Spiral

on the tape, but then, perception is uniquely personal. ”You were there when Veronica sang to your father?”
    The worst cringe of all, the body on the bed seeming to spasm painfully. ”It was... horrible.”
    ”You didn’t anticipate it, then.”
    ”No. Oh, when we played some of the computer games, Veronica would make some... remarks I assume she heard from my brother or his friends.” A pause. ”Sexually charged remarks. But to act out like that in front of her grandfather....”
    ”David, what did you do after Veronica ran from the room?”
    ”I... ran, too.”
    ”Where?”
    ”Into the corridor, toward my suite here.”
    And the pool. ”Did anyone see you?”
    The smile again. ”John, surely you asked Dr. Forbes that question?”
    ”I know what he remembers. How about you?”
    ”I remember him catching up to me in the corridor, saying something to me. Something... soothing, probably.”
    ”Then what?”
    ”I came back here.”
    ”Did you see Veronica?”
    ”Not after she left the room. I could... hear my brother though.”
    ”Hear him?”
    ”Veronica was behind me, running in the other direction at that moment. My brother was... yelling after her.”
    ”What was he saying?”
    ”Foul, foul language.”
    ”As best you can recall it?”
    Helides braced himself. ”My brother said, ‘You little cunt, you’ve cut our fucking throats.’”
    The room seemed awfully still. ”Do you remember anything else?”
    ”No. I came back here, as I told you already. I closed the door to... cushion the fall from hearing Veronica do what she did.”
    ”The song, you mean?”
    ”The song,” said Helides.
    ”Did you hear anything from the pool area?”
    The vertical shake again. ”No, the... soundproofing in this house is quite good. Once that suite door is closed, nothing comes through.”
    ”So you never saw Veronica again, either?”
    ”No. Duy Tranh came to me later, so I wouldn’t stumble out into…"
    His body quivered and drew itself more tightly.
    ”David, do you remember anything else?”
    ”Yes.” The eyes fluttered open. ”Yes, I do.”
    ”What?”
    His eyes stared at the wall opposite the bed. ”I remember that in a family rather... short on love, Veronica gave me her version of it. A love I’d never felt, not even from my own… mother. It may have been bartered rather than freely… offered, but Veronica’s was love nonetheless to me.” Helides closed his eyes again. ”Do you remember when I talked about the... gumbo-limbo tree earlier?”
    ”The one the Native Americans used to catch birds?”
    ”A good listener you are, John. Yes. Well, not all the indigenous flora is quite so... benign.”
    ”What do you mean?”
    ”There is also the poisonwood, which grows as a tree but functions as poison ivy does up north. And the Christmas berry, which is a member of what you might know as the ‘nightshade family,’ with lovely five-petaled white or lilac flowers but also deadly fruit.”
    Again, the voice got progressively stronger as Helides spoke about things botanical.
    ”But John, the one species I’d like to find is a manchineel. The local agricultural authorities tried to stamp them out, and I’ve never seen one, not even at Flamingo Gardens in Davie, though the books say it still grows in the wild. And, like the Christmas berry, it produces a deadly fruit the size of a crab apple. But better than that is its sap.”
    ”Sticky, too?”
    ”No. No, the sap of the manchineel is supposed to ooze out of its trunk and branches and even leaves. And it is so caustic, those Caloosa Indians used the tree to interrogate their captives.”
    ”Interrogate them?”
    ”Yes. The prisoner would be lashed to the tree with strong vines, and the sap would run onto his skin, burning the flesh off the captive’s bone until the Caloosas were told the truth.”
    Jesus Christ.
    Helides opened his eyes again, but this time they rolled around in their sockets. ”That is what I would do, John, if I could find a manchineel. I’d tie the one who killed Veronica to it until he told me why, why he had to take her like that.”
    ”David-”
    ”And then, after he finally told me the truth, I’d leave him there. To be... melted slowly by liquid fire as he yearned for even a drop of the pool water he used to kill Veronica.”
    Standing up, I told David Helides that I hoped he’d have better dreams than I would.

THIRTEEN

    Driving back to my hotel, I was stopped at a red light when the cell