Spiral

Held told me most of his composing was done by computer.”
    Forbes blinked again. ”And therefore?”
    ”Why didn’t Veronica use her father as a computer teacher?”
    ”I’m not sure they got along all that well.”
    ”Spi and his daughter?”
    ”Correct.”
    ”But David and Veronica did?”
    ”With respect to the computer, Mr. Cuddy, and that’s part of my point.”
    ”Then I’m not seeing it.”
    A labored sigh as he reeled in his fishing line. ”One of the few... connections between David and the ‘real’ world outside his house and the hammock was his contact with his niece when she came to visit her grandfather. One of the few remaining connections is his ‘virtual’ linkage via computer, something he and the girl sometimes did together. I would hate to have you... discourage David from resorting to the online world by resurrecting now-painful memories of his niece doing that with him.”
    ”I can live without him demonstrating his computer to me, but David was at his father’s birthday party, and is therefore a viable suspect in Veronica’s murder.”
    ”No.” Forbes pulled the rod in half and moved to stow it back under the gunwale. ”No, I don’t see that.”
    ”Why not?”
    ”To begin with, my patient attended that party only to please Nicolas, and just being there was a terrible strain on David. I could tell.”
    I thought about my private screening at Sergeant Pintana’s office. While Forbes’s name was on the guest list Justo had compiled for me, I couldn’t remember seeing him on the videotape Kalil Biggs had shot. ”You were at the party that day?”
    ”Yes, but I stayed with David most of the time, and after the ‘singing incident,’ I checked to be sure he was all right.”
    ”Checked where?”
    ”With David himself, before he went back to his suite to recover.”
    ”Recover.”
    ”From the emotional trauma of his niece’s... ‘performance'.”
    ”But you didn’t stay with David?”
    ”No, I spent time with Nicolas instead. And again after the girl’s body was discovered. And that’s my second point, actually.”
    ”What is?”
    ”It’s my understanding from Nicolas that the police believe this killing was carefully planned. As a severe depressive, David is incapable of such.”
    ”Since he got a driver’s license, tends his plants at that hammock, and lives through his computer, I think you might be wrong there.”
    ”I’m not, Mr. Cuddy, but even if I were, it’s also my understanding that his niece was sexually assaulted.”
    I nodded.
    ”Then,” said Forbes, ”David isn’t a viable’ suspect, as you characterize it.”
    ”Because?”
    ”Mr. Cuddy, earlier I alluded to the side effects of antidepressant drugs?”
    ”You did.”
    Forbes moved over to the dashboard. ”Well, one of Zoloft’s principal drawbacks is decreased sexual desire and capacity.”
    I focused on the adjective. ”Just ‘decreased.’”
    ”In most who take it. However, David has been on such a high dosage for so long, he’s incapable of achieving an erection.”
    ”There are devices he could have—”
    ”No. No, Mr. Cuddy, even if David could have found a ‘device’ to accomplish the penetration, he would have no sexual interest in his niece.” Dr. Henry Forbes sighed. ”Or in anybody else, for that matter.”

TWELVE

    It was nearly seven p.m . when I turned onto the Isle of Athens. Approaching the Helides gate, I saw only one television truck and a small klatch of reporters standing in the street, two sharing a cigarette. Too late for the early news, they probably were hanging around in hopes of getting something for the eleven o’clock broadcast.
    I drove through them slowly as they called out soundbite questions to me through the windows of the Cavalier. Umberto Reyes came from his little gazebo and opened the gate. When I got to the garage, I saw the pickup truck I’d noticed on my first visit snugged up against one of the bay doors.
    After ringing the front bell, I waited long enough for someone to answer it that I figured whoever it would be had to have walked a long ways.
    The whoever was Duy Tranh. Wearing a pinstriped shirt, khaki slacks, and a determined frown.
    ”Mr. Cuddy, I thought it was clear from last night that you were to use the back entrance.”
    ”I must have forgotten.”
    ”When Mr. Umberto Reyes called to say you were coming, that’s where I went to let you in.”
    ”I’m really sorry for your inconvenience.”
    My reply