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

by Dixie Lyle

“Go back up the ladder—slowly. When you get to the top, jump over the wall. I’ll follow you and kick the ladder down before it can chase me.”

  True to his nature, he didn’t insist on me going first. He scrambled up the ladder as fast as he could, dragging his broken camera with him. When he got to the top, he hesitated, but another growl sent him over the wall. He landed with an audible thump and a yelp of pain.

  “What now?” he yelled. Not, Are you all right? or Hurry up before that thing eats you, or even Don’t forget to knock the ladder down!

  “Now you wait right there,” I called back. “Our head of security will be here in a minute.”

  “Is he going to shoot it?”

  “No. She is going to detain you until the police arrive. You’re trespassing.”

  And then I strolled over and scratched Whiskey behind the ears. “Who’s a big bad scary dog? You are, that’s right…”

  15.

  Okay, so tricking someone into breaking the law isn’t totally ethical. But when that someone has PROFESSIONAL SCUMBAG—ASK ME ABOUT MY DIRT CHEAP RATES! on his business card, me and ethics pretend we don’t know each other.

  Shondra collared him beside the house, where he was trying to get a shot through a window with his camera phone. Knowing he was busted, he must have figured he had nothing left to lose.

  I arrived as Shondra was proving him wrong. “Ouch,” I said as I walked up with Whiskey at my side, now in his normal form. “That looks like it hurts.”

  Camera Guy glared up at me from the ground. “Let me up! I’ll—”

  “Sue,” said Shondra. “Yeah, I got that. Don’t worry, you’ll be talking to your lawyer soon enough. Right after they book you, probably.” Shondra, in a black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers, was astride a prone Camera Guy, one hand gripping the wrist she had twisted behind him, the other holding a phone to her ear. She looked like a ninja riding a walrus while on hold with customer service. Hello, tech support? There’s something wrong with my walrus. Yes, I tried jiggling the tusk.

  “Sue?” I asked. “Whatever for? Pretty sure you’re the one breaking the law.”

  “You tricked me! You and that hairy monstrosity in the bushes!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. The only hairy monstrosity I’m familiar with is this one right here, and he’s the friendly kind of monster.”

  Just to drive home the point, Whiskey darted forward and started licking Camera Guy’s face enthusiastically. “Eww, don’t do that,” I said. “Germs! You don’t know what might be living in that beard!”

  “Get him off me or I’ll sue!”

  “Okay,” said Shondra to her phone, thumbed it off, and slipped it into a tactical-looking holder on her belt. “Kind of a one-note guy, isn’t he? Sue, sue, sue.”

  “Maybe it’s his name.”

  “Could be. On your feet, Sue.” She released his wrist and let him up. He stood slowly, breathing heavily, his face red. Shondra crossed her arms and stared at him levelly. “You and me are going to wait right here until Hartville PD shows up. You try to get past me, I’ll put you down as fast as I did the first time.”

  “Yeah, yeah, this isn’t my first time at the dance,” he muttered. “Can we at least go inside? It’s freezing out here.”

  “Not even a little bit of yes,” I said. “Let you into the house you’ve been spying on? Let’s not forget who the moron is in this situation.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he growled.

  I nodded. “But while we’re waiting, let’s have a conversation. What, exactly, were you hoping to get pictures of? Bloodstains? Zombies? Wreckage? Bloodstained zombies stumbling through wreckage?”

  He snorted. “What, the low-budget horror flick? Nobody cares about that. I’m here to get photos of Nesbitt—that’s what my boss pays me for.”

  “Even if you succeeded, you’d be disappointed. He’s about as boring a guest as it’s possible to be. He eats, works, sleeps, and that’s about it. I don’t think your audience is going to find any of that very entertaining.”

  “Sure, he’s a real choirboy. Except when he’s not.” He shook his head and laughed. “You have no idea what you have under your roof. And when someone takes a picture—someone like me—that exposes what he is, you’re the ones that’ll feel like morons.”

  And that stopped me.

  I believed in the freedom of the press; I just had higher standards for what constituted “press” than Camera Guy did. Taking sensationalistic pictures for a tabloid isn’t journalism, it’s a violation of privacy. But what if there’s an actual story there that the public has a right to know about? Revealing shots of someone in their underwear are one thing; revealing that someone’s stealing underwear is another.

  People like Camera Guy might live under rocks … but sometimes, they learn things down there.

  “Come on, Sue,” said Shondra. “We’re going out to the main gate to wait for your ride.”

  * * *

  After the police came and took Camera Guy away, Whiskey and I went up to my office and I thanked him for his performance. “I don’t care what Tango says, you’re a natural actor. And what was that thing you turned into, again?”

  [A rather unusual crossbreed—only one of them ever existed, to my knowledge. The mother had both mastiff and German shepherd blood, while the father was a dog known as a puli—that’s where the tangled black hair comes from.]

  “I was gonna guess Beagle Boy and Rastafarian. So, what do you make of what the shutterbug said?”

  Whiskey jumped up on my couch and made himself comfortable. [He seemed to believe what he was saying. Whether there’s any truth to his claims is questionable.]

  I sat down next to Whiskey and stretched my legs. “Yeah, we have to consider the source. That guy wades in a ditch full of rumor and innuendo every day; pretty easy to grab some mud at random and fling it.”

  [True. But since he deals with gossip and baseless accusations all the time, his ability to tell truth from exaggeration is probably finely honed.]

  “Good point.” I frowned. “He could have just been saying that to guilt me—in which case, it worked—but I don’t think so. I’ve heard that tone of self-righteous indignation before, but he had that little note of triumph in his voice, too. That I-know-something-you-don’t inflection.”

  Tango strolled through my open door.

  [Ectoplasmic beings do not get mange.]

 

  [I’ve never had it—]

  “Guys, guys. Please. The word I used was inflection, all right? And what we’re trying to figure out, Tango, is exactly what secret Jaxon Nesbitt is hiding—if any.”

 

  [I had that happen once. Ran into a pet rat in the graveyard who remembered me writhing on their decomposing corpse.]

  There was a pause.

  “Sounds awkward,” I said.

  [You have no idea.]

 

  “Maybe … maybe not,” I said. “What if that secret really could destroy your career, or worse? And what if someone else found out what it was?”

  [They would have considerable power over you.]

  “Yes, they would. Maybe
enough to make an in-demand young actor star in a movie everybody agrees is beneath him.”

  Tango jumped up on the couch beside us. I stroked her head and she started to purr. < I get it. Rolvink could have been blackmailing Nesbitt.>

  “Exactly. And that’s the kind of thing that can get you killed.”

  Whiskey put his chin on my lap, and I rubbed behind his ears. [Therefore, the question is: What is Jaxon Nesbitt hiding?]

 

  “Nope,” I said, one hand stroking Tango and the other Whiskey. “The real question is how much you two are going to complain when I stop doing this.”

  [She has a point.]

 

  So we snuggled. And we plotted.

  And then—of course—we were interrupted.

  * * *

  “You know,” I said thoughtfully, “I’m really getting tired of this.”

  This was yet another on-set disagreement. This time, the strategy session Whiskey, Tango, and I had been halfway—okay, three-quarters of the way—through had been disrupted by a panicky Fish Jumping flying through the wall and loudly proclaiming that there was “Trouble! Trouble! And I’m a big tattletale! Awk!” involving Golden Cloud and Midnight.

  Putting myself between half a ton of annoyed horse and an irritated jungle cat isn’t something I’d normally consider—but in this case both animals were as weightless and unsolid as a politician’s promises. And the best way to end a staring contest is usually to give both competitors something else to stare at.

  “Ahem,” I said. “What’s going on, guys?”

  (Not much,) Golden Cloud said coldly.

  said Midnight. It sounded more like a warning than a greeting.

  “Right. It’s a non-verbal showdown. By which I mean a contest to see who can be more terse while squinting their eyes menacingly. Normally I’d put my money on the cat, what with the countless generations of highly developed staring genes, but GC here spent his whole life around pretend cowboys, and nobody does that grim, intent look better. I heard that Clint Eastwood actually got a shot glass to crack once, just by looking at it for six hours straight.”

  Neither of them had backed up, but I was forcing them to deal with me instead of each other, which lessened the tension from fully drawn bowstring to merely taut tightrope, along which I proceeded to stroll casually. “Come on, GC—I know you’re a seasoned trouper at this. What’s holding up the show from going on?”

  Golden Cloud shook his head and snorted. (Backstage gossip, is all. Certain greenhorns can’t keep their mouths shut.)

  More rumors? I glanced at Midnight. “Oh?”

  It’s not just domestic cats that can change their attitude at the drop of a whisker; Midnight sank back onto his haunches and started grooming one glossy black paw. It wasn’t so much an admission of guilt as a total loss of interest in every aspect of the situation.

  I turned back to Golden Cloud. “Okay, two things. First, I’m not going to ask what was said or about whom, because it doesn’t matter. You know what show business is like, GC; rumor and innuendo are the uninvited guests that always show up at the party, and anyone who actually listens to them winds up sorry they did so. You know that.”

  (I suppose I do.)

  “And second—does this look like someone who’d talk behind your back? He barely talks in front of it.”

  That got me a look from Midnight, and slightly miffed

  (Point taken. My apologies, ma’am.) And with that, Golden Cloud turned and walked away, his head held high. Midnight yawned.

  I scowled and shook my head. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear someone was trying to distract me …

  * * *

  In the end, we went with our strengths; Whiskey’s nose, Tango’s stealth, and my research skills.

  Tango said.

  [I’ll see what I can find out by sniffing under his door.]

  “And I’ll do some serious surfing on the subject,” I said. “Okay, gang—let’s do some sleuthing.”

 

  [I find it endearing.]

  I love surfing the ’Net. I’m a data junkie, I admit it. For me, doing research is like beachcombing, roaming the infinite length of the cybernetic shoreline and collecting all the shiny bits that catch my eye. Leaping from site to site like a kid jumping from one driftwood log to another, stopping now and then to pick up a bit of sea glass or a perfect shell and cram it in a digital pocket to enjoy later. All of which sounds a lot more romantic and random than painstakingly following link after link, closing an endless succession of pop-up windows, and ruthlessly pestering Google like a four-year-old who’s just discovered the word why.

  But.

  Sometimes, when you’re roaming the beach, you find things you wish you hadn’t. Things that are rotting, or sad, or infuriating. The Internet’s reach is wide and deep and drags along the bottom.

  And I was trying to dig up some dirt on a Hollywood celebrity.

  “Gack,” I said. I didn’t say it to anyone in particular, since both Tango and Whiskey had left, but I felt the need to say it just the same.

  But while they were out of sight, apparently they weren’t out of range:

  Sure it does, I thought back. It means this is the seventh time I’ve had to look away from the screen while pressing the ESCAPE button.

 

  It doesn’t. I’m still here.

  [As am I,] Whiskey reported. [Outside Mr. Nesbitt’s door, as requested. Scents I have detected thus far are: deodorant, toothpaste, fabric softener, shaving cream, coffee, cream, breath freshener, shampoo, soap, macadamia nuts, hair gel, and a mixture of chemicals commonly found in an over-the-counter muscle analgesic.]

 

  I sighed. “Well, I’m not doing much better. He’s dated quite a few models and actresses, attended more than a few nightclubs, and has his own fan club made up almost exclusively of women. He likes to surf, and got knocked on the head by his own board in Hawaii last year. Which is where he probably also picked up a macadamia nut habit.”

 

  [Only if you’re talking about rats and mice. Squirrels aren’t food. Too fast to catch and too skinny to eat.]

 

  [That, too.]

  I found myself on the verge of clicking on a link that promised to reveal One Weird Trick to Make 10K a Month That Podiatrists Hate, shook my head, and pushed back from my desk. “Again with the squirrel hate? Didn’t you mention something about using a squirrel in your cinematic opus?”

 

  [Just a moment. I’m picking up hints of … coconut. And pineapple.]

 

  “The tropics. Must be nice to be able to go there whenever you want. One of the perks of being rich and famous.”

  I spun my office chair in a slow circle as I talked. “Hawaii. White sand beaches. Tanned surfer boys in baggy shorts. Hot tubbing under the stars while listening to the ocean, an umbrella drink in one hand…”

  I stopped my slow spin and frowned. Something was tugging at my attention, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what. Beaches? Stars? Hot—

  And then I had it.

  I spun back around
to my desk and started tapping keys. “Hawaii,” I muttered. “Hot tubs.”

 

  [None whatsoever.]

  “Rolvink was fond of hot tubs. And one of the things I dug up about him was that he once ran a mail scam out of Honolulu. He’s made at least one film there, too.”

  [Which means what?]

  “Which means it’s possible that’s where he and Nesbitt met. And maybe where Rolvink learned something about him Nesbitt wants kept secret.”

  I’d been looking in the wrong places. Camera Guy might have stumbled on something juicy, but he was keeping it to himself until he could turn it into a payday.

  But if he could figure it out, so could I.

  I looked for the anomaly, the fact that didn’t fit. The only thing that stuck out was his surfing accident; he’d gone early one morning by his lonesome, wiped out, and conked himself in the head with his own board. Claimed he woke up on the beach with a bruise on his forehead and no memory of what happened.

  Except … that was just a little too much like a scene from a movie.

  People that get knocked out in the ocean don’t wake up on the beach. They drown. But Nesbitt had gone to the local hospital early that morning and reportedly been treated for a mild concussion, which meant he had actually been injured.

  I did a little backtracking. It wasn’t hard to discover that yes, the Rolvink-produced film Shark Vixens had been filming at that time, not too far away.

  So what really happened?

  I did some thinking, and then some searching: news stories from the area and the time. I focused on accidents, deaths, fires, and crimes. Nothing stood out, so I cast my net a little wider—not in terms of subject, but geographically.

  And then I found it.

  Farther down the coast but the very same morning, an unconscious woman was found by the side of the road. Hit and run, no suspects. The really interesting thing, though, was one small detail near the bottom of the article, where a police source was quoted as saying, “There’s some indication she might have been moved from another location.”

  Completely circumstantial, of course. But the article gave the woman’s name, and a follow-up a week later said she was still in a coma.