The Call of the Mild p-3 Read online

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” Shawn said. “If I could only be useful. Like the person who’s got the map.”

  “We don’t know who that is,” Gwendolyn snapped. “If we did, we could be halfway down the mountain by now.”

  “And you’d be two-thirds of the way down, running to tell Rushton before anyone else could,” Savage said.

  “Let’s not bicker,” Shawn said. “Or maybe I should say let’s not bicker anymore.”

  “We are having a serious intellectual argument about the proper route to take,” Balowsky said. “We are adressing the issues one at a time, searching for answers to the problems they present, and coming up with a solution. We do not bicker.”

  “He’s right,” Gus said, stepping up next to Shawn. “Once you charge more than two hundreds bucks an hour, it’s not bickering anymore. It’s deliberation.”

  “Two-hundred-dollar deliberation is fine if you’re suing over who is responsible for a traffic accident,” Shawn said. “But when it comes to climbing down a mountain, I prefer a two-dollar map. And one of us has it.”

  “What good does that do us?” Gwendolyn said. “Whoever has the map can’t reveal that fact. And as long as that person can’t prove he or she is arguing from real knowledge and not from some half-assed Boy Scout training, there’s no reason to value anyone’s word over anyone else’s.”

  “Rushton said it was so you’d learn to trust each other,” Shawn said. “But I’ve known you all for less than a day and I know that’s never going to happen. So he must have had something else in mind. Maybe we should reexamine exactly what he said.”

  “I believe his actual words were to the effect that if the map bearer revealed the map to the rest of us, we’d all be fired,” Gus said.

  “Yes,” Shawn said. “If the map bearer reveals that he or she has the map, that’s it. But he didn’t say that anything bad would happen if someone else revealed who had the map.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Mathis said. “Tear through each other’s packs?”

  Gus slapped his forehead. “If only we had a psychic here who could tell us who was carrying the map.”

  “Why, that would be a fine thing,” Shawn said. “But where would we look for such a psychic?”

  “We wouldn’t have to,” Gus said, “if Mr. Rushton hired a psychic detective and sent him along on this trip.”

  “Wait a minute,” Shawn said. “Didn’t he do something just like that? If only we could remember who that psychic was, maybe he could help us out.”

  “Maybe he could help us by shutting up and letting us determine the right trail,” Savage said. “Which happens to be the eastern one.”

  Before the arguments could start again, Shawn pressed his fingertips to his temple and squeezed his eyes shut. “I need you all to blank your minds,” he said. “Don’t think of anything. Let the vibrations flow.”

  “There’s something flowing, all right, and it isn’t vibrations,” Balowsky said. “And my brain is never blank.”

  Shawn squinted one eye open and took a quick glance at Balowsky. Took a quick glance and saw. Saw the way his hands trembled slightly and sweat beaded the palms. Saw the pallor in his cheeks. Saw the tiniest difference in the size of his pupils.

  “What’s that I hear?” Shawn said to the sky. “There’s something talking to me. It’s a ghost. No, a sprite. No, wait, it’s a spirit.”

  “If it isn’t carrying a map,” Mathis said, “tell it our smallest billing increment is ten minutes, so unless it wants to be on the hook for a sixth of our combined hourly charges, it should go away.”

  “No, wait,” Shawn said. “Not one spirit. Spirits. Glasses of spirits. Quarts of spirits. Gallons of spirits. They’re calling to one of us here. Join us, join our party. No one has to know.”

  Shawn opened his eyes and leveled his gaze directly at Balowsky. “I think that message was for you. You wouldn’t happen to be in the habit of cavorting with spirits, would you? Because they really want to meet up with you as soon as possible, and they say that will happen much faster if you all stop arguing for one minute and let me do this.”

  Gwendolyn let out a snort of derision. Shawn looked over the group of lawyers. Balowsky was staring at the ground, his hands twitching more than before. Savage was gazing eastward, as if still figuring out their route. Mathis fumbled in his pack, pulled out a bandanna, and wiped the sweat that was still trickling down from his hairline. Gwendolyn was the only one who was looking back at Shawn. She met his gaze with an intensity Gus had seen only once, at the reptile cage at Santa Barbara’s zoo.

  And then there was Jade. Rushton had provided her with hiking clothes and boots in her trademark color, and it occurred to Gus that once they were in the woods, it would be extremely difficult to see her. But right now she stuck out like a bowl of lime Jell-O at a rock convention. She fidgeted nervously, her hands sliding in and out of the pockets of her dress, glancing furtively between ground and sky, and doing everything to proclaim her innocence short of whistling a jaunty tune.

  “I’m seeing a trail,” Shawn said. “It’s long and it’s hard. It’s mysterious and confusing. But most of all, it’s green.”

  The other lawyers turned as one to face Jade. She took a step back. “Why are you looking at me?” she said. “I don’t have the map.”

  “Sure, you don’t,” Gwendolyn said. “Now, are you going to hand it over, or do we toss you over the side of the mountain and just follow the way you fall?”

  “I can’t,” Jade said. “Even if I had the map, and you will all notice I’m not saying that I do, I couldn’t possibly show it to you without our all being fired. We’ve got to work together to figure out the right way to get off this mountain.”

  “I agree with her,” Savage said. “We don’t need a map, anyway. We just need to work together to reach a consensus. And I vote that we all go whichever way Jade says. Who else?”

  There was a moment of hesitation; then Mathis raised his hand. Balowsky nodded.

  “Fine, we’ll follow the green freak,” Gwendolyn said. “But if she doesn’t have the map, or if she does but she’s so stupid she gets us lost anyway, I guarantee I will not be the first to die out here.”

  “Isn’t it nice when we can all work together like this?” Shawn said. “Mr. Rushton would be so proud.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Mathis said. “Which way?”

  Jade looked around nervously. She glanced up at the sun, then down at the various trails that led away from them.

  “Not that I have the map or anything like that,” she said.

  Gwendolyn groaned. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “But if I had to follow my own instincts, I’d say that we should take the trail that goes to the northwest,” Jade said.

  She gave them all a big smile and set off down the path to her right. After a few paces she looked back to see that everyone was still standing in place. “I thought we were all following my instincts.”

  “Your ‘instincts,’ yes,” said Savage. “Your sense of direction not so much. Northwest is that way.”

  He pointed at a trail that ran off to their left. Gus was mildly disappointed to see that when Jade blushed, her face actually turned red, not another shade of green.

  “And isn’t this the very definition of ‘teamwork’?” Shawn said. “One of knows the directions, and another one of us knows what they mean.”

  The lawyers all glowered at Shawn as they trudged past him towards the northwest trail. Gus let them all start down the trail before he whispered to Shawn.

  “If Mathis really is the killer-”

  “He is,” Shawn said.

  “Fine, then he needs Jade alive until he can get the map away from her,” Gus said. “And unless he’s really good at hiding his wilderness skills, he needs Savage alive to interpret her directions. But does he have any reason why he shouldn’t try to kill us before we expose him?”

  “Only our charm and good looks,” Shawn said. He hois
ted his pack and started down the trail.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Of course Chris Rasmussen had wanted to run to the Pasadena Police and give a full report. But Henry’d had no desire to spend the next few hours waiting in a holding cell until the locals had determined that the bloated body on the floor had been dead for several days and that Henry and Rasmussen were unlikely to have committed the crime, so he passed on that plan. He did agree to call in an anonymous tip from a pay phone. Then he called Lassiter from his cell and filled him in on what they’d discovered. They agreed to meet at Ellen Svaco’s house as soon as Henry and Rasmussen could make it back.

  “That’s my jurisdiction,” Rasmussen pouted.

  “It’s your interagency task force,” Henry said. “More important, it’s a murder that happened to one of your citizens on your turf. If you let any ridiculous, petty concern like jurisdiction stand in the way of making that right, then you obviously didn’t understand a single word I said when you were in junior high.”

  Henry slammed his foot on the gas and hoped the look of determination on his face would serve the same function as the cherry he didn’t have to put on his hood. It did-or maybe they simply didn’t cruise past any cops. Either way, they made it back to Isla Vista in less than two hours. Rasmussen sulked the entire way.

  When Henry pulled up outside Ellen Svaco’s house, two squad cars and a plainclothes vehicle were already parked at the curb. The crime scene seal had been cut, and uniformed officers were going in and out of the house.

  Lassiter met Henry and Rasmussen at the front door.

  “What have you found?” Henry said.

  “Nothing directly connecting her to her cousin,” Lassiter said. “Except all that Fluffy crap, of course.”

  “Fluffy’s the key,” Henry said. “I’ve been thinking it over on the drive back up. I think Ellen and her cousin were partners in some illegal enterprise. Arnold kept his half of the money, but she had him donate hers.”

  “An illegal enterprise in peaceful Isla Vista?” Lassiter said. “If only the local constabulary had noticed. Ellen Svaco might still be alive.”

  Rasmussen stared down at the ground and didn’t say anything.

  “It’s the only way I can put it together,” Henry said. “Still one thing that doesn’t work for me, though. Officer Rasmussen spoke to all the neighbors. You’d think if she had been that emotional about losing a pet, even more than five years ago, someone would have mentioned it. It’s the kind of thing that defines a person.”

  Rasmussen was still staring at the ground, but they could see his mouth moving. Although Henry couldn’t read lips, he was pretty sure the word “jurisdiction” was muttered more than once.

  “What’s that you’re saying?” Lassiter said.

  “It’s a transitory population,” Rasmussen mumbled. “College town. People don’t stay here long.”

  “Except for Ellen Svaco,” Henry said. “She stayed here one day too many.” He looked at Lassiter. “Did you find anything in the house?”

  Lassiter sighed. “Got to give the kid credit for that one,” he said. “It doesn’t look like he missed anything at all. And he did come up with Fluffy, which my people might have missed entirely.”

  Juliet O’Hara appeared in the doorway holding a cordless phone. “Officer Rasmussen, in your background investigation did you happen to notice if Ellen Svaco had any legal troubles?”

  “There was no record of any,” Rasmussen said. “I would have mentioned it if there were.”

  “Then did it occur to you to wonder why her last phone call was to the most prestigious law firm in town?” O’Hara pressed the REDIAL button, and the phone beeped itself through seven digits. After two rings, a voice on the other end said, “Rushton, Morelock, and Weiss.” O’Hara disconnected the call.

  “This might have been nice to know about,” Lassiter said to Rasmussen. “You didn’t think it was worth sharing?”

  “I didn’t know,” Rasmussen stammered. “I didn’t think to hit the redial. No one ever told me.”

  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 exhau
stion. 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.”