Hoodwink

by Rhonda Roberts

  Spending the next few days in jail would stop my mission as effectively as anything Brigham could do.

  I tapped the steering wheel with my finger. Brigham was probably lurking around here somewhere. Why had he been asking about me at the studio? And why had he gone round to Phyllis’ house?

  I forced myself to stop that train of thought. I didn’t have time to waste trying to second-guess the NTA. My one and only chance of keeping my place in the training program was to solve the murder.

  I pulled Susan’s diary out of my satchel. It was a day-by-day schedule of Earl’s activities for this last vital week. When, where, who. I’d been happy with it until this morning; now I didn’t know what was true, what was a guess and what was an outright lie.

  No mention of death threats or attempted murder by car, and no screwing in the cabana.

  Nothing special was noted for tonight. According to Susan, Earl spent a quiet night at home working on the script.

  Sure.

  I gazed over at Ceiba House. Earl was probably inside drinking the liquor cabinet and polishing his revolver.

  Hmm.

  I tossed the diary onto the back seat and reached for the top file in the box next to me, a heavy grey one. It was the subject index Bloom’s team had put together.

  It had an alphabetical index at the front, which listed all the people, locations and topics Bloom thought I might need data on. I hadn’t had time to check it in detail before, but now I realised just how skimpy it was. All they’d put under Ada Bronstein was her apartment address and details of her studio job. There was nothing under R for Renfrow and nothing about organised crime in Los Angeles.

  Great. That file hit the diary.

  All that was left was an envelope of photos. It was packed with pictures of anyone Bloom and Susan thought could be involved or I may need to identify. Well, as many as they could supply in two days. It must’ve been hard digging up so many archival photos of people from 1939. Some I knew had come from Susan’s own family photos, others had come out of library collections.

  The photos were arranged alphabetically, like the index file. There was a note printed on the back of each one, identifying the people in the photo, and saying when and where it had been taken.

  I’d flicked through the photos before I left, but I’d concentrated on people I definitely knew I’d meet. People on Susan’s schedule, like Ada, Earl, Selznick and the cast of Gone with the Wind. But the rest were just a crowd of old-fashioned faces.

  I picked through, searching for Lewis Renfrow or Ruby.

  Nothing.

  I threw the envelope on the pile with the rest and switched off the torch.

  Sinking back in the seat I studied the house. If only I’d been able to get details about the death threats out of Earl. But just the mention of those ugly little dolls scared him back into rigid silence and had his hand reaching for the nearest bottle.

  As I sat there mulling everything over, a dark green Oldsmobile passed me to pull into Earl’s drive. I pulled the binoculars out of the glove compartment in time to see a small balding man with overly long sideburns and a thin dark moustache step into the brightly lit alcove at the front door. He rang the doorbell.

  I knew that face.

  I grabbed the envelope off the back seat and switched the torch on again. The photo wasn’t a clear one. I recognised him more from the bald head and sideburns than the face.

  He was part of a group standing around Clark Gable.

  I turned the photo over to read the back-story. Neves. Bonifacio Neves. Antique dealer to the stars …

  Earl’s Portuguese antique dealer.

  Neves specialised in hard-to-come-by exotica. Earl had bought half of his collection from this same guy.

  I switched off the torch. Was Earl making another purchase?

  Gilbert opened the front door but didn’t invite Neves in. An unexpected visit from the looks of it.

  Neves was talking and waving his arms around. Gilbert put up one hand as though to say ‘wait’, then shut the door again. Earl was probably either in a complete stupor or waving the gun around too much for Gilbert to risk letting anyone in.

  I was wrong.

  The door opened again and Neves stepped inside, Gilbert stuck his head out to check the front yard was clear, then crisply shut the door.

  I put the binoculars down, grabbed my backpack, stuck my torch inside it and got out. Antique dealer or not, it was worth seeing if I could listen to, or at least watch, what was happening inside. It was time I checked the back anyway. The moon was close to full, giving me enough light to enter without a torch. It also meant I’d have to keep close to cover.

  There were thick bushes running along the boundary on both sides of Ceiba House. Once I got to them I’d have enough cover to make it around the back. I strolled down to the Curtis boundary and out of the circle of the streetlight, then sprinted down the side of the house.

  The lights in the Collection Room were on and the windows framed Earl sitting on the French sofa. He was nursing a tall glass of something brownish, probably bourbon, and staring down at the wooden antique box in his lap. Neves was standing next to him, talking his head off.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something shine then disappear. I froze. It’d been too fast for me to identify but my gut told me there was someone else in the back yard.

  I crouched down into the shadows and waited.

  Then nothing, for at least ten minutes …

  I heard Neves drive away and wondered had I been mistaken? Had it been a racoon or chipmunk …? I let another five minutes slide past.

  Still nothing.

  I dropped to all fours and, keeping out of range of the house lights, crawled further into the back yard. I made it to the sculpture garden in the middle of the lawn, slid up one of the stone statues and scanned the side of the yard where the shiny thing had appeared.

  I waited for my eyes to adjust.

  Zero. Nothing but bushes …

  Then I caught a movement. There was something over there!

  I slid down and wriggled across the grass to the next stone sculpture. It was a giant hawk-nosed head with a jaw full of square teeth, grinding on a tiny human figure. Now I could see what was reflecting the house lights — a waxy leafed shrub. Some of the foliage on the top branches was catching the light as it swayed a fraction in the night breeze.

  I exhaled. Damn. I’d been stalking a bush.

  Then I noticed there was an interesting dark shape about eight feet in front of the shiny bush.

  It didn’t move, but it was either a squatting person or another stone figure.

  I circled around the back, maintaining cover. My eyes adjusted again. It was a person all right … wearing a balaclava. They were monitoring the Collection Room.

  I touched my backpack; I had the torch, some rope and the revolver.

  I got out the heavy torch.

  I could try to grab the figure but I didn’t know whether they were armed or with what. A scuffle in the dark could end up with me shot as well as them, and that was clumsy.

  When in doubt, render them harmless immediately.

  I’d knock them out and tie them up. Then we’d have a nice long chat somewhere else.

  I slid forward and swung for the back of their head, just above the neck.

  In that second they turned, blocked the torch, and moved up from squatting to send a front snap kick straight for my stomach.

  I dodged back and away, shocked.

  That was Shorinji Kempo — a Japanese form of karate!

  I moved back in to launch a punch. I had to land a knockout blow.

  My fist hit thin air.

  They’d turned their kick into a forward roll and three seconds later they were up and running.

  Lord Almighty, they were fast!

  I dived forward in a tackle and brought them down.

  They switched to a wrestling move, throwing me off even as they rolled up to standing.

  I grab
bed for my revolver and bounced up to block their way. In case he, and by now I knew it was a male, couldn’t see it, I cocked the trigger.

  It made a pleasing metallic crunch.

  He softly laughed, and put his hands in the air. ‘Okay, I give up. You don’t have to shoot me.’ He had a Southern drawl.

  ‘Move to the left.’

  There was more light there from the house; I wanted to see what he was doing.

  He shook his balaclava-covered head. ‘That’s not necessary, Kannon. I’m your NTA supervisor.’

  ‘What?’ I blinked. ‘I don’t care who you are! Move into the light.’

  The house lights were faint down here but they’d be good enough for me to see who it was.

  He obeyed, hands still up.

  ‘Take off the balaclava!’ I ordered.

  It was Devereaux.

  I seethed. ‘You lying bastard!’

  Daniel stared meaningfully at the gun still pointed at his midsection. ‘Uncock that, Kannon,’ he snapped. ‘That’s an order!’

  I vaguely contemplated shooting him. That could solve all my problems. Well, not all of them, but the damning report he was going to write would finish me with the NTA.

  I complied, shoving the revolver back in the bag with regret. ‘You rotten, mangy …’

  ‘Oh, suck it up, Dupree. Deception is part of your business. If you don’t know that, you shouldn’t be here!’

  He glanced straight over my head then ducked, pulling me with him.

  I swivelled to see Gilbert had come out to scan the back yard.

  I dropped into a seated crouch next to Daniel.

  We could see Gilbert backlit by the house lights, but he couldn’t see us. He stared out, searching for a moment, but then gave up and went back inside.

  We stayed silent for a few minutes and watched the house lights go out, top floor then downstairs. Gilbert must be sleeping up at the main house tonight instead of over the garage.

  ‘You rotten son of a bitch …’

  ‘Marshal Honeycutt. My name is Marshal Daniel Honeycutt.’

  ‘I don’t care who the fuck you are,’ I bit out. ‘Talk about intervention! You’ve done everything you possibly could to monopolise my time. I have five days on this case. Five days! That’s all!’

  ‘Well, that’s tough,’ he drawled with contempt. ‘But if you’re not good enough you shouldn’t be doing this in the first place. It’ll get you killed quicker than anything. Didn’t they tell you the attrition rate for marshals active in the field?’

  ‘Yes, of course they did. One out of three don’t make it back.’ I knew exactly how dangerous this job was.

  Over the years that the NTA had been operating they’d lost more than one third of their marshals in the field. Most had just disappeared never to be seen again, even by missions sent back to find them.

  When a marshal enters the past they create a mini time warp. As soon as they leave again the time warp is no longer held in place and the past returns to normal.

  Well, at least that was the theory that’d enabled the NTA to justify their existence to Congress. The NTA scientists called it the Law of Stable Time. Time was an indestructible continuum and inherently stable, but it could be temporarily bent by the marshal’s anachronistic presence. But if a marshal died in the past, their body disappeared and time sprang back in the same way as if they had returned to our present.

  The NTA called them field casualties.

  Daniel … or Honeycutt … or whatever his name was, snapped, ‘Brigham should never have let you come in the first place! You’re not ready.’

  ‘No! What he should’ve done is given me a mentor, not a hostile supervisor.’

  Honeycutt snarled back. ‘Too bad, Kannon; if you’re not good enough then you shouldn’t be in the program.’

  ‘What do you mean, Honeycutt? I’ve earned my place! I’ve done really well in the training program.’

  He scoffed. ‘That’s not what Brigham said.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘That you were a screw-up.’ It was too dark to see Honeycutt’s expression. ‘You’ve done a lousy job here so far.’

  That was too much! ‘Yeah, well I’d like to see you do better when you’ve only have two days to prepare! No proper support staff! And no field training!’

  Silence.

  ‘What do you mean, only two days to prepare?’

  ‘Two days. One. Two. Can’t you count that high? I didn’t even know about the mission until three days before I left.’

  ‘You’re an idiot. Surely you know you need …’

  ‘Shut up! Brigham was the one who set the timeframe, not me!’

  ‘And why would he do that?’ Honeycutt was incredulous. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘What! You think I’m lying? Well check yourself when you get back.’

  He paused at that shot. ‘But why would Brigham send you here with no prep?’

  I shook my head in disgust. Honeycutt couldn’t see it but it made me feel marginally better. ‘I don’t know — it seems so stupid to me too. But Brigham hates me and he’s …’

  The reply came back fast and sharp. ‘Stop trying to blame Brigham! He wouldn’t stuff up a routine field assessment just because he’s taken a dislike to you.’

  ‘Oh, Brigham hates me all right! Senator Curtis forced him to send me on this mission …’

  ‘Senator Milhouse Curtis?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was sent as a supervisor because it’s time for your field training to be assessed,’ said Honeycutt.

  ‘What!’ Someone was lying here and it wasn’t me.

  ‘Stop saying what! You heard me!’

  ‘But I haven’t even started my field training yet! I just finished my year of basic training at Menlo Park last week!’

  Silence.

  ‘That’s crap! Why else would you be here?’

  ‘Because Senator Curtis forced the NTA to send me by threatening to block their budget. He’s Earl Curtis’ nephew. The family demanded to know who killed Earl and had enough power to make the NTA send me to find out.’

  Silence.

  I could almost hear his brain ticking over.

  ‘But if that’s the case …’

  ‘It is!’

  ‘Shut up, Kannon, and let me think! If that’s the case then Brigham should be doing everything he can to help you. Why would he willingly alienate Senator Curtis? That just doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘That’s right. If Brigham thought I was a fool then shouldn’t that be another reason to give me a mentor, not a hostile supervisor? As you said, wouldn’t the NTA want the mission to succeed despite me?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a reluctant agreement.

  Silence again.

  ‘Honeycutt, this whole mission is screwed up. I just don’t get what Brigham is up to.’

  He grunted but didn’t comment.

  I sat there trying to absorb all the double-crosses coming my way.

  Honeycutt said in a quiet voice, ‘You’d better tell me your side, Kannon. From the start.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Unless you’re a pathological liar, not very much at all. I’d just arrived back from six months in Borneo when Brigham shunted me onto your mission. He said that you were due for your first field assessment and I was the only one available to do it. That was pretty much it.’

  That sounded very strange. ‘Why did Brigham send you?’

  ‘Brigham said he needed to send someone you wouldn’t recognise.’

  Even Honeycutt sounded unconvinced by that explanation.

  But before I could ask him about it he repeated his question. ‘Tell me your side of this mess, Kannon. But keep it brief.’

  We sat and watched Earl’s house while I walked him through it. I told him about Bloom’s phone call, my visits to Heron Studios and Susan Curtis, and how Senator Curtis, withou
t my knowledge, had forced Brigham to send me on the case.

  At the end Honeycutt said, ‘Well yeah, I can see why Brigham was mad. Even why he may want to get rid of you for putting the NTA in that position. But what I can’t understand is why he isn’t doing everything he can to support the case itself. Senator Curtis could really do a lot of damage to the NTA.’

  ‘Maybe it’s personal? Maybe he wants to punish Senator Curtis as well? The senator can’t say the NTA didn’t do what he asked: they did send me. And if I complain it’ll sound like I’m looking for excuses.’

  Honeycutt wasn’t convinced. ‘Brigham’d be risking his job to do that. But I’m not going to let the NTA’s budget bid falter because Brigham’s been stupid about this.’

  ‘So what are you saying, Honeycutt? That you’ll come in on this with me? That you’ll help me with the case?’

  ‘I need to think it through a little more.’

  That at least wasn’t a firm no … I’d wear him down.

  ‘Well hurry up because Earl’s due to die the day after tomorrow!’ I snapped.

  He ignored my tone. ‘So, who are your leads?’

  I thought for a minute. ‘Look, it seems like everyone who knows Earl Curtis, from Selznick through to the key grip, has reasons to kill him. But the number one contender is Lewis Renfrow.’

  ‘Who’s Renfrow?

  A wave of anger crashed over me. ‘So I’m not the only unprepared one?’

  ‘Look, darlin’, I’m a military specialist. I don’t know every damned actor in Hollywood.’

  ‘Renfrow’s Mob,’ I snarled.

  That shut him up.

  ‘So what are you doing here if you’re a military specialist?’ It was my turn to ask questions.

  ‘Like I said, Brigham arranged it. I have no idea why … He met me at the portal the day I arrived back for a break. All I was told to do was to assess you for the training program.’

  ‘But what about your actions as Daniel Devereaux? You not only obstructed my investigation, but punching out Dunstable constitutes direct intervention.’

  His eyes flickered at that … we both knew I had him there.

  ‘You put that creep in the hospital, Honeycutt! What if he’s part of Earl’s murder? I just don’t know what you …’