Hoodwink Read online

  Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. This could have really nasty repercussions and not just for me.

  The budget issue was all Victoria could talk about at the moment. Would the NTA survive? Would it have enough to make the changes needed to get them back on their feet?

  ‘Can Senator Curtis really swing that much power, sir? The NTA does have solid support with …’

  Brigham gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Why yes he does. If you really didn’t know about the senator then you picked the wrong family to mess with.’

  ‘But I didn’t …’

  ‘Shut up and listen! You might actually learn something!’

  Now my back was up.

  ‘For your future information, Dupree, the NTA exists from year to year on what the politicians give us. Unfortunately Washington is not very impressed with us at the moment. We’re an aging program with huge running costs. And what you did last year may have just finished us.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Are you saying that was my fault?’

  ‘Shut up, Dupree! Senator Curtis may not be able to totally wipe us out but he can certainly argue down the money we need to stay functional … The money we need to prove we’re worth funding again next year. Do you understand, or is that all too complicated for you?’

  Brigham waited for a reply.

  I didn’t bother to respond.

  I was seething. Caught between fury at myself for not seeing what could come out of my trip to Los Angeles and fury at Shelby Bloom for putting me in this position. There was also a solid brick of anger at Brigham just for being such an asshole.

  ‘They never should’ve opened the Time Investigator Program in the first place,’ spat Brigham. ‘Look what you’ve done and you haven’t even graduated yet!’ He shook his greying head. ‘Amateurs … with absolutely no loyalty to the NTA and the almighty buck as your bottom line!’

  Brigham looked me up and down with distaste. ‘Have you signed a deal with the media about this yet, Dupree?’

  I stopped blaming myself and snarled back at him. ‘I made a mistake, sir. I can see that now. But it wasn’t intentional and I sure as hell don’t deserve a crack like that.’

  ‘Oh, you think so, do you? What about this?’ Brigham picked up the newspaper he’d been reading and spread it across the desk.

  My jaw dropped.

  Today’s headline read ‘Watch Out, Marshals, This Timestalker Is On Your Case’.

  Below it was a photo of me in dark glasses outside Calipatria Maximum Security Prison.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Oh, don’t try and tell me you didn’t know about this, Dupree!’

  ‘How could I? That’s me doing my final assignment for Surveillance & Retrieval 101 last week. I didn’t even know what my test was until I was taken to the prison!’

  Everyone in the NTA called it Stalking 101.

  It taught every different kind of surveillance and retrieval technique imaginable. Using simulated environments we’d practised how to get into and out of everything from the Winter Palace in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, to the Bastille just before the French Revolution and Colditz Prison during World War II.

  But the final test was real and the three of us had each been given a different set of objectives.

  I was driven to Calipatria Maximum Security Prison in California’s southwest and told I had to retrieve a letter sent to an inmate there.

  What they didn’t tell me was that he was a brutal rapist who specialised in young blonde women.

  And that he knew I was coming.

  Some sense of humour the trainers had, eh?

  I got the letter.

  Brigham slapped the headline with the back of one hand. ‘You’d do anything to publicise your career, wouldn’t you, Dupree?’

  ‘Since I entered the program I have never even given an interview!’

  ‘Well you’d better make sure it stays that way!’

  I leant over the desk. ‘Okay, Brigham, cut the crap and tell me what I can do to fix this.’ I wasn’t giving up just yet.

  He glared up at me. ‘Fix it? You really think you can fix this? The only reason you’re in the program in the first place is because Director Gaskell thought the publicity could help us lobbying … The daughter of the famous Marshal Dupree becomes a time-travelling detective.’ Brigham snorted with contempt at the very thought. ‘Hah! You’re just a failed publicity stunt!’

  ‘Drop the recriminations and focus on a solution, Brigham. Do your job!’

  That set him back.

  I leant further forward on the desk. ‘Send me, Brigham. Let me take the case and solve it. I’ve already been through the portal so you know I can do it. You know I won’t get culture shock … or time shock … and freak out. Then you can make Senator Curtis an ally. He could help us …’

  ‘Oh, you’re going all right, Dupree!’

  The way he said that made me examine his face very carefully. It was a threat not a concession.

  ‘We have no choice. You have two days, Dupree. That’s all.’

  ‘Two days?’ I straightened up, confused. ‘Two days to do what?’

  Brigham snapped my file shut. ‘You leave in two days.’

  ‘Leave? For 1939? That’s impossible; it’ll take me weeks, no, months to adequately …’

  He cut over the top of me again. ‘You leave in two days and you get five days there. Then you report back, investigation completed or not. This is a massive waste of NTA time and resources and that’s all you’re getting.’

  It was an outrage and he knew it.

  I was still getting to know present-day America … And I didn’t know enough about Hollywood in 1939, let alone the specifics of the Curtis case, to be effective.

  ‘I can’t do it.’ I shook my head. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘That’s not my problem. Is it?’ Brigham said in a cold and calculating voice.

  I stared down at him in horror.

  Brigham wanted me to fail.

  He’d tell Senator Curtis it was my fault and get rid of me. He’d tell Senator Curtis that the NTA had complied but that the Curtis family had backed the wrong trainee.

  ‘And don’t think making a complaint about this is going to get you anywhere but kicked out the door,’ sniped Brigham. ‘Director Gaskell may’ve been forced to agree to this mission, but …’ He paused to give me a meaningful glare. ‘If there’s any more fallout,’ he paused again, ‘from anyone … I will personally fire whoever caused it.’

  Brigham hadn’t said her name but he was talking about Victoria. He was making sure I didn’t go to her or anyone else for help. He was threatening her too.

  He leant forward in his chair to say with precision, ‘Do. You. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I spat out. ‘I understand very well.’

  Brigham smiled. ‘Good. And we’re not announcing the mission. So don’t get any ideas about using publicity to get your way either, Dupree.’

  I stood there, rigid with frustration. I was getting the case I wanted all right — but with no chance of success. I was going to be a scapegoat sacrificed to Senator Curtis.

  And I was going to have to smile my way through the next two days, because if Constan got a whiff of what was going on he’d tell Victoria and she’d go for Brigham’s throat. I’d only just found her again; I couldn’t put her career in jeopardy like this. I could find something else to do but the NTA was Victoria’s whole life …

  My teeth were clenched so hard they hurt.

  Well then, I’d just have to damn well succeed! Bring back the prize. Find out exactly what happened.

  The NTA couldn’t get rid of me if I succeeded … Not if Senator Curtis was happy enough to back me up!

  It wasn’t much, but it was a plan.

  Brigham tried to read my expression. ‘Oh, and don’t get any cute ideas about cutting corners with the rules, Dupree. No modern technologies, no direct intervention, nothing that contravenes the Code of Practice. We’re treating this missio
n as your first assessable field project and your supervisor will be monitoring everything.’

  ‘You can’t be serious …’

  ‘You make just one slip-up, one serious intervention, and the supervisor will send you straight home, Dupree. And then you’re out of the program as soon as you hit the deck.’

  Just what I needed — a hostile marshal hanging over my shoulder, counting my infractions. Why didn’t Brigham just shoot me now?

  ‘Okay, Brigham, have it your way … When do I meet the marshal?’

  I could talk them into helping me. Surely anyone sane would see the advantage of making Senator Curtis happy?

  Brigham gave one curt shake of the head. ‘You’re not. As I said, it’s being treated as an assessable mission so you won’t know who they are. Don’t get any ideas, Dupree, they won’t be there for support, just critical observation.’

  ‘But that’s not what we were told at Menlo Park. They said the first three trips would be mentored. That we’d get guidance, advice …’

  ‘Yes, but you’re getting paid for this one, Dupree. It’s a private case. So you’re going to sink or swim on your own. Now get out of here,’ he barked. ‘You leave in two days.’

  9

  THE CLUE

  The view from Shelby Bloom’s corner office took in everything from the Hollywood Hills down to the ocean at Santa Monica. Bloom, Hand and Nerrit had their offices on the top floor of Sky Towers in downtown Beverly Hills.

  ‘Now,’ said Shelby, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm. ‘My assistant has assembled everyone you asked for, from wardrobe through to archival research.’

  To my jaundiced eye he was overly cheery about getting down to business. They’d got what they wanted, now I had to make it work.

  ‘They’ll have to take care of the hack work, Bloom, because I’ll be spending the next thirty-five hours working out a cover story that’ll keep me close to Earl Curtis.’ Then I gave him a hard look. ‘But what really concerns me is identifying potential perpetrators. Especially after I read the original LAPD report …’

  I let my words hang there.

  ‘I do not understand why that first police report had no conclusions! No real detail at all.’

  Shelby’s eyes shifted under mine.

  ‘Now I’d have thought Mrs Curtis could’ve used her powerful connections to press the LAPD for something more solid when he first went missing.’ My voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Bloom nodded. ‘You’re right, Kannon. There are things I couldn’t tell you until today, until you had signed the confidentiality agreement. The original police report says nothing because the Curtis family … as well as Susan’s … had their real findings removed.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Oh, really? So you’ve trapped me into taking a case I essentially know nothing about?’ I kept the animosity to a low simmer.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kannon …’ He wasn’t. ‘Within a day of Earl being reported missing, the police found his car up in the Santa Monica Mountains.’ Shelby moved to the window. ‘Just up there.’ He pointed to the ocean end of the range. ‘There’d been wildfires there the week Earl went missing.’

  ‘So the police found the car burnt out.’

  ‘The car and everything around it. What’d once been a forest was ashes and there was nothing left of Earl’s car but a burnt-out hulk.’

  ‘So they thought he’d been murdered but accepted that they wouldn’t be able to find his body or clues.’

  ‘No … They thought he’d hanged himself in the forest.’

  Suicide? ‘And just why would they think that, Shelby?’ I said with gritty impatience.

  ‘Two reasons … Gone with the Wind chewed through people faster than a meat grinder. The frantic pace, the long hours, the high expectations … The studio head, David O. Selznick, basically bankrupted the studio making it. He stopped sleeping to keep up the pace …’ Bloom pursed his lips. ‘And to stay awake Selznick became addicted to Benzedrine.’

  ‘He must’ve been fun to work for.’ Not unlike my present clients.

  ‘One of the original cast even died of a stress-induced heart attack and had to be replaced. Selznick went through six directors trying to finish that movie. Earl was just the third one to crack under the pressure.’ Bloom was cynical. ‘Earl was seen as one more casualty.’

  ‘Okay, I get the context. So what was the second reason?’

  ‘Earl had been acting very strangely over that last month or so.’

  ‘That was after Earl returned from Paris, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes … that’s right.’ Bloom was puzzled as to where I’d picked up that little piece of information. ‘Earl had become paranoid. Maybe even delusional.’

  ‘Delusional about what?’

  ‘Earl started disappearing. He’d finish shooting and then no one would see him until the next morning. When Susan asked, Earl would say he’d been at home the whole night.’

  ‘So all that led the police to think Earl had a nervous breakdown and killed himself in the forest. And the families had enough power to erase that finding.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, that explains the lack of detail in the police report. No murder suspected, therefore no suspects.’ I paused. ‘But now I want to know why you hate Earl Curtis.’

  That shocked Bloom.

  ‘Don’t deny it, Shelby. I’ve seen it in your face from the start.’

  Bitterness flooded his features. ‘I hate Earl Curtis because he ruined Susan’s life! Earl was a conniving bastard who slept with every woman he could manipulate into bed.’

  I let out a long breath. So much for the Hollywood icon! Why on earth had Susan wasted her life … and her family’s … for such a man?

  ‘Shelby, tell me the truth … Do you know who killed Earl Curtis? Come on … you must have some idea.’

  ‘No. I really don’t know, Kannon. Until his body was found I’d always thought he’d run off with one of his women.’

  I studied his face. Bloom appeared to be telling the truth.

  ‘Okay, then what about Susan? The day I met her at Ceiba House Susan said she used to believe she knew who did it … but doesn’t any more. Do you know who she originally suspected?’

  ‘Susan said that?’ Shelby wrinkled his forehead in distress. ‘She’s become confused … disoriented ever since she saw Earl’s body. Perhaps you misunderstood?’

  That did it.

  ‘I want to see the body now, Shelby! I want to see that clue.’

  The chauffeur dropped us off at the front door of the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office. Bloom signed us in and a white-coated attendant walked us through the back to the morgue. It was cold and somewhere a tap was dripping on tiles.

  Bloom had asked me to wait for answers. Better I see it for myself and use fresh eyes.

  ‘Is Farnsworth here yet?’ Bloom asked the attendant.

  ‘Yes, sir. He was in taking more samples yesterday and then came back again this morning.’

  We went through double swinging doors and there it was, a sheet-draped body on a steel table. A white-coated man with puppy dog eyes waited next to it.

  ‘Eugene Farnsworth, this is our investigator, Kannon Dupree.’

  We shook hands. His were cold and smelt of formaldehyde. Actually, everything smelt of formaldehyde.

  ‘Eugene is an anthropologist.’

  I tried to stare through the sheet. What the hell was an anthropologist doing here?

  Eugene coughed. ‘Actually, Mr Bloom, I’m an anthropologist with a medical degree. My speciality is religious rituals.’

  ‘What’s going on, Shelby? You know I don’t have any time to waste.’ The secretiveness was exhausting.

  ‘Shall I show her?’ asked the anthropologist.

  Bloom gave his assent.

  Eugene Farnsworth rolled back the sheet, starting with the head. There was a square cotton cloth covering Earl’s skull. It was disconcertingly flat. Eugene rolled the s
heet down further and revealed a bruised and broken grey-white neck. The flesh was the consistency of old cheese. He kept rolling until the sheet lay across Earl’s hips.

  Bloody hell!

  Now I understood why Susan went from here to the hospital.

  ‘Is that painted on?’ I moved in for a closer look.

  ‘No, it’s a real tattoo,’ said Eugene.

  A monstrous feline savagely mauling a bloodied, screaming man covered Earl’s upper torso from neck to stomach. The animal was crushing the screeching human head between its dagger-sharp fangs.

  ‘What kind of big cat is it? It isn’t a lion or a tiger, but it’s a lot more powerfully built than any leopard I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘It’s a jaguar.’ Eugene was certain.

  ‘Why do you say that? It’s white and there are no dappled markings. And it can’t be albino because of the eye colour.’

  The huge feline was coloured white with just enough dark shading to delineate the tattoo. Its menacing predator’s eyes were a startling bright green, pierced at the centre by jet-black pupils.

  They stared out at you as though they were reading a dinner menu.

  ‘Because it’s crushing the head of its victim,’ said Eugene. ‘The jaguar is the only feline that does that. Most people don’t know but the really big jaguars can match the lion and the tiger in size and strength. But what really sets the jaguar apart is that it has the most powerful jaws of all the big cats. It’s the only one that kills its prey by crushing their skulls.’

  I studied Bloom’s impassive face. ‘What else are you waiting to spring on me, Shelby?’ He didn’t react. ‘So what does this tattoo actually mean?’

  ‘All we’re really sure of is that it was done the week Earl died,’ said Bloom. ‘As for what it means …’ He looked to Eugene.

  ‘Jaguars were often used as symbols of occult protection by many ancient Central and South American empires. When they were used in sacred tattoos then they were supposed to reflect the fate depicted onto the viewer. But …’ Eugene was puzzled.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I’d only heard rumours about this kind of tattoo. They’re described in the ancient texts but I’ve never actually seen one on a body before.’