A Fatal Frame of Mind Page 2

  “I’m sure it won’t be,” Gus mumbled. “Just a bunch of crummy movies you could get from Netflix any day.”

  “It’s not just the movies; it’s the sense of community,” Shawn said. “To know for once in my life that I’m not all alone in the world. That I’m not a freak.”

  “You’re not a freak, Shawn. And you don’t need a C. Thomas Howell Film Festival to—” Gus broke off, suddenly hearing his words echoing in his head. “How long have you known?”

  The puzzled look on Shawn’s face was so pure and innocent that a Renaissance painter could have used it as the inspiration for one of the cupids hovering around the corners of his painting, if there had happened to be any Renaissance painters hiding in the backseat of the Echo and they were able to get over the shock of being transported in a coach with no visible means of locomotion in time to pay attention to their model.

  “Known what?” Shawn said.

  “You know what,” Gus said. If he’d felt lousy at having tricked Shawn, it was only fair that he should feel better, now that he realized Shawn hadn’t been fooled. Instead, he felt even more annoyed at himself.

  “That you’re not taking me to the C. Thomas Howell Film Festival?” Shawn said. “That in fact you never intended to take me to the C. Thomas Howell Film Festival and instead have duped me in some cruel and manipulative manner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since you went out to get the tickets a week ago,” Shawn said. “And when you came back to the office and I asked to see them, you said you’d dropped them off at your apartment. If you’d wanted to make this halfway believable, you could have at least bought a couple of tickets.”

  “If we’d had tickets, you would have found a way to use them,” Gus said. “I had to make sure you thought we had seats until the thing sold out.”

  “And in case hell didn’t freeze over, what were you planning on doing then?”

  “I’m doing it.” Gus pressed his foot on the gas, and the car zipped past the Bijoux, where either a small crowd had gathered to salute their favorite actor or the number three bus was going to stop soon.

  “At least you could tell me where we’re going,” Shawn said after a few silent blocks. “You owe me that.”

  “You mean I could tell you where we’re going again?” Gus said.

  Shawn looked confused. “Why, did we already go there?”

  “Go where?” Gus said.

  “I don’t know,” Shawn said. “That’s why I’m asking.”

  It took Gus a moment to run through the conversation and figure out where they had gone off track. “When I said ‘again,’ I was using it to modify the first half of the sentence, not the second.”

  “Can you say that in English?” Shawn said.

  “That was English,” Gus said. “In fact, it was more than English. It was specifically a point of English grammar, so you don’t get much more English than that.”

  “What about Gwyneth Paltrow?” Shawn said. “She got pretty English. Madonna, too, although I think Guy Ritchie took the accent back in the divorce settlement.”

  Gus slowed for a yellow light and stopped with his front bumper precisely above the limit line. “What I meant was not that we were going someplace we’d already been, but that this was not the first time tonight’s destination had come up in conversation, and that in previous discussions I had told you where I wanted to go, asked if you wanted to come along, and been denied.”

  “Okay, that’s how Gwyneth would say it,” Shawn said. “Now put it in your own words.”

  “We’re going to meet a client,” Gus said. “And after we meet with him, we are going to take his case.”

  Chapter Three

  Shawn stared at Gus in disbelief. “You went through all this just to get me to take a case?”

  “Yes,” Gus said.

  “Why didn’t you just say, ‘Hey, Shawn, here’s a case; let’s take it’?” Shawn said. “You know me: I love cases. I never turn a case away. In fact, I’m still waiting for that free case of Doritos they owe me for publicly endorsing their product.”

  “You’re not getting any free Doritos,” Gus said. “Not for standing in the chips section of the Food King and shouting ‘Boy, I like Doritos.’ That’s not a public endorsement.”

  “It’s as public as I’m going to get about a cheese-flavored corn snack,” Shawn said. “But I’d do much more for a real case.”

  “Except for this case,” Gus said. “You did turn this one away.”

  Shawn scrunched up his forehead as he tried to summon up the entire contents of his memory into his forebrain. “Sorry,” he said finally. “Just doesn’t sound like me.”

  “You said you’d rather spend eternity being water-boarded with lime Jell-O than even meet with our client,” Gus said.

  “Now that does sound like me,” Shawn conceded. Then he remembered. “Oh, no. You’re dragging me to see that Crispix guy.”

  “His name is Kitteredge, as you well know,” Gus said. “Langston Kitteredge. And he’s not a guy; he’s a professor. And the single most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”

  “Turn this car around right now,” Shawn said, clutching at the door handle.

  “I will not,” Gus said. “We are going to meet Professor Langston Kitteredge at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. And while we’re there, you will act like a professional.”

  “Great,” Shawn said. “Maybe I should act like a professional waiter, because that’s how I’m dressed.”

  “There’s a gala event tonight,” Gus said. “Professor K is the guest of honor. It’s the only time he could meet with us.”

  “So now we have to listen to him make a speech?” Shawn said. “Instead of watching C. Thomas Howell as a renegade cop trying to stop a sex-slavery ring from kidnapping innocent teenage runaways, we’re going to listen to some droning hack go rabbiting on about brushstrokes?”

  Gus tried to keep from getting angry. After all, he had lied to Shawn. But this was the kind of case Gus had dreamed of since he and Shawn had gone into business as psychic detectives. Not just another dead body or looted mansion, but something of historical significance. A chance to make a real difference to the entire world.

  At least, he assumed that’s what it was. Professor Kitteredge’s letter requesting the meeting had been brief and completely without details. But Gus was sure the professor wouldn’t bother with anything that came in at less than earth-shaking on the importance meter.

  “I don’t know why you’re making this so difficult,” Gus said. “It’s not like I drag you to museums every day.”

  “Yes, it is,” Shawn said. “It’s exactly like that.”

  Gus gaped at the injustice of Shawn’s accusation. “When was the last time you were in any museum with or without me, except when you were on a case?”

  “I’d have to say that would be when I was ten and my father decided I needed some culture, so he took me to this traveling Van Gogh exhibit. But in the third gallery he tripped over an art student who was sitting on the floor copying some picture of sunflowers, and the student acted like it was my dad’s fault. So he arrested the kid for interfering with a police officer and copyright infringement, at which point we were politely invited to leave the museum.”

  “So how can you say I drag you to museums every day?”

  “I didn’t,” Shawn explained calmly. “I said it’s exactly like that. This one moment alone is exactly like you dragging me to museums every day of our lives, except Monday when they’re closed.”

  Gus pulled the Echo up behind a long line of cars, any of which was worth at least fifteen of his. “If it’s that painful for you to come with me to something that has great meaning in my life, then go,” he said. “Go see C. Thomas Howell. Hell, make him your new partner.”

  Gus threw the car door open, nearly knocking over the small man in a red jacket who had been reaching for the handle when Gus burst out. The valet handed Gus a ticket and slid behind the wheel. He was about to drive off whe
n he noticed that Shawn was still sitting in the passenger’s seat.

  “Don’t let him slow you down,” Gus said. “In fact, there’s an extra five in it for you if you take this car to the Bijoux Theatre with that guy in it.”

  The valet stared at Gus blankly until the passenger’s door opened and Shawn got out. As soon as he’d closed the door, the Echo disappeared around the corner.

  Shawn stepped up to Gus on the sidewalk.

  “I meant what I said,” Gus said. “You don’t have to stay here with me.”

  “What, you want me to miss the social event of the season?” Shawn said.

  “What do you mean?” Gus said, not quite believing that Shawn had found the spirit of the evening.

  “For one thing, check out the valet line.” Shawn gestured at the row of cars waiting at the curb. “It looks like half the guests brought their own police escort.”

  Gus glanced back at the street and saw what had been hidden by a large SUV when he’d pulled up: the first seven cars parked in front of the valet sign were flashing blue and red lights.

  “And the party’s so popular they can’t even fit all the guests inside,” Shawn said.

  Gus looked up at the broad steps that led to the art museum’s neoclassical façade. They were crowded with men in tuxedoes and women in gowns and jewels. If someone had pulled the fire alarm in the middle of the Social Register, the result would look like this.

  “The reception was supposed to start half an hour ago.”

  “That makes sense,” Shawn said. “Half an hour ago all these people went into the museum. Then Lamont Cranston started talking, and they all fled outside until he was done.”

  Gus was seized by the sensation that something was seriously wrong here. It must have been related to Kitteredge’s call for help. If only Gus had insisted on acting faster, maybe he could have prevented whatever had happened. True, Professor Kitteredge had specifically asked him to meet at this time and place, but Gus could have insisted they talk earlier. It was only a couple hours’ drive to Riverside, where Kitteredge taught art history at the university. He could have taken half a day off and gone down there. And then maybe none of this would have happened—whatever it was that had happened.

  Gus started to push his way through the crowd. But the people on the steps were Santa Barbara’s donor class—the richest and most powerful of the elites. And they weren’t used to being moved out of the way. They formed a solid wall as immovable as if they had actually been made of gold.

  “Excuse me,” Gus said hopelessly. “Please, I have to get inside.”

  “We all have to get inside, young man,” snapped a gray-haired woman cocooned in silk and diamonds. “And if we have to wait, you can, too.” The murmur of assent that came from everyone around her assured Gus that none of them would move out of his way as long as there was the tiniest chance the old woman might still rewrite her will to include them.

  Gus could feel his heart trying to pound its way out of his chest, as if it was hoping to get to the top of the stairs even if it meant leaving the rest of him behind. He needed to get up there. He needed to find Professor Kitteredge and find out what was wrong. But there was no way he was going to get through this crowd, not before the statute of limitations on whatever crime had taken place up above had run out.

  He was about to give up and search for a side entrance when the people around him began to move aside. Before he could figure out what was going on, Gus heard a voice coming from the bottom of the stairs.

  “No need to worry—it’s not contagious,” said the voice, which Gus quickly realized belonged to Shawn. “Not unless you get within thirty feet of the victim, that is. And even then, it’s so quick you’ll never know what hit you.”

  Gus turned and saw the crowd parting as if it had been Charlton Heston coming up the steps. It was Shawn, his mouth and nose covered by a surgical mask. “No need to move away from me; I’ve been around this plague all day, and I don’t feel a thing.”

  “What are you doing?” Gus whispered as Shawn stepped up beside him.

  “Clearing a path,” Shawn said.

  “Where did you get the mask?”

  “Amazing what you can find in the average police car,” Shawn said. “The shotgun probably would have worked even faster, but they’ve got those things locked down tight. Let’s go.”

  Shawn headed up the stairs, and as the crowd oozed out of his way Gus followed. It took only seconds to get to the top, where Shawn whipped off his mask. And then froze.

  “Oh my God,” Shawn said. “No wonder everyone ran out of the museum.”

  “What is?” Gus said, pushing his way to Shawn’s side.

  “It must have escaped from the zoo,” Shawn said.

  “What?”

  Shawn pointed across to the museum entrance. “The bear.”

  Gus looked where Shawn was pointing, and felt a huge surge of relief. Because there did seem to be a bear standing in the doorway. It stood six and a half feet tall and was covered with thick black hair. A large snout protruded from a face almost entirely hidden by fur.

  But bears don’t generally wear tweed coats or corduroy slacks, and this one was dressed in both. Which meant that it was not some ursine marauder come to wreck the museum and eat its patrons. It was the evening’s guest of honor, Professor Langston Kitteredge, looking exactly as he had the last time Gus saw him over a decade earlier.

  At least he did at first glance. But before he could walk across the plaza to meet his newest client, Gus realized there was one great difference between Kitteredge now and Kitteredge the way he remembered him.

  When Gus had seen Professor Kitteredge in the past, the teacher was always surrounded by students. Students who wanted to ask him a question or transfer into his already full class or just bask in the glow of his brilliance.

  But while the professor was once again surrounded by people, these weren’t students. They were Carlton Lassiter and Juliet O’Hara, and they were Santa Barbara’s finest homicide detectives.

  And they were holding his arms like they were taking him into custody.

  Chapter Four

  Despite his irritation at Shawn’s horror of museums, Gus hadn’t actually set foot inside one in years, except for a few times when he’d had to go on a case, and then he’d spent his entire visit looking for clues, not admiring the art.

  But there had been a time when he was prepared to devote his life to the study of art history. Granted, it could only be considered a “time” in the way a grain of sand can be thought of as a boulder, but for the four or five weeks of his college career during which he intended to major in art history, Gus was completely enthralled by the subject. He was already planning a career hopping the globe, revealing minor artworks hidden under major masterpieces and discovering the true provenance of pieces never before believed to be the work of the old masters, when he took his first midterm and realized that he’d been so busy astonishing the art world in his mind he’d completely forgotten to memorize the names, dates, or painters of the several dozen works of art he was expected to identify in a slide show. Humiliated by his failure, Gus dropped the survey course and moved on to a new major.

  But during that period when his interest had been riveted on art history, the prime riveter was a professor named Langston Kitteredge. Professor K, as he was known to his graduate students, was to his field what Indiana Jones had been to archeology, with the slight difference that Kitteredge was not fictional and therefore looked more like the animal on California’s state flag than like a movie star. He had a love for art that spilled over into a passion for adventure, and he made the two seem like one.

  It was an adventure that Gus almost became a part of. Gus had stopped by his office to ask a question one afternoon as Kitteredge was explicating the theory behind his next research expedition in hopes of persuading some of his more promising students to come along with him. The professor, an expert in the Pre-Raphaelites and their work, had been studying a pa
inting of Hamlet’s drowned girlfriend, Ophelia, by John Everett Millais, with particular emphasis on the setting. The picture, painted in the second half of the nineteenth century, was famous for its realistic depiction of the flora of the river and riverbank, and Kitteredge had hoped to prove that its setting was not, as was commonly believed, the banks of the Hogsmill River in Ewell but some other mysterious location. He was about to explain exactly why he found this so crucially important—and why he was particularly interested in the image of a water vole that had originally swum beside Ophelia’s corpse but had later been painted out—when his TA brought in the test scores so that Kitteredge could discover just how little promise Gus actually showed in the field.

  Gus had found an excuse to slink out of the office before his shame could be revealed, and ran directly to the registrar’s office to drop the class. That was the last time he’d seen Langston Kitteredge.

  But it was the rare month that went by without Gus thinking about his old professor. It wasn’t that he regretted not spending his life in the study of old paintings. But he’d rarely met anyone whose passion for life, whose devotion to his obsessions, was so total. He couldn’t help but wonder every now and again what he might have done with himself if he had actually spent a few minutes studying for that midterm.

  When Gus had received the letter, he’d been stunned. Not so much at the fact that Kitteredge was asking for help, but at the very idea that the professor had any idea who he was. With all the students that passed through his classes every year, with all the yearning souls desperate to join the ranks of slavish acolytes, it was amazing that he would have any memory of a kid who’d sat in the fifth row of his lecture course for a half a quarter more than a decade earlier.

  Amazing or not, Professor Kitteredge had reached out to Gus for help, and now he was in serious trouble. It was up to Gus to help him.

  “Say, exactly what is the case we’re here for?” Shawn said.

  “I don’t know,” Gus said. “The letter only said it was of vital importance. But now that Lassiter and Jules are here—”