Mind-Altering Murder

by William Rabkin

  O'Hara looked at them again. "MTN," she said. "Macklin Tanner."

  "That's what I'm thinking," Gus said. "Which means that those numbers have to be a map to where he is."

  "So what is six-eighty-two-point-seven?" she said.

  Gus got out of his chair and walked across the office to the large desk that sprawled in the exact center of the window. He passed his hand through one of those light beams and the panel slid open to reveal the face of the computer. "Do you really think I'm such a nerd I'd know the entire Dewey decimal system?"

  There didn't seem to be a way to answer that would actually move the conversation forward, so O'Hara didn't say anything. Gus started typing onto the computer screen.

  "Okay," he said after the display loaded. "The six hundreds are all about technology."

  "That doesn't do us any good," O'Hara said. "We already know that Tanner is a technological genius."

  "But not this kind," Gus said. "Computer stuff all starts in the triple zeroes, because the entire system was developed a hundred years before Bill Gates was born, and there was no way to squeeze a new world of publications into existing categories."

  "So what kind of technology are we talking about?" O'Hara said.

  "The kind that existed in the nineteenth century," Gus said. "In terms of the six-eighties, we're looking at 'manufacture for specific use.' "

  "How specific?"

  "Well, six-eighty-five is leather, fur, and related items. Six-eighty-four is furnishing and home workshops."

  "And six-eighty-two?"

  He checked the display, then checked it again. "Small forge work," he said. "Blacksmithing."

  Chapter Twenty-one

  As the door closed behind Detective O'Hara, Gus settled back into his desk chair and felt a familiar rush of satisfaction. He had grown tired of so much about the detective business, but he could never get sick of the thrill that came when the puzzle pieces finally began to fall together, when what had been a random set of facts and actions suddenly coalesced into a pattern.

  It was true that they still had no idea exactly what the clue was telling them, what kind of connection might exist between Macklin Tanner's whereabouts and the art and industry of blacksmithing, but that would be a matter of grunt work, not inspiration. Now that they knew where to look, Shawn and Jules could start searching for any connection either Tanner or anyone who knew him had with metalwork.

  That thought sent a little pang of jealousy through him. Shawn and Jules were going to have all the fun. They were going to track this clue down to its ultimate meaning, they were going to find Tanner and catch the bad guy--if there was a bad guy. And it would all be because Gus had spotted the misplaced number and understood the pattern.

  Gus was so flushed with the excitement of the discovery that he'd picked up the phone and dialed the first half of Psych's number before he realized what he was doing. Even then he wasn't sure why he'd stopped himself from completing the call. He and Shawn had split on the best of terms. There was no reason why he couldn't help his old partner finish up a case they had started together. And odds were O'Hara was still returning her rental car to the airport lot--he and Shawn could jump on this new revelation and have it wrapped up before she even told Shawn what he'd come up with.

  But what had he come up with, exactly? He'd taken a set of numbers and letters on O'Hara's sketch of a book she'd seen in a computer game, made an assumption about what they must have meant, and then jumped to an answer based on that. And it all seemed perfectly logical, as long as his basic assumption was right.

  But what if it wasn't?

  Gus had no idea who had put those numbers on the spine of the digital image of a book. He had no way of knowing if that person knew anything about the Dewey decimal system. Maybe he'd just remembered that there were supposed to be numbers on a library book and slapped some on at random. Or maybe there was a message encoded there, but not the one that Gus had puzzled out.

  Gus knew he hadn't necessarily deduced the truth of these numbers. He'd simply made a decision. When he saw that the spine bore the wrong Dewey decimal classification, he leaped to the idea that the numbers were to be interpreted via the system. That gave him an answer--but was it the answer?

  The truth was those numbers could have meant anything. A date, for instance: Maybe 682.7 should have been read as June 7, 1982. It would be odd to write it out that way, but if they were looking for a rogue programmer, would it really be so hard to believe he'd write it out as a Star Trek- style star date? If that was right, then Shawn would have to search through Tanner's life to figure out what had happened on that day--and since the game designer had only been three at the time he'd also have to look at whatever else might have been going on at the same time. June 7, 1982 was, for example, the day that Priscilla Presley first opened Graceland to the public, although she kept the bathroom where Elvis died off-limits. Could that conceivably have anything to do with Tanner's disappearance? It seemed unlikely, but was it that much less plausible than the notion that Festus from Gunsmoke had snatched the guy?

  Or maybe it wasn't just the numbers. He'd stated as a fact that MTN had to stand for Macklin Tanner, but there was no way of knowing that for sure. For all he knew the correct way to read the spine was as a seven-digit telephone number: 682-7686, once he'd swapped out the three letters for their corresponding numerals. Granted, that was not a common format for writing out telephone numbers, but there were no standardized rules for leaving clues in computer games.

  And those were just the first two possible alternative interpretations that popped into his mind. Who was to say the kidnapper--if there was a kidnapper--hadn't actually given out the address of Tanner's hiding place: 6287 Mountain? Maybe he was bragging that he'd shot Tanner with a Remington Model 700 Mountain LSS Bolt Action Rifle 6287. MTN could have referred to the Military Training Network of the Uniformed Services University and the number to a course or a research study.

  Those letters and numbers could have meant anything. Gus had chosen his own interpretation and O'Hara had run out to act on it. But if he was right and his hunch led them to find Tanner, it would really only be luck. And if he was wrong--and he was so much more likely to have been wrong--then he might have just condemned the man to a terrible death.

  Gus realized the phone was shaking in his hand. He lowered it gently to its cradle and waited until the tremors passed, then dug a Kleenex out of his drawer and wiped the sweat off his palms.

  This, Gus knew, was why he couldn't call Shawn and spitball ideas about what kind of mad blacksmith had taken Tanner hostage.

  It was the fear.

  It was why he'd left Psych in the first place.

  Gus had tried to convince himself that he had grown tired of being a detective, that now he had become a man and it was time to put aside childish things. That the thought of being an executive was simply more exciting than working with Psych.

  But now he had to face the truth. He'd left Psych because he had been scared.

  He'd tried to deny it to himself, and when that didn't work, he'd simply ignored the sensation. Because every time he even thought about working on a case, he had been filled with fear.

  It didn't used to be like this. When Gus teamed up with Shawn he'd managed to share his best friend's blithe assumption that as long as they were having fun that was all that mattered. And for years, the world seemed to follow that dictate. Gus and Shawn would take the most outrageous risks, play the most ludicrous scams, and accuse the least likely suspect of the vilest crimes. And every time they turned out to be right.

  It was like they were charmed. Shawn could do something as ridiculous as announce that a sea lion had been murdered, and not only would no one ever point out that the definition of the crime extends no further than the willing extermination of a human being, but they'd also end up catching a band of international diamond smugglers.

  It was wonderful. And then the charm wore off.

 
It happened last year. When his old art history professor Langston Kitteredge became the prime suspect in a vicious murder, Gus insisted that he and Shawn were the only ones who could clear his name.

  The story Kitteredge told them was as fascinating as it was frightening--the professor was the victim of a centuries-old, global cabal that only he knew about. To clear his name of the murder charge, they'd have to unmask the conspiracy.

  It sounded impossible. But Gus and Shawn had tackled so many cases that sounded crazy at first blush; one of their clients had seemed to be possessed by the devil, for heaven's sake. This one wouldn't be any different.

  Except that it was.

  Everything Gus thought about the crime had turned out to be wrong. He had allowed himself to be blinded--not only by his fondness for the professor, but by his belief in his own skills as a detective. It simply never occurred to him that he could have been mistaken.

  Until it was too late. Too tragically, horribly late. He watched as a man was murdered in front of him, all because Gus had been so convinced he had it all right.

  Since that case had ended Gus had simply had no appetite to take on another one. Every time a potential client came through the door, Gus would envision that dead man lying on the floor and he'd want to flee the room.

  He'd tried talking to Shawn about this. When Brenda Varda came in to ask them to find Tanner, Gus had pleaded with him not to take the case. But when Shawn asked why, Gus couldn't find the words. He rambled on and on about the Kitteredge case and how badly he'd screwed up, but Shawn just chucked him on the shoulder and said something about getting back on the horse.

  The trouble was, there was no horse anymore. His instincts, which had been so infallible for so long, had completely failed him with Kitteredge. And since neither he nor Shawn had any formal detective training, if such a thing even existed, Gus' instincts were all he had to go on. If he couldn't trust them, he couldn't trust himself on a case. Because if he was wrong, peoplc could die.

  So he wouldn't call Shawn and help him figure out what a blacksmith had to do with the disappearance of a computer-game mogul. He wouldn't share his theories about the other possible meanings of the clue, and he definitely wouldn't do to Shawn what he had just done to himself. He wouldn't sow doubt and fear when the only thing that could help the situation was confidence.

  Gus had made his choice. He used to be a detective; now he was an executive vice president of a rising pharmaceuticals company. He'd loved being part of Psych, but that time was over. There was no going back.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It was only a few hundred feet from one side of the ridge to the other, but it felt like they'd traveled a thousand miles. The climate they'd left behind was temperate and practically tropical, cooled by the gentle breezes blowing off the ocean. Now they'd stepped into a desert of dead grasses and blasting heat.

  Detective Carlton Lassiter had always loved crossing the hills that separated Santa Barbara from the rest of the world. Sure, the city he lived in was widely considered a paradise, and the backcountry was barely livable for rattlesnakes. But there was a truth to the arid heat that was hidden by the green and pleasant climate of the city below: Life was cruel and death was always waiting around the corner for you. The hills told you that. Bums lived out on the streets of Santa Barbara for years--there was one old guy he was sure had been camping outside a shopping mall since Carter was president. But you couldn't survive a summer in the hills without running water and air-conditioning and shelter. In August you'd be lucky to make it through a day.

  As much as he enjoyed the physical experience, though, Lassiter had little interest in being here now. He had work to do, cases to close, criminals to catch. He couldn't afford to waste most of a day trying yet again to solve the murder of a woman who hadn't been murdered.

  This was his partner's doing. She had insisted they follow some mysterious lead in the Mandy Jansen case and slog up this way. At least she said she'd had a lead; she refused to tell him where it had come from. For all he knew it had been revealed by a gypsy woman reading her palm.

  Normally he wouldn't have cared where she'd gotten the tip. Juliet O'Hara was as good a detective as he'd ever met and the best partner he could imagine.

  But lately she had begun to change. As far as he could tell it had started when they'd been called to the scene of that hanging cheerleader. For some reason the sight had affected her more deeply than she would acknowledge. Lassiter had offered her the advice that had always helped him through the tough times on the job. But when he'd pulled her aside and said "walk it off, Detective," she had only given him that vacant smile she reserved for civilians who came into the station to report that space aliens were eating Jell-O on their lawn.

  Lassiter was still willing to trust her instincts--he was here with her, wasn't he? But he found himself questioning her judgment far more than he ever had before.

  And now, as their unmarked sedan bounced down a dirt road leading into a deep canyon, he had to wonder if she'd lost her senses completely. There was no crime to investigate at all, just a poor, unfortunate girl who had taken her own life. And yet O'Hara was insisting they search for some kind of phantom evidence in Southern California's answer to Appalachia.

  "Are you sure you've got the right address, Detective?" Lassiter said.

  "No, Carlton," O'Hara said, not taking her eyes off the rutted road. "The other fifteen times you asked me that, I lied. But now that you've hit the magic sixteenth, I'm compelled to tell the truth. I've actually got the wrong address, and I'm just going to keep driving through the middle of nowhere because I'm too embarrassed to admit it."

  "At least that would be behavior I could understand," Lassiter said. "I can't imagine what else would possibly drag you up here."

  The car rounded a tree and suddenly Lassiter could imagine. There was a small blue car sitting under the branches, the one bit of shade for miles around. Shawn Spencer was stretched out on the hood.

  "This was your tip?" Lassiter said.

  "It wasn't a tip. It was a lead," O'Hara said. "We found it together."

  She pulled the sedan up behind the blue Echo and got out. After a long moment Lassiter followed, but only because she'd turned off the ignition and the cabin was already starting to heat up.

  "Sorry we're late, Shawn," O'Hara said, as he ambled over to meet them.

  "No problem," Shawn said. "It's hard to move fast when you're stapled to a lead weight."

  Lassiter glared at Shawn. "What does this loser know about Mandy Jansen?" Lassiter said. "I doubt she would have given him the time of day."

  "I don't think he knows anything about her," O'Hara said. "We're here searching for Macklin Tanner."

  Now Lassiter turned his glare on her. "The Mandy Jansen case would be bad enough," he said. "At least that's technically an SBPD case, even if it's only still open because you've got some strange fixation with it. But Macklin Tanner isn't a case at all. Our detectives looked at it, determined there was no foul play, and dismissed it. So if you are using the time of two Santa Barbara Police Department detectives to help a private detective out on his own case, that is theft, and despite my great respect and admiration for you, I will have no choice but to report you to the proper authorities."

  "And then Santy Claus won't bring her any presents," Shawn said. "I bet you'll feel guilty come December twenty-sixth, Lassie."

  "I'm at a dead end with Mandy Jansen's case," O'Hara said. "I asked Shawn to consult, but since the department wasn't prepared to pay I told him I'd give him a hand on his case."

  "Unfortunately she didn't mention she'd be bringing some other body part, as well," Shawn said.

  "I refuse to have anything to do with this," Lassiter said.

  "Too late, Carlton," O'Hara said. "The mileage is already on the vehicle. If you report me, what are you going to say--that I kidnapped you?"

  "Don't think I won't report myself, as well," Lassiter said. "You know I
will."

  "Poor Lassie," Shawn said. "Doesn't have any friends, so he's got to do everything on his own."

  "I don't see your little sidekick anywhere, Spencer," Lassiter said. "Oh, that's right. He dumped you to take a real job."

  "He didn't dump me," Shawn said, rolling off the car's hood and landing on his feet. "If you ever had a friend you'd know that sometimes you've got to go off in separate directions for a while."

  "I'd say three hundred miles and eighteen tax brackets north is about as far as Gus could get away from you," Lassiter said. "So, what, you kept his car as a souvenir?"

  "He doesn't need it in San Francisco," Shawn said. "So I offered to look after it when he's out of town."

  "Thoughtful of you," Lassiter said. "If I ran the plate, I bet I'd find this piece of junk is owned by Gus' old company. And since Gus doesn't work for them anymore, and in fact has started working for their competitor, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that they requested its return weeks ago. By now it might even have been reported stolen."

  "Carlton, stop," O'Hara said.

  "It's not stolen," Shawn said. "Gus asked me to turn it in. And I'm going to. But I have to make sure to clean all of our stuff out of the glove compartment first, and I haven't had a chance to do that, what with all the official police business you can't seem to wrap up without help from me."

  "The Santa Barbara Police Department is perfectly capable of closing its cases without you, Spencer," Lassiter said.

  "Really?" Shawn said. "You should try it someday."

  The two men stood toe-to-toe, and if the tension radiating off them got any hotter the dried grass under their feet would soon be bursting into flame. O'Hara took Lassiter's arm and pulled him back a step.

  "He's helped us plenty," O'Hara said. "And if Tanner is in trouble, then it doesn't really matter whose case it is, does it?"