Tangled tales can be shortest (5)
I believe the answer is:
least
'be shortest' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'tangled tales' is the wordplay.
'tangled' indicates anagramming the letters.
'tales' is an anagram of 'LEAST'.
'can' is the link.
(Other definitions for least that I've seen before include "superlatively small" , "Smallest in extent" , "Being lowest in importance - gone stale" , "Most slight" , "Minimal amount" .)