Hoodwink

by Rhonda Roberts

  ‘I’ll explain later, Constan.’

  He could hear my distress.

  Silence.

  ‘So you found out who did it. You know the killer.’

  ‘Yes. But I have no idea why Brigham is trying to keep it a secret. Look, I need time to think this through, Constan. Can you keep in touch with me about how Honeycutt is doing when he comes out of surgery? And please don’t say anything to Victoria. I don’t want her upset. I’ll tell her when I’ve figured it all out.’

  ‘Victoria will go through the roof when she finds out that Brigham is working against you.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t want her to know … Not until I’ve sorted out what’s going on. The NTA is her life, Constan, I am not going to be the cause of her losing her career.’

  ‘Kannon, YOU are her life.’

  Silence.

  It was true.

  And that was exactly why I had to protect her.

  ‘Just don’t say anything, Constan … promise?’

  He muttered a lot, but agreed in the end.

  We hung up.

  What an almighty mess. What the hell was Brigham trying to cover up?

  Then something Shelby had said came back to me … He didn’t understand why Susan Curtis would commit suicide when her health was improving.

  Shelby was completely right. It didn’t make any sense at all.

  Whatever her twisted reasons, Susan Curtis had moved heaven and earth to get me onto this case and she’d only had one more day to wait for the truth.

  I really had no idea what was going on, but with Susan gone I knew there was only one person left who could answer at least some of my questions …

  Charles Gibson.

  I looked over at my locker.

  They hadn’t searched me when I came through the portal.

  50

  GIBSON’S STORY

  Charles Gibson wasn’t hard to find. The murderous butcher was still in Los Angeles, holed up in a house in the mountains north of Malibu.

  I was about to dig him out.

  Before leaving Union Square for the airport I confirmed by phone with his grandniece, Charlotte Gibson, that he was home. I mentioned the Hope Foundation’s work during the Depression and spun a cover for myself as a journalist who wanted to interview Gibson for an article on famous Southern philanthropists.

  She’d lapped it up with a spoon.

  By the time I arrived it was mid-afternoon on a warm spring day. I studied Gibson’s new residence as I stood hunched on the front porch, clutching my aching ribs and waiting for someone to answer the doorbell. It was a homey, white, two-storey cottage surrounded by a flower garden and blossoming fruit trees.

  What a joke!

  I gripped my ribs tighter; now it hurt just to breathe. I was way over the limit on the painkillers, but they were merely keeping everything down to a steady throb. And I was wearing enough concealing make-up to pass muster in a funeral home.

  I had to remember — Gibson was old now … I couldn’t charge in and finish our fight!

  But he’d shot Honeycutt and that rape list was chiselled into my memory.

  And I was covered in Gibson’s boot marks.

  I shivered with rage … then moaned at the too-sudden movement.

  I had to control myself, play this game the right way.

  And then I’d get him.

  The door creaked open and a matronly woman in her mid-fifties wearing a frilly apron over a floral pink dress greeted me. She was short with white hair and had a Southern drawl that dripped like molasses. Charlotte Gibson’d had a Californian accent.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I have an appointment to speak with Mr Charles Gibson. I rang earlier and spoke to his grandniece, Charlotte. Did she mention I was coming? Kay Jarratt.’

  ‘And may I ask, Miss Jarratt,’ she said with an icy undertone of suspicion, ‘why would you be wantin’ to speak to Mr Charles?’ The woman may have been dressed in florals but she had a bite to her.

  She frowned at me, even more suspicious. ‘And don’t I know your face? You look familiar?’

  I was glad I’d given Charlotte an alias, because the housekeeper was about to blow my cover story.

  ‘Why yes, ma’am, I’m a journalist.’

  ‘That’s right, I’ve seen your face in the newspapers,’ she mused.

  I said, as respectfully as I could muster, ‘Ma’am, I’m writing an article on the famous sons of Texas for the Star Monthly. I was in town doing a separate interview and just found out, by accident, that Mr Gibson had retired here. I’d dearly love to include him and his work with the Hope Foundation in my article.’

  Yet again that smarmy excuse worked nicely.

  ‘Well, my dear, come right in and I’ll see if he’s up to company,’ she said in a homey tone. ‘Mr Charles is wonderful for his age but he’s still very old.’

  Wonderful? I wanted to puke. Why did he deserve to reach a comfortable old age?

  She sat me in the front living room and went upstairs. It was all pastels, frilled cushions and gauzy curtains.

  I briefly wondered if Gibson missed his animal trophies. Then hoped the bastard was drowning in this perfumed paradise of feminine fancy.

  ‘Mr Charles would be happy to see you. He doesn’t get many visitors these days so he’ll be glad of the talk, I’m sure. Please come with me.’

  I followed her upstairs and into the lounge.

  It was Gibson all right.

  I forced a smile over my snarl.

  He was too healthy. Was there no justice?

  He’d aged remarkably well for a fiend. Now he looked like a genuine Civil War veteran, with long white hair and a Custer beard. He was still big but slightly bent over and his overwhelming arrogance was masked.

  He was too busy being bitter.

  I took the seat opposite. The woman made the introductions then said, ‘I’ll just get in some shopping for dinner, Mr Charles. I won’t be long.’

  He ignored her so she left.

  I made innocuous chitchat until I heard the woman drive off.

  Then I dropped the pretence.

  ‘I’m not here for the reason I gave.’

  Gibson’s pale blue eyes became slits. He was old but not harmless. ‘Then spit it out, girlie … why are you here?’

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘Last night Susan Curtis died under suspicious circumstances — I have very good reason to believe her death is linked to that of her husband, Earl Curtis, in 1939.’

  Then I waited.

  When I mentioned Susan he’d been puzzled rather than anything else. But that had all changed when I mentioned Earl Curtis. He knew exactly what I was talking about.

  ‘I know that you had Earl Curtis murdered to get hold of Montfort’s code book and his Redbud desk. Your men, Otis, Deke and their two partners, put him in that cement floor at the Selznick studios at Floyd Nugent’s order … on your behalf.’

  Gibson ran a gnarled hand over his face, then snarled, ‘Just who are you?’

  ‘I’m a private investigator. Mrs Curtis hired me to find out who killed her husband. I know you did it … and now she’s dead.’

  I left the implication hanging.

  That shocked him. ‘But there’s no way that her death could be related to the murder of Earl Curtis,’ he blustered. ‘Susan had nothing to do with it and she knew nothing about it … How can it be related?’

  I held in a gasp. This was too easy.

  ‘So you admit that you had Earl Curtis killed?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Gibson, completely at ease. ‘The FBI found out about that —’ he paused, ‘and other things … in 1940.’

  ‘The FBI?’ My mind was racing. ‘They found out about your treason in 1940?’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t know about that?’ said Gibson, delighted to be able to shock me in return.

  ‘If you mean your meeting with the German ambassador in 1939,’ I spat out, unable to control the surge of rage, ‘Operation New Moon and the Atl
as Project … then yes, I do know what you were up to.’

  ‘I see.’ Gibson still wasn’t particularly worried.

  Which worried me.

  ‘So you’ve managed to get hold of some of the material in my FBI file but not all.’ He seemed proud of having one.

  I didn’t reply.

  Gibson shrugged. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ve carried the burden of this past for too long. I deserve a full and frank confession.’

  It sounded more like he wanted an audience.

  He saw my contempt. ‘Whatever my sins have been, girl, I changed after the war.’

  I snorted. ‘Very convenient after everything you’ve done!’

  ‘No,’ said Gibson piously. ‘You’re mistaken. It would’ve been much easier to have never recognised my part in what happened in that war … Atonement is a bitter path!’ The last sentence resonated with self pity.

  Atonement? He made me want to vomit all over his fluffy little house. He’d atone all right!

  ‘So how did the FBI find out about you?’

  He relished my sharp insistence. Finally, a listener that could appreciate him. ‘MI6 found out and —’

  ‘But MI6 is the British secret intelligence service.’

  Damn! Gibson had to be senile.

  ‘Yes.’ He scowled. ‘I’d underestimated that lot. The British had set up a spy network in 1939 right under my own nose … in the middle of Hollywood. All these British actors and directors who’d come over just before the war were trained as spies. I didn’t even suspect —’

  ‘But why would the British start investigating you?’

  He wasn’t making any sense.

  ‘They didn’t!’ The younger, arrogant Gibson snarled out at me from behind the sagging skin. ‘That commie pulp-fiction writer, Dashiell Hammett, went poking his nose into places he didn’t have any business being!’

  There was no repentance here. Gibson was still roiling about losing his chance to rule America …

  ‘Hammett tried to inform on me to the FBI.’ He sniggered. ‘But they merely contacted me and asked if he was harassing me. So I said yes. That got rid of Hammett for a while — but then he met up with a Life journalist called Bourke who was also sniffing around. Bourke contacted one of the key MI6 agents in Los Angeles …’

  Gibson rubbed his brow. ‘I’ve forgotten his name, the Nazis shot his plane down over Portugal a few years later … He was a British actor. He was in that asinine film Earl Curtis was making …’

  Gibson looked to me for a prompt.

  ‘You mean Gone with the Wind?’

  ‘Yes. The British spy played Ashley Wilkes.’

  ‘That was Leslie Howard.’

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  My jaw dropped an atom’s breadth.

  An image of Leslie Howard topping up Purcell and his mates’ glasses at the Selznick party came to mind.

  So he was milking them for information about the Society of the Iron Key.

  ‘Anyway, when British Intelligence found out about me they forced the FBI to act. My sources warned me and I destroyed everything I could, but when they raided my Texas laboratory they managed to piece together what I’d been doing.’

  It sounded like he was telling the truth but … ‘I still don’t understand why this was all hushed up?’

  ‘Think about it, girl,’ he snapped. ‘Why would they tell anyone about my plans in wartime? What a blow to morale — a conspiracy that swept across the country from the Hope Foundation to Roosevelt’s own cabinet.’ He chuckled. ‘Did you know they kept the Foundation going?’

  He gave me a slanted look. ‘But the main reason was they didn’t want Hitler to know how far along I was with the bomb. My scientists and all their research work reappeared at Los Alamos.’

  Los Alamos …

  ‘Your research became the basis for the Manhattan Project?’ The US government’s bid to build the first atomic bomb, the one they then dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  ‘Of course. They weren’t going to lose the jump I’d given them on the enemy. That commie Roosevelt was flawed but he wasn’t stupid.’

  I reeled.

  But I’d only seen Gibson hours ago.

  Past and present blurred into one …

  This was time shock.

  I stuttered, ‘But, but what did they do with you?’

  ‘Oh, I was thrown in the deepest, darkest dungeon they could possibly find,’ he said, waving a proud hand. ‘I spent nearly four years in that military prison. First they milked me of all the details they could, then they started asking my advice.’

  ‘Your advice?’ I scoffed.

  ‘I am a patriot!’ sneered Gibson. ‘After Pearl Harbor I was willing to give it too —’

  ‘Yes, but why did they let you out after only four years? You committed treason!’

  Four years wasn’t enough by a long shot!

  ‘Ever heard of Operation Paperclip?’ drawled Gibson, savouring my confused expression.

  He knew I hadn’t.

  ‘No,’ I said, wishing Honeycutt was here to judge whether Gibson’s story really held together.

  ‘It was the hunt for the Nazi scientists after the war. The Germans had a whole portfolio of advanced weapons on the drawing board, so as the Reich collapsed special US military personnel went in to snatch the scientists and their technologies … before the Soviets could get them.’

  ‘So that’s why you got out,’ I growled. ‘You made a deal to help the US government secure Von Braun and Heisenberg.’

  ‘Not so much Heisenberg.’ Gibson was dismissive. ‘They knew he’d never really come close to building a feasible atom bomb. They wanted Von Braun … and everything they could dismantle from his research laboratory in Peenemunde.’ He shrugged. ‘Von Braun designed the V2 rocket. There was no existing defence that could stop them. If Hitler had used them early enough, the war would’ve had a very different outcome.’

  He chuckled. ‘But by 1945 America and Britain were more worried that the Russians might get them.’

  ‘If the US government knew all this why did they need you?’ I snapped.

  ‘Because when they got to Peenemunde, Von Braun and all his scientists had escaped. That’s when they came to me for help.’

  He paused for full dramatic effect. ‘You see, I knew where Von Braun would hide …’

  Gibson smirked at the memory.

  ‘A special four-man team took me into Germany, with orders to execute me if I tried to escape … I knew Von Braun would run from the Soviets to his V2 rocket factory at Nordhausen and then south to his secret hideaway in Switzerland.’

  Gibson’s features became drawn. ‘But that’s when I saw the slave labour camp that’d been built next to Nordhausen. And everything changed for me. There were five thousand dead bodies rotting on the ground when we arrived. There were twenty thousand more inside in the underground V2 factory …’

  His pious picture of remorse was spoiled by the calculating glance he shot me to check my reaction.

  ‘That was the beginning of the end for me,’ he said with well-practised drama. ‘I couldn’t stomach what’d been done there in the name of racial purity.’

  A touching performance.

  ‘You self-righteous pig! You talk about the Nazis but how can you possibly atone for all the lynching and murders you instigated here?’

  ‘I haven’t and I can’t,’ said Gibson matter of factly.

  I snorted. ‘So you gained a full pardon just for giving them Von Braun —’

  ‘Oh, but he was a huge prize during the Cold War!’ said Gibson with overweening pride. ‘He made damned good rockets … so they whitewashed him … made him The Good German. It was nauseating; he was on TV all the time. And the Cold War warriors loved him — better Nazi than Red.’

  He eyed me smugly. ‘But, of course, it wasn’t just Von Braun they were after … I also helped them find Dietrich Schiller.’

  ‘Schiller? I don’t know that name.’

/>   ‘You don’t know?’ Gibson revelled in my ignorance. ‘Von Braun started NASA, Schiller started the NTA.’

  ‘What!’

  I’d read the history of the NTA; there was no German named Schiller in it.

  Gibson read my reaction with too-keen interest.

  Wait a minute!

  When I’d first arrived back Brigham hadn’t asked me who killed Earl Curtis … It was as though he already knew.

  Gibson was telling the truth.

  A crafty expression set into his features. ‘You didn’t get my FBI file, did you? You’re that timestalker girl … Susan Curtis hired you to go back to 1939.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘So why are you here?’

  I didn’t reply.

  He smirked. ‘The NTA are blocking your investigation, aren’t they?’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘I know what happened.’ Gibson nodded to himself, pleased to be in control. ‘Curtis’ body was found, Susan kicked up a stink and Senator Milhouse Curtis forced the NTA to let you go back.’

  Gibson lounged back and pieced it all together. ‘The newspapers say the NTA is in crisis at the moment … that it may even be disbanded.’ He chuckled. ‘And, unlike NASA, no one knows that the NTA was started using Nazi technology.’

  He checked my furious face with glee. ‘But it doesn’t seem like a good time for that kind of dirty history to be dredged up — now does it?’

  I felt like I was going to explode.

  If he was telling the truth that would explain why Brigham was doing everything he could to sabotage me.

  ‘I don’t imagine your NTA colleagues would want Earl Curtis’ death solved, for all kinds of reasons,’ said Gibson, preening with satisfaction. ‘I never did find out why they chose to only whitewash Von Braun …’

  He gave me a wolfish leer. ‘I can only imagine Schiller must’ve had secrets best kept hidden.’

  I clutched my throbbing ribs and rocked. Oh God …

  Then I remembered Susan.

  She’d had no reason to kill herself; Susan was getting better … Her death was far too convenient for everyone with dirty hands! According to Brigham, now she was gone no one cared enough to push through an investigation.

  Was Susan murdered?

  ‘Did you kill Susan Curtis?’ I accused.