Spiral

Cuddy.”
    ”John—”
    ”I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, but I’ve been in Florida, and—”
    ”Florida?”
    ”It’s a long story, Drew.”
    A pause on his end. ”John, I’m afraid we’ve got a problem.”
    Just what I needed. ”Go ahead.”
    ”Remember when you were here last time, and I told you about my mom being sick?”
    ”Some kind of flu, right?”
    ”That’s what we thought, but when she didn’t get better, we took her to the doctor, and it’s not a virus.”
    ”So what is it?”
    ”An allergy.” Another pause. ”To cat dander.”
    Shit. ”Renfield.”
    ”Right. I guess it wasn’t so bad when Nancy was living above us, because the cat didn’t stray much, given his legs and all. But we’ve been showing her apartment, so Mom’s been carrying him down to ours. And now with the allergy, we can’t have him here anymore.”
    I felt a tug behind my belt buckle. ”What are you going to do?”
    ”Either give Renfield away or bring him to an animal shelter. And my wife says today is the deadline.”
    I thought about Nancy and how much she’d loved the little guy. About my nursemaiding him after his operation and how he’d imprinted on me.
    About how Renfield had looked and sounded when I’d gone back to Nancy’s place to clean out my stuff there.
    ”John?” from Drew Lynch.
    ”I’ll take him,” I said, before I could change my mind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Jeremiah Healy, a graduate of Rutgers College and Harvard Law School, was a professor at the New England School of Law for eighteen years. He is the creator of John Francis Cuddy, a Boston-based private investigator.
    Healy’s first novel, Blunt Darts, was selected by The New York Times as one of the seven best mysteries of 1984. His second work, The Staked Goat, received the Shamus award for the Best Private Eye Novel of 1986. Healy has been nominated for a Shamus a total of twelve times (six for books, six for short stories). Healy’s later novels include So Like Sleep, Swan Dive, Yesterday’s News, Right to Die, Shallow Graves, Foursome , Act of God, Rescue, Invasion of Privacy, and The Only Good Lawyer. The last two were Shamus nominees for best novel as well.
    Healy has served as a judge for both the Shamus and Edgar awards. His books have been translated into French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, and German. Currently the North American vice president of the International Association of Crime Writers, he was president of the Private Eye Writers of America for two years. Healy has written and spoken about mystery writing extensively, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Literature Series, the Sorbonne in Paris, and international conferences of crime writers in New York, England, Spain, and Austria. A member or chair of panels at twelve World Mystery Conventions (”BoucherCons”), Healy also served as the banquet toastmaster for the 1996 BoucherCon and as Guest of Honor at the 1997 Dallas mystery convention. In October 1998 he hosted the International Association of Crime Writers as part of the World Mystery Convention in Philadelphia.



JEREMIAH HEALY is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
    He won the Shamus Award for The Staked Goat, and has been nominated five additional times for Best Novel and five times for Best Short Story. SPIRAL is the thirteenth book in his acclaimed series featuring John Francis Cuddy.