The Darkness Rolling (20 page)

“Mr. Ford thinks it’s a boyfriend who went off the deep end.”

“Could be.”

He waited. Mize slid by me with the camera and, judging from the clumping noises, boosted himself up into the crawl space.

I waited, thought, and decided they needed a little more. “Why would a Navajo do this? Nobody local makes sense. This shoot is a bonanza for the whole region, which is very, very poor. Mr. Ford pays the Navajo extras and laborers eighteen dollars a day. He says he’s coming back next year, and that other shoots will come here. For a Navajo to cause trouble…”

I shut up. It was all true, except that the word
J
ē
sho
or
Joshay
just didn’t fit. Words heard while you’re being beaten? Hard to count as hard evidence. Still, it was a distinctive word, and the one word like it in English that sounded anything like it, “gesso,” made no sense.

Since I was standing there, not speaking, the agent assumed I didn’t have a thought in my head. I recognized the way he looked at me. Only his training kept him from snickering, or saying, “Red nigger.” I’d heard it before.

As Choirboy came back with the photo gear, Shoe Polish said, “Set it down. I need your help for a moment.”

He looked at me like a scientist curious about an insect. I heard Choirboy setting the gear next to the chamber pot. “Okay, Goldman, that’s all for now. You’re through here.”

The tone, the attitude? My stomach went right to the bottom of my feet. Before I could turn, Choirboy levered my hands up high behind my back. The sneaky son of a bitch clamped on cuffs.

“And I,” Choirboy said sweetly sick, “am personally going to escort you to jail.”

Tuckerman said what I least wanted to hear. “Yazzie Goldman, you are under arrest for obstruction of justice.”

Damn it. No Navajo has a clansman in the FBI. I doubted that my grandfather had any relatives there, either.

*   *   *

We walked over to the Fibbie rental car. I knew exactly where I was headed. Albuquerque, brick jail, door with bars slamming shut with a metallic clang.

Worse, much worse, Linda was being left with less protection right when she was in deep shit.

Mary Ford stepped out of her cabin and started downhill toward the shoot. “Mrs. Ford,” I called, “I need help. Would you please get Mr. John?”

“Shut up.” Mize jacked my cuffed wrists up higher behind my back.

I’ll remember that, Choirboy.

Mary walked toward us, fast. “Is Seaman Goldman being arrested, Agent…?”

“Special Agent Tuckerman. He’s being charged with obstruction of justice.”

Mary Ford nodded to herself. She knew cop-speak. “We’ll see what we can do about that, Yazzie.” Down the hill she went. No telling what would happen. Mr. John was damnably stubborn about having his filming interrupted.

I said calmly to Tuckerman, “Mr. Ford needs to know you’re leaving Miss Darnell without a bodyguard.”

He tilted his head sideways. “So what’s that?”

Colin squatted underneath the cedar.

“It’s what did her no good before. Mr. Ford needs—”

Shoe Polish said, “He needs to know what we want to tell him. Period. Get in the car.”

Maybe they’ll buy themselves some trouble.
Hard on the heels of that thought came,
If their actions get Linda hurt, I will wipe the floor with them. Just for starters.

As Shoe Polish was about to stuff me into the backseat of the rental car, Julius Roth came striding toward us, moving faster than I thought he could manage. I was damn glad to see him.

He introduced himself, and Tuckerman gave his name, emphasizing the words “Special Agent.”

“Commander Ford would like a moment with you before you go anywhere,” said Julius.

“Commander?” said Shoe Polish.

“Commander, U.S. Navy, retired. Wounded and commended for bravery at Normandy. He wants a word.”

Nice surprise, Julius,
I thought.

Choirboy started stowing his photo equipment in the trunk.

“I repeat,” Julius said, “Commander Ford is on his way.”

There was too much power on parade here, a major outbreak of I-am-a-big-deal stuff. White people. I hoped not to spend the rest of the day in the back of the car, hands pinioned, while they worked it out.

Mr. John stalked up the hill like he was stomping scorpions. Behind him was…? Then I remembered—Roy Pease, the unit publicist. Every shoot had a man on the spot who made radio calls and wrote copy and mailed out photos to generate as many stories as he could for the press and the radio. Never too soon to start marketing. I had no idea why Mr. John brought him along now.

“Seaman Goldman”—more of that BS—“is anyone inside watching after Miss Darnell?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. John jerked his head toward the cabin, and Julius hustled.

I watched Ford suppress an angry look and replace it with formal courtesy. “What’s going on here?” Mr. John said to Tuckerman.

“Goldman is being charged with obstruction of justice,” said Shoe Polish.

Mr. John glared at him. “Seaman Goldman? Because he did some investigating and made some discoveries on his own?”

“That’s not how I’d put it, sir.”

“Commander Ford, I showed them what I found. They—”

Mr. John held up a finger, and I stopped talking. This was his location, and he was boss. He considered for a moment, turned his head, and spoke inaudibly to Pease. Sometimes the patch on his left eye helped him shut out people like Shoe Polish and Choirboy.

Pease scurried along the dirt road toward the trading post.

“Special Agent Tuckerman, Special Agent Mize, please tell me everything about the situation here.”

They recited all of it, what I said I’d found, what they’d seen, what Linda said. Using their notes, they showed off what meticulous care they had taken in observing and listening. Shoe Polish nailed it down with, “The Bureau regards his activity as obstruction of justice.”

Mr. John had chewed this morning’s white handkerchief to death. He spat it on the ground. Then, unpredictably, he broke into a great big smile. Charm was one of his modes. “Gentlemen, I have nothing but admiration for the FBI, and I certainly respect regulations and the chain of command. You may know that I have some experience with such matters.

“Right now my orders are to get one job done—direct a motion picture. And Seaman Goldman’s arrest would present me with obstacles.”

Shoe Polish started to speak, but Mr. John held up a finger.

“May I make a suggestion, Special Agent Tuckerman? Please come to Mr. and Mrs. Goulding’s office with me, bring your prisoner, and let’s make a couple of calls.”

Tuckerman considered. “All right, sir, with one understanding. A federal investigation of a violent felony takes precedence over making a movie.”

Mr. John inclined his head courteously. “A felony comes first with me as well, gentlemen, and my studio. Especially an assault on one of our stars.”

Up at the trading post Mr. John solicited the help of Mike Goulding. She led us all to the office, and we stood around for a moment while Pease finished a conversation on the two-way radio. Then we all walked in and Mr. John sat down at the radio. Pease sat at Mike’s typewriter and started pecking.

“What’s the name of the SAC at Albuquerque?” Meaning the special agent in charge, head of the Albuquerque office, and these agents’ boss. Mr. John understood chain of command, all right. Also the power of going over someone’s head.

“Thompson,” said Tuckerman.

Some radio-speak followed—“Come in, affirmative, negative,” that sort of thing. Then Mr. John introduced himself to SAC Thompson, complete with his own titles and commendations. He also mentioned that he’d won six Oscars. It was weird to hear Mr. John brag, but I supposed he’d learned in the navy how to push the power buttons.

Pease handed Mr. John a sheet half full of typewriting. “I’m informed,” Mr. John told Thompson, “that the attack on Linda Darnell was the lead story in the two biggest motion-picture dailies yesterday,
Variety
and
The Hollywood Reporter.
It’s also prominent news in the
Los Angeles Times
,
The New York Times,
and other newspapers across the country.”

“That’s right,” said Thompson, his voice too loud on the radio. He sounded glad about the ink the crime was getting. “And
Photoplay
will be all over it, et cetera.”

“Thank you. Now give me a moment, please.”

“Roy,” he said to Pease, “were the stories accurate?”

“They ran with what I telegraphed them,” said Pease. “What other choice did they have?”

Mr. John allowed no one from the press on his location. He said softly to Pease, “Now write your headlines and the lead.”

He spoke into the radio again. “SAC Thompson, there has been an important discovery in this case. I’m going to ask Special Agent Tuckerman to explain it to you.”

Tuckerman slapped the sides of his own head with both hands. But he was trapped. Mr. John and I would hear every bit of whatever he said. So he told the truth pretty straight, except for adding that he suspected that I might have made the prints myself, instead of discovering them. As soon as he could, he stepped away from the radio.

Thompson had the nerve to say to him, “Good work.”

Mr. John plunged right back in. “Now, SAC Thompson, the newspapers and industry journals ran what we told them yesterday. They have no source but us, so they’ll do the same again tomorrow and next week and so on. Let me discuss the implications of that with you. The implications
for
you.”

Tuckerman and Mize leaned close to Mr. John, like they were scared of missing something. Maybe they were scared.

“You may not know, SAC Thompson, that my last year of military service was with the OSS.” The Office of Strategic Services, the U.S. government intelligence agency. “We at the OSS did our best to keep our operations secret and out of the public eye.”

Pease
rat-a-tatted
away.

“Come to the point, Mr. Ford.”

Mr. John ignored this impertinence. “Your agency, as you know, SAC Thompson, operates the opposite way. Your director loves publicity.”

I gulped. J. Edgar Hoover damn well did. But to mention it?

“He will eat up a story about a woman movie star courageously going deep into Indian country to create a work of art and in the course of her duties being brutally assaulted, perhaps even sexually assaulted. Especially with implications that an Indian may be the perpetrator. And your director will be watching you most carefully. You may have heard from him already.”

Thompson said nothing.

“So you want to tread carefully here,” said Mr. John, “and in particular you do not want the Bureau embarrassed by what the newspapers and movie magazines say. They are available on every street corner, in every drugstore, dime store, and grocery store. They are the most widely read publications in this great country. They
are
public opinion.”

Silence. I wondered if Tuckerman and Mize could still draw breath.

“Now I call your attention to this fact: We are in a very remote location here, a full day’s drive from the nearest town, in an area where local people don’t speak English. The magazines are hungry, in fact desperate, for news about Miss Darnell. We get dozens of requests every day to interview her. I will allow no one in the press or the radio to speak to her. Absolutely no one. If any of their representatives show up here, I will have his ass kicked unceremoniously two hundred miles to the railroad station.”

Pease jerked a sheet out of his typewriter and handed it to Mr. John.

Mr. John glanced at the writing and nodded to himself. “Bottom line. The press is entirely dependent on the version of the news that we choose to telegraph to them each day. Now, SAC Thompson, I assure you, the press is important to us as well. We want all the inches of coverage, and all the photos, we can get. But we let the public know only what we want to tell them.”

The Fibbies sure as hell could see the head of the hammer falling, and they knew whose skulls it was going to hit.

“So let me read what our publicist has written for them today. I’m just seeing it for the first time, and I will go over it carefully with him to make sure it’s what I have in mind.”

Mr. John crinkled the sheet audibly.

“Headline:
MAJOR BREAK IN DARNELL CASE

“Subhead:
NAVAJO SHORE PATROLMAN SPOTS WHAT FBI AGENTS MISSED
.”

“Next subhead:
FBI ARRESTS HERO WHO SHOWED THEM UP
.”

Mr. John paused, stuck a handkerchief in his mouth for confidence, and said, “So, SAC Thompson, would you like me to read you the rest of the story? Or perhaps I should have someone at the studio telegraph it to you and to the director himself.”

“I think I get the point, Mr. Ford.”

“Commander Ford,” Mr. John corrected him. “Let’s make this simple. I request that you tell your agents to release Seaman Goldman. That’s what you give me. Here’s what I give you: I instruct the seaman to work with your agents, tell them everything he knows and everything he thinks, and cooperate with them completely. He’s Navajo and can provide knowledge they don’t have, and can translate during their interviews with the Navajos.”

“Let me speak to Special Agent Tuckerman,” said Thompson. “In private.”

Mr. John grinned at Tuckerman. Then he, Pease, and I left the office and walked across to Linda’s cabin. I leaned against the Fibbies’ car. None of us had any doubt about what was getting said on that radio.

I was super-animated. Mr. John had not only gotten me out of a trip to jail, but inside the investigation. It was a beautiful thing. Pure justice.

Shoe Polish and Choirboy came down to us, their body language all draggy, and Mize uncuffed me. I rubbed my wrists.

Tuckerman looked at Julius and Colin, propped against the front of Linda’s cabin. “We’ll wait until after lunch to talk further with Miss Darnell.”

Mr. John, Pease, and I strolled off into a midday that sported the most glorious sunlight I’d ever seen.