Gus could feel the steering wheel fighting to turn onto the off-ramp that would lead to the restaurant. It really was the correct thing to do. And he and Shawn could still help Kitteredge once he was safely in custody.
But he couldn’t do it. He’d seen the fear in the professor’s eyes when he realized he was being framed for Filkins’ murder. He’d seen Kitteredge’s passion when he thought he was about to discover the clues hidden in the painting. He knew that only Kitteredge had the knowledge to get himself out of this terrible situation, and he needed to be free to do it. Gus had to help.
Gus yanked the wheel back to the left, and the Echo zipped past the exit. He jabbed Shawn gently with his elbow until he woke up.
Shawn blinked a couple of times, then glanced out the window. “So I guess that’s a no on lunch and betrayal,” he said.
“You knew what I was thinking?” Gus said.
“Everyone always knows what you’re thinking,” Shawn said. “You should try to control your facial expressions a little more. Really, you might as well be blinking in Morse code.”
“You were asleep,” Gus said. “You couldn’t have seen my face.”
“I could hear your muscles twitching,” Shawn said. “Do you want me to walk you through your entire thought process?”
Having already sat through it once, Gus had no desire to hear it repeated back to him.
“I’d rather hear yours,” Gus said.
“Okay,” Shawn said. “I was wondering who would win if Julie Newmar’s Cat Woman fought the Michelle Pfeiffer version. And that got me thinking about Halle Berry, and whose side she would fight on. Or would the other two team up against her because her movie destroyed the franchise forever. And then-”
“I mean about what we’re going to do now,” Gus said. “Since you were so avidly following my thoughts in your sleep, you must know how much trouble we’re about to be in.”
“Yes,” Shawn said. “In fact I almost woke up to tell you to knock it off, since you were giving me bad dreams.”
“Then do you have an idea where we should go?” Gus said.
“Well, we’re heading north,” Shawn said. “We could keep going until we cross the Canadian border.”
“That’s thousands of miles from here,” Gus said. “Plus, Canada is a foreign country. We don’t have our passports.”
“Canada is a different country?” Shawn said. “That explains a lot.”
“What it doesn’t explain is what we’re going to do now,” Gus said.
“Maybe you’ll allow me,” Kitteredge said.
Gus glanced in the mirror and saw the professor stretching his neck as he shook off the unpleasant effects of sleeping in the backseat.
“Please,” Gus said.
“We’re going to see the one man in the whole world who can help us,” Kitteredge said.
“If you’re talking about the Wizard, I am not bringing him a broomstick,” Shawn said.
Gus nudged Shawn with his elbow-harder this time.
“Who is this man, and where do we find him?” Gus said.
“To explain who he is could take a lifetime,” Kitteredge said. “But in order to find him, all you have to do is take the next exit.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“When the professor said that all we had to do to find this man was take the next exit, he neglected to mention that after we took the exit we’d have to drive around in circles for hours,” Shawn said.
That wasn’t precisely true. They had been driving in circles for only forty-five minutes. And it was entirely possible that for most of that time they had actually been going in the right direction. One low rolling hill covered in golden hay and ancient oak trees looked pretty much like every other one.
But now that they were stopped at a T-intersection where the narrow lane that had taken them up a steep hill ended with a choice of left or right turns unless he wanted to go cross-country up the rest of the slope, Gus had a chance to peer around and see a vast vineyard sprawling out at their left.
“I don’t think we’ve been here before,” Gus said. “That vineyard doesn’t look familiar.”
“Because last time we passed it, it was on the right side,” Shawn said. “We’re going back the way we came. Which might be all right, because I’m getting hungry, and pea soup is sounding mighty fine. Pea soup and everything that comes with it.”
Gus knew that Shawn wasn’t referring to the soup toppings Andersen’s offered for an extra couple of bucks: the bacon bits and croutons and little pitcher of sherry that made a bowl into a meal. They needed to find Kitteredge’s friend quickly, or Shawn would be ready to dump the professor under an oak tree and head back home. Gus turned around in his seat to see if Kitteredge seemed to know where they were going.
Judging from the smile on his face, he did. “It’s a geographical anomaly that allows this valley to thrive,” he said gazing out at the vineyard below them. “Because it runs east-west-the only east-west running valley in the Pacific coastal region, by the way-it gets the flow of offshore breezes and fog that temper the otherwise harsh climate and allow for the growth of the vines.”
“That’s fascinating, Professor,” Gus said. “But this might not be the time for a discussion of the local landscape. Except for the part about where on it your friend lives.”
Kitteredge waved away the objection with a sweep of his hand. “There’s always time to gain a little knowledge,” he said. “Because you never know when you’re going to need it. For instance, in this case, you might think you don’t need to know about the formation of these hills or the techniques the Chamokomee Indians used to hide from the Spanish settlers who were trying to drive them off their land.”
“I might,” Shawn agreed. “And so might every human being on Earth. Because we would all be busy noticing that the most important feature of these hills is the fact that the sun has gone behind one of them and it’s about to start getting dark. Oh, and another one-that these hills don’t have a single street light anywhere on them. So we’re going to be driving around in the dark looking for a place we couldn’t find in daylight.”
If Kitteredge noticed the hostility in Shawn’s voice, he didn’t seem to be terribly concerned by it. “That’s what I mean when I say you never know which bit of knowledge is the one you’re going to need,” he said. “In this case it turns out to be both of the ones I just mentioned.”
In almost any situation, Gus would have happily listened to his old professor lecture on whichever subject struck his fancy. But he could feel Shawn’s hunger-fueled frustration radiating from the passenger’s seat, and it was hard not to share a little bit of it.
“I’d love to hear all about this,” Gus said. “But maybe we could wait until we reach your friend’s house.”
“Or until Guns N’ Roses finally gets around to putting out Chinese Democracy,” Shawn said.
“They already did,” Gus said. “A couple of years ago.”
“Really?” Shawn said. “You’d think after all that waiting somebody would have noticed.”
“I’m afraid this can’t wait,” Kitteredge said. “That’s what I was trying to explain. You see, if we were in the Purisma Hills to the north, then we could expect to keep driving up until we reached the maximum elevation of seventeen hundred feet before we started down toward the Los Alamos Valley. If we’d gone south into the Santa Ynez Mountains we might climb as much as twenty-five hundred feet before we began to drop down toward the Pacific Ocean. But you see, we are in the Santa Rita Hills. And among the salient details of the geographical region, along with its ideal climate and soil conditions for viticulture, is the relatively lower elevations of its peaks: no more than nine hundred and fifty feet.”
Shawn turned to Gus, real pain on his face. “He’s going to be lecturing his executioner on the chemical composition of the lethal injection as the guy pushes the button,” Shawn said. “And he’ll probably still be talking after he’s dead.”
Gus cast a pleadin
g look over his shoulder. “Please, Professor, we just need to know which way to turn.”
“That’s my point,” Kitteredge said. “We are currently at an elevation of roughly the maximum for the area, as you can tell from a quick glance around.”
“All I can tell from a quick glance around is that I can’t see anything, because it’s dark,” Shawn said. “Maybe the professor wants to explain why that happens, too.”
“Taking all this into consideration,” Kitteredge said, ignoring Shawn as he might a student who had interrupted class without first raising his hand, “you might wonder why it is that there seems to be an enormous slope rising above us.”
“I might,” Shawn said. “Or I might just put my head under the front tire and beg Gus to hit the gas.”
But Kitteredge’s words had an impact on Gus. He stared at the looming shadow in front of them. “What about the Indians?” he said, ignoring the strangled cry from the seat next to him.
“The Chamokomee were a peaceful people, even more so than their close neighbors the Chumash, and they had neither the inclination nor the ability to fight the better armed and trained Spanish,” Kitteredge said. “All they wanted was to live their lives undisturbed. So they became experts at hiding their settlements. They could construct elaborate structures to mask their villages from the outside world.”
“That would explain why we haven’t seen any Indians tonight,” Shawn said. “That and the fact that it’s too dark to see anything. But unless your friend is one of the Chappaquiddick guys-”
“Chamokomee,” Gus said.
Since he didn’t have a tire iron to beat Gus’ head in with, Shawn ignored the correction. “-why do we care about any of this?”
“I think Gus knows,” Kitteredge said.
Gus didn’t. At least not quite. But there was something playing around the edges of his mind, and if he could just pull it forward he’d know which way to go.
“All we need to understand is whether we’re supposed to turn left or right here,” Shawn said. “So maybe the one piece of knowledge we need here is your friend’s address.”
Gus peered down the road to the left, then the right. And then he knew. He cast a glance back at Kitteredge, who was smiling and nodding his encouragement.
“Hold on,” Gus said, taking his foot off the brake. “This may get a little bumpy.”
Before Shawn could object, Gus pushed his foot down on the gas and the car lurched forward across the intersection. Straight across toward the unpaved hillside.
“What are you doing?” Shawn shouted.
“Getting us there,” Gus said.
The Echo flew across the road, then shuddered and thudded as it left the pavement. Gus could feel the tires clutching for purchase on the loose dirt of the hillside. He could hear the engine screaming as it fought to haul the car’s weight up the steep slope, saw the high weeds covering the windshield like a curtain. For a moment it seemed like the car was going to slide back into the intersection.
And then the tires grabbed asphalt. Flat asphalt. On both sides of them the hill angled up steeply, but they were on a level road.
“What happened?” Shawn said.
“I think it was the old Chamokomee trick,” Gus said.
“An artificial hill to disguise the entry to my friend’s property,” Kitteredge said.
Shawn peered out the window to confirm this, but it was too dark to see anything. “Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I did,” Kitteredge said. “Why didn’t you listen?”
Gus glanced over at Shawn to make sure he wouldn’t have to physically restrain him from leaping onto the backseat and throttling Kitteredge. But before Shawn could unbuckle his seat belt, the air was filled with the sound of an explosion. The windshield flew in their faces in a shower of glass pebbles.
“Somebody’s shooting at us!” Shawn shouted. “Get out of here!”
Gus hadn’t actually needed the instruction. He stomped on the brake, threw the gearshift into reverse, and jammed down on the gas.
But before he got more than a foot, there were two quick shots, and the front tires exploded out from under them. The Echo landed hard on the rims and dug divots in the asphalt.
Shawn and Gus dived for their door handles. Gus made it out first and yanked open the back door, pulling Kitteredge out of his seat as Shawn rushed around the car to join them.
“Now what?” Gus said.
“We run,” Shawn said.
“Not a bad idea,” a voice from out of the darkness said. “Would have been better if you’d thought of it before.”
A figure stepped into the beam of the Echo’s headlights. At first all Gus could make out was the doublebarreled shotgun pointed directly at them. But once that had registered, he was able to make out some of the details of the man carrying it. And he wished he hadn’t.
The shotgun’s owner seemed to be no more than four feet tall. But Gus realized that was only because he was so hunched over from the hump on his back. His face was as gnarled and twisted as his body, with a jagged scar that started at his hairline and zigged across his face, taking out his left eye.
“Would have been much better if you’d thought of it before,” the hunchback said. “Could have saved me some shells that way.”
Chapter Twenty-four
This shouldn’t be so hard.
After all, this wouldn’t be the first time Lassiter had asked Shawn and Gus for help. When he’d been framed for murdering a suspect in his cell and suspended during the investigation, the Psych boys had stepped in and found the real killer. And when Lassiter’s surrogate father, the sheriff of old Sonora, had been in trouble, he hadn’t hesitated to ask them to assess and correct the situation.
But this was different. Shawn and Gus had seen him at the lowest point in his career, probably his life. They had seen him helpless, humiliated, held hostage at knifepoint. And not by some meth-crazed biker with arms like sewer pipes, but by a professor of art history. Granted, the professor was the size and shape of a grizzly bear, but that was no excuse. Now he was contemplating crawling to them for help.
Lassiter let his department Impala idle while he struggled to decide whether he should turn the corner and pull up to the Psych headquarters. At least Chief Vick had let him keep the car pending the official Internal Affairs review.
But the car was all she’d left him. When he returned from his rap session with that hippie quack, Chief Vick had already gotten a report from her. Of course it was a pack of nonsense. Detective Lassiter is uncooperative, it said. He refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the incident or the emotional impact it’s had on him. Some level of denial is to be expected in this sort of situation, but Detective Lassiter’s unwillingness even to begin to process his reaction to the event is so total it tends toward the psychotic. And on and on.
In other words, a load of hogwash. Clearly this was a woman who hated strong men. She couldn’t stand the thought that some people didn’t allow themselves to be ruled by their emotions like little children. And she refused to let herself believe that he could have gone through that ordeal and come out stronger for it. In her world, people who had a bad experience had to curl up and weep for a month just to get over it. If she accepted the fact that he had emerged psychologically unscathed, it would destroy her entire worldview. She’d need to close down her practice and take up a career she was better suited for, like teaching kindergarten or serving at soup kitchens.
But Chief Vick didn’t see it that way. At least she couldn’t admit she did. Lassiter knew that the chief saw the world the same way he did-the same way any good cop would. She must have wanted to burst out in peals of derisive laughter when that quack tried to insist there was something bad about the fact that he wouldn’t give in to his emotions.
But Karen Vick hadn’t gotten to be chief without understanding how the system worked. And she must have had some kind of inside knowledge about McCormack’s ties to the upper echelons of the city’s bureauc
racy. No matter what her personal feelings about this psychiatric witch hunt might be, she knew she had to pretend to take the shrink seriously. If McCormack demanded that Vick place her lead detective on suspension until she signed off on his mental health, the chief would understand that this battle needed to be fought on another level. Because while it wasn’t true that you can’t fight city hall, you had to be smart to do it well. She would surrender this battle to win the war.
That’s why he didn’t argue when the chief asked for his badge and gun. Well, he didn’t argue much. Definitely not more than half an hour. And the instant she informed him that he would be fired on the spot if he didn’t hand them over and accept his suspension immediately, he did as she asked. It was all a bit of departmental kabuki. He’d fought for his rights, and she could say she had brought the full power of her office to bear on the recalcitrant detective.
The last words she’d said to him as he left the police station were to get help, get better, and come back quickly. And that’s why he was coming to Psych.
Surely, this must have been what she meant when she told him to get help. For some reason, Chief Vick had a bizarre faith in Shawn Spencer’s abilities; when there was a problem she thought (inevitably mistakenly) that the police couldn’t solve on their own, she reached out to the Psych boys. Where else would she have wanted him to go?
But it wasn’t easy for him. Asking for any kind of assistance came hard to Lassiter men. His grandfather had settled in Santa Barbara only because he’d gotten lost on the road from Boston to Chicago and refused to ask for directions. And begging for help from a couple of guys with a work ethic that would get them fired from a comic book store was particularly painful. He longed to slam the car into drive and head out to search for Kitteredge on his own.
A Fatal Frame of Mind p-4 Page 11
