Spiral

slit his wrists with it, all I care.”
    Spi Held watched his wife until she disappeared into the corridor. He shook out his hand before shutting off the water and turning around. ”And what the fuck are you doing?”
    ”Same thing I’ve always been.”
    A woozy grin. ”Playing surrogate son?”
    ”What?”
    Held reached for a dish towel. ”Hey, don’t go dumb on me, okay? The great ‘Colonel Helides’ was always off playing soldier with guys like you instead of home playing daddy with me. Or even fucking David. Then, when I told my brother the truth about how he killed Mom by being born, my ‘hero’ father throws me out, cuts me off without a dime. And if I let ‘the Colonel’ know I don’t care how much he wants to play daddy now that he’s old and sick....”
    I kept my temper as Held began wrapping the towel around his hand.
    ”...the bastard’ll cut me off again, especially with Very gone.”
    ”Maybe not, if I can figure out who killed her.”
    ”Yeah, well.” Held looking up from his first-aid. ”I don’t see you’ve done anything more than the cops. Those pigs may suck, but at least they work for free.”
    ”Like it’s your money paying my bill?”
    Held stared at me, a shadow of the drug haze creeping back. ”Someday, maybe.”
    Stupid thing to say if he was the one who tried to trigger a terminal attack in his ailing father. ”You ever speak with Malinda Dujong about Veronica’s murder?”
    ”Yeah.” Held finished with the dish towel. ”I told her my fucking wife wasn’t crazy enough before this, she’s probably gonna crack like a fucking egg over it, so keep an eye on her.”
    ”Did Dujong tell you anything?”
    ”Me? I don’t need any of her oriental New Age shit.”
    ”I didn’t necessarily mean advice. Maybe more information.”
    ”About what?” said Held.
    ”Your daughter’s death.”
    ”Very’s...?” Both hands dropped to his side. ”The fuck could Malinda know about that?”
    "I m sorry?"
    ”She wasn’t even there that day, man. What could Malinda tell you about Very getting drowned?”
    That’s when it occurred to me. The way I could maybe—
    Held took a step toward my stool. ”I said, what could Malinda—”
    I got up and turned away from him. ”I wasn’t there either, but I’ve learned a lot about it.”
    As I went back through the sliding glass door, Held yelled, ”Learned what?”
    Leaving the door open so that Spi Held could follow me if he wanted, I stepped onto the patio. Instead, he stamped across the kitchen and rammed the door shut so hard, I thought its glass would shatter like his wife’s coffeepot.
    From the lounge, Buford Biggs watched me. Quietly, he said, ”You not be brightening anybody’s morning, babe.”
    ”Just my own.”
    ”What you find out, make Spi go bullshit like that?”
    ”The same thing Malinda Dujong did. And I finally know how to use it.”
    As I started walking away from him, Buford Biggs said, ”What you talking about, babe?”
    I didn’t answer him this time.

    Generally, I prefer to think things through more thoroughly before setting any kind of trap. Be a little more certain that the message would get circulated among all the people I’d want to have hear it. But the timing seemed just right, and if I didn’t seize the moment, I thought another might not come along.
    I also thought that the first person out of the Held house would be the one.
    Drawing the Olds Achieva even with a sprawling shade tree three blocks away, I pressed all four window buttons to get some natural cross-vent. Then I waited, using the rearview mirror to watch the driveway behind me as I went over my logic.
    Somebody decides to kill Veronica Held for a motive I can’t isolate. The same somebody figures that the Colonel’s birthday party would bring together a wide array of potential suspects to deflect attention from that motive. But the killer also has some fear—maybe founded, maybe not—that if Malinda Dujong were at the party, the ”spiritual advisor” would be able to ”sense” why Veronica might be a target. So the killer enlists or threatens Sundy Moran, a woman with a blood connection to Spiral from the old days, to call Dujong and thereby keep her away from the Skipper’s house. Moran can tie the killer to that call, though, so Moran has to die as well. And, once she does, Dujong couldn’t pick her out of a voice lineup.
    Only then Nicolas Helides brings me into it. I start rattling cages on Tuesday into