‘His head was crushed, Kannon, the same way Earl Curtis died … And the killer painted an infinity symbol across the wall using his blood.’
My breath was coming so hard and so fast I had to grab my ribs from the pain. ‘Someone’s setting me up, Constan.’ I tried to think. ‘You say the police spoke to Brigham — where?’
‘In Union Square, of course. That’s where I’m ringing from now.’
‘Has Brigham been there all afternoon?’
‘Brigham? Oh yeah. Definitely.’
I stared into the bonfire. If Brigham didn’t kill Charles Gibson then who did? And how could they possibly know how to set me up for it? It kept coming back to the NTA.
‘Kannon. Kannon! Are you still there?’
‘Yes, Constan … I don’t know what’s going on,’ I said in a daze.
‘Kannon, Brigham told the police you were violent as well as delusional. They know you’re still in LA, they’ll be looking for you at the airport.’
‘But —’
‘Kannon, you have to find a lawyer and turn yourself in. For your own safety. Can Shelby Bloom help you?’
‘Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.’
‘Kannon, pull yourself together.’
If someone was killing all the witnesses — first Susan then Charles Gibson — that meant Honeycutt and I were next …
‘Constan, you have to warn the hospital that Honeycutt’s in danger, probably from an NTA officer. They’re trying to cover up a secret that could break the NTA … They’ve killed Susan and Gibson — Honeycutt could be next.’
‘But, Kannon … that means you’re a target too! Where are you?’
Then I saw that Troy had stopped building the fire. Now he was loading a gun. A revolver, just like the one I’d used in the investigation.
‘Constan, I have to go.’
‘No, Kannon! Don’t —’
I cut the connection, turned off the phactor and slowly slipped it into my pocket.
Troy gazed over at me with big dead eyes.
52
THE CODE BOOK
‘What’s with the revolver, Troy?’ I asked softly.
He inserted a last bullet in the chamber and spun the cylinder … click, click, click.
The barrel was pointed my way.
‘Suzie was right wasn’t she, Kannon?’
‘About what?’
‘That it was all about that old desk. Suzie was right all along about who killed Earl, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes she was, Troy.’
‘That’s why I’m out here. Suzie didn’t shoot herself. He did it. So now I’m on guard. I’m waiting here until he comes back for the desk.’
Troy dumped the loaded revolver on top of the altar next to the can of lighter fluid, and grabbed the liquor bottle for a quick swig.
I started breathing again.
I needed help here. When the bloody hell was Shelby going to arrive? I had to find a way to avoid the LAPD and get back to San Francisco. I had to make sure Honeycutt was safe but I couldn’t leave Troy like this.
‘Troy, there’s no point in waiting out here. The man who killed Earl was called Charles Gibson and he didn’t kill your great-grandmother —’
‘Bullshit! Suzie didn’t shoot herself. Yesterday she told me she was sorry for leaving us to grow up alone … That we would always be together.’
‘Charles Gibson didn’t do it, Troy.’
His eyes blazed at that.
‘But I don’t think Susan shot herself either.’
He squinted at me in the firelight, trying to work out if I was telling the truth. ‘How do you know it wasn’t Gibson?’
‘Because whoever killed Susan killed Gibson this afternoon.’
He reared back, confused. ‘But who —’
‘I don’t know, Troy, but I’ll find out. That I promise you.’
‘I’m coming with you!’
‘No, I’m sorry, you can’t.’
Troy slumped in on himself. The act of guarding Susan’s house had given him a focus, now all he had was loss and the bottle in his slack hand.
I took it and emptied it. ‘You need to be sober to help me, Troy. It’s very important that you stay here and tell Shelby Bloom what I’ve just told you … Can you do that for me?’
Troy nodded. ‘That Susan was murdered … and that the same person got to Charles Gibson this afternoon.’
‘Good. Now I have to go, Troy, but I want you to come inside with me.’
‘Kannon, before you go, I have to give you Suzie’s present.’ He stumbled to his feet, almost landed in the bonfire, and lurched towards the house.
I rolled to one side to get my feet under me, creaked upright and hobbled after him.
I followed Troy up to the next floor and into Earl’s old bedroom — which now contained a state-of-the-art hospital crib with steel railings, surrounded by medical machinery and several tanks of oxygen.
This was Susan’s bedroom, where she’d lain at night clutching her gun. There were even bars on the only window.
Troy was right, this wasn’t a bedroom … it was a trap.
At the foot of the bed sat the bait — the Redbud desk.
No wonder Susan’d had a nervous breakdown. What monumental burden of guilt had she carried to have lived like this for all those years?
Troy went to the front of the desk and reached under with both sets of fingers. He pressed up in one smooth movement.
My eyes widened as the motto, ‘Nulli Secundus’, lifted up in one rectangular sheet to reveal a space beneath. In it lay a dusty book the size of an ordinary paperback.
There was an old-fashioned key inscribed in black on the cover. It was exactly the same image I’d seen on the wall of the secret meeting room in the basement of the Columbia Library.
General George Montfort’s Key was his code book.
The elusive key that Sherman had burnt half of South Carolina hunting for … the code book that Sherman and Pinkerton believed would show how the Confederate spy master was planning to have Lincoln assassinated.
Troy carefully lifted the old book out and handed it to me. ‘Suzie told me she was going to give this to you.’
This code book had been used to fight a gruesome war and since then at least one man had died and others had their lives ruined in pursuit of it.
‘What is it?’ Troy was sobering up; he didn’t slur his words. ‘Suzie didn’t say.’
‘It’s a Civil War code book — Charles Gibson’s grandfather used it to encode and decode messages. Everyone in his spy ring would have had a copy of it. Gibson wanted it because he used the same code to keep his own highly illegal transmissions secret. When he thought Earl might find this copy, Gibson had him killed to get it back.’
Troy watched over my arm as I went through the book.
The front page was a list of Confederate officers’ names and their aliases. The second page was a list of Confederate army groupings and their aliases. The third and fourth pages were a mirror image except that they were Union listings. The rest of the book was a code that could be used to scramble and unscramble messages.
‘Gibson would’ve probably just used the code at the back,’ I said. Then I flicked to the front again to peruse the list of aliases. ‘Though he could’ve given the aliases to his own people —’ I stopped.
‘Twig’ was on the Union page corresponding to General Sherman; Abraham Lincoln was called ‘Coffin Bait’.
Why did they call Lincoln that?
Then I remembered the old Confederate vets reminiscing on the porch at Tara. Someone had said Lincoln had a recurring nightmare about lying in his coffin in the White House.
But where else had I heard the name Coffin Bait?
It was from that radio play that the gang had been listening to, and Otis had written it on the burnt sheet of note paper …
Elden had embedded coded messages for Gibson’s network of spies in his radio plays … So Gibson must’ve recycled the original Montfort aliases
.
I flipped back to the Confederate list. It started with General Montfort — The Grave Digger. So Gibson would’ve called himself The Grave Digger too, and President Roosevelt, Coffin Bait.
I muttered, ‘Twig, Coffin Bait, The Grave Digger …’
There was another association with those three names rolling around in my head but it was just beyond my tired, drugged reach.
‘Did you say The Grave Digger and Coffin Bait?’ asked Troy, puzzled.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘They’re two of the main characters in Teen Scream.’
I stiffened. ‘The TV series?’
‘Yeah, there are five main people in Bogeyman’s Hollow: The Grave Digger, Coffin Bait …’
How could I’ve missed it? I’d heard those very names that first day on set at Heron Studios.
‘Who writes the Teen Scream scripts?’ I said, grabbing his shoulders.
‘I don’t know, but I’ve got a Teen Scream fan magazine in my bedroom.’ Troy caught my excitement. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Just get it, will you?’
He bounded out of the room and across the hall in an instant.
He came back in, reading aloud, ‘It’s a team of writers. They had a hit with some other series …’ He reeled off a list of unfamiliar names and series titles.
‘Is there anyone called Elden involved?’ There had to be!
Troy kept scanning. ‘It says the original radio plays were written just before World War II … by Elden Brewster.’
My heart stopped. ‘Did you say Brewster?’
He nodded.
An image of Leonard Brewster, the executive producer of Teen Scream, flashed into my head. He’d resembled a hulking, gone-to-seed wrestler …
Just like Elden Brewster had at the MacVille Park ball.
That was it! That was the connection!
Elden, Charles Gibson’s treasonous scriptwriter, had to be Leonard Brewster’s father. On set that first day, Shelby Bloom had said Leonard only made it in this town because of his father’s Hollywood connections. Elden was Brewster Senior. And Leonard, cashing in on the wave of nostalgia sweeping the entertainment industry, had used his father’s old radio plays as the basis for Teen Scream.
Shelby said that Teen Scream was Leonard Brewster’s last chance at making it in LA.
No wonder Leonard had been a raging bull that day on the set. My investigation would reveal that his father was involved in white supremacist plots, treason and murder …
Leonard couldn’t afford for this to get out!
The public outcry would get Teen Scream cancelled in a heartbeat. He’d be finished!
It all came together.
Leonard had found out about my mission being approved early.
So he’d come to Ceiba House looking for the incriminating code book, but shot Susan before he could find it and had to escape …
And Leonard had been in that meeting with Shelby Bloom when I rang. He’d heard I was back and investigating Charles Gibson.
So Leonard had killed Gibson to shut him up and frame me.
Troy read my eager face. ‘You’ve worked out who shot Susan.’ He shook my arm. ‘Tell me!’
‘I think Susan was shot by someone looking for this code book. The radio plays that Elden Brewster wrote were part of a plot to overthrow President Roosevelt and replace him with a White Supremacist regime.’ I tapped the code book. ‘This is proof. It can translate the encoded radio plays — the same plays that Teen Scream is based on.’
‘You stupid interfering bitch.’
Leonard Brewster was in the doorway, an enraged gorilla ready to tear up the room. Troy’s revolver looked like a toy in that big gloved hand.
I shoved Troy behind me.
‘Drop the code book on the desk and move over there!’ Brewster jerked the gun at the corner furthest from the door and next to the barred window.
I hesitated. If I went for him he’d just start shooting.
‘Get in that corner now, bitch!’ He was shaking with rage, just waiting for an excuse to vent.
I dropped the book on the desk and, keeping Troy behind me, backed into the corner. The steel-framed hospital bed and the Redbud desk now formed a barrier between us and Brewster. It wasn’t much cover but it was better than nothing.
‘Leonard, people know we’re here,’ I said. ‘You can’t —’
‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do!’ screamed Brewster. ‘The cops are searching for you for the murder of Charles Gibson and Troy-boy here is a drunk delinquent who owns a firearm.’ He cocked the revolver. ‘It’ll be a murder-suicide and I’ll let the police work out who did what to who.’
I felt Troy start past me but held him back.
‘You’ll have to shoot through me to get to Troy. And that’s not going to add up to a murder-suicide, is it, Brewster?’
‘No matter,’ he said, teeth bared in manic glee. ‘I have another plan.’ Brewster kept the gun trained on us as he leant back into the hall.
A shudder ran through me. Troy gripped my arm.
Brewster had Troy’s open can of lighter fluid … There was enough highly inflammable liquid in there to turn this room into an inferno in seconds.
And us.
Brewster sloshed the lighter fluid onto the carpet, making a stinking wet line between us and the door, then over the code book and the Redbud desk. The fluid ran over the desk’s polished surface and down — draining into the carpet next to the tanks of oxygen at the foot of Susan’s hospital bed. Careful not to come too close, Brewster threw the can onto the mattress and the rest soaked in.
The fumes rose up in a combustible haze. My eyes and throat burned.
Brewster fell back to the doorway, gun still ready, and pulled out a disposable lighter from his pocket.
He flicked it into life.
We had to get out of here before the flames could penetrate the oxygen tanks!
Troy darted around me. ‘You bastard, you killed Suzie.’
Brewster hurled the lighter at the Redbud desk as Troy hit him full bore, propelling him backwards and out the door.
He flung Troy off and slammed the door shut in my face.
Then locked it.
Behind me the flames rose up to the ceiling and ran down to the carpet. The fumes choked me and the heat seared my back, neck and legs. There were flames above my head.
Claustrophobia rolled over me like a plastic bag.
I kicked the door, my broken ribs and all my joints screaming. The door and lock were solid, just as Susan had intended. I couldn’t move fast enough, get enough momentum …
I kicked again and again and again.
It splintered … broke … and the flames raced me out onto the landing.
Brewster and Troy were nowhere in sight.
I heard a shot. It came from the sculpture garden.
I needed a weapon. If not a gun then something I could throw. I ran for the Collection Room.
I burst through the police tape and hauled Attila’s double-headed axe off the wall …
By the flickering light of the bonfire I could see Brewster had knocked Troy down. He had his revolver raised to shoot.
I threw the axe, blades over handle. It cartwheeled through the air, whistling as it sped to its target.
Thunk.
The heavy blade sliced into Brewster’s raised arm. He flew backwards over the altar and hung across the howling Mayan priest, their mouths a mirror image.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
‘Troy.’ I bent to shake his arm. ‘Troy, are you all right?’
He stared up at me blindly, blood streaming down from a gash on his forehead.
Then I remembered Mrs Hutch. ‘Stay here, don’t get up.’
I grabbed the revolver and charged back into the smoke-filled house. I made straight for the kitchen, hoping that she was there. I didn’t know where else to look if she wasn’t …
The housekeeper was stretched out under the table, unconscious
but still breathing.
I dropped the gun and knelt painfully to try and lift her in my bruised arms. I tried twice but couldn’t do it, so I pulled her up and over one shoulder and staggered out into the main hallway.
The flames had spread across the upper floor and leapt down to my level. The way I’d come, the way to the Collection Room, was a roaring wall of fire. I coughed, my eyes tearing on the smoke.
Kaboom.
Upstairs, the oxygen tanks exploded, driving a red wave of flame towards me that engulfed the ground floor.
I charged for the double front doors.
They were locked.
I rebalanced Mrs Hutch and kicked until the heavy doors smashed open. I stumbled out, my feet and ankles no longer able to support us.
I slipped down the steep stairs and rolled, still holding the housekeeper, onto the gravel drive.
I collapsed there hugging her to me.
And that’s where Shelby Bloom and the firemen found us …
As Earl’s collection, the Redbud desk and Montfort’s code book all burnt down to nothing more than smoke and ash.
53
BEGINNINGS
Peaceful Glades Cemetery perched high up in the Hollywood Hills, enclosed by a hawthorn hedge and dotted with sheltering cedars. From just the couple of names I’d caught sight of on the way in, it may have been shady and peaceful but it was also mighty exclusive — only the very crème de la crème of the old Hollywood establishment.
A uniformed gardener on a ride-on lawnmower was perfecting the vivid green just opposite us. He’d waited until the cluster of designer-clad mourners had exited before he started up, but now it was just us three.
Shelby Bloom, Troy and me.
The jarring roar of the mower finally jolted Troy out of his shell. He’d stayed tightly clenched all through the funeral, too afraid to let even one tiny display of emotion leak out. He had no idea where the torrent would sweep him.
‘Do you think they’re all together?’ he asked, desperate to find something … anything that could remotely make his loss bearable. He’d stopped drinking the night of the fire and was now in jittery withdrawal.
‘Yes, Troy. If there is a God, that’s where they are —’ Shelby’s voice broke. He was still blaming himself for not being with Susan when Leonard Brewster broke in.
Hoodwink Page 45
