The Call of the Mild

by William Rabkin

  Henry shook his head in disgust. Shawn might be infuriating, but he’d never have made a rookie mistake like that. “Junior high is where you start learning, not where you stop.”

  “What do we do now?” O’Hara said.

  “Let’s go back and talk to the chief,” Lassiter said. “If Rushton, Morelock is involved, everything just got a lot more complicated.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Rasmussen said. “It’s a murder investigation. We proceed like we would with anyone else.”

  Henry clapped a hand on Rasmussen’s shoulder. “It’s been fun, kid. But it seems like we’re looking at a criminal conspiracy that could possibly involve one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in Santa Barbara. Even if I were still on the force, this would be above my level. As a civilian, I can’t have anything to do with it. Isn’t that right, Detective Lassiter?”

  “I don’t want to make any decisions before we bring the chief in on this,” Lassiter said. “She’s the one who’s going to have to take the heat, so she’ll have to let us know how she wants us to play it. But it’s safe to say that this is no longer a case for a retired cop—or the Foot Patrol.”

  “But justice is supposed to be blind,” Rasmussen said. “ ‘As officers of the law we’re supposed to follow the case wherever it takes us, without fear or favor.’ ”

  “It’s a nice thought,” Henry said. “Too bad we all have to grow up sometime.”

  Henry climbed in his car and drove away. The last thing he saw in his rearview was Rasmussen staring after him, looking like he was going to cry.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Somebody had been putting rocks in Gus’ backpack. Which was odd, because he’d spent most of the day’s hike at the end of the line of lawyers, and there was rarely anyone behind him to play that kind of trick. But the pack that had seemed so light and perfectly balanced only a few hours earlier now felt like the anvil Wile E. Coyote always ended up clutching as he plummeted off a cliff. Gus could feel it pulling him down, its straps abrading his shoulders through the lightweight T-shirt he was wearing.

  Whoever had been loading Gus’ pack with rocks had apparently also been slipping nails into his shoes. They had seemed so comfortable the first few miles he’d walked in them, but now every step sent jagged bursts of pain through his feet.

  Looking ahead at the lawyers spread out in front of him, Gus could see that most of them were suffering the same kinds of pain. Gwendolyn, who’d taken the lead right away, was still in front, but her long, confident stride had stiffened into an awkward, straight-legged march. Balowsky’s entire body seemed to convulse with every third step and when he turned around to make sure he wasn’t falling behind the rest of the pack, Gus could see him licking his lips compulsively, as if he might have stored a few drops of last night’s vodka there. Savage was dragging, too, which would have surprised Gus more if the lawyer hadn’t spent the first three hours of the hike zipping down the trail to see where they were going and then running back to report like a Labrador retriever off leash in the mountains for the first time. Jade looked like she had completely exhausted her store of pixie dust: She staggered forward as if the only thing keeping her going was the force of gravity.

  And then there was Mathis. He was more of a surprise to Gus than Savage. Because Morton Mathis didn’t seem to be physically exhausted. Gus was becoming an expert on analyzing people’s walks from behind, and he could see the way Mathis’ feet pushed hard off the stony ground with every step.

  That wasn’t what struck Gus as odd. Even though Mathis was a transplant from a large city, with no apparent wilderness experience, there was no reason to believe he didn’t spend huge amounts of time working out, despite a physical appearance that seemed to give the lie to that idea. But what did seem inexplicably strange was the way he was pretending to be as weary as the others. His shoulders slumped under his pack, his head hung down almost to his chest. He was in every way the picture of exhaustion. A picture contradicted by the reality of his legs.

  Of course it was possible that Mathis was faking fatigue simply to get away from Shawn, who had spent the last few hours hiking alongside one lawyer after another, and who was now glued to Mathis’ side.

  That had been the key to Shawn’s plan for the day. While Gus kept an eye on the entire pack from the end of the line, Shawn would use the time to get to know the lawyers better. Not that either of the detectives had any desire to forge the strong ties of friendship that Rushton had prescribed for the entire group. All Shawn and Gus really needed was a little confirmation of what they already knew: that Mathis was behind not only the murders of Ellen Svaco and mime Archie Kane, but also the espionage plot Archie had been trying to stop.

  At the beginning of the hike, Gus had managed to tell Shawn everything he’d learned from the employee files, and Shawn agreed that this was all but proof that Mathis was their guy. By the time they reached their first night’s stopping point, they were certain that Shawn would have been able to get the last bits they’d need to put their murderer away for good.

  But Mathis turned out to be a harder nut to crack than they’d expected. Shawn had tried to start a dozen conversations with the man, but they had never risen above the smallest of small talk, and each time, Shawn had had to move on to another lawyer without having learned anything.

  Shawn slowed his pace enough to let Mathis move ahead, and then he stopped to let Gus catch up with him.

  “Anything?” Gus said.

  “He’s smart,” Shawn said. “He may be onto us.”

  “What makes you say that?” Gus said, a feeling of dread managing to bubble up through the cracks in his exhaustion. He forced it back down quickly. He couldn’t afford to let fear get a foothold. There wouldn’t be a snack bar selling ice-cream sandwiches to bring him out of it here.

  “I’ve tossed out enough bait to land a hundred sharks, but he hasn’t even nibbled,” Shawn said. “I’ve tried to engage him on the subject of Archie Kane, but all he says is that it’s a great loss to the firm and ‘to us all personally.’ I tried to get him to talk about the tech stuff he handles, but he insisted that so much of it was confidential that he makes a practice of never discussing any of it so as not to make a mistake. I even mentioned the Jet Propulsion Laboratory—which isn’t easy to casually drop into conversation. He acted like he’d never given the place a thought.”

  A terrible idea hit Gus. Again, he fought to keep it from turning into panic. “What if he’s not the right guy?”

  “We’ve decided he is,” Shawn said. “We put a lot of thought into that conclusion, and it seems premature to throw away all that work simply because we’re having a hard time making a brilliant career criminal expose himself on the course of a nature walk.”

  “If by ‘a lot of thought’ you mean you made a snap decision based on a couple of physical and behavioral characteristics, it’s hard to argue,” Gus said.

  “And you confirmed it through research.”

  “I found information that reinforced my existing prejudice,” Gus said. “On its own, the fact that he specializes in technology doesn’t mean much of anything.”

  They walked a few paces in silence as Shawn thought this over. “If you’re right,” he finally said, “we’ve picked the wrong suspect. And while we’ve been focused on Mathis, the real killer has been focused on us—and is planning to take us out.”

  Gus felt a cold jolt of adrenaline surge through his system. At first he assumed it was from the awareness of the danger they were in. But then he realized his body was responding to a sound his conscious mind hadn’t noticed.

  “What was that?” Shawn said as the sound came again.

  It took Gus a second to recognize the noise that came drifting around the curve in the trail. At first he tried to figure out what kind of animal or bird made a sound like that.

  Then it hit him. It wasn’t an animal. It was a woman.

  And she was screaming.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Bef
ore his pack hit the dirt, Gus had launched himself down the trail and towards the source of the scream. Freed from the weight he’d been carrying for hours, Gus practically flew. He could feel himself hurtling into the air with every step. He realized this was incredibly dangerous—if he landed on one of the rocks that littered the trail, he’d break an ankle, and there was no chance the lawyers would carry him down the mountain. But he recognized the voice that was screaming, and he had to help.

  If it had been Gwendolyn, perhaps Gus wouldn’t have reacted so strongly. But Jade exuded an ethereal vulnerability, and he couldn’t stop imagining her lying dead in Peter Pan’s hands as he begged the audience to clap if they believed in fairies.

  Shawn was right next to Gus as they hurtled around the bend in the trail. When they got around it, they both stopped dead, shocked at what lay before them.

  For the last few miles, the trail had hugged the side of the mountain on their left, and dropped off sharply to the right. But now the left side opened up into a wide meadow. A clear stream ran through it, and wildflowers bloomed yellow and red for as far as they could see.

  The sight that stopped Shawn and Gus was what had been erected in the center of the meadow. Four tents, each striped in a different color, stood facing one another across a quad. Between them, a long table was set with a service fit for the White House—linen tablecloth, bone china, fine crystal, and sterling silver. A professional range had been set up a short distance away from the tents, and two young men in black slacks and white shirts stood by, while a woman in her mid-twenties, dressed the same way, unboxed a dozen bottles of wine.

  Jade was standing, stunned, at the edge of the encampment. She let out another scream of joy. The other lawyers, who had taken their places around the table, ignored her.

  “How did they get all this up there?” Gus knew there were other questions that were probably more pressing, but the surreal sight pushed them all out of his head.

  “It’s really amazing how much you can fit in one of those helicopters when they’re not crammed full of egos,” Shawn said. “Hungry?”

  Gus hadn’t thought he was. But now the air was filled with the delicate scents of sorrel soup and roast lamb, and suddenly he was starving. He started to move towards the table when a thought hit him.

  “Our packs,” he said. “We’ve got to go back for them.”

  “We’ll go back later,” Shawn said. “The food will be all gone.”

  “It’ll be dark later. And in the morning we can’t take a chance that we’ll have to go back when the others are pressing on ahead.”

  “So we’ll leave them,” Shawn said. “If they’re serving us meals like this along the way, why should we schlep all that dried stuff?”

  “Maybe that’s exactly what Rushton wants us to think,” Gus said. “This is all a trick to get us to leave our packs behind, and then there’s no food for the next four days.”

  “If he wanted us to starve, why would he put food in our packs in the first place?”

  “I don’t know,” Gus said. “I don’t really understand anything about this trip. But I know I’ll feel better if I have my pack with me.”

  Gus could practically see the little angel and tiny devil debating on Shawn’s shoulders. After a moment, Shawn nodded regretfully. “Let’s get the packs.”

  Gus took one last longing look at the dinner table, then turned back to the trail. And walked into a wall.

  At least that’s what it looked like up close. Gus stepped back quickly and realized it was his pack. His pack and Shawn’s. Standing behind it was an enormous figure that seemed to have been woven out of wiry red hair. The hair covered its head and flowed around its shoulders; it poured off his face in a long beard and mustache. The creature wore an old flannel shirt and filthy shorts that might once have been khaki, but now were mostly loose threads. Giant tufts of red hair poked through the holes in the creature’s clothes and around the straps of its sandals.

  “Don’t trash my mountain,” the figure said, and threw the packs at their feet.

  Now that he had a clear view, Gus could see that the creature was not Bigfoot, or the Abominable Snowman, or Gossamer, the tennis-shoe-wearing monster from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. It was a man. Aside from the species, however, Gus could tell almost nothing about him. All else was hidden by the hair.

  “Sorry. We were just going back for those,” Shawn said. “Thanks for bringing them to us.”

  “Don’t trash my mountain,” the man said again, and then he was gone back up the trail.

  “Amazing that big a guy can move so fast,” Shawn said. “Of course, if he’s all hair, maybe he just blew away.”

  Gus hoisted his pack and slung it over his shoulder, his muscles screaming in pain as the weight settled down on them again. A quick glance suggested that Shawn was feeling the same agony.

  “I suppose we could just leave them here,” Gus said. “We’ll be able to find them in the morning.”

  “Do you think that counts as trashing the mountain?”

  “Not as much as setting up a four-star restaurant in this meadow.” This assertion came from a fourth server, who offered them a warm smile and two printed menu cards. He had curly black hair and a smile bigger than all outdoors, which was pretty big, given the context. “Hi, my name is Cody, and I’ll be your server tonight. That man has been hanging around here all day shouting obscenities at us. We finally bought him off with a case of Pinot Noir. But don’t worry—there’s plenty left.”

  “Do you think he’s dangerous?” Gus said.

  “My usual gig is in Venice,” Cody said. “He’s nothing compared to the homeless guys living on the beach. Just seems fanatical about keeping the mountains clean—and who can blame him?”

  “He could start with himself,” Shawn said.

  “Believe me, we offered him a shower along with the wine,” Cody said.

  “There are showers here?” Gus said.

  “We’ve got a sauna,” Cody said. He pointed at the female server, who was standing over Balowsky waiting for him to drain his glass so she could refill it. “And Maggie is a certified massage technician, if you’re feeling sore. I personally recommend her scalp treatment. I think she’s bringing back my hair.”

  Gus and Shawn must have looked puzzled, because Cody leaned over to show them the bald spot on the center of his scalp. “My agent said I should just shave my head, but I think that rules me out for leading man roles.”

  “I can see how that would be a problem,” Shawn said.

  “But my acting career is the last thing in the world you two should be worrying about now,” Cody said.

  “Don’t worry, it is,” Shawn said.

  “I’d love to wash my hands before dinner,” Gus said.

  “The bathing pavilion is right over there.” Cody pointed at a red-and-white-striped tent. “May I take your bags?”

  “You may take them and keep them,” Shawn said.

  Cody pointed across the meadow, where the rest of the packs were neatly lined up. “I’ll put them over there. We’ll start serving dinner as soon as you’re seated.”

  As Cody bent down to pick up the packs, he gave Gus another look at the bald spot, then carried the bags over to the others and went to help the other male server pour soup into bowls.

  “You heard what Cody said,” Shawn said. “We don’t want to keep the lawyers waiting.”

  “You go join them,” Gus said. “I’ll be right there. Maybe you can get Mathis to confess and we can all go home after dinner.”

  As Shawn went towards the dining table, Gus headed off to the red-and-white-striped tent and pushed the flap open. It was like stepping into the spa at the Four Seasons—marble countertops, brass fixtures, and toiletries with the fanciest labels Gus had ever seen. But all that luxury paled in comparison to the scalding-hot water that gushed out of the faucet when Gus turned the tap. He lathered his hands with a jasmine-scented wash and then attacked his face with the matching defoliating scrub. Dry
ing himself off with a plush towel of Egyptian cotton, he luxuriated in the sense of cleanliness. No matter how good dinner had smelled, he was beginning to regret passing on the hot shower. Maybe later.

  Feeling more refreshed than he’d dreamed possible, Gus stepped out of the bath tent and started towards the dining table. The lawyers were involved in an argument over some obscure point of law—among the snatches that drifted over in the breeze Gus heard the words ‘usucaption,’ ‘usufructuary,’ and ‘ultra vires’—and server Maggie was back standing over Balowsky with a fresh bottle as he drained the dregs from another glass. A portly chef Gus hadn’t noticed before bent over the oven, pulling out a saddle of lamb.

  Gus’ sense of well-being began to drain away as he realized that for all the noise coming from the table, there were only four people sitting there. Mathis was nowhere to be seen.

  Neither was Shawn.

  Gus made a conscious effort to slow his heart rate before it started accelerating. This was probably a good thing. Shawn had undoubtedly seen an opening and taken Mathis aside to trick a confession out of him. Then he’d saunter back to the packs, flip on one of the emergency beacons, and they’d both enjoy this fabulous dinner while they waited for the helicopter to come.

  That sounded like a brilliant plan. There was only one problem with it. It wasn’t Shawn. There was simply no way that Shawn could bring himself to solve a case like this without an audience. If Shawn was going to expose Mathis, he’d do it in front of the other lawyers. Or at the very least wait until Gus was back to see it.

  So where was he?

  Gus scanned every inch of the meadow. Cody and the other male servers were polishing the plates before dinner service. The chef was carving the roast. Server Maggie was refilling Balowsky’s glass.

  That left the tents. There were three of them besides the one he’d just left. Gus crept over to the nearest tent, a blue-and-white-striped pavilion, and peered in. There were three low beds on the ground, complete with feather beds and down comforters. Three fluffy cotton robes hung from hooks, and there were men’s pajamas laid out on a low table. But there was no one inside. Gus moved quickly to the green-and-white-striped tent. Two more beds, two more robes, and two sheer nightgowns on hooks. Clearly this tent was intended for Gwendolyn and Jade, although Gus suspected that they might both prefer sleeping alone on rocks to rooming together, no matter how splendid the accommodation. The yellow-and-white-striped tent at the other end of the camp also contained two beds and two sets of men’s pajamas.