A Fatal Frame of Mind p-4

by William Rabkin

  Instead, as he always did when faced with a difficult decision, he made a mental list of pros and cons.

  The negative list was filling up fast. To start with, there was nothing Shawn and Gus could do that would clear his name. He hadn’t been framed this time; he had allowed himself to be taken hostage inside his own police station. There wasn’t a bizarre set of circumstances that needed to be exposed; tragically, everything had been visible to the world all along. And since the Psych boys had been present to see his humiliation, there was a strong possibility that they’d simply start laughing the instant he walked through their door.

  He knew he could keep filling up the cons all day long-or all night long, since the sun was sinking quickly into the ocean. There were so many ways in which Lassiter had been humiliated, and there were a thousand variations still to be played out. Anything he did now would just make it all worse. Best to turn the car around, drive home, and stay in bed until the official investigation was over.

  Especially since the list in the other column was so damn short. One item. Six words.

  I’m going to get that bastard.

  It was that simple: Lassiter wanted him. Wanted to see him behind bars, where he belonged. He wanted to be the man who put him there. And he knew Chief Vick wanted the same thing. Why else would she have sent him here?

  That was that, then. He was going to do it. Before he could second-guess himself, he put the car into drive, flipped on the turn indicator, and pulled around the corner and up to the bungalow that served as Psych’s headquarters.

  But before he turned off the ignition he saw that something was wrong. The bungalow’s lights were all ablaze, and its front door was partially open. And it clearly hadn’t been opened by its owner. The glass half of the door had been smashed in.

  Lassiter reached instinctively for his gun and cursed when he remembered that it was locked in the chief’s desk. How was he supposed to roust evildoers if he was unarmed? What had Chief Vick been thinking?

  He didn’t have a gun and he didn’t have a badge, but Lassiter still had the two most important tools in his crime-fighting skill set-his intelligence and his training. And what they were telling him was that this was his moment. He couldn’t guarantee that Kitteredge was inside the bungalow. He was unable to swear that the professor had come back to finish off two of the witnesses to his crime spree. But he could make an educated assumption. And his intelligence and training would back him up.

  Silently opening the car door, Lassiter crept to the front of the bungalow and positioned himself at the side of the doorway. He listened intently, and after a moment he heard a rustle from inside.

  That was Kitteredge. It had to be. All Lassiter had to do was step through this door and take him down. It would all be over.

  Except that it wouldn’t, he realized. He was pretty sure he could take down the man-bear in a fair fight, but what then? Without his badge, he had no power to make an arrest. And what he wanted more than anything was to see Kitteredge back in the custody of the Santa Barbara Police Department. If Lassiter launched an attack at him without the authority of the shield, he might actually aid in the professor’s defense once some commie lawyer started screaming about brutality.

  Lassiter wanted his man, but even more he wanted to see him taken down the right way. He couldn’t do this on his own. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in the first number on his auto-dial. He didn’t know how many friends he had on the force right now, but he was certain that no matter what had happened his partner would still be loyal to him.

  Inside the bungalow, someone started singing. For a moment Lassiter wondered why Kitteredge would take this moment to belt out the chorus to “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.” As soon as the thought crossed his mind he realized that the voice didn’t belong to the professor but to Bo Donaldson. And he knew why Bo was singing.

  It was his special ring tone on Juliet O’Hara’s phone.

  The song stopped, and Lassiter heard O’Hara’s voice in his ear. “Carlton?”

  “I’m at the door, Detective,” Lassiter said and disconnected the call.

  He moved in front of the open door as she emerged from the bungalow’s back room, holstering her phone, her gun in her other hand.

  “What are you doing here, Carlton?” O’Hara said as she reached the doorway. “If the chief knew…”

  “The chief sent me here,” he said.

  She gave him a confused look. “You’ve been reinstated?”

  “Not officially,” Lassiter said. “But Chief Vick must have known my help would be appreciated. I’m only sorry I got here too late.”

  O’Hara studied him carefully, trying to decide if the truth he was telling matched up to objective reality. “Too late for what?”

  “To protect Spencer and Guster.” He pointed at the shattered glass where Kitteredge had clearly broken in. “I’d guess that the mad professor came after them. They thought they’d be safe if they locked the door and cowered in the back, but he smashed his way in and took them hostage. Or is it worse than that?” He tried to peer over her shoulder. “Did he leave their battered bodies bleeding in the back room?”

  O’Hara’s face hardened and she stepped up to block his view. “Kitteredge didn’t break in, Carlton,” she said.

  “Then who did?” he said.

  “I did,” she said. “With the authority of a court order signed by Judge Haskin.”

  Lassiter tried to make sense of what she was telling him. But none of the pieces fit together. “Why?”

  “Because Shawn and Gus were seen helping Langston Kitteredge escape,” O’Hara said. “They’re wanted for aiding and abetting a fugitive, as well as being the chief suspects in the theft of The Defence of Guenevere from the museum. And every police officer in Southern California is looking for them.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “A hunchback?” Shawn whispered furiously to Gus.

  “We’re about to be gunned down by a homicidal hunchback in a mysterious valley? When did we turn into the Hardy Boys?”

  “We’re not the Hardy Boys,” Gus said, wishing his last words might be something more inspiring to future generations.

  “You’re right,” Shawn said. “The Hardy Boys had a couple of chums. All we’ve got is him.”

  Gus reflexively glanced over at the him in question. But Professor Kitteredge wasn’t on the ground where Gus had set him. He was on his feet, walking toward the armed man with his hands raised high.

  “Not a step further,” the hunchback growled.

  “Not even a box step?” Kitteredge said. He stopped walking forward and demonstrated the move. “How about a grapevine? It certainly seems appropriate here.”

  Gus covered his eyes and waited for the rain of Professor Kitteredge’s body parts that would follow the inevitable gunshot. But when no sound came, he peeled his hands away from his face.

  The hunchback had lowered the shotgun. And while Gus would not claim an ability to read expressions on that twisted face, he thought he saw something like a smile there.

  “Professor Kitteredge?” he said, taking a step forward through the headlight beams.

  “It’s me, Malko,” the professor said. “Now let’s see a couple of those moves.”

  To Gus’ astonishment, the hunchback held his gun up like a dance partner and with surprising grace executed a perfect box step. “Haven’t forgotten a thing you taught me,” he said when he finished.

  “A dancing hunchback,” Shawn said. “We’re leaving the Hardy Boys and joining up with Mel Brooks.”

  “Malko, let me introduce you to a couple of friends,” Kitteredge said, turning back toward the car. “Gus, Shawn, come over here.”

  Shawn and Gus exchanged a look, then stepped away from the car and toward the other two. Kitteredge waved them closer. Malko narrowed his one good eye and stared at them.

  “Are these the two that helped you get away from the police?” he said. “When I heard they were last seen wearing tuxe
does, I thought the reporters were joking.”

  Gus felt his heart pounding. So the cops were after them now. He couldn’t be surprised. He knew it would happen sooner or later. But he’d hoped that they would have time to find the real killer before they actually became wanted fugitives.

  “We’ve been on the news?” Kitteredge said.

  “You are the news,” Malko said. “We were expecting you. Come.”

  Malko turned and started to walk away. Kitteredge followed.

  “Wait a minute,” Shawn said loudly. “You were expecting us?”

  Malko stopped and glared back at him. “Yes.”

  “You shot at us,” Shawn said.

  Malko shook his head wearily. “Yes.”

  “What would you have done if you hadn’t been expecting us?” Shawn said.

  “Aimed better.” Malko started to walk again.

  “What do we do now?” Gus said.

  “We know what’s behind the curtain,” Shawn said. “A long, dark walk back to Buellton, where half the police in the state will be looking for us. So we might as well go with what’s in the box. And hope.”

  “Hope for what?” Gus said.

  Up ahead, Malko and Kitteredge were about to disappear out of the range of the headlights.

  “Hope that whatever is in the box isn’t us.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  If Malko had led them to a hidden Chamokomee tee-pee village where all ten thousand tribe members had been hiding for three hundred years, Gus wouldn’t have been surprised. At this point in the evening he was willing to accept anything as long as it didn’t start firing shotguns at him again.

  But the hunchback merely led them to a battered golf cart filled with gardening equipment. He threw the tools on the ground and told the three guests to get in. Then he took off at what felt like fifty miles an hour until they reached a high stone wall. He turned the cart and followed the wall.

  Gus wanted to ask Malko where he was taking them, but the hunchback’s attention was totally focused on Kitteredge, who was involved in a lengthy disquisition on the etymology of the word “foxtrot”-it was, apparently, commonly believed to be named after the vaudeville performer Harry Fox, but Kitteredge had come across a document suggesting that an earlier practitioner had actually coined the name for what he saw as vulpine movements-and when Gus tried to interrupt, Malko simply ignored him.

  “There is no way this is going to end well,” Shawn said.

  “Since when are you so concerned about our safety?” Gus said.

  “Being shot at does that to me,” Shawn said. “I’m funny that way.”

  “We’ve been shot at before and you’ve never complained,” Gus said.

  “There’s a good reason for that,” Shawn said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Those were cases I chose,” Shawn said. “And I would never get us killed.”

  Until this moment, Gus had been filled with competing feelings. He was hungry, he was tired, he was in pain where his bruises from the car’s rough stop were being jostled by the golf cart’s rougher ride, and he was scared that he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail or shot down like Warren Beatty at the end of Bonnie and Clyde. But now all those emotions were swept from his mind by a tidal wave of self-righteous anger.

  “I knew it!” Gus said. “You’ve been a complete pain all day. Complaining about the kind of stuff you do all the time.”

  “I haven’t been complaining,” Shawn said. “I’ve been observing.”

  “You observe with your eyes, not your mouth,” Gus said.

  “That’s right,” Shawn said. “What I do with my mouth is eat. And thanks to you, we haven’t been able to do that, either.”

  Gus started to respond, then snapped his mouth shut. There was no point in taking this conversation any further. Shawn had been sulking ever since Gus told him they weren’t going to the C. Thomas Howell Film Festival. But it wasn’t because he’d missed his chance to see The Thirst: Blood War on the big screen. It was because Gus had taken the lead on this case, and Shawn couldn’t stand taking second position to anyone, even his partner and best friend.

  Gus and Shawn rode in silence as the cart made its way along the wall. Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably less than two minutes, they reached an opening and turned onto a flagstoned driveway into a courtyard.

  At least Gus assumed it was a courtyard, although the night was so dark he couldn’t see the building that enclosed it. But as the cart stopped, strings of overhead lights flickered on, bathing the area in a warm yellow glow.

  It was as if they had been transported to Tuscany. Rough stone walls broken by shuttered windows loomed above them, the harshness of the building materials softened by blooming wisteria vines that drooped from every surface.

  The illusion was only enhanced by the man who stepped through a large glass door into the courtyard. His face gnarled with age and cloaked in a long white beard and framed by a cascade of white hair, he looked like he had stepped out of a painting by Rembrandt. Of course Rembrandt was Dutch, not Italian, and Gus had no idea whether the painter had ever set foot in Tuscany, but then there was a reason he’d failed Professor Kitteredge’s class all those years earlier.

  The old man raised a hand in greeting. “I had hoped you’d come to me, Langston,” he said in a voice filled with warmth.

  “If only it were under happier circumstances.” Kitteredge strode across the courtyard and embraced the man in a hug so hard Gus expected to hear bones snapping. “I hate the thought that I might bring the police to your doorstep.”

  “We’ll worry about that if it happens,” the old man said.

  “I’m afraid it’s not going to be if-it’s going to be when,” Kitteredge said. “Someone’s going to figure out before long that you’re my friend.”

  “Then we have no time to waste,” the old man said.

  “We have a little time to waste,” Shawn said. “The police are going to have to find their way in here. So maybe you can take a few seconds to tell us who you are.”

  Kitteredge glanced back at him as if he’d forgotten that Shawn and Gus had come along for the ride. The old man looked puzzled.

  “They came in the back way,” Malko said.

  “Ah,” the old man said. “That would explain why you arrived later than I expected. I’m afraid that when the police arrive they will simply drive through the front gate and right up to the house.”

  “The front gate.” Shawn glared at Gus, then at Kitteredge. “Wonder why we never thought of that.”

  “But there is certainly time for introductions,” the old man said. “I am Flaxman Low. This is my home.” He waved around the courtyard. “And of course, as long as you choose to stay, it is your home as well.”

  “That’s too generous of you, Flaxman,” Kitteredge said.

  “Not at all,” Low said. “Perhaps you’d like to introduce me to your friends-although I feel I already know them, thanks to the TV news.”

  Kitteredge motioned for Shawn and Gus to join him. “This,” he said, “is an old student of mine, Burton Guster.”

  “That explains why he was willing to risk his life and freedom to help you,” Low said. “I’ve never met a student of yours who wasn’t.”

  Kitteredge waved the compliment away and gestured to Shawn. “And this,” he said, “oh, Flaxman; you will not believe it. This is The Defence of Guenevere.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “He’s the killer.”

  Gus seriously considered ignoring Shawn’s declaration. All he wanted was a few minutes to close his eyes before dinner. And the room the hunchback had taken them to seemed to want the same thing. Its two queen beds were huge and firm and covered with deep down comforters. Its shutters were open, and the soothing sound of a fountain wafted through the soft air. And it was so large that Shawn’s voice seemed to be coming from miles away.

  Still, the accusation was so outrageous that some kind of response
seemed obligatory. Gus cracked open one eye. “The old guy?”

  “Who else?” Shawn said.

  “What do you mean who else?” Gus said. “It could have been anyone else. There are billions of people in this world, and the only ones we know for sure didn’t do it are you and me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, my friend,” Shawn said. “Well, it’s the place where you are most currently wrong. If we wanted to go back through the catalog of all the places you’ve been wrong, we’d have to start with Mrs. Peyser’s first-grade class, where you thought you were putting your hand over your heart and pledging your achievements to the flag. But this is the big one.”

  “I still think it would be better to pledge my achievements than just my allegiance,” Gus said. “That way I’m actually doing something for my country. And I don’t see how I’m wrong here.”

  “Look back on everything that’s happened on this case so far,” Shawn said. “Who have we dealt with? Jules and Lassie, of course, but I think we can rule them out pretty safely. That guy from the museum.”

  “Hugh Ralston, the executive director,” Gus said.

  “Right,” Shawn said. “But he’s pretty boring. I mean, he works in a museum. He’s going to start killing people? Not on my watch. Who else does that leave? A bunch of uniformed cops, not one of whom we met more than once. And that trucker guy with the crazy wife who wanted us to wait on them. I don’t think so.”

  Gus wanted to keep his head comfortably nestled among the down pillows. But the insanity of what Shawn was saying lifted him up like a possessed teenager levitating for the exorcist. “Those are just the people we’ve encountered,” Gus said. “Why does the killer have to be someone we’ve met before?”

  “There are rules to this kind of thing,” Shawn said.