A Fatal Frame of Mind Page 7

  Shawn glanced over at the man and saw. Saw the darker tan on his left arm. Saw the way the kids turned only to their mother to plead their case. Saw the faint traces of bruising around his right eye.

  “He’s a long-haul trucker,” Shawn said. “Spends twenty-three days of every month on the road, and then he’s forced to go home to that lovely family. His wife made him take them to Santa Barbara on vacation in hopes of bringing the magic back to their marriage, but when they went to the beach he spent the whole time staring at young girls in bikinis, and the missus has been furious with him ever since. Now all he wants is to take the family back to Idaho, get in his rig, and drive as far from home as he can possibly get.”

  “You can’t know that,” Gus said.

  “Can’t I?” Shawn said.

  “No, you can’t,” Gus said.

  Shawn cast another glance at the man, who was now glowering openly at them. “Well, there is another possibility,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “That he isn’t a trucker at all,” Shawn said. “And that isn’t really his family. It’s all part of an elaborate cover.”

  Gus felt his throat tightening. He knew the answer to his next question, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking it anyway. “Cover for what?”

  “For his role in Kitteredge’s conspiracy,” Shawn said. “He knows the professor is going to have to come back here, and he’s waiting to take him out. But he also knows that we’re here to help. And he’s going to do whatever it takes to stop us.”

  Gus felt the lemon–poppy seed cake re-forming into a solid slab in his stomach. “Do you really think that’s possible?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” Shawn said. “But we can ask him when he gets here.”

  Gus looked back over to the trucker’s table. The man was gone. He scanned the room and found him heading straight for their table.

  “What do we do?” Gus said.

  “The question is, what can he do?” Shawn said. “This is a public place, and we’re surrounded by one hundred and twenty-six other people, not counting the members of his fake family. And statistically, it’s highly unlikely that they’re all members of the conspiracy. If he tries anything, there are going to be lots of witnesses.”

  Gus felt a pulse of relief surge through him. “So the only thing he can do is reveal himself to us,” he said.

  “Exactly,” Shawn said. “Unless he doesn’t care about his own safety, in which case he could kill us both and then take himself out. That’s the kind of thing crazed conspirators do, isn’t it?”

  Gus could have sworn he’d eaten only one piece of that cake. But now it felt like there was an entire bakery’s worth hardening in his gut. He thought about jumping up from the table and running for the exit, but if this man really was a crazed killer sent by the conspiracy, there was no chance he’d be able to get away. Not if the assassin didn’t care about his own life.

  There was only one chance—to stay and fight. He slid his hand onto the tabletop and felt for the knife he’d put on the tray out of habit as they went through the serving line. The blade flexed under his fingers—it was made of thin white plastic, and it would snap in two if it ever hit the slightest obstacle, like a piece of lettuce. But Gus knew from painful experience that when it did break, the larger piece would have a jagged point. It couldn’t possibly penetrate anything harder than pudding, but Gus could always aim for the killer’s eyes and hope at least to cause the same level of pain as a piece of dust on the eyeball.

  As Gus tightened his grip on his weapon, the man stepped up to their table and glowered down at them.

  “It’s over,” he said in a voice filled with menace.

  “On the contrary,” Shawn said. “I think it’s just beginning.”

  “I’ve been watching you for a long time,” the man said.

  “Since last night?” Gus said, trying to inject a little steel into his voice. “Or before? Did you start when Professor Kitteredge sent that letter? Or have you been watching since I first took his class?”

  The man’s brow furled in confusion. “I’ve been watching you two lazy jerks sitting here for twenty minutes while my wife and kids have been waiting for someone to take their order. Or even give us a menu. A break’s nice, but you’ve got customers waiting, and we’re hungry.”

  Gus tried to understand what the man was talking about. Was this some kind of code? When he talked about his wife and kids waiting for someone to take their order, did he really mean he was holding off any action until his superiors in the conspiracy told him what to do?

  He glanced over to see if Shawn had any idea what was going on. And then he understood. When they’d arrived at the gala function in their tuxedos last night, they looked like elegant gentlemen of breeding. In the light of day and surrounded by tourists in T-shirts and shorts, they looked like something else.

  “There is no table service here,” Gus said. “It’s self-serve. Didn’t you see the line of people standing at the counter carrying trays?”

  The conspiracy’s undercover agent did the last thing Gus would ever have expected. He blushed. “That’s what I told the missus,” he said. “But she said if there were waiters here, there must be service as well. And you don’t know my missus, but she’s not one to accept second class when someone else is getting first.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” Shawn said.

  “Not me,” the man said. “I don’t mind waiting in line. But my wife—she hates it when she thinks other people have it better than her. Like when we were in that gallery with all the paintings and all we had to explain it was that prerecorded thing. Sorry I bothered you two.”

  “No bother at all,” Gus said, feeling the cake dissolve again in his gut.

  “Guess I’ll go wait in line,” the man said. “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Gus said.

  The man stared down at his sandals in embarrassment. “Well, I was thinking maybe I could slip you some money and you could get some food and bring it over to us. I know it’s a big thing to ask, but it would make my wife awfully happy.”

  “I wish we could help,” Gus said. “But we’re here—”

  “To be of service to our fellow man,” Shawn said. “That’s why we’re dressed like this.”

  “It is?” Gus said.

  “Give us your order, and my friend here will bring it over to your table,” Shawn said.

  Gus stared at Shawn, trying to figure out what he was doing. “I will?” he said.

  “You will,” Shawn said. “Because this nice family has suffered enough today. Like when they were back in that gallery and all they had to explain the paintings was that prerecorded thing.”

  “That’s right,” the man said.

  “When there were other people in the gallery who didn’t pay anything more than you did who not only had the prerecorded tour, but also got a personal introduction to every painting in the room.”

  “That’s right,” the man said. “It wasn’t like he was leading a tour or anything. There were these people looking at a painting right next to us and this giant tweedy guy came up to them and started talking about the guy who did it and where he was born and what kind of paint he used.”

  Now Gus understood what Shawn was after. “And did he stop talking?” he asked.

  “Not as long as we were in that room,” the man said. “Honestly, I don’t know why the missus cared so much. At least the recorded thing runs out of batteries at some point. This guy was never going to.”

  “We’ll get your food,” Shawn said. “But then we need you to tell us exactly where you saw this man.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Gus had never actually believed they’d find Professor Kitteredge at the museum. He’d let Shawn talk him into looking there because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to start the search. But it simply didn’t make any sense that the professor would be hiding out in one of the only two places in Santa Barbara where he would be quickly recog
nized and caught.

  Not that there was any good place for him to hide. He couldn’t go back to his hotel, which was undoubtedly under constant surveillance by the police. He might try to make a break for home, but he had to know the Riverside police would be hunting for him. Gus was sure the local airport, bus station, and train depot were all being watched, and there was an Amber alert out on his car, the license plate flashing on giant signs over every stretch of freeway in the state.

  But he’d been here at the museum just last night; as a guest of honor he must have been introduced to many of the staffers. And while Gus had no idea how popular Clay Filkins had been, he had to imagine that most of those staffers would be overjoyed to finger the man who had killed their colleague.

  Gus had considered pressing Shawn for an explanation of his thinking, but every time he’d done this in the past he’d ended up with a blasting headache. Shawn’s mental processes were like string theory—knowledgeable people insisted they were actually valid, and when experiments were performed the results ended up confirming the predictions, but it was impossible to describe precisely how or why they worked.

  Even though he remained dubious, Gus felt his heart beating faster as he followed Shawn through galleries of European paintings segregated by century. And as they reached the end of the 1800s and moved on to the 1700s, he was thrilled to hear a familiar voice.

  “There are those who believe that Fragonard tired of these scenes of lust and licentiousness, and that’s why he turned to neoclassicism in his later years,” the voice was saying. “But that denies a key element of biographical research which became evident in—”

  Gus quickened his pace, nearly running into the next gallery. There he saw Professor Kitteredge standing next to a young Japanese couple and gesturing toward an ornate painting of three young girls in period dress playing in a fountain. The professor kept talking to the young couple despite the fact that they both had earphones clamped over their heads and in fact were looking at a different painting.

  Gus rushed over to Kitteredge. “Professor, what are you doing here?”

  Kitteredge jumped, then realized who it was who had come up to him. “Mr. Guster?”

  “Yes,” Gus said. “Gus. The police are searching for you.”

  “They’re not the only ones,” Kitteredge said. “I don’t have much time.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve made it this long,” Gus said. “Somebody is going to report you.”

  “I’m safe for the moment,” Kitteredge said. “No one ever notices a museum docent.”

  “But the staff all know you,” Gus said, checking the gallery doors to make sure none of them were closing in.

  “Museum staff particularly never notices a docent,” Kitteredge said. “Because the docent’s favorite trick is to introduce the staff member to his tour group, and then ask him to take over the lecture. Whenever a staffer sees a docent in a gallery he’ll cover his head and run out as quickly as possible.”

  “What happens when the museum closes?” Gus said. “We’ve got to find a place for you to hide.”

  “Professor Kitteredge can’t leave the museum yet,” Shawn said, stepping up to them. “Not until he’s seen what he’s come to see. And it’s not in this room. Which means that hiding out here isn’t doing you any good at all.”

  Kitteredge, who had been holding himself up proudly, deflated like a beach ball under a truck tire. “I’ve got to get another look at The Defence of Guenevere,” he said.

  “Professor, I understand how long you’ve wanted to see this painting, but this is not the time,” Gus said. “After we clear your name, you’ll be able to study it as much as you want. But now we’ve got to go.”

  “That’s the problem,” Shawn said. “That painting is the only way to clear his name.”

  Kitteredge looked at Shawn as if revising an earlier opinion of him. “The painting is the reason Filkins was killed,” Kitteredge said. “I’m convinced it contains essential clues to the identity and purpose of this global conspiracy. That’s why it’s been held in secrecy for so many years. Now that it was finally going to be made public, they knew I would be able to decipher its secret message. They had to shut me up, so they killed poor Clay Filkins and framed me for it.”

  “The picture’s a hundred and fifty years old,” Gus said. “Even if it does have all those clues in it, how is it going to help you identify the actual murderers?”

  “I’ll know when I have a chance to study it,” Kitteredge said. “Last night, I was only able to get a quick glimpse. And now the gallery where it’s hanging is closed and there’s a police officer guarding the door.”

  “Just one?” Shawn said. “We’re in.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Carlton Lassiter had never noticed just how lovely the veneer on the chief’s desk was. Although he knew it was really just a microscopically thin layer of walnut glued over particleboard, it still managed to convey the sense of prestige, power, and authority that came with the office.

  It surprised him that he’d never noticed this before. All the times he’d sat across from Chief Karen Vick as she gave him assignments or accepted his debriefing or just talked about the state of the department and the world with him, he’d never let his gaze drift away from her face long enough to appreciate the special quality of the wood surfacing.

  But for the past fifteen minutes he’d had the chance to give the grain the kind of study it deserved, and he felt he now knew it well enough to draw its pattern from memory if he needed to.

  Somewhere, in some part of his brain that wasn’t completely occupied with the office’s furniture, he was aware that the desk’s occupant was talking to him. Apparently Chief Vick has been speaking the entire time he’d been staring at her desk. Her voice sounded sympathetic and yet with an undertone of steel, which was, he realized, not unlike the composition of that desk.

  “No one blames you for this, Carlton,” Chief Vick said. “As this process moves forward it’s important that you understand that.”

  Lassiter felt his head nodding. Apparently some part of him was aware of what the chief was saying, or at least could figure out the correct response from her tone of voice.

  “But it’s also crucial that the Santa Barbara Police Department understand exactly what went wrong here,” Vick continued. “We’re not looking to point fingers or find a scapegoat. We just need to know if there are problems in our procedures that need to be fixed to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

  Whatever part of him that was controlling his muscles made Lassiter’s head nod again.

  “And the first tool we need to use in our study of this incident is going to be the report of the officer who was at the center of it,” Vick said. She opened a file that was lying on her desk and pulled out a single sheet of paper. “That’s why I need you to rewrite this.”

  She pushed the paper across the desk at him. His eyes, attracted by the movement, shifted up to see that it was a report form with a couple lines of type on it. He vaguely remembered having turned in a similar form a short while before.

  “That’s my report,” Lassiter said, shifting his gaze back to the comfortingly familiar sight of walnut grain.

  Chief Vick picked up the paper and sighed heavily. “This is the report you want to turn in?”

  “It’s the truth,” Lassiter said.

  “Detective Carlton Lassiter failed in his duty and allowed the suspect to take him hostage, shaming not only the Santa Barbara Police Department but every law enforcement agency everywhere in the world,” she read. “The entire fault rests with him. The only mistake made by any other member of the force was in opening the car trunk in which Detective Lassiter had been locked instead of leaving him there to suffocate.”

  “Is there something in there you disagree with?” Lassiter said. “I think it sums up the situation pretty well.”

  Chief Vick let out a deep sigh and shoved the paper across the desk at him. “I can’t give this t
o the police commission,” she said. “And I won’t turn it over to Internal Affairs. I will not let you destroy your career over this.”

  One of Lassiter’s hands reached out and took the paper. “What do you want me to say?”

  “You’ve written a million reports,” she said. “You know what has to be in it. I need a complete accounting of everything that happened, starting with your arrival at the museum and ending with your rescue.”

  Lassiter stared down at the paper in his hand. He read the words over again. It said everything there was to say about the incident. “So you want me to pad it out?” he said.

  “I’ve told you what I expect, Detective,” Chief Vick said, the edge of steel now rising above the sympathetic tone. “And I expect it no later than tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” He knew what that word meant—a day that would begin when this one was finally over. But he couldn’t quite imagine it ever coming, because he was pretty sure that this day would never actually end.

  “Tomorrow, Carlton,” Vick said, her tone softening again. “Right now, what I want you to do is go home and get some sleep. The next couple of days are going to be rough. Internal Affairs will need to do a thorough review, and the press is going to be all over this. Our departmental therapists are excellent at dealing with post-traumatic stress, and I strongly urge you to take advantage of their expertise. But first you need to go home and get some rest.”

  “I need to work,” Lassiter said. “I need to catch Kitteredge.”

  “You don’t need to do anything but rest, Detective,” Chief Vick said. “Juliet O’Hara is leading the search for Kitteredge.”

  “But I need to—”

  “Go home right now,” Chief Vick said. “You can take a personal day, if you’d like. Or I could suspend you pending review. But either way you’re off this case.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “When a problem looks unsolvable,”Shawn said, “it just means that we’re not looking at it the right way.”