Psych: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read p-1 Page 6

  “Metal building, hot sun, dead body, check,” Coules said. “You investigate a crime scene, you’re going to get dirty. You stay much cleaner if you just make up your facts.”

  “And this place was a mess before the guy was dead,” O’Hara said. “Apparently, it hadn’t even been swept in the last decade. Which means every fingerprint that’s ever been left is still there.”

  “That’s not going to stop us from finding the killer,” Lassiter said.

  “Not when the victim works for the City of Santa Barbara,” Coules said. “That’s why I’m here now, and why I won’t let this case drop until it’s solved and the perpetrator is behind bars. At the district attorney’s office, we believe that anyone who’s willing to harm a member of our local government is targeting democracy itself. And I will not let that stand. Do you understand, Detectives?”

  “We’ll take the prints and run every single one of them, even if it’s the entire population of Santa Barbara,” Lassiter said.

  Gus felt Coules’ eyes boring into him. He tried to remember how many fingerprints he and Shawn might have left in the shack. Including the ones he must have left on the barrel of the shotgun. Not that he and Shawn had done anything wrong. They were the victims. But would that stop Coules from coming after them?

  “And I bet it is,” Gus said. “Every single citizen. We’ll be amazed at the prints that are in there. Probably even people who have never been in the area. Just thought about stopping by.”

  “That would include you two, then, wouldn’t it?” Coules said.

  “Us?” Gus squeaked.

  “You were certainly thinking about stopping by yesterday,” Lassiter said. “Just think, if you’d made the walk, you might have run into the killer. Your laziness might have saved your lives.”

  This was the moment. All Gus had to do was say three simple words: “We were here.” Sure, there would be an investigation, but they didn’t kill the man, so what did they have to worry about? Even if Bert Coules was looking for vengeance after his humiliation at the Veronica Mason trial, he’d never actually charge them with the murder. And if charges were filed, what jury would convict them? A miserable year or two, a few hundred thousand dollars in legal fees, and it would all be over. If only Gus could bring himself to say those three simple words.

  “It only looks like laziness,” Shawn said. “But it’s really more of a Zen survival thing. Or a Spidey sense. It’s hard to tell the difference between the two sometimes.”

  Gus whispered furiously to him, “What are you doing? We should tell them.”

  “After we’ve solved the murder,” Shawn said. “This is our case.”

  Detective O’Hara cleared her throat. “Other forensic evidence is going to be mostly useless for the same reasons. From what I understand, the place is absolutely disgusting, even without the body. One of the techs tried to describe the bathroom to me, and was seized by another fit of vomiting.”

  “Sounds like my kind of place,” Shawn said. “Let’s do this thing.”

  “You really think you’re man enough to step through that door?” Lassiter said.

  “Shawn’s man enough for anything,” a female voice behind them said. They turned to see Tara coming up to the door, looking stern. “And he doesn’t like it when his masculinity is questioned.”

  “Good thing he hired a hooker to defend his honor, then,” Coules said.

  “I am not a hooker,” Tara said. “I just dress like one because Shawn likes it.”

  “That’s absolutely untrue,” Shawn said.

  “No?” O’Hara said, studying Tara’s tiny dress. “Didn’t you try to get me to wear an outfit like that when I went undercover at that convent?”

  “First of all, that was a joke,” Shawn said. “And second-what I mean to say was that it’s absolutely untrue that I order Tara to dress a particular way. Not that it’s untrue that I like it.”

  Lassiter shook his head in disgust. “I’m glad we cleared that up. Now why don’t you ask your friend to leave? In Santa Barbara, we don’t bring dates to crime scenes.”

  “So for Lassie we can add crime scene to the list, along with restaurants, movie theaters, and the beach,” Shawn said. “As for Tara, she’s not my date. She’s my… new assistant.”

  “I thought Guster was your assistant.”

  “Hey!” Gus said. “I am no one’s assistant. Shawn and I are associates.”

  “Really?” Lassiter said. “That must be why I always see you running behind Spencer, doing exactly what he wants.”

  Gus wanted to argue, but words wouldn’t come. He knew there was a mistake in something that Lassiter had said, but he couldn’t find it.

  “Can we get this over with?” Detective O’Hara said. “That body isn’t getting any fresher.”

  Chapter Six

  “ I confess!” Gus screamed. “I did it! I killed that man! Now please, please let me out of here!” No one moved to take Gus into custody. No one even looked at him. That was probably because Gus had only confessed in his mind. But another two minutes in the shack, and he’d admit to anything if it would get him one breath of sweet fresh air.

  The stench in the office was overwhelming. It was so strong it blasted through his sense of smell and filled all the others. Gus could taste it, see it, hear it. When he took a step, he felt it pushing back against him.

  A quick glance at the others showed he wasn’t the only one reacting this way. Bert Coules was pressing his handkerchief to his face so strongly it looked like it was about to pass through his sinuses and out the back of his skull. Lassiter was trying to pretend the smell didn’t bother him, but he was breathing in short, shallow gasps, and his feet kept edging toward the door whenever he didn’t exert conscious control over them. O’Hara seemed to have simply decided to hold her breath until they were out again. Even Shawn had gone pale under the beard stubble.

  Gus was glad Lassiter hadn’t let Tara into the shack. She might be crazy, but she certainly didn’t deserve this kind of suffering.

  There was one person in the office who didn’t seem to notice the stench, but he had an excuse, being its principal cause. The attendant was sprawled on the ground behind the counter, a cloud of black flies buzzing around his head like a halo. His eyes stared up at the holes in the tin roof, which seemed particularly odd as he was lying on his stomach.

  “It’s pretty clear what happened,” Coules said.

  “Good, let’s get out of here.” Gus started toward the door, but Shawn hauled him back.

  “Justice comes before comfort, Gus,” he said.

  “And nausea comes before vomiting,” he said. “You want proof of that, keep me in here for a while.”

  Lassiter moved to the front wall and pointed at the cluster of small holes the buckshot had punched in the metal. “Is this what you’re talking about, Bert?”

  “Oh, my God, you’re right,” Gus said.

  “Yeah,” Coules said. “It’s evidence that-”

  “It’s air,” he said, pushing Lassiter out of his way and pressing his face up against the wall.

  “How about you, Spencer?” Coules said. “Any psychic visions to tell you what happened here?”

  Shawn halfheartedly raised his hands to his head, then dropped them again. “If spirits liked hanging around this kind of stench, they would never have left their bodies in the first place.”

  Coules walked over to the counter. “You don’t think so? Maybe they’ll talk to me.” He pressed his index fingers to his forehead and winced. “Ooh, ooh, I feel it. I’m getting a vibe. I’m getting a feeling.”

  Shawn turned to Gus, a troubled frown on his face. “Is that really what I look like?”

  “Yes, that is the thing that bothers me the most right now,” Gus said, turning his attention back to the air holes.

  “What’s that, spirits?” Coules said, dropping his hands away from his face. “Someone came in here. He was angry. Maybe he was angry because his car had been towed. He was yelling, maybe
even threatening the attendant.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Shawn said. “You’re just making this stuff up.”

  “Yes, but the difference is I’m doing it based on the evidence. The victim felt threatened and pulled out his weapon, a shotgun he kept under the counter. His first shot was a warning. That’s the one that put the holes in the wall.”

  “God bless him for that,” Gus said from his spot by the wall. He’d never felt so grateful to someone who’d tried to kill him.

  “But the killer wasn’t scared off,” O’Hara said. “In fact, he attacked. I’d guess he leapt over the counter and knocked the victim off his feet.”

  Lassiter pointed up at the ceiling. “That’s when the second shot went off. The gun was now empty, and the killer grabbed it and threw it away. Then he bent down and savagely twisted the victim’s neck, killing him.”

  Gus saw one dim light of hope in the DA’s scenario. “The killer must have been a big guy to break his neck like that.”

  “It doesn’t take size or strength to kill like this,” Coules said. “That’s the first thing they teach you in the Special Forces. It’s just a matter of knowing the right way to twist.”

  “So it could have been anyone,” Shawn said. “The pool of suspects is infinite. It’s hardly even worth investigating anymore-unless you found something like a computer listing of the last people who came in to get their cars.”

  Lassiter was checking out all the drawers behind the counter.

  “Don’t bother,” Coules said. “I already checked. Killer must have thought of that.”

  “Then there really is no way to solve this,” Gus said. “Let’s go.”

  “That would be true,” Coules said, “except for one small detail. The shotgun isn’t by the body. That means that somebody must have tossed it away from the victim-and that wouldn’t be the victim himself, now, would it? So we find the gun, run whatever prints are on it, and our suspect is as good as in the gas chamber.”

  “That’s very good thinking, Lassie,” Shawn said.

  “What do you mean, it’s good thinking?” Gus whispered anxiously. “It’s bad thinking. Very bad. Or have you forgotten which nonmurderer left his fingerprints all over that gun?”

  “I forget nothing, my friend,” Shawn said. “Like the fact that in this tiny shack, no one’s found the gun yet. Which means the killer probably took it with him. So you’re safe.”

  Gus breathed a sigh of relief. Or he would have, if he could have persuaded his lungs to inhale the toxic air in the shack. Then he saw a glint of light reflecting off metal in a far corner of the office. “I’m safe-unless Lassie decides to look behind that filing cabinet.”

  Shawn followed Gus’ gaze. The shotgun’s barrel peeked out from behind the cabinet. “What do you know? Lassie really nailed this one. Who’d have thought it?”

  “I would have,” Gus said. “I knew this was going to happen. I’m going to the gas chamber for a crime I didn’t commit.”

  “Would you rather be executed for something you did do?” Shawn said. “At least this way you can feel morally superior to the rest of the guys on death row.”

  “Shawn!”

  “Stay cool, buddy,” Shawn said. “All we’ve got to do is distract him before he finds the gun.”

  “So start distracting.”

  Shawn gave it a quick thought, then doubled over and let out a screech. “I’m hearing a voice. It’s speaking.”

  Lassiter didn’t bother to look up as he searched the office. “That’s nice. Tell them they’re too late.”

  “It didn’t work,” Gus whispered to Shawn. “Try something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Like he was a member of a criminal conspiracy that reached to the highest echelons of Santa Barbara society.”

  “And let them have the glory of busting the case wide open?” Shawn thought again, then jerked backward. “‘I found a picture of you,’” he sang.

  “‘Oh oh oh oh oh oh,’” Gus added.

  Lassiter peered down at the floor to examine a large stain. “I don’t like music when I’m working.”

  “That didn’t work either,” Gus said.

  “Which is really odd. My fifth-grade music teacher said my voice had a rich, strong timbre.”

  “Shawn!”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “There’s no time for thinking. We need a way to distract Lassiter now!”

  Actually, there was some time left. Lassiter was studying the filing cabinet, and it would be at least fifteen seconds before he would walk around it and see the gun’s barrel.

  Shawn and Gus were so focused on Lassiter they hadn’t noticed the door to the shack creep open and Tara slip in. They didn’t notice her walk up behind Juliet O’Hara. They didn’t see her tap the young detective on the shoulder. They had completely forgotten about her until they heard her voice from behind them.

  “Excuse me, Detective,” Tara said. “I have no choice in this matter.”

  “In what matter?” O’Hara said, turning toward her.

  Now Shawn and Gus did turn to see what was happening. Gus wondered momentarily how she’d managed to get past the uniforms manning the crime scene tape, but a quick glance at her legs made him realize how persuasive a woman like Tara could be to a middle-aged cop counting down the days to his twenty.

  Lassiter looked up from his search to see Tara take O’Hara forcefully by the shoulders, then lean in toward her for a long, slow kiss.

  For a moment, there was no motion in the shack, with the exception of Tara’s face moving toward Detective O’Hara’s. Gus felt a blush starting at his toes and working its way up to the top of his skull. He glanced over and saw Shawn staring with the same look he’d gotten when they walked into the wrong auditorium at the multiplex and discovered Mickey Rourke teaching Kim Basinger tricks far different from the ones they’d planned to see Mr. Miyagi teaching Ralph Macchio. Even Lassiter seemed to be unable to move, except for letting his jaw drop even closer to the ground.

  “Shawn!” Gus whispered. “This is the distraction.”

  “No.” Shawn’s eyes began to glaze over. “The rest of the physical world is a distraction. This is what matters. This is the only thing that has ever mattered.”

  “Shawn!”

  Shawn managed to pull his eyes away from the spectacle. “Right, murder, conviction, execution. Got it.”

  He moved across the room just as Detective O’Hara recovered from her shock. She shoved Tara violently away from her just as their lips were drawing together. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “I could arrest you right now for assaulting a police officer.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Tara said. “It was what Shawn wanted.”

  “I have no doubt of that,” O’Hara said. “Does he want you thrown into prison, too? Wait. I can imagine the answer to that one. Shawn!”

  Lassiter emerged from behind the filing cabinet, holding the rifle’s stock in his gloved hand. “I’ve got the killer right here.”

  Coules glowered at him approvingly. “You let my office know the instant you pull a print off that gun,” he said. “We’re going to teach this murderer you don’t take out an employee of the city of Santa Barbara.”

  “Maybe we could start the lessons outside,” Shawn said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but it doesn’t smell very good in here.”

  Lassiter shrugged and headed for the door. Gus and Tara followed. Once they were out in the air, they paused to take several deep breaths. The stench of garbage rising from the landfill seemed like perfume.

  “That was amazing, Tara,” Shawn said.

  “I was only following your orders,” Tara said.

  “My orders?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Gus said.

  Lassiter threw the shotgun at one of the crime scene techs, then started yelling at the two uniforms manning the tape. Shawn and Gus couldn’t hear what he was saying,
but when the cops all turned and glared at them, Gus was certain that they’d already recognized his prints on the barrel.

  “I think we may have worn out our welcome here,” Shawn said.

  They started back to the car, but before they’d gotten halfway across the street, Shawn stopped. Detective O’Hara was standing apart from the other cops. Her face was red, although whether it was from embarrassment, anger, or the effort of holding her breath for the entire time they were in the shack it was impossible to say.

  “Can you give me a minute?” Shawn said.

  “It’ll take me twice that to get in the car anyway,” Gus said.

  Shawn turned back and walked to Detective O’Hara. “You okay, Jules?”

  She glared up at him. “Was that fun for you?”

  “As a matter of fact-” He broke off when he saw the anger in her eyes. “No, no fun. Not at all.”

  “I’ve fought so hard so long to get respect as a woman in this boys’ club of a department. I always thought you were on my side, that you saw me as a cop as well as a woman. But today you proved me wrong. You did more damage to my reputation than anyone ever has.”

  “Jules-”

  “Just get out of here, Shawn. I’m sorry I brought you onto this case. Now you’re off it.”

  “Jules!”

  She turned and walked back to Lassiter. Shawn watched her go, then turned to head back to the car.

  Gus finished wedging himself into the backseat as Shawn walked around the car and got into the front. “So what is it you needed to tell me about?” he asked Gus.

  Gus leaned up and whispered into Shawn’s ear, “It’s about Tara.”

  Tara started the engine and slammed the gearshift into drive, seemingly oblivious to their conversation.

  “What about her?”

  Gus checked to make sure she wasn’t listening, then whispered again. “She thinks you’re beaming your thoughts into her head.”

  Gus waited for Shawn to react. To draw back in horror, maybe, or to snatch the keys out of the ignition, or even to leap out of the moving car like Mannix. For some reason, he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he gave Gus a reassuring smile.