The Key To the Kingdom (16 page)

Inside the doorway next to the call box he stood motionless. He realized he was holding his breath and beginning to sweat and he silently reminded himself to breathe. With one quick step he was outside of the shop and next to the box. He looked to see if anyone was standing on the corner of Highland and Sunset watching him. Seeing no unusual gawking he slid the key into the center lock mechanism on the telegraph box. Twisting it to the right he felt resistance and the key didn’t move. Shifting it back to the left he felt the lock give, click, and open.

He swung the door open. Inside was a thin package wrapped in plain brown paper. It was no more than eight inches long and five inches wide. The thickness of the discovery measured less than an inch. Grasping the package in one hand he steadily swung the door shut and relocked it. He removed the key, slid it back into his pocket, and moved immediately toward Sunset Boulevard. Rounding the corner in front of the Carthay Circle Theatre he saw Reginald standing in the doorway of the entrance. Hawk cringed and kept moving as he again perceived the stare coming from behind the shades. Casually raising the wrapped package in a wave, Hawk spoke.

“Hello again, I decided to do some shopping this time.”

Not allowing his motion to stall he pressed on in an attempt to disappear into the masses moving along the boulevard. He glanced over his left shoulder and didn’t see Reginald following. Sliding across the street to the far sidewalk, Hawk glanced down at the wrapped package in his hand. The nondescript brown paper wrapping bore no markings except for one word written in black marker in bold capital letters: HAWK. Just past Mickey’s of Hollywood there was a memorabilia souvenir stand with some benches around it. This would be a good place to sit alone and open the package.

“Dr. Hawkes,” said a voice to Hawk’s right.

Turning toward the voice he saw the sandy blond fellow he had met the night before. He must have emerged from Mickey’s of Hollywood.

“Uh, hi there . . . Sam, isn’t it?” Hawk knew his name but he didn’t want to let him know that.

“Close. It’s Sandy. Did you decide to continue your tour today?”

“Sort of. I saw some things last night that I decided to see again.” He paused and then carefully lifted the package in such a way as not to reveal the name written on it. “And I wanted to pick up some stuff.”

“You can’t see as much when you don’t have a private tour guide,” Sandy stated flatly.

“That’s the truth, but since I had the time I decided to try mingling with the masses.” Hawk smiled and began to lean as if to move on.

“So what did you come back to see again?” Sandy inquired.

“Just a couple of things,” Hawk responded, caught off guard by the directness of Sandy’s question.

“What things?” Sandy asked without expression.

Within Hawk a warning alarm blared, telling him to get away because something about this cast member was just not right. Kiran had suggested he was jealous. Hawk only knew he was odd and that was reason enough to get away from him.

“Things,” Hawk said with intentional vagueness. “Later!” Hawk ended the conversation abruptly and walked away. He didn’t look back but knew Sandy was staring.

Refocusing on the task at hand he spotted Sid Cahuenga’s One-of-a-Kind shop. The souvenir stop was bulging with autographed photographs of movie stars, movie posters, props, and even wardrobes that had been collected from stars both living and those from the golden era of the past. Of all the shopping stops inside the Studios this one was usually not as busy and hectic as the others. A series of benches surrounded it and its nearness to the front gate allowed him to sit in relative privacy hidden by the steady stream of guests entering the park. Hawk took a seat and studied the package in his hand. Folded paper neatly closed with clear adhesive tape sealing the seams. Nothing distinctive about the wrapping. He went ahead and tore off the brown paper. Before the contents were completely revealed Hawk realized it was a DVD case. Clearing the wrapping he flipped it in his hand so he could see the title. The top of the case read Walt Disney Film Classic and the title of the movie,
Old Yeller
, was written below.

“Old Yeller?
” Hawk murmured.

Examining the case he saw there was no cellophane shrink wrap over it. He opened the case to see what was inside and found an
Old Yeller
DVD. Taking the disc off the safety spindle he found nothing outstanding about it. Carefully he clicked it back in. Snapping the case shut he looked off into the distance, trying to figure out what he might have missed.

“Ha-ha!”

The talking huggable toy vibrated and a glimmer of anticipation surged back through the puzzled preacher. He needed all the help he could get to unravel and understand this adventure Farren had designed for him. He
squeezed Pal Mickey’s midsection and the unmistakable voice was quick to respond.

“Gosh, didn’t you cry when Old Yeller died? Maybe we should drop by and see if the man of the house is doing okay. I sure hope he is. He might even be able to help us. Hawk, if you can think outside of the box, you’ll find exactly what we need.”

It was becoming less strange to hear this talking tour guide call him by name. But Hawk had no idea what Mickey was talking about this time. Again he felt a vibration on his hip but he was still holding the stuffed animal in his hand. Perplexed he looked at the mouse but then realized on the next vibration that it was his cell phone ringing in his right pants pocket. He rustled past car keys to find and fish it out. Opening it without looking at the caller ID, he answered.

“This is Grayson Hawkes.”

“Well, hello, Grayson Hawkes,” came the familiar voice of Juliette Keaton. “I got your message that you’d be out for a few days, but I have a question for you.”

“Sure, fire.”

“Does your being out of the office for a few days have anything to do with the visit we just had from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department?”

“Well, sort of . . . in a roundabout way, I think.”

“What’s going on?” she said in her usual discerning manner.

“I’d rather not tell you just yet,” he told her. “I will, when I’ve figured a few things out.”

“Did you know that Farren Rales is missing?”

“Yes, I know.”

“The sheriff’s department wanted to know if anything unusual happened at our meeting with him.”

“What did you tell them?” He was curious.

“Nothing happened out of the ordinary from my perspective. Anything odd happen from your perspective?”

“You were there just like I was.”

“Hawk, are you in trouble?” She attempted to carve away the vagueness between them.

“I don’t think I’m in trouble.”

“Is Farren in trouble?” Juliette asked. Hawk recognized her tone, it was the way she spoke when she locked into her problem-solving mode. As a leader she had the gift of being able to logically work through crisis and come up with sound and spiritual answers.

“I don’t know.”

“What can I do to help?”

“I don’t think you can.”

“Okay, Hawk, tell me where you are. I’ll see if I can round up Jonathan and Shep so we can hook up with you. Whatever’s going on, we can solve it.”

“I’m all right for now. Really, I am . . . but thanks.” He was genuinely grateful for her offer to assemble their team to help.

“So you really aren’t going to tell me where you are and what is up?” She sounded a tad frustrated.

“No, I’m really not going to tell you.” He laughed, desiring to calm her down. “I’ll be fine and I’ll let you know what’s going on when I get a few more things figured out.”

“I’m going to find Jonathan and Shep and tell them,” she insisted. “You are being strange, Farren is missing, the sheriff is asking questions, and you are in trouble but trying to do something on your own that is only going to end up causing more trouble in the end.”

“You’re making quite a few guesses there,” he teased.

“Sure I am.” Her tone softened some. “Don’t be afraid to call.”

He knew her well enough to know that her insights were usually accurate. At this point he would agree with her summary of the events unfolding in his life.

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

Day Five Afternoon

G
RATEFUL FOR JULIETTE’S CONCERN
but not appreciating the distraction, Hawk refocused on the latest hint he needed to figure out. How could he go and see if the man of the house was okay? Studying the DVD case again he read the description as explained on the back cover. It had been years since Hawk had actually watched the movie. As a child he’d cried when Old Yeller had to be shot. In the film the dog was killed by the boy who was forced to become the man of the house while the father was away from their frontier home. His father had instructed him to be the man while he was away, and that was an underlying plot to the heartwarming story.

Rales had told him time and time again to remember a story and pay attention to details. As he read the back of the case he saw the oldest son was named Travis. This was the young man forced into being the man of the house. Remembering more of the story line he was growing more confident he was on track.
Maybe we should drop by and see if the man of the house is doing okay. I sure hope he is
. Dropping by to see the man of the house at the Studios was what Hawk didn’t understand. He situated his guide back on his hip and started to walk toward the hub of the theme park, trying to break down the perplexing clue into logical segments. It made sense to him that if he was going to drop by and see someone, he would need to know where the person lived. If that was accurate, then the problem was to figure out where people would live within the Studios. The Hollywood Hotel housed the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. People stayed in hotels for certain, but in the story line developed by the Imagineers for the attraction, the hotel had been struck by lightning and was now deserted.

When the Studios were first opened, there was an area of the park known as Residential Street. This street featured homes that could be filmed from a variety of angles to create outdoor neighborhoods for any time period. Over time a new attraction had forced the removal of the homes, so that was not the answer either.

Thinking and walking propelled Hawk down Hollywood Boulevard to the place where his trip this day had begun. He reached the corner of Hollywood
and Vine and turned to walk past the Hollywood & Vine diner toward Echo Lake. Momentarily pausing to get his bearings he noticed the flow of people coming out of the 50’s Prime Time Café. Adjacent to the café he saw the open doorway to the Tune-In Lounge, where guests of the café waited while their tables were prepared. The Hollywood & Vine diner was connected to the Tune-In Lounge, and the facade next to the buildings held some staging he had never paid attention to.

Getting closer he read the words above a black metal gateway protecting a set of stairs. Echo Lake Apts, it read. Behind the gate the stairs climbed skyward to a second story that from the ground appeared to be apartments. Of course, no one lived in the Studios, but if they could, this would be a place where they might. Hawk stepped to the gate and firmly placed both hands on it. He gave it a push. It didn’t budge, and he noticed it was locked. He leaned with his back against the gate and forced himself to keep trying to work the puzzle. The DVD in his hand must hold another clue. Reading it carefully for the second time he allowed himself to travel down memory lane to the days when he had seen the movie for the first time. The description unfurled the frames of the film across his mind. The man of the house had been a boy named Travis. Travis had been played by a young actor who starred in a number of Disney movies and other feature films. The actor’s name was Tommy Kirk, listed in parentheses in the description of the film.