Mind-Altering Murder Read online

  "Why would it?" Jerry said.

  "So I guess Mandy's whole hanging herself in her cheerleader suit after breaking her promise to help didn't motivate you either," Shawn said.

  "It broke my heart, is what it did," Jerry said.

  "That's pretty much the way I saw it," Shawn said. "My only question is why your daughter couldn't figure that out."

  Chanterelle jumped to her feet. "You're crazy," she shouted. "These were all accidents. Why are we listening to this lunatic?"

  "Couple of reasons," Gus said. "First, because until I formally submit my resignation, I'm still the president of the company."

  "Copresident," Shawn said.

  "Copresident," Gus agreed.

  "And because we had some friends of ours show your picture around Santa Barbara," Shawn said. "And you were identified several times as the one woman anyone saw Mandy Jansen with in the days before her death."

  Gus looked at Shawn, surprised. How long had he known?

  "I may have visited Mandy," Chanterelle said.

  "Where you used your hypnotism skills," Shawn said. "Although I suspect you might have supplemented your natural powers with some of Benson's finest mood-altering substances. I understand some of them disappear from the bloodstream almost immediately."

  "Then there'd be no evidence, would there?" Chanterelle said.

  "I suppose even if we had your picture circulated around a certain High Sierra ski resort and you were identified as Sam Masterson's date that day, that wouldn't be evidence, either," Shawn said.

  "Did you do that?" Gus said.

  "Wouldn't matter if he did," Chanterelle said. "No crime against skiing."

  "Unless you happened to give your ski partner a little nudge as he approached a tree at fifty miles per hour," Gus said.

  "If two people are skiing together, and one accidentally bumps into the other, that's nothing more than a tragic accident," Chanterelle said.

  D-Bob glared down at her. "Even if it's not a crime, this could be a very serious breach of company ethics," he said.

  "Then I quit," Chanterelle said.

  "Don't be so hasty," D-Bob said. "You are still a valued member of the team."

  Gus glared at him. "You are really the worst executive in history," he said.

  "All these people your father put his faith in, and they all let him down," Shawn said. "Or they were going to let him down. You thought if you got them out of the way, Jerry would finally have to step up and become the man you needed him to be."

  "Whatever," Chanterelle said.

  "But if there was a new president and he promised Jerry he'd solve the orphan drugs problem, you knew that would be the end of it," Shawn said. "Because this new president was an idiot who would always say the right thing but never get anything done. And your father would grow old and die, never seeing his dream realized."

  "An idiot?" Gus said.

  "Go with me here," Shawn said, then turned back to Chanterelle. "Unless, of course, he was so overwhelmed by the position that he killed himself the night of the swearing-in ceremony."

  "Wouldn't that be a tragedy?" Chanterelle said.

  "It does seem like the kind of thing we'd like to avoid," Shawn said. "So I asked my friends to stop by your room on their way here."

  At the back of the room, the doors flew open and six uniformed police officers marched in. Detective Juliet O'Hara followed, holding up a plastic bag that held a piece of hotel stationery.

  "Did you find it, Jules?" Shawn said.

  "On her desk," O'Hara said. "A suicide note written by Burton Guster." She held up another Baggie, this containing a large plastic bottle. "And enough Benson-brand painkillers to make sure his suicide was successful."

  "You were going to kill me?" Gus said.

  "It would be more oxygen for the rest of the planet," Chanterelle said.

  O'Hara motioned to one of the officers, who went over to Chanterelle and cuffed her hands behind her back.

  Jerry looked at her mournfully. "This can't be true," he said. "You can't have done this."

  "It was the only way." She was near tears. "You knew it when you killed those three boys to stop the greater evil."

  "I've been tortured by that all my life," he said gently. "I don't want the same for you."

  "It was your moment of greatness," she said, the tears now flowing freely down her cheek. "When you had the chance to make a real difference in the world and you took it."

  "I killed my friends," Jerry said.

  "Yes, you did--you yourself," Chanterelle said. "You didn't wait around hoping that someone else was going to act in your place. You saw the need and you did what had to be done."

  "At too great a cost," Jerry said.

  "At the right cost," Chanterelle said. "You were born to make a difference in this world. You always said so. But you trusted in other people to ensure your legacy. I couldn't let you do that."

  "Really?" Shawn said. "All this time you wanted your father to act, so you did what you thought he'd do if he cared enough? I think I see a flaw in that logic."

  Jerry took his daughter by the shoulders. "I stayed in this job because it's all I wanted from my life," he said. "I loved my coworkers, even the ones who were weaker than they wanted to be. Did you really kill poor Mandy?"

  "She said she was a player, but she was really just a cheerleader," Chanterelle said. "So once she was properly suggestible I had her put on that old uniform to tell the world."

  "Just a cheerleader?" O'Hara said. "You mean, like the one who's arresting you for murder?"

  She signaled the officer, who led Chanterelle out of the room.

  Jerry Fellowes collapsed in his chair and sank his head in his hands. Gus wanted to go to him, but within seconds the old mailman was surrounded by his colleagues, who gathered around to offer him support.

  Shawn clapped Gus on the back. "See?" he said. "That's much more fun than a board meeting."

  "Except for the part where we destroyed poor Jerry's life," Gus said.

  "Because he would be so much happier if his daughter kept on killing people," Shawn said. "Really?"

  Gus felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. "I guess it really isn't all about us, is it?" he said.

  "Only the good parts," Shawn said.

  They were walking toward the exit when a thought hit Gus. "You knew Chanterelle was the killer all along?"

  "I don't know that I'd say all along ..."

  "But you knew when you offered to join me as an executive," Gus said. "You knew she was going to murder me."

  "It was kind of predictable," Shawn said.

  "And if I hadn't chosen to expose the killer here, what were you going to do about it?"

  "Take your office," Shawn said. "Now let's go order room service before D-Bob closes our account here."

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  "Why do we have to wear these ridiculous getups?"

  Lassiter said, shrugging into the long, black leather duster. "Blue is the only uniform I've ever wanted."

  Shawn and Gus stood with Lassiter and O'Hara outside the mall, each putting on one of the dusters Shawn had borrowed from a local leather-goods shop in exchange for help catching a frequent shoplifter.

  "I've always thought you'd look better in orange, Lassie," Shawn said. "But if you want to come along, this is tonight's dress code."

  "I don't want to come along," Lassiter said. "How many times do I have to say this whole thing is stupid?"

  Gus didn't have an answer for him, although he guessed Lassie had mentioned this at least a dozen times already.

  The first had been at the police station, where Shawn and Gus were debriefing the detectives on the undercover operation they'd just completed at Benson Pharmaceuticals.

  "I have to say, I'm really impressed," O'Hara said. "I saw Gus in San Francisco a couple of times and I was completely convinced he was for real."

  "Not me," Lassiter growled.<
br />
  "The trick is to convince yourself first," Gus said. "There were actually times when I forgot I wasn't really starting a new life as a corporate chieftain."

  "And you were onto Chanterelle all along?" O'Hara said.

  Shawn and Gus exchanged a look. "There was a pool of suspects at first," Gus said. "It was Shawn who finally put it all together."

  "Only after Gus laid out the entire case," Shawn said. "Although with a slightly different solution."

  "It was a joint effort," Gus said.

  "Because that's the way we roll," Shawn said.

  "So who was your client?" Lassiter said, finishing up his report.

  Gus froze. He'd almost convinced himself that he really had been undercover all the time he was at Benson, but the mention of a client reminded him how this had all really started.

  "It was Jules, of course," Shawn said. "She asked for help with Mandy Jansen's murder."

  "I just meant a consultation," O'Hara said. "I never dreamed you'd go that far."

  "No one ever does," Shawn said. "And now there's a little matter of the favor you were going to do in return."

  Which was how the four of them ended up on State Street in the middle of the night, wearing dusters.

  "I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Lassiter said.

  Shawn slapped a rifle into his hands. "You've got to try," he said. "Suspension of disbelief is what it's all about. We ready?"

  Gus looked around. Each of them was armed with a rifle. "Let's go," he said.

  "Yeah, why not?" O'Hara said.

  They moved together as one, stalking down the deserted street.

  "That one's mine," Shawn said, pointing into a doorway at a sleeping homeless man. He raised his gun and fired. The man's chest erupted in red.

  "I got one!" Gus said, leveling his rifle at a skinny man in a camo jacket, running across the street. He pulled the trigger and the man fell, a red blotch across his chest.

  "It's going to get harder now," Shawn said, pointing at the homeless people scurrying away from them. "They're on the run."

  "Yeah, whatever," Lassiter said, getting off a shot at a bearded man asleep on a bus bench and watching him twitch as his chest was covered in red.

  "Up to you, Jules," Shawn said.

  "Got it." She stepped up to a doorway and with her foot nudged the form sleeping there. "It's over."

  The form rolled over and saw the rifle barrel pointing down at him. "Officer?" Frank said in horror. "I thought we were friends."

  "Friends don't let friends sleep on the street," O'Hara said. "Rather see you dead. So would Morton."

  Frank scurried back in horror as far as he could, then cringed in terror as O'Hara's finger tightened on the trigger.

  "Stop! Stop!"

  The voice was coming from another doorway. Shawn and Gus whirled, their rifles raised, as a scrawny man with a thick beard and bad sunburn staggered toward them. He wore a filthy Tommy Bahama Hawaiian shirt, now mostly rags, and what were once expensive designer jeans.

  "Why shouldn't I take your head off?" Shawn said. "Morton would like that."

  The man went pale under his sunburn. "No," he said. "You can't think that way."

  "Why not?" Shawn said.

  "Because it's not the game," the man said. "It's real! This is all real."

  "What's the difference?" Shawn said.

  "The game, it's just for play," the man said. "You can't let it infect you. The stuff you do in there for fun out here has terrible consequences."

  "You mean like when you're driving down the street and you speed up to run over a homeless man?" Shawn said.

  The man nodded silently.

  "Even when you're supposed to be hiding away in your blacksmith's shop, waiting to see if anyone's smart enough to figure out the clue you left in the game," Shawn said.

  O'Hara let out a gasp, then looked more closely at the homeless man. "This is Macklin Tanner."

  Lassiter looked disgusted. He spoke into the microphone on his sleeve. "Officers Carren, Carol, and Blain. Stand down."

  Behind them the three dead homeless men stood up and tried to brush some of the red paint off their clothes before heading over to Lassiter.

  "I was going to leave another clue at the barn," Tanner said. "Let them track me down to Bermuda. The first gamer who found me would win a million dollars."

  "But when you were still testing it out, you went for a drive to pick up some supplies," Shawn said. "Walon O'Malley was crossing the street in front of you. And suddenly all you could think of was the points you'd score by killing him. After you hit him you were ashamed and terrified. You cut the car you'd killed him with into pieces and hid out down here."

  "I wasn't just hiding," Tanner said.

  "I know," Shawn said. "You were atoning. Living out the life you had taken."

  Tanner nodded, tears streaming down his face. "How did you know?"

  "I've spent some time in Darksyde City," Shawn said. "That librarian's a real pain in the ass."

  O'Hara took Tanner by the wrists and slipped on the cuffs. "Macklin Tanner, you are under arrest for the hit-and-run death of Walon O'Malley."

  She handed him to the three undercover officers and walked with him to a waiting patrol car, reading him his rights as they went. Lassiter shrugged off his duster and let it drop to the ground, then followed.

  "That was fun," Shawn said. "What do you want to do next?"

  "I don't think Brenda Varda's going to let us back into Darksyde City once we give her the news," Gus said.

  "That's okay," Shawn said. "I was pretty much done with Criminal Genius."

  "You never got to meet Morton," Gus said.

  "Criminal geniuses are overrated, anyway," Shawn said. "Once you get up close they're just normal people with bad impulse control."

  "Like us, you mean?"

  "Exactly," Shawn said. "Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't I ditch you and you try to track me down?"

  "That could be fun," Gus said. "Want to give me a hint where you're going?"

  "Sure," Shawn said. "If you track me through the San Francisco airport, make sure you save room for dessert."

  Acknowledgments

  Like any writer I'd like to claim complete credit for this book. But I have only borrowed these wonderful characters, not only from their originator, Steve Franks, but from the actors who have breathed life into them over the last five years: James Roday, Dule Hill, Timothy Omundson, Maggie Lawson, Corbin Bernson and Kirsten Nelson.

  And I'd like to give a special thanks to my editor, Sandy Harding, for her generosity, her patience, and for the fact that every single suggestion she's ever made has made these books better.

  About the Author

  William Rabkin is a two-time Edgar-nominated television writer and producer. He has written for numerous mystery shows, including Psych and Monk, and has served as showrunner on Diagnosis Murder and Martial Law.