Mind-Altering Murder

by William Rabkin

  Gus ordered his mind not to work. He did not want it to move in the direction it was heading. That wasn't how titans of industry thought. It was strictly the province of detectives. It was murders and criminals and plots and all those things he had walked away from when he'd left Psych. It was the kind of thing that didn't happen in the real world, to real people.

  Which meant that this was all some kind of terrible coincidence. Just because Jerry Fellows had come from a violent background didn't mean that he had grown up to be a serial killer. It was possible in the real world to be frustrated with the circumstances of your life without going on a murder spree to even things up.

  This must just be jitters, Gus thought. He was about to be officially named president of Benson Pharmaceuticals, and the impending responsibility was freaking him out. That was all this was. It was all it could be.

  Because if he was making the wrong choice here, if Jerry was everything his detective experience was telling him he was, then Gus would be dead before the morning was over.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  This was the greatest moment of Gus' life. He was seated on a raised dais looking out over the resort's vast meeting room, and wherever his eyes fell he saw a member of the Benson Pharmaceuticals family staring up at him with love. Maybe even with a touch of awe.

  There in the front row were Ed Vollman and Lena Hollis, who had, judging by the looks on their faces, decided that he was their natural leader. In the back he spotted Arnold from accounting, Lindsey from human resources and Dennis from facilities, all of whom looked like they were thinking back happily on the small ways they had helped him on his road to the top. And there was Jerry Fellows, beaming supportively up at him, his beautiful daughter next to him. What a ludicrous fantasy it was to think Jerry was some kind of terrorist out to take him down, almost as ridiculous as his certainty that Chanterelle had originally asked him out on the cliffs to declare her love. Jerry was the mail guy, she was the beautiful receptionist everyone dreamed about, and that was all they were.

  Gus shifted his gaze and saw Shawn smiling up at him from the audience. That made him happier than the rest of it put together. His best friend was here to see him accept the job of a lifetime. For once Gus was glad that Shawn had refused to do what he'd asked him to. This ceremony would have had so much less meaning if Shawn had stayed away from the company. Instead he was one of the flock, who were all waiting to be led by their new shepherd.

  And who could blame them? As Gus listened to D-Bob talk about his bold ideas and bright vision, he wished he could look up at himself with that same mixture of love and awe.

  "And so," D-Bob said, turning briefly to shoot a warm grin back at him, "I present to you all the new president of Benson Pharmaceuticals, Burton Guster!"

  Gus felt himself lifted by the wave of applause and transported to the rostrum. He stood there mutely as his new followers cheered for him.

  He had done it. He was the president. All he had to do now was make a short speech, bang the gavel that sat on a stand before him, and his new life would be complete.

  His fingers clutched the gavel. "Friends, colleagues," he started. They all looked up at him expectantly.

  He had a speech all ready. He'd rehearsed it a dozen times. But now it was gone, leaving only nonsense phrases from old television commercials behind in his brain. He considered starting to talk anyway, hoping that the speech would come back to him, but he couldn't take the risk that when he opened his mouth the only thing that came out would be "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is."

  "My friends and colleagues," he started again, then forced his mouth shut before it could form the words "atsa spicy meatball."

  What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he say the words everyone was waiting for?

  It wasn't because of what Shawn had told him the last time they'd spoken. He wasn't afraid that he was going to be murdered as soon as he banged the gavel.

  Was he?

  Gus did a quick inventory of his vital signs. Heart steady, breathing slow and regular, skin cool and dry. If he was terrified, his body was doing one hell of a job of hiding it.

  He reached for the gavel again, but his fingers refused to close around it. What was happening to him? Why couldn't he perform this one small act?

  He looked out at the audience. They looked back with a mixture of confusion and impatience. Behind him, D-Bob was fidgeting in his seat. He was losing his fans.

  Except for Shawn. He was beaming and nodding in encouragement. Did he want Gus to take this job?

  Gus felt a stab of betrayal. Shawn wasn't supposed to encourage him to take this job. Shawn was supposed to be fighting against it. That was his duty--to drag Gus back to preadolescence whenever he started to act too much like a grown-up. Sure, Gus had ordered him to stop, but when had Shawn ever done anything he didn't want to do?

  That was the difference between Shawn and all the other people in the room. Look at them out there, gaping up at me like sheep, he thought. There's only one reason they're looking at me like that--because their boss told them to.

  And he wouldn't be any different. Sure, he would be the president. But once Gus took this job he would spend the rest of his life doing what was expected of him. That was what it meant to live in the grown-up world. And all the luxuries that came with it, the high-rise apartment and the fancy restaurants and the big office, they were all just markers that could be taken away if Gus didn't behave.

  Shawn's world didn't work like that. He did whatever he wanted and didn't care who approved. That was why some people hated him--because he didn't care. He was free.

  Gus had been free, too. He'd thought he left that life behind because he was ready for something real. But he'd been lying to himself. What they'd had was real. They made their own world and lived in it.

  Gus had made a serious mistake with Professor Kitteredge and the consequences had been ugly. He'd tried to tell himself he was atoning for that by moving into the adult world. But really he was just running away. Running away from a life where he had complete freedom and, in consequence, complete responsibility for his actions, to one where he would do what he was told and be relieved of blame. He hadn't been growing up. He was hiding.

  Gus looked out at the sheep in front of him and now he was afraid. But he wasn't scared that Jerry Fellows was a serial killer and a terrorist who would kill him the moment he banged that gavel.

  He was afraid Jerry wasn't.

  Because if Jerry was a murderer, then everything Gus used to know was still true. He was a detective. An outsider. Free.

  But if Jerry was just a kindly old mailman, then the world he realized he needed to get back to didn't exist anymore.

  Gus' fingers closed around the gavel. He cleared his throat.

  "Friends and colleagues," he said. "I know you're all waiting for me to say something."

  He looked out over the crowd. This was the moment.

  "But first, my friend Shawn would like to say a few words."

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Shawn bounded onto the stage as a confused murmur went through the crowd. Gus could feel D-Bob's eyes boring into his back, but he refused to turn around. He stepped out of Shawn's way and let him take the rostrum.

  "I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you here today," Shawn said.

  A confused murmur confirmed that the audience was wondering about something, probably whether it was the world that had gone insane or just Gus.

  "This is highly inappropriate," D-Bob hissed from behind them.

  "I said, I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you here today," Shawn said, raising his arms as if expecting some kind of mass audience response.

  The crowd stared at him blankly.

  "Technically, I'm the one who called them here today," D-Bob said. "And they all know why they're here. It's our annual employee retreat."

  Shawn barely spared a glance back at him.

  Gus step
ped up next to Shawn, relishing the moment. Over the years, Lassiter had suggested that Shawn and Gus take what he called their "show" on the road. He meant it as a put-down, accusing them of cheap theatrics. But up here on the stage he embraced the insult. Shawn was going to give one of his great performances and Gus felt thrilled to be a part of it.

  "Say, Shawn," he said brightly. "Why have you called us all here today?"

  "To accept," he said simply.

  What the hell did that mean? Gus had known what the next line was supposed to be: to expose a murderer. The audience would gasp in collective shock, Shawn would pretend to communicate with the spirits, and quick as boy howdy, Jerry Fellows would fall to his knees confessing his crimes.

  Gus took a surreptitious step closer to Shawn and whispered out of the corner of his mouth. "What are you doing?"

  "What does it look like I'm doing?"

  "I don't have a clue."

  "Exactly!" Shawn whispered, then grabbed the microphone from its stand. "My friends, we've got trouble at Benson Pharmaceuticals," he bellowed into the mike. "Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for ..."

  He held the microphone out to the audience for their collective response. Unfortunately the mike was not sufficiently sensitive to pick up the sound of facial muscles contorting into expressions of confusion.

  Finally a voice came from behind them. "Would that be pills?" D-Bob ventured.

  "Pills!" Shawn bellowed.

  Gus sidled closer to Shawn. "Aren't you supposed to be exposing a killer here?"

  "You told me there was no killer," Shawn whispered back. "And that the corporate lifestyle is the only way to go. Who am I to argue with someone of your great wisdom?"

  This couldn't be happening. Gus had finally realized what he wanted out of life and Shawn was hurling it back in his face. He wanted to grab Shawn, to shove him off the stage and out the door. Instead he made a grab for the microphone.

  "Let's have a big hand for our former head of security, Shawn Spencer," Gus shouted into the mike before Shawn pulled it away again.

  "Yes, pills," Shawn said over the smattering of confused applause. "How long have we been delivering medication through this antiquated form? The basic pill hasn't changed in over a thousand years, and I say it's time to step into the future!"

  Shawn held out the microphone to catch the cheers from the crowd, and then yanked it back when it became clear there weren't going to be any.

  "Why don't we have computers in pills yet?" Shawn said. "We've got computers in everything else. Why are our phones smart while our pills are still dumb?"

  "You're the one who's dumb!" someone yelled from the crowd, and a murmur of assent rippled through the room.

  D-Bob rose from his stool and raised his hands for quiet. "The man has ideas," D-Bob said. "Let's hear him out."

  Gus stared at his boss, horrified. Shawn didn't have ideas. He was spouting gibberish. How could D-Bob take him seriously?

  "Thanks, D," Shawn said. "You may think it's too futuristic to contemplate a pill you can program to fight whatever disease you send it after. In fact, this is based on a technology that's almost fifty years old, one that was hugely promising but was squashed by the traditional pill makers."

  To Gus' astonishment, D-Bob looked fascinated. "Tell us about that," D-Bob said.

  "You have to understand, they didn't have computers in 1966, so their methods might sound a little primitive today," Shawn said.

  "Of course they had comp--" Gus started, but D-Bob shushed him furiously.

  "Let the man speak!" D-Bob said.

  "But the principle is the same," Shawn said. "The traditional way of doing things is to take one pill that can tackle a particular kind of sickness--headache, stomachache, whatever. But in this other method the scientists sent a tiny spaceship filled with eenie-weenie doctors into the patient's bloodstream. They weren't dumb pills mindlessly attacking the one symptom they were made for. These valiant doctors could look for problems and take care of whatever they found."

  "That's Fantastic Voyage," Gus sputtered.

  "Yes, it is fantastic," D-Bob said. "What a mind this man has."

  "It's a movie!"

  "There was one trouble with this new technology," Shawn said. "It was really hard to find scientists small enough to fit into a patient's bloodstream. But with today's computer technology, we don't have to worry about that. We should devote this entire company's resources to inventing a machine that will finally make scientists tiny! And that look like Raquel Welch!"

  The crowd stared up at him, stunned. But D-Bob was back on his feet, clapping wildly. "Isn't this man incredible?" he shouted to his employees. "Listen to all his ideas! You know, I've never done anything like this before, but I don't think I have a choice."

  Gus felt his stomach drop to the floor. He couldn't be sure what was going to happen next, but he knew it wasn't going to be good.

  "We were so incredibly lucky that we found Burton Guster to be our new president," D-Bob said. "And now we're even more fortunate. Because I am appointing Shawn Spencer to be Gus' copresident!"

  D-Bob thrust his arms in the air for applause. For a long moment, the silence was so great Gus began to wonder if he'd gone deaf. And then in the front row, a couple of executives started to clap. Slowly the applause rippled through the auditorium as one by one the employees of Benson Pharmaceuticals grabbed for this first chance to suck up to their new boss.

  Gus took advantage of the noise to move close enough to Shawn to whisper in his ear. "What's this all about?"

  "It's about Psych," Shawn said.

  "I left Psych," Gus said.

  "You left a detective agency," Shawn said. "You can never leave Psych. Because Psych is you and me. That's why I thought you'd taken this gig as an undercover assignment. But now I realize you're serious about the whole corporate thing. So Psych is moving to the boardroom."

  Gus stared at him. "You'd do that? Seriously?"

  "I think we've already seen how seriously I'm going to take it," Shawn said. "But I'm doing it if it's what you really want."

  Gus studied Shawn for several seconds, looking for any sign that he wasn't completely sincere. Then he stepped to the front of the stage and raised his hands for quiet. The applause died down quickly.

  "I want to thank you all for the warm reception you've given my new copresident," Gus said. "But before we go any further, I think D-Bob should explain what's really been going on the last couple of months." He beckoned D-Bob to join him at the front of the stage.

  "What's really been going on," D-Bob said, stretching the syllables out as long as he could while he tried to figure out what he was supposed to say.

  "That you never really hired me as an executive," Gus said. "That I am actually a detective working undercover to solve the murders of Sam Masterson, Jim Macoby, Mandy Jansen, and Steve Ecclesine. Although Ecclesine was still alive when we were hired."

  "We're throwing that one in for free," Shawn said.

  There was a shocked gasp from most of the crowd. But in front, where the other executives sat, there was only a contented murmur and a few exclamations of "that explains it!"

  "Umm, right, exactly," D-Bob said. "The man you've known all this time as Burton 'Gus' Guster is actually ..." He leaned in to whisper to Gus. "What's your name again?"

  "Burton Guster," Gus said into the microphone. "But you can all call me Gus. And I'm sure you all know my partner Shawn Spencer, Santa Barbara's premier psychic detective."

  Shawn bounded to the front of the stage as if the audience had erupted into cheers instead of another stunned silence. "My friends, we've got trouble right here at Benson Pharmaceuticals," he shouted. "Trouble with a capital M and that rhymes with ... Well, actually it doesn't rhyme with anything useful right now, but if I come up with something I'll get right back to you."

  Jerry Fellowes stood up in the crowd. "Is this really true, Gus?" he said. "That you
never had any intention of helping with orphan drugs?"

  Gus looked down at the stage, suddenly ashamed of the work he was leaving unfinished. Chanterelle put a comforting arm around her father's shoulder.

  "Who cares about the orphan drugs?" Lena Hollis shouted. "What's this about murders?"

  "And what's with Santa Barbara's premier psychic detective?" Vollman said. "Did we already run through all the phonies in San Francisco?"

  "Other people are much more qualified than I am to take on the orphan drug problem," Gus said. "Like you, Jerry. It's time for you to step up."

  "It's funny you should mention that," Shawn said. "Well, not funny in the ha-ha way so much as the terrible, awful, bloody murderous way."

  "You can't say my da had anything to do with those deaths!" Chanterelle would have leaped onto the stage if Jerry didn't hold her back in her seat. "He's not a killer."

  Shawn cocked his ear heavenward, then turned back to face her. "It's kind of hard to understand, what with the accents coming from the great beyond, but I'm hearing a trio of Irish voices that disagree with you on that count."

  Jerry's face flushed. "That was a long time ago," he said. "I'm not that man anymore."

  "But you could be," Shawn said. "With the proper encouragement."

  "No," Jerry said.

  "Just think about it for a minute," Shawn said. "Let's say you were working with one executive who really seemed excited about the whole thing. But every time he was supposed to push the issue with D-Bob, he canceled. And then he got himself roasted. Wouldn't that make you step up?"

  "No," Jerry said. "I just deliver the mail."

  "Well, what if a new executive managed to talk D-Bob into actually addressing the issue, but Steve Ecclesine was trying to undercut him until someone sabotaged his window and he plunged to his death," Shawn said. "Would that make you step up?"