When an orderly wheeled him to the hospital’s front door, Shawn and Tara were waiting by her red Mercedes. They kept waiting as he made his way across the sidewalk. Each step was an agonizing ordeal, as he forced stiffened and bruised muscles to contract and relax. After what felt like another hour, he made it over to them.
“Tara’s offered to take you home, bud,” Shawn said.
“It’s the least I can do. If there’s anything else, please let me know.”
“Thanks, but you don’t have to,” Gus said. “You’ve already done so much.”
“Anyone would have done the same thing.”
“For a complete stranger? I don’t think so.”
“Well, we’re not strangers anymore,” Tara said. “I’d like you to think of me as your friend.”
“Works for me,” Shawn said.
“In that case, there is one thing I’d like to do before I go home,” Gus said, gritting his teeth against the pain. “If you wouldn’t mind driving back up that hill, I want to see the man who really is responsible. And put an end to his criminal enterprise, no matter how high or low it reaches.”
Shawn looked like he was going to argue; then he relaxed into a grin. He turned to Tara. “Do you mind making one quick stop?”
Gus sprawled out across the red leather of the backseat as Tara piloted them back to where she’d first seen him. Normally he would have used the travel time to work out an action plan with Shawn. But no matter how helpful Tara was being, it didn’t feel right to discuss their process in front of her. So Gus used the trip to experience every minor bump in the road as a wave of pain coursed through his entire body.
Which turned out to be just as beneficial a use of time as planning would have been. Because when the Mercedes pulled up across the street from the impound office, he heard Shawn mutter a confused expletive. Pulling himself up in the seat, Gus looked out the window.
The area in front of the shack was surrounded by police cars. Uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives stood outside the front door. Two EMTs loitered by their open, empty ambulance.
“What’s going on?” Gus said.
Shawn surveyed the scene. “I’d say you’re not the only victim of the criminal conspiracy. Looks like they’ve taken out one of their own. Or as they say in Law and Order—chung chung.”
Chapter Five
In cooking, no procedure is simpler or more foolproof than roasting a chicken. You turn the oven on to 350 degrees, slap the bird in a roasting pan, and pull it out after an hour or so. Of course there are plenty of ways to improve this basic recipe, but as long as you follow these easy steps, you’ll end up with a tasty dinner.
Even with a dish this basic, there are ways to destroy it. Let’s say you set the oven to something like 120 degrees and leave the bird in for a couple of days. You might think of it as slow roasting. But you won’t be cooking the chicken so much as speeding up its decomposition. And if you’ve forgotten to remove all those quick-to-spoil innards from the cavity, you’ll end up with a dish that’s almost as toxic as it is disgusting.
Whoever killed the attendant at the impound yard apparently didn’t know the rules for successful roasting. He had left his victim’s body in the 110-degree metal shack overnight, and he definitely hadn’t done any cleaning beforehand.
Which is why seven of the eight members of the Santa Barbara Police Department called to the scene were still standing outside the shack’s door, their faces covered with handkerchiefs, paper bags, or take-out coffee cups when Tara’s red Mercedes pulled up across the street. And why the eighth, one of the techs from the crime lab, blasted out onto the tarmac, fell onto his knees, and heaved just moments after he’d gone in.
Shawn leaned back over the front seat. “I guess our work here is done. Want to go home?”
“What do you mean our work is done? We haven’t done anything.”
“The guy who tried to kill us isn’t going to be trying again anytime soon. And it’s not like we can wreak any good vengeance on him now.”
Shawn was right. They could go home. For a moment, Gus imagined what it would be like to ease his aching muscles into a warm bath. And to stay there for a month. But then he remembered why his muscles hurt in the first place.
“We’re detectives, not rubber duckies,” Gus said.
“Duckies?” Shawn said.
“Never mind,” Gus said. “Let’s break this thing open.”
Shawn beamed at him. Those were exactly the words he wanted to hear. He threw open his door and marched across the street.
“Isn’t he amazing?” Tara said.
“Yeah, amazing,” Gus said, struggling to pull the door handle all the way back. “Would you mind helping me out of here?”
Tara slid out of the driver’s side and opened the back door for Gus. He grabbed the handle over the window and hauled himself to the doorway, then realized he was stuck. His top half was already leaning out toward the pavement, but his legs were trapped in the well behind the front seat, and he couldn’t lift them over the threshold. In about two seconds, he was going to tip over and fall face-first onto the asphalt.
“Little help here,” he called.
Tara grabbed his shoulders just as he was beginning to topple. Gently, she eased his trunk back into the car, then lifted his feet over the threshold. She held out a hand to help him get up, but he waved it off.
“I’m okay now,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Would you like me to help you across the street?”
Gus looked at the gaggle of police officers standing outside the shack. The open ambulance waiting for a body. He remembered how he had felt when he saw his first corpse. There was no need to put this poor woman through that.
“You’ve done enough,” Gus said. “In fact, you might as well go home. We can get a ride with one of the detectives.”
“I can’t do that,” she said, taking his arm.
Despite the apparent fact that his neck had lost the ability to swivel, Gus scanned the road in both directions, making sure there was no car within a quarter of a mile before he headed toward the impound lot.
“Sure, you can. I’m sorry I dragged you all the way out here.”
Tara looked puzzled. “You didn’t drag me here. Shawn did.”
He felt like the Tin Woodsman—his muscles seemed to be rusted solid, but once he started moving they eased up considerably. “It was really both of us who—”
“No.” There was an edge of steel in her voice that Gus hadn’t heard before. He didn’t understand where it was coming from. “Shawn dragged me here. That’s why I was here to see you fall. I was answering his call.”
“How could he call you? His phone was in my car, and my car was impounded,” Gus said.
Her ice blue eyes bored into his. “Shawn doesn’t need a phone to call me. He’s a psychic. He beams his thoughts directly into my mind.”
Gus stopped dead in the middle of the street. He would have, anyway, if his body hadn’t been experiencing a sense memory of his last journey over this particular stretch of road and propelling his legs forward without any input from his brain. “He does?”
“No matter where I am or what I’m doing.”
Gus realized he had made it to the other end of the street. So why did it feel like he had just stepped into quicksand? “Does Shawn know about this?”
“He’s the one beaming me his thoughts,” she said in a tone that suggested Gus had just come out of a short yellow bus, not a red Mercedes.
“But have you discussed this with him?”
“Did you talk to your feet before you sent them the mental order to cross the street?” she said.
Actually, today he had. But he knew what she meant. He needed to talk to Shawn about this right away.
“Are you getting any beams from Shawn right now?”
She thought it over, cocking her head like a puppy to aid her reception. “Nothing.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Gus said. “All
those police radios are interfering with the signals.”
“I didn’t know they could do that,” Tara said. “It’s never been a problem before.”
“It’s a new invention,” Gus said. “With all the bandwidth going to cell carriers, the cops have switched to psychic frequencies for their radios.”
“I’d better get closer to him then.”
“No!” Gus said. “I mean, he’s asked me to relay a request—an order—to you.”
“I didn’t hear him do that.”
“Exactly,” Gus said. “That’s why I have to tell you that Shawn wants you to—Shawn orders you—to wait by the car.”
He waited for a moment for her to process this. Then she smiled and went back across the street. Forcing his legs to go faster, Gus walked over to the shack’s front door, where seven of the police were still standing frozen as the crime scene tech finally managed to get up off his knees.
“Good to see your new cologne’s going over as well as the old one, Lassie,” Shawn said.
“I thought he was responding to one of your jokes,” Lassiter said. “It’s how they make me feel.”
Gus stepped up before Shawn could respond. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
“Not just yet, Gus,” Shawn said. “Detective Lassiter was just going to demonstrate what makes him Santa Barbara’s finest.”
“You really think I won’t go in that shack?” Lassiter said.
“I will if you will,” Shawn said.
“You most certainly will not,” Lassiter said.
“Shawn,” Gus whispered fiercely, “there’s something you need to know. Now.”
“The Santa Barbara Police Department doesn’t need your help on this one,” Lassiter said. “Which you might have been able to figure out by the simple fact that nobody asked for it.”
The other police detective pulled the handkerchief away from her face, revealing the bright eyes and easy smile of Juliet O’Hara. Except that right now her eyes were slightly dimmed by tears, and her smile was anything but easy—the stench was proving stronger even than her own fierce will. And her will rarely lost a test of strength. The youngest detective on the squad, O’Hara was almost always underestimated by men who saw her pretty face and assumed she was soft. It annoyed her, but she’d learned how to use their assumptions against them. “Yes, Carlton, somebody did.” She turned to Shawn. “You could have returned one of my calls.”
“Sorry. I’ve been away from my phones.”
“Then how did you know to come here?” she said.
“Jules, Jules, Jules,” Shawn said, “do you really need to ask?”
Lassiter looked at her as if she’d gotten up before she’d finished her time in the naughty spot. “You called him?”
“I did.”
“You don’t have the authority to authorize an unauthorized consultant. You need to have that cleared by Chief Vick.”
“Her exact words were, ‘Do whatever you want as long as you don’t make me come to that hellhole,’” O’Hara said.
“And what is it you want to do, Juliet?” Shawn said. “I mean, deep down.”
“I want to clear this case so I never have to smell this smell again,” she said.
“You heard the lady, Lassie,” Shawn said. “Let’s solve us a murder. What do we hear from the CSI boys?”
District Attorney Bert Coules stepped out from around the side of the shack. “Mostly retching,” Coules said. “Occasional vomiting. A lot of moans.”
Shawn listened for a moment. “Yes, I see what you mean. But before they lost focus, what were they saying?”
Gus pulled Shawn aside. Or he tried to. He couldn’t quite get up the strength to actually exert a force, but Shawn noticed him brushing at his shirtsleeve.
“There’s something you need to know,” Gus said.
“And I’m about to learn it from the lovely detective.”
“I sure hope not,” Gus said, as Shawn stepped away from him.
“It’s a mess in there,” Coules said.
“You’re not looking so good yourself,” Shawn said. “Got a little spot on your suit there.”
Actually, there were several spots on the DA’s suit. His knee was stained with grease. His jacket was flecked with a goo whose origin Gus hoped he’d never learn.
“Metal building, hot sun, dead body, check,” Coules said. “You investigate a crime scene, you’re going to get dirty. You stay much cleaner if you just make up your facts.”
“And this place was a mess before the guy was dead,” O’Hara said. “Apparently, it hadn’t even been swept in the last decade. Which means every fingerprint that’s ever been left is still there.”
“That’s not going to stop us from finding the killer,” Lassiter said.
“Not when the victim works for the City of Santa Barbara,” Coules said. “That’s why I’m here now, and why I won’t let this case drop until it’s solved and the perpetrator is behind bars. At the district attorney’s office, we believe that anyone who’s willing to harm a member of our local government is targeting democracy itself. And I will not let that stand. Do you understand, Detectives?”
“We’ll take the prints and run every single one of them, even if it’s the entire population of Santa Barbara,” Lassiter said.
Gus felt Coules’ eyes boring into him. He tried to remember how many fingerprints he and Shawn might have left in the shack. Including the ones he must have left on the barrel of the shotgun. Not that he and Shawn had done anything wrong. They were the victims. But would that stop Coules from coming after them?
“And I bet it is,” Gus said. “Every single citizen. We’ll be amazed at the prints that are in there. Probably even people who have never been in the area. Just thought about stopping by.”
“That would include you two, then, wouldn’t it?” Coules said.
“Us?” Gus squeaked.
“You were certainly thinking about stopping by yesterday,” Lassiter said. “Just think, if you’d made the walk, you might have run into the killer. Your laziness might have saved your lives.”
This was the moment. All Gus had to do was say three simple words: “We were here.” Sure, there would be an investigation, but they didn’t kill the man, so what did they have to worry about? Even if Bert Coules was looking for vengeance after his humiliation at the Veronica Mason trial, he’d never actually charge them with the murder. And if charges were filed, what jury would convict them? A miserable year or two, a few hundred thousand dollars in legal fees, and it would all be over. If only Gus could bring himself to say those three simple words.
“It only looks like laziness,” Shawn said. “But it’s really more of a Zen survival thing. Or a Spidey sense. It’s hard to tell the difference between the two sometimes.”
Gus whispered furiously to him, “What are you doing? We should tell them.”
“After we’ve solved the murder,” Shawn said. “This is our case.”
Detective O’Hara cleared her throat. “Other forensic evidence is going to be mostly useless for the same reasons. From what I understand, the place is absolutely disgusting, even without the body. One of the techs tried to describe the bathroom to me, and was seized by another fit of vomiting.”
“Sounds like my kind of place,” Shawn said. “Let’s do this thing.”
“You really think you’re man enough to step through that door?” Lassiter said.
“Shawn’s man enough for anything,” a female voice behind them said. They turned to see Tara coming up to the door, looking stern. “And he doesn’t like it when his masculinity is questioned.”
“Good thing he hired a hooker to defend his honor, then,” Coules said.
“I am not a hooker,” Tara said. “I just dress like one because Shawn likes it.”
“That’s absolutely untrue,” Shawn said.
“No?” O’Hara said, studying Tara’s tiny dress. “Didn’t you try to get me to wear an outfit like that when I went undercover at that
convent?”
“First of all, that was a joke,” Shawn said. “And second—what I mean to say was that it’s absolutely untrue that I order Tara to dress a particular way. Not that it’s untrue that I like it.”
Lassiter shook his head in disgust. “I’m glad we cleared that up. Now why don’t you ask your friend to leave? In Santa Barbara, we don’t bring dates to crime scenes.”
Psych: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read Page 6
