am asleep in my bed when I feel something bite me, sting me. I slap with my hands all around, but I cannot see anything.”
Dujong fixed me with those deep, black eyes. ”Except the driftwood falls over and breaks into many pieces, little pieces. I did not touch it, still it falls by itself.”
She began looking down now at her knees, folding her hands on them. ”The next day, my brothers are mad about the driftwood, because now they cannot sell it. I am sick, I think then from their anger. I cannot eat, that next night I cannot sleep. I begin to sweat badly, to cry out in fear.”
”Ms. Dujong—”
”Please. You ask about me feeling the evil. I am telling you now.”
I nodded.
She took a breath, returned her words to her hands and knees. ”Two days later, I am blind. I cannot see my mother’s face, my own fingers. I have only the difference between day and night. My father takes me to the clinic in a village fifteen miles away. The doctor examines me, he cannot tell anything is wrong. My father brings me home. My mother sings to me, and my brothers make toys for me, but I think I feel something moving inside me.”
”Moving?”
”Yes. Like a small... lump. It moves through my chest and belly, and up and down my arms and legs under the skin. But I am blind, and as a little girl, I curse what I do not understand.”
Dujong looked at me, trying to gauge something, I thought. ”You still listen to me?”
”I’m listening.”
”After I am blind almost a year, one night I get up to... to go to bathroom outside, because I can make my way without seeing. I fall down. I think I trip on something, but no. I cannot get back up. My legs fold under me, like kind of knife.” Dujong raised up on her sandaled left foot, bending her right leg double like a jackknife under her rump, leaving her sitting on the right foot. ”I cry out, my mother come. Next day, my father and my brothers carry me to village with clinic again. The doctor say same thing: He cannot tell anything is wrong. We go back home, and I cannot see, I cannot walk. My family must carry me everywhere, to beach, to bathroom outside. I am like a little baby but now five years old.”
I kept listening.
”Then my mother say there is a healer visiting our village for one day, and maybe he can help me. I do not believe, but the healer comes and touches me here and here.” Dujong indicated her chest, stomach. ”Then he touch me there and there.” Upper arms, thighs. ”Then he tell to my mother, he can maybe help.”
Crossing her arms, Dujong shivered. ”That night, the healer makes a fire and sings words in Tagalog—our language there. I remember I drink something from cup he hold to my lips. Then I begin crying out, and I cry out all night. Then I feel the healer squeezing on my leg, here.” She released a hand to point above her left knee, under the dress. ”The healer squeeze and squeeze, and then the evil come out.”
”It ‘came out’?”
”I can feel it, break out through my skin at the inside of my leg, and the evil smell terrible and my mothers voice is screaming and the healer sound scared, too. He yell at the evil, make it go away.”
”Go away?”
Dujong steadied her eyes on me again. ”Crawl away, on its... feet.”
Jesus. ”Ms. Dujong, I don’t—”
”Healer wrap my left leg in cloth and leaves. Next day, I can see. Not perfect, but more than just light and dark. One day more, and my right leg come straight.” She brought it forward now in her chair, unbending it until her sandal heel rested on the tiled patio. ”Third day, my left leg come straight. One week more, and my mother take off leaves and cloth. By then I can see well enough to...”
Malinda Dujong inched the hem of her dress above her left knee. There was an impression—almost a brand—in the flesh. The outline of a miniature, reptilian head, with spiky horns and a wide jaw.
Unless I was Charlie Brown, looking for portraits in a summer cloud.
I raised my head back to Dujong, and she drew the dress down over her knee again.
”That, Mr. Cuddy, is how I know evil.”
”Quite a story, but—”
”You do not believe.”
”That I don’t believe doesn’t make it untrue.”
A small, fleeting smile. ”Then please listen to me a little more. The day of the birthday party, I am supposed to be there.”
”You were invited, but didn’t attend?”
”Yes. Do you wish to know why so?”
”I would.”
Dujong refolded her arms across her chest. ”I am in my apartment that morning when I receive a telephone call. A woman’s voice I have not heard before. She is very upset. She say Jeanette Held is a good friend, that Jeanette told her about my help to her, and that she now needs help, too.”
”The woman on the phone.”
”Yes.”
”Her name?”
”She say ‘Wendy.’”
”How about a last name, too?”
”No. She does not want to tell me the rest because of her husband. I tell her I go to a party, and Wendy becomes more upset, say she must see me that afternoon, but not at her home, her husband will be there. Wendy say she try to call Jeanette, but get only the answering machine, probably because they are busy, prepare for the party.”
”Wait a minute. This Wendy woman knew about the party for Nicolas Helides?”
”Yes. Which mean she sound legitimate, especially because I call Jeanette, too, that morning, but get only machine. However, Wendy also very upset, I feel that over the telephone. So I tell her yes, I can see her at a Denny’s restaurant near my apartment, only she must be on time, so I can get to the end of the party. Wendy say yes, but please to wait if she not there on time, because she must wait for her husband to leave.”
”If he was going to leave anyway, why not go to her house?”
”Because he maybe come back.”
”Let me guess the rest. You went to the Denny’s and waited, but Wendy never showed.”
”That is right.”
”And when you asked Jeanette about her, Jeanette never heard of her.”
The small smile. ”Mr. Cuddy, you are not psychic.”
At first I didn’t get what Dujong meant. ”You never asked Jeanette Held about whether she had this friend?”
”Jeanette lose her only child to murder. She is so upset, I did not think it important.”
”How about the police?”
”The police?”
”Did you tell them about this Wendy woman?”
”When I arrive at the house of Mr. Helides that day, the police and ambulance already there in the street. I ask police in uniform what is happening, he tell me to stand back. I wave to Umberto at the gate, and he come over. I ask him, and Umberto say Veronica is dead. Then he ask me, where am I? I say I supposed to meet somebody. Then police dressed in shirt and tie come over, tell Umberto they need him and who am I?”
