Spiral

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