A Fatal Frame of Mind

by William Rabkin

  Henry Spencer was standing outside, staring down at him.

  Lassiter straightened in his seat, then reached over and opened the passenger’s door. Henry got in and slammed the door closed.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” Henry said.

  “When did you make me?” Lassiter said.

  “My house has this amazing new invention called windows,” Henry said. “I saw you pull up behind the idiots in the cruiser. I almost brought you your own glass of lemonade.”

  “Did they spot me?”

  Henry scowled disgustedly. “No,” he said, “and don’t think that isn’t something else I’ll be bringing up with Chief Vick.”

  “Something else?” Lassiter said. “Besides what?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry said. “Maybe a level of incompetent police work that was directly responsible for my son becoming a fugitive from justice.”

  Lassiter’s instinct was to argue. He’d take the blame for a lot, but to make him responsible for Shawn Spencer’s irresponsibility was more than even his guilty conscience could take. One look at Henry’s face, however, suggested that if he wanted any help at all, he’d let that go unchallenged.

  “I screwed everything up, Henry,” Lassiter said. “I treated Langston Kitteredge as a cooperating witness, and it never even occurred to me that he was the perp we were hunting.”

  “Is that all?” Henry said.

  Lassiter didn’t want to answer the question. He didn’t want to think back to that moment. He never wanted to face it again. But he needed Henry’s help. And Henry would know if he was holding something in, and then he would get out and go home without a look back.

  “It’s not all,” Lassiter said. “Although God knows that was bad enough. But there was a moment when I could have turned everything around. When I could have apprehended Kitteredge and kept any of this from happening.”

  “Go on,” Henry said.

  Lassiter let the images from the interrogation room back into his mind. As he did, he realized how much effort he’d been putting in to keeping them out. He could feel the muscles loosen in his forehead, his temple, even his jaw. The headache he’d been fighting for days began to ease.

  And he realized something else. He wanted to tell Henry Spencer about that moment.

  “Kitteredge was giving his statement,” Lassiter said. “I have to admit—I wasn’t paying as much attention to what he was saying as I should have.”

  “Why?”

  “Believe me, if you ever talked to the man, you’d understand,” Lassiter said. “Let’s just leave it at that for the moment.”

  Henry nodded, then gestured for Lassiter to go on.

  “Anyway, the man was talking and talking and talking,” Lassiter said. “And at one point he reached into his left jacket pocket and pulled out an old pipe, which he’d already done several times in the interview. He never actually lit the damn thing, just waved it around as if it added something to the conversation. Anyway, this time after he pulled out the pipe, he reached into his right pocket. And I didn’t pay any attention to it. I assumed he was going for a lighter or a book of matches.”

  “Not unreasonable,” Henry said. “But then I’d guess that no individual step here was unreasonable on its own. You’re too good a cop for that.”

  Lassiter winced. He’d never had a compliment that stung so badly. “As I said, I assumed he was going for a lighter,” he said. “So when he opened his hand and revealed the murder weapon, I was still acting on my assumption and not on what had just happened. I looked at that knife and for one second the only thing in my mind was the question of why his pipe lighter was painted red. Just for a second, Henry, I swear. But that second was all it took. Kitteredge realized he’d exposed himself, and he grabbed me and jammed that knife against my throat. I could give you a load of excuses about how late it was, about how I’d been up all night, or that I had no reason to suspect the man. But no excuses can change the fact that I screwed up.”

  Henry was giving him an odd look. Lassiter didn’t bother trying to interpret it. He was deserving of nothing but contempt, so he assumed that’s what Henry was feeling.

  But for the first time since the incident, Lassiter was beginning to feel a little better. Not about what he’d done, of course; that was still shameful. But about himself. He’d always carry this humiliation, true; but now he saw a possibility of carrying on with his life and career in spite of it.

  It was, he thought, amazing how much better simply talking about this made him feel. If only Chief Vick had realized this was the way to deal with the problem, rather than sending him to that quack of a shrink.

  “How did Shawn and Gus get involved?” Henry said.

  “They already were,” Lassiter said. “They were at the museum before we discovered the body. It seemed that Kitteredge was their client, although I never had a chance to ask what it was he wanted them to do. They were—”

  Henry held up a hand to stop him. “He was their client?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Well, then,” Henry said. “You should have mentioned that earlier.”

  “It doesn’t change anything, Henry,” Lassiter said. “There’s no exemption in the aiding-and-abetting statutes for private detectives helping their clients. If anything, the law is harder on those who have sworn to uphold it.”

  Henry scowled, and his hand twitched as if it wanted to reach across the car and slap Lassiter. “You’ve known Shawn a long time, Carlton.”

  Lassiter worked hard to keep any trace of irony out of his voice. “Oh, yes,” he said, desperately hoping that he’d managed not to imply what he was feeling—that five minutes with Shawn always felt like a year.

  “I know you don’t approve of his methods,” Henry said. “Or his manners. Or his attitude. Or his clothes. Or his sense of humor. Hell—I don’t either. But there’s one thing even the dumbest cop should have figured out by now—he’s got good instincts. If he says someone’s a good guy, he’s probably right. And he’s not going to take on a client if he thinks he’s dirty.”

  “The man held a knife to my throat, Henry,” Lassiter said. “A knife that was almost certainly the weapon in a gruesome murder. I’ve got to put that up against your son’s instincts.”

  “It’s possible the guy panicked,” Henry said. “Recognized he’d been framed and reacted out of instinct before he knew what he was doing.”

  “A lot of things are possible,” Lassiter said. “But as long as Kitteredge is out there and Shawn and Gus are helping him avoid capture, there isn’t anything we can do for them.”

  Henry didn’t take his eyes away from Lassiter’s face. He just kept staring as if he could bore holes through his skull. “So what is it you want from me, Carlton?”

  “I helped to create this mess,” Lassiter said. “No, strike that. I created this mess. And I’ve got to clean it up. The best way to do that is to find Shawn and convince him to turn himself and Kitteredge in.”

  Henry’s stare still didn’t waver. “And you think I know where he is?”

  “I know you don’t,” Lassiter said. “Because you would have done the same thing. But I thought maybe if we sat down together we could figure out where he might be hiding. And then we could go talk to him.”

  After a long moment, Henry pulled his gaze away from Lassiter’s face. He looked out the window as if he expected to see Shawn and Gus strolling up to the car. “I’ve tried every place I could think of,” he said finally. “We’re not going to find him.”

  “I can’t believe—”

  Again, Henry held up a hand to stop him. “But I like the other half of your suggestion.”

  “The other half?”

  “We’re going to work together,” Henry said. “But we’re not going to waste our time looking for Shawn and Gus. We’re going to do the job you would have done if you’d trusted his instincts in the first place.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’re going to find the real killer,�
� Henry said.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Rarely was Gus able to hear good news without contemplating its darker side, and when things were clearly getting bad, he always managed to figure out a way they could be worse.

  But his feelings had rarely been as divided as they were right now. On the positive side, he and Shawn were on their way to England. That sceptered isle had never made his top-five list of destinations to visit, but it was hard to deny the romance of the unexpected trip.

  Especially since they were flying across the globe in a private jet without a moment’s notice. They were even wearing tuxedoes. You didn’t get much more romantic than that, unless there was actual romance involved.

  But somehow the reality wasn’t matching up to the description. Which might explain why Gus was still wide awake when Shawn and Kitteredge had been asleep for hours.

  There was the tuxedo, for instance. When he’d put it on thirty-six hours earlier, it had felt like a timeless symbol of elegance, the uniform for entrance into a world of glamour and wealth.

  But while the rented suit still looked shockingly good after all this time, it was feeling less and less comfortable. Apparently it was woven out of some kind of super-synthetic fabric that kept it from wrinkling or showing stains even during the most extreme circumstances. But it seemed to be accomplishing that by absorbing all the dirt with which it came in contact, mixing it with Gus’ sweat, and holding it all inside. Gus felt like he was sitting in a sauna whose water hadn’t been changed in months.

  That could be remedied once they were on the ground, he assumed. Gus didn’t know a lot about contemporary Britain, but from the YouTube clips he’d seen of an audience watching some homely lady singing a sad song, he knew the Brits wore clothes that were strikingly similar to the ones worn back home. He didn’t have a lot of cash to lay out for a wardrobe, and he was pretty sure he had a lot more than Shawn, but the TV commercials his credit card company ran during sporting events assured him he could charge anything he wanted anywhere in the world.

  And it wasn’t like they were exactly welcome in Southern California right now. The police had clearly decided that they were involved in a criminal conspiracy with Professor Kitteredge, and they seemed to be devoting a good many resources to looking for them. He’d figured for a while that the best way to clear Kitteredge’s name was to learn the identity of the real killer and present that to the cops, and now the same went for himself and Shawn. If that search took them ten thousand miles out of the SBPD’s jurisdiction, Gus could live with that.

  But before they could start searching, they had to get into London, and maybe even out into the countryside. And that was the one part of this trip he couldn’t figure out.

  Shawn stirred himself up from sleep and glanced over at Gus. One look at his friend’s face woke him up the rest of the way.

  “You find the most amazing times to start worrying,” Shawn said. “We’re on a private jet over the ocean, the fridge in the back is stocked with food, and in a couple of hours we’ll be in England. You should try to relax and enjoy the adventure.”

  “I didn’t just start worrying,” Gus said.

  “That’s true,” Shawn said. “I have very clear memories of you worrying about whether we were allowed to use the swings on the upper playground or if those were reserved for the big kids in second grade. But as I read the wrinkles on your forehead, you are not fretting about access to recreational areas right now. This particular concern has something to do with our current excursion.”

  “It does,” Gus said. “Do you remember the conversation we had when you suggested we might flee to Canada?”

  “I do,” Shawn said. “And I have to say I’ve felt much better ever since, knowing that I don’t belong to a culture that accepts DaVinci’s Inquest as entertainment.”

  “Do you recall the objection I raised about undertaking such an expedition?” Gus said, avoiding the opportunity to engage in yet another conversation about the lack of conflict in Canadian television dramas.

  “Something about not having passports,” Shawn said after a moment of thought.

  “Not something about not having passports,” Gus said. “But the fact itself that we don’t have passports. Which means the English immigration people aren’t going to let us into the country.”

  “What are they going to do?” Shawn said. “Shoot us down? It’s not like Malko’s going to radio down to the airport to say we don’t have passports, so by the time they find out, it will be too late. We’ll be there.”

  “We’ll be in immigration at the airport,” Gus said. “They’ll let us out of the plane. They’ll take us to a counter where they’ll ask us for our passports. And when we can’t produce them, they’ll put us in a cell until we can prove our identities.”

  “That’s easy. If they ask me who you are, I’ll just tell them. You do the same for me, and we’re fine.” Shawn unbuckled his belt and ambled to the back of the jet, where he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plate of sandwiches. “Looks like we’ve got roast beef with some kind of blue cheese horseradish sauce and a tarragon chicken salad on raisin bread. You want one?”

  If the seat back hadn’t been made of such soft, supple leather, Gus would have slammed his head against it. “They’re not going to take my word for our identities.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Shawn said through a mouthful of sandwich as he returned to his seat. “You can be very convincing.”

  “There are laws and procedures,” Gus said. “Trying to enter the country without a passport is some kind of felony. They’ll throw us into a cell. And if we’re lucky enough to be able to get through to the American consulate, he’ll probably e-mail our pictures back to the Santa Barbara police for confirmation—and then we’ll be arrested and sent back there.”

  “Then you really should try one of these chicken sandwiches,” Shawn said, holding out his plate with the untouched half on it. “Because it would be the highlight of a much better trip than the one you’re describing.”

  If Gus had thought to pack his shoes with explosives, he would have definitely set them off at this point in the conversation. “How can you be so calm about this?”

  Shawn took back the half sandwich and crammed it into his mouth, then returned to the refrigerator for another one. By the time he got back to his seat, he had swallowed just enough of the chicken salad to be able to talk through the rest of it.

  “Because we’re not going through immigration,” Shawn said. “We’re not going to be locked in a tiny cell for not showing our passports because no one is going to ask us for our passports.”

  “You have to believe me on this, Shawn,” Gus said, wishing there was some way he could get through his friend’s astonishingly strong denial mechanism. “Maybe there was a time a few years ago when that was possible, but after 9/11 there isn’t a country in the world where you can land at an airport and just waltz into town without proving you’re not some wanted terrorist.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about that,” Shawn said. “But we’re not landing at an airport.”

  Gus stared at him. “If you think we’re jumping out of this plane with parachutes, you’re insane.”

  “Really?” Shawn said. “You want to jump out without a parachute?”

  Gus resisted the temptation to shove Shawn’s second sandwich down his throat and watch him choke on chicken salad. “We can’t do any kind of jump out of a jet,” Gus said. “We’d die. Even if we had any idea what we were doing, we’d still die.”

  “True,” Shawn said. “Which is why it’s a good thing we don’t have to jump out of the jet. We’re going to land.”

  “But you just said—”

  “What did I just say?” Shawn said. “I can’t remember that far back. We’d better rewind the tape.” He made a series of noises that Gus assumed were meant to approximate the sound of an audiotape rewinding. “No, really, Gus isn’t a complete dweeb. He just comes across that way. You should go out
with him.” Shawn stopped. “Sorry. Ran that tape back too far. That was when I was talking to that blond sales rep at your company Christmas party.”

  “I didn’t invite you to that party,” Gus said, the humiliation over the recent past momentarily eclipsing his fear of the near future.

  “Don’t I know it,” Shawn said. “And let me tell you, that was one tough ticket. I think I had to walk almost all the way up to the door before they let me in.”

  “In fact,” Gus said, as the memories came rushing back, “I didn’t even go myself. We were supposed to be on a stakeout that night. Instead, I was alone, because you said you were watching the rear entrance while I was covering the front.”

  “I stake much better on a full stomach,” Shawn said. “Besides, that was the wrong part of the tape. Here.” Shawn made a slightly different set of noises to indicate that the tape was now fast-forwarding. “Here it is: ‘We’re not landing at an airport.’ Although I can see how you got confused. Most of the time it’s not worth listening to the second half of a sentence, anyway.”

  Gus thought through his options and decided which of these subjects he wanted to talk about the least. Eliminating both the Christmas party and Shawn’s victory in the rhetorical battle, that left only asking exactly what he had meant. “So where are we going to land?” Gus said. “A petting zoo?”

  “Probably something like that,” Shawn said. “I’d guess it would be a farm out in the countryside that just happens to have a long paved road right through the middle leading directly to a barn with suspiciously wide doors.”

  “And you know this because you had a chance to study the flight plan, I suppose,” Gus said.

  “I know it because it’s the only way a smuggler like Flaxman Low is going to be able to get his loot in and out of the country,” Shawn said. “He’s probably got some people on his payroll at air traffic control, too.”