Spiral

”Dundee?”
    ”Yo?”
    ”You got a tire iron in your vehicle?”

    It took Dundee three tries, but he finally got the lock to spring. As the lid came up and the little light came on, I held my breath, but there was nothing inside the trunk. Well, almost nothing.
    Dundee started to reach for it, but Pintana said, ”No. Let the techies deal with the thing. Besides ” she glanced up at me, ”we can read what it says.”
    The sheet of paper lay centered on the trunk’s rug, a small flat rock as anchor. The letters were cut individually and pasted, just like the note I’d gotten back at my hotel.
    Only this one said, ”sHe’S Not HerE, cUdDy.”

    After Pintana sent Dundee in search of a rope or bungee cord to secure the trunk lid of the Celica, I said to her, ”I’ve seen one of these before.”
    She crossed her arms. ”Where?”
    I explained it to her.
    Pintana frowned. ”You didn’t report this note to me.”
    ”At the time, I thought somebody was just trying to help my investigation without identifying themselves.”
    ”Who?”
    I looked back down at the paper. ”That seems to be the question, doesn’t it?”

    When Dundee got back, Pintana and I walked over to Arthur Freeman. As we reached him, I thought the cat might jump down and run away, but apparently it was enjoying the petting too much.
    Pintana said, ”Mr. Freeman, this is John Cuddy. Would you mind repeating for him what you told me?”
    Freeman blinked and frowned. ”Might be easier, y’all arrived at the same time. I could tell about this fellow the once, get back onto my business.”
    Fellow came out ”feller,” and business, ”bidness.” Pintana put a little syrup into her next words. ”Please, Mr. Freeman?”
    He cleared his throat, but you could tell Freeman was going to cooperate, because he stopped stroking the cat. ”Yesterday, around five in the evening, this fellow come by in that yellow car. My sign there says five dollars to park-and-lock. Well, he had the bill already out in his hand. So I took it, and he drove into that space there.” The cat made a grumbling noise.
    I said, ”This man never spoke to you?”
    ”Not a word.”
    ”How about describing him?”
    ”Didn’t really look the fellow in the eye.”
    ”When he got out of the car, though?”
    The cat grumbled again, twisted its head toward Freeman. ”I was already taking on somebody else.”
    ”So you never saw him standing?”
    ”Not standing, not walking, not doing cartwheels if he could.”
    I smiled in spite of our topic. ”But you did say, ‘that’ car, not ‘his’ car.”
    Freeman looked up at Pintana. ”What, y’all train every cop to ask the same questions?”
    I said, ”Was there something about him that led you to—”
    ”That fetish thing.”
    ”Fetish?”
    Freeman now stared at me. ”You’re still a young enough fellow, you ought to know what a ‘fetish’ is. If not, I’d bet the farm this pretty little detective can show you.” I tried not to blush. ”Mr. Freeman—”
    ”Whatever y’all want to call it, I mean that thing hanging from the rearview mirror.”
    ”I still don’t see your point.”
    Arthur Freeman’s cat grumbled a third time, and he went back to stroking it, the cat’s eyes closing in ecstasy. ”Didn’t seem the kind of thing a fellow’d have in his own car. Felt kind of... feminine to me.”

    From behind her desk, Sergeant Lourdes Pintana said, ”Justo Vega is missing as well?”
    ”I tried calling you. Unfortunately, Cascadden answered.”
    Her eyes closed like the parking-lot cat’s, but I didn’t think in ecstasy. ”When was this?”
    I told her.
    ”Madre de Dios.” Opening her eyes, Pintana picked up the phone like it was a flyswatter, then just banged it down the same way. ”We don’t know where Mr. Vega was when he got taken?”
    ”Supposed to be en route, Miami to Fort Lauderdale.” Pintana exhaled loudly. ”So, city or county down there, city or county up here. Wonderful, just wonderful.”
    ”And even better that Cascadden’s caused you to lose a couple of hours getting on it.”
    Pintana glared at me, then shook her head and picked up the phone again. After punching in some numbers, she said, ”Cuddy, Mr. Vega’s car?”
    ”Cadillac coupe.”
    ”Tag number?”
    ”You mean his license plate?”
    ”Yes,” impatiently.
    I told her I didn’t know.
    Sergeant Lourdes Pintana had to hang up and start over. Again.

    Outside her office, I was walking toward the security