A Whisky, Tango & Foxtrot Mystery 04 - A Deadly Tail

by Dixie Lyle

  Whiskey and I followed. “That the supernatural is real, and therefore Holmes’s rational approach is wrong?”

  “Yes and no. In the film, the dead do come back to life, but it turns out there are still rules in place. Holmes, while initially refusing to believe the impossible has come to pass, eventually stops denying the evidence of his own eyes and incorporates this new information into his worldview, which allows him to properly evaluate the situation and arrive at a solution. In other words, he displays a true scientific attitude, as opposed to merely insisting the universe follow the status quo.”

  I nodded. “More like Doyle’s Professor Challenger stories, where Challenger fights the scientific establishment with his unorthodox discoveries.”

  Tervo smiled. “Exactly! But Lucky is attempting something trickier—he’s trying to say that sometimes rationality itself is not enough, without endorsing the principle that all is chaos. A fine line to tread.”

  “Well, science is a terrific tool. But not every tool can do every thing. You can’t slice bread with a garden hose.” I paused. “Okay, I guess you could. But I wouldn’t want to eat it afterward.”

  “Indeed … I find Moriarty a fascinating character, don’t you? A genius intent on proving himself by mastering that darkest and most dangerous part of civilization, the criminal underworld. Not just Holmes’s nemesis, but in many ways his counterpart. After all, which is more difficult: solving the perfect crime, or planning it in the first place?”

  [It almost sounds as if he approves,] Whiskey commented.

  “Are you a … Method actor, Mr. Tervo?” I asked.

  “I suppose I am, though I don’t think of it that way. I do believe that in order to truly inhabit a character, you must experience events the way they do. You may not always agree with their methods or goals—or even understand them—but it’s essential you feel the same way about them. To my mind, in any case.”

  “I’m sorry I interrupted your process.”

  “Oh, that’s perfectly all right. Once I have a character in my head, I can more or less summon them at will. During filming, I make it a habit to drop in and out of character even in my free time; it’s the theatrical equivalent of lifting weights, I suppose.”

  “That’s an interesting way of putting it. But I suppose any muscle gets stronger the more you exercise it.”

  “Yes. And as with any fitness regimen, the key is a regular routine. Mine is every evening for an hour before I go to bed.”

  “Must be difficult to maintain during the craziness of a film shoot.”

  He stopped, looking down at another grave. “It can be. But the life of an actor is always chaotic; if you want any stability at all, you have to learn to impose it. I make it a rule to retire by ten o’clock whenever possible; so far, during this production, I’ve managed to keep to that schedule.”

  “Speaking of scheduling…” I told him about Forrester and the interview. He agreed to meet and talk with the detective, and we set up a time. I thanked him, then left him there in the graveyard.

  When I glanced back, he was staring at another grave, his lips moving silently, his eyes intent.

  * * *

  I went back to my office with Whiskey, sat down at my desk, and did some hard thinking.

  [You look like you’re doing some hard thinking.]

  “It’s the frown. Puts the hard in thinking.”

  I picked up my cell phone and called Shondra.

  “Shondra? Foxtrot. I was wondering—”

  “You need me to pull up the security footage from the cameras at the gates and on the grounds for the night before the bombing.”

  “Uh—yes?”

  “Which you will then go through to determine who was at the house that night.”

  “Well—”

  “None of the guests left the premises. I assume all of the film crew did, but I can’t prove that. They used multiple vehicles, and some of them were sealed trucks.”

  “Thanks. I was just—”

  “You do know I get a paycheck, right?”

  Whoops. “Yes, you do. And you do a great job. Which is why you are so far out ahead of me on this you just passed me for the second time.”

  “You know who else gets paid to do this stuff? The police. You might want to let them.”

  “Absolutely. In fact, Lieutenant Forrester is coming back to do follow-up interviews later today.”

  “I know. He called me first.”

  Well, of course he did. She was in charge of security, after all. He would have asked to see that footage, too. “Okay, then. Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  I ended the call, feeling a little uncomfortable. Was Shondra right? Should I just leave this to the police? Unlike some of the other weirdness that had happened at the mansion, the bombing and murder didn’t seem to have a supernatural component. I could just leave well enough alone …

  Ah, who was I kidding.

  [Yourself. But only for a moment.]

  “Sorry. That was supposed to stay on the inside of my brain.”

  [Not to worry; most of the time, the integrity of your skull remains intact. Now, what’s our next step?]

  “Let’s review what we have so far. The bomb was planted in the fireplace, after the evening’s fire had gone out. Any of the guests—including Catree—could have snuck in and planted it in the chimney late at night. They would have had to have access to Natalia Cardoso’s room, and some assurance that she either wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t object, or wouldn’t be there at all.”

  [Rolvink had access, obviously.]

  “Yes, but he was already dead by the time the bomb was planted. And why would he blow up his girlfriend and leading lady, anyway? It’s a lot more likely he was the target and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  [Perhaps.]

  The only person I hadn’t talked to about Forrester was Jaxon Nesbitt, the star of the film. He seemed a little young to play Sherlock Holmes, but I had to admit he had the talent; I’d seen him in a few roles, and once he was on-screen you couldn’t look away. He had that indefinable charisma some movie stars have, a quality that goes beyond looks or even personality. They just seem bigger, somehow, regardless of their actual size.

  Which was, I was reluctant to admit, the reason I’d put him off until last. Yes, I have plenty of experience dealing with celebrities, but this was different. Jaxon Nesbit was a fantasy that strolled right out of a romcom, and my brain was reacting by having this conversation:

  STARRY-EYED ME: Oooh! He’s so dreamy!

  NERVOUS ME: I don’t want to do this. He seemed like kind of a jerk at dinner last night.

  STARRY-EYED ME: I’ll fix him! I’ll be super-helpful and super-capable and he’ll be so impressed he’ll marry me!

  NERVOUS ME: What if he’s still a jerk?

  STARRY-EYED ME: Don’t care! Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeammmyyy …

  NERVOUS ME: I can’t believe you said that. We’re such a jerk.

  So yeah, hormonal tug-of-war. I didn’t want to believe he was a jerk, but I also didn’t want him to be too likable. Really, the best option would be to have him talk in a monotone about nothing of consequence while wearing a bag over his head.

  So I handled it the same way I’d been handling most of our interactions: over the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mr. Nesbitt. This is Foxtrot. I was just talking to Lieutenant Forrester, and he’d like to come by and speak with you later today.”

  “I don’t think so. Maybe later in the week.”

  “It wasn’t a request, Mr. Nesbitt. He’s talking to everyone that was here when the bomb went off. I’ve already scheduled all the other guests for their interviews—how does two o’clock work for you?”

  “It doesn’t. How about four?”

  “I can do that. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” He hung up.

  Terrific. Mission accomplished—except, of course, that I hadn’t been abl
e to ask him any questions about the night in question myself. If we’d been face-to-face things might have been different, but no—I’d chickened out.

  I was going to have do something about that.

  * * *

  What I did was stalk him.

  Nesbitt stayed in his room a lot, but he did come out for meals—including lunch. I often eat at my desk, but today I went down to the dining room, where Ben had laid out platters of cold cuts, cheeses, sliced vegetables, artisan rolls, and a huge bowl of fresh Caesar salad. I took a small plate, positioned myself near the buffet table, and ate. Very, very slowly.

  Other guests came and went; Lucky Trentini, Yemane Fikru, and Max Tervo all stopped by to chat and nosh, then went on their way. I picked and nibbled, sipped tea, and tried to stifle my sense of guilt at not accomplishing anything.

  And then Death showed up.

  Little was grim about this reaper; she wore a long, flowing dress, a wide-brimmed hat covered in flowers, and was showing off plenty of cleavage—bony cleavage, I’ll admit, but cleavage just the same. Her dress was a deep scarlet, with a pattern of grinning skulls holding marigolds between their teeth tumbling down the fabric. Death’s face was a stylized Mexican skull, with an intricate pattern of red and gold beads outlining the eyes and teeth.

  “Hey,” I said. “Funny, I thought you’d be taller.”

  “I’m wearing flats,” said ZZ. “Not very authentic, but a lot more comfortable. On the actual day, I’ll put on the Cruel Shoes.”

  I nodded. “The actual day being what—the Rapture? The Apocalypse? Black Friday at Walmart?”

  She shook her skull. “The Day of the Dead, Foxtrot. It’s only a few weeks away, and I think it’s time to start planning a party.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, you know I’m always down for a party—I just didn’t know if you still wanted to go ahead with that. You know, what with the actual body count around here.”

  ZZ sat down next to me. “That’s exactly why we should have a party, Trot. I’ve been thinking about mortality a lot, and having a bunch of zombies wandering around has made me realize a few things.”

  “Like what? It’s hard to eat soup when you don’t have lips?”

  She smiled. “No, dear. It’s how ridiculous death is. Our friends south of the border got it right—death isn’t the Big Bad Wolf at the door; it’s the one already in bed and wearing Granny’s nightdress. Intimate, inevitable, and absurd. Zombie movies are all about our fear of death, that there’s something terrible and beyond our control waiting for us. Day of the Dead celebrations are the opposite. If you can’t stop something, why not embrace it? Invite it in for a drink, drag it out on the dance floor, tell it a funny story; maybe it’s not so terrible after all. Which is why I’m attending the party wearing this.” She gestured, indicating her outfit from head to toe. “La Calavera Catrina, the Grande Dame of Death. What do you think?”

  I peered at her chest. “Did you get the movie people to do your bust? ’Cause it’s kind of amazing.”

  “Well, they had the time, and they offered. The bones look real, don’t they?”

  “Sure do. If you were a guy, I’d be making a boner joke right about now.”

  She laughed. “That’s the spirit! Now, if you’ll excuse me—I’ve invited some of the crew to join me in the study. We’re going to play charades—any guesses as to the theme?”

  “I’d like to take deceased actors and directors for three hundred, Alex?”

  ZZ grinned and got to her feet. “Do you think you could get some of those little Sugar Skulls here in time for tea?”

  “Not a problem. I know a guy. Well, a ghoul. Point being, he can always dig something up.”

  “Thank you, sweetie.” With that she was off, no doubt already planning how to enact The Wizard of Oz with an all-corpse cast. My boss, my inspiration, the Crazy Old Lady who signs my paychecks. I really do like her a lot.

  Which is about when I overheard the argument.

  The Great Crossroads acts as a psychic amplifier, which means that a telepathic entity inside—like an animal spirit, my partners, or myself—can send and receive thoughts at a greater distance than normal. (Yes, I know. Normal is not a word that I use often, or at all. Not even quite sure what it means, actually; probably a mash-up of Norm and Al, two guys who live in the suburbs and never do anything weird.) Anyway, while this thought-amping is often quite useful, it sometimes has odd side effects—like when my own thoughts are wandering and unfocused, and happen to bump into two loud, angry canines having a disagreement: Pal, the erstwhile Lassie, and Higgins, the erstwhile Benji. Being dead had turned barks and yaps into actual words, but the structure of their discourse remained the same:

  [You stole my role!]

  [How can you steal something when it’s been given to you? How?]

  [You should have stayed where you belong—a park! A park!]

  [How? How? How?]

  [Park! Park! Park!]

  Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

  I got to my feet and headed for the graveyard.

  I found the two of them staring each other down in a small stand of trees not far from Davy’s Grave. The collie and the mongrel had stopped yelling, but their eyes remained locked and they were both growling softly, like two motors idling. Well, 90 percent of communication is non-verbal in humans, so in a species that doesn’t have actual language that percentage is even higher. Which gave me an idea of how to break this up without finding a spectral garden hose.

  I walked right up to them and said, “Hey, know how I can tell this is a serious argument?”

  [Because you’re not a moron,] growled Higgins. [Unlike certain cross-dressing sheepdogs.]

  [That’s low, even for you—and you’re barely six inches off the ground,] Pal snarled back.

  “Nope,” I said cheerfully. “It’s because it’s between two dog stars. Get it?”

  Both of them blinked. Pal’s brow furrowed. Higgins looked puzzled. They both turned toward me.

  [What?]

  [Excuse me?]

  “Dog stars? A Sirius argument? Hello?”

  Now they were both staring at me with that confused expression. Sometimes the best way to derail an argument is to befuddle both parties; it works equally well with toddlers and stockbrokers, so I figured canines were fair game. Okay, maybe using a bad pun wasn’t exactly fair, but it had the desired effect: It forced both of them to think differently, just for a second.

  “Never mind. Both of you are being bad dogs and I want you to be quiet.” I glared at them sternly, and suddenly I was looking at two ashamed canines instead of two bickering ones. “You, go over there. You, go over there. I’ll straighten all this out in a minute.”

  Definitely not fair invoking command words that had been drilled into them their whole lives, but the welfare of the Great Crossroads was my responsibility, and with that responsibility came a certain amount of authoritative leeway, too.

  I went and talked to Pal first. His version of the story was that there was a rumor going around that he was going to be replaced by Higgins. Higgins, of course, staunchly denied this, though he’d heard the same rumor himself.

  Rumors are the bane of a professional assistant’s life. They’re like a virus that mutates as it moves from host to host, except it’s impossible to track down Gossip Zero. It creates tension and breeds suspicion, and the only vaccine is a healthy dose of skepticism and common sense—which, you know, is notoriously difficult to synthesize in an injectable form.

  So you treat the symptoms as opposed to the disease, and hope that eventually the rumor dies a natural death. Which is what I did with Higgins and Pal, assuring both of them that no one, no one was closer to the director than me and there was absolutely no way that such a major shake-up could happen without me knowing about it.

  Which didn’t really satisfy either of them (because they were dogs and the director was a cat and all of us were perfectly aware that the actions of a Ping-Pong ball tossed into a room full of mouse
traps were more predictable than the decision-making process of a feline) but we all pretended everything was fine and all problems had been resolved and went on our respective ways. I was going to have to talk to Tango about this later—but first I had a celebrity I had to get back to stalking.

  * * *

  I returned to the dining room, learned that Nesbitt hadn’t made an appearance yet, and resumed my place.

  Eventually my patience was rewarded. Jaxon Nesbitt strolled into the dining room, gave me a great big smile, and picked up a plate. “Hey, Foxtrot! Not too late for lunch, I hope?”

  “No, not at all. Please, help yourself.”

  There’s this weird thing that happens when you meet a famous actor, a kind of cognitive dissonance. Your brain is trying to reconcile this image you have of the person’s public persona with the physical reality, and they never match up. The actor is shorter, wider, older. Their behavior is often very different from what you expect—brash comedians can be shy and polite, the charismatic can be abrupt and cold. Working as a professional assistant who often dealt with celebrities, I’d developed a trick to bypass my own preconceptions, and it worked amazingly well: I pretended they weren’t who they actually were, but just celebrity impersonators. Other than the constant urge to say, Wow, you’re really good, it made interacting with them much easier—especially the difficult ones. Having your teen crush be rude to you can do actual emotional damage—none of us are as secure as we think—but someone pretending to be him? That just seems a little sad, especially when you realize he’s wearing a toupee and has had plastic surgery.

  It doesn’t always work. Sometimes, when the celebrity is young and attractive and single, my brain tries to convince me that while the real thing is out of my league, a look-alike was a definite possibility. C’mon, my reptilian hindbrain whispers. Ben will understand. Everybody has that one famous person they’re allowed to cheat with, right?