Mind-Altering Murder Read online

  "Incredible," Shawn said.

  "I still wasn't convinced I wanted to make a move," Gus said, his enthusiasm growing with every sentence. "But I agreed to meet with Armitage and then with some of the other executives. That's why I've been so unreliable lately--all these meetings. I wanted to tell you what was going on, but I think I was kind of afraid to."

  "You were afraid of me?" Shawn said.

  "I wasn't ready to admit to myself that I wanted this," Gus said. "If I told you about it I knew I'd have to make that decision. So I kept it secret, thinking that way I could always drop out at any time. But the further in I got the less I wanted to drop out."

  "And Psych?" Shawn said. "You wanted to drop out of Psych?"

  The smile left Gus' face. He looked down at the table. He picked up his fork and bounced it on his napkin.

  "You did want to leave," Shawn said, realization flooding through him. "It wasn't just about being an executive at some new company. You were looking for a way out."

  "I wasn't," Gus said, still staring down at the table. "Not until ..."

  "Until?"

  "I think it was when we started looking for Macklin Tanner," Gus said.

  "You mean you didn't want to leave Psych until we started on the greatest case that any private detective has ever had?" Shawn said. He was too astonished even to be angry.

  "It was when we got into the game," Gus said.

  "I know, the virtual world was so vivid and exciting it made our own reality seem dull by comparison," Shawn said. "That's why we stopped at BurgerZone after every session--to remind ourselves that there are some things that can't be duplicated in pixels. Yet."

  "It was vivid," Gus conceded. "And the characters in it seemed completely real at first. But as we got killed those first few times and had to restart the game at the beginning, those characters always said and did exactly the same things."

  "Not exactly," Shawn said. "Look at the mailman. One time he shot you in the head. Another time he sprayed acid at you."

  "That's actually my point," Gus said.

  Shawn knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to say No, it's not. Spraying acid in the face isn't anything like getting shot in the head except that the head is attached to the face. And then they could debate all the ways that the two modes of death were different or similar and by the time they were done the food would have come and for a long while they wouldn't say anything because their mouths were full and then they'd be full and happy and nobody would want to leave Santa Barbara and be a junior vice president of anything and they'd go home together and everything would be the way it always used to be. But one look at Gus' face told him that it wouldn't work.

  "It is?" Shawn said.

  "The game is filled with all these well-defined, incredibly lifelike characters who seem to be acting with free will," Gus said. "But once you look a little more closely you see that their range of options for movement is limited to two or three minor variations on the same small set of actions."

  "They are just characters in a computer game," Shawn said.

  "But we're not," Gus said. "And I've been feeling like I am. That I keep doing the same things over and over. The same things I've been doing for years. I feel stuck. Stuck in place, stuck in time, stuck in life. I need to unstick myself. I need to move on."

  This was Shawn's moment. He could see it so clearly he could practically touch it. Gus had let all of his defenses drop away. He was speaking from the heart now, baring his soul. And there's not much in the world that was more vulnerable than a bare soul.

  Shawn saw exactly how to play the next few moves. He'd have to act sympathetic at first, maybe even agree that they'd been stuck in a rut for a while. Even though it was an insane lie--the last few months had seen them stranded on the top of a mountain with a deranged killer and kidnapped to England by a lunatic, and it was difficult for Shawn to see that as any kind of routine. But it was the way Gus felt about things, and he'd have to pretend to go along with it.

  Then he'd slip into a reminiscence of one of Gus' favorites of their coolest earlier cases--maybe the spelling bee--and how great everything used to be.

  Once Gus was suitably softened up by sentimentality Shawn would start talking about the future. No, not the future--their future. How they could build Psych into a real business. How they could spend less time acting like kids and more being the adults they'd become. He might even thank Gus for bringing up a thought that had been bothering Shawn, too. It was time to put away fun and join the serious world.

  Before he was halfway through Gus would be in tears. He'd beg Shawn to stop. He didn't want to join some corporation; all he wanted was to go back to the way things were supposed to be.

  There were only two problems with that plan. The first and more easily ignored was that it might not hold for long. Although there had been times over the years when Gus had expressed dissatisfaction with their eternal adolescence, he'd never really seemed to mean it. Usually it just meant he'd struck out with a cute girl who was in the market for someone with bigger earning potential.

  But this didn't seem to be one of those passing moods. He'd clearly been thinking about it for a long time. Even if Shawn's nostalgia trip managed to persuade him to pass on this opportunity, the feelings would come back sooner or later. They'd be dealing with this again soon.

  Still, soon was a lot better than now and a temporary fix was better than no fix at all. Now that Shawn knew what the issue was, he could put some real thought in how to deal with it.

  It was the second problem that was keeping Shawn from moving forward with his plan.

  He didn't want to do it.

  Gus thought this move would make him happy. And for all that Shawn hated having to think of anyone's happiness but his own, he realized that he wanted the same thing Gus did. He didn't understand it, but he didn't need to.

  For the first time since he'd boarded his flight in Santa Barbara, Shawn smiled. "If this is what you really want, you should go for it."

  Chapter Fourteen

  "I don't know what kind of sick game you think you're playing, Guster, but this is our case," Lassiter said. "You are not welcome here."

  At least that's something, O'Hara thought. Lassiter has actually started thinking of this as his case--or as a case at all.

  "Are you here about Mandy, Gus?" O'Hara said as she finally got close enough to speak without feeling the need for a megaphone.

  "I'm sorry to say I don't know anything about anyone named Mandy," Gus said. "I've only been here for a couple of weeks."

  Lassiter snorted with disgust. "You've been on this case for a couple of weeks and you still don't know the victim's name?"

  "I'm not on a case, Lassie," Gus said. "I'm here."

  Juliet realized why it had taken her so long to recognize him. The Gus she knew always dressed nicely, in pressed khakis and button-down shirts, but now he was in a tailored suit. It looked like a Zegna. The tie alone must have cost more than the entire outfit she was used to seeing him in.

  "You work at Benson Pharmaceuticals?" she said.

  "Junior vice president of marketing," Gus said, then corrected himself. "Sorry, senior vice president. They promoted me to Sam's level after he passed away."

  "Don't tell me you're trying to do undercover work, Guster," Lassiter said. "You're not going to fool anyone, least of all me."

  "I'm not under anything," Gus said. "Except thirty-five. As in the Five Hundred Most Promising Executives Under Thirty-Five, as judged by San Francisco Business magazine." By some strange coincidence, there happened to be a copy on the conference table and it was open to a page where a tiny picture of Gus was placed next to a large red number 467. "I was going to be four hundred ninety-two, but Benson's PR people were able to let them know about my promotion just before they went to press."

  "So you and Shawn aren't working together anymore?" O'Hara said. She tried to remember the last time she'd run into them on a case,
or in the station as they tried to cadge a case from the chief. She realized it had been weeks. "Did something happen?"

  "If you knocked him off and buried the body, we won't tell anyone," Lassiter said. "Just let us know where the unmarked grave is in case we feel like dancing."

  "We're still friends," Gus said. "Best friends. That's forever. But we're getting older and our interests started pulling us in different directions. When this opportunity presented itself, we had a long talk about where we wanted to go in the next few years and we agreed that we should part ways professionally. Not to say we won't be working together again in the future, but for the moment we're both doing what we want to do. So what brings you guys up north?"

  O'Hara studied Gus closely. In all the time she'd known him, he and Shawn had been inseparable. Even on those few occasions when they'd been fighting, they stuck together. She'd imagined them ending up together in an old folks' home years from now, bickering about which Corey had squandered more potential in his later acting career. If someone had told her that he and Shawn had gone their separate ways she would have assumed they'd both be devastated--particularly Gus, who always seemed to be the junior man in the relationship.

  But if Gus was devastated he was hiding it well. And she had never known Gus to be particularly skilled at hiding anything, least of all his emotions. He looked happy and successful. He looked good.

  "I wish we'd known about this before you left," she said finally. "At least we could have bought you a cupcake."

  "It's not like I moved to Shanghai," Gus said. "Although there is a spot opening up in our Asian office and I'm thinking about tossing my hat into that ring. But unless that happens, I plan to be going back to Santa Barbara all the time. It's still my home."

  "When you come back don't feel obligated to say hello," Lassiter said. "I'm sure you're busy these days."

  "Indeed I am," Gus said. "So, what can I do for you?"

  Juliet glanced over at Lassiter. It was so odd to be asking Gus for information. "We're investigating the death of a Benson Pharmaceuticals employee named Mandy Jensen."

  "Was she murdered?" Gus said.

  "No," Lassiter said. "We just drove three hundred fifty miles on a whim because we feel some misplaced sense of connection with a dead woman."

  "That's funny," Gus said. "Generally when you use sarcasm, you try to overemphasize the emotion or interest in words that are so obvious they shouldn't carry any extra emotion or interest. That way the listener understands that while you seem to be answering the question, you're actually expressing contempt for the person who asked it."

  "Imagine that," Lassiter drawled.

  "Now that's better," Gus said.

  "Mandy Jensen was found hanging by her neck in her mother's basement," O'Hara said. "She had apparently put on her old college cheerleader's uniform, then tied a rope around a water pipe that ran across the ceiling and made a noose on the other end. She put the noose around her neck, then jumped off a chair."

  "Sounds like she must have been very unhappy," Gus said.

  "We haven't found any reason to think so," O'Hara said. "That's why we wanted to speak to Sam Masterson, to see if he knew whether she would have had any reason to kill herself. But if you can think of anyone else here who might have known her, that would be a place for us to start."

  "We are a dynamic and growing company," Gus said. "Half the employees here seem to have started after me. But let me check her file."

  O'Hara expected Gus to get up and leave the room or at least to pick up a phone to buzz a secretary to bring the file. Instead he waved his hand through a beam of light that shone down from the ceiling and a small square hatch slid open in what she had thought was a seamless piece of wood, revealing a computer monitor. He touched the screen in a couple of places and a virtual filing cabinet slid open. Gus waved his fingers over the image and files flew by until he found the one he wanted. Then he tapped the screen again and the image of the file opened. Gus leafed through the pages quickly.

  "Okay, it looks like she joined Benson three years ago as an assistant in our sales department. She was promoted twice within her first six months and then given a small sales route in our Midwestern region. When she exceeded all expectations, the company gave her the choice of any route in the country. She asked for central California specifically so that she could move back to Santa Barbara, where her mother lived. In the year she worked that territory our sales were up thirty-six percent. Apparently there was serious talk about bringing her back into corporate and giving her--" He stopped, looking surprised, then started again. "Well, giving her my job. My old job, that is."

  "They were going to make her the sidekick to a phony psychic detective?" Lassiter said.

  Gus smiled. "I'm impressed, Lassie. It was just seconds ago that I had to explain how sarcasm worked, and now you're practically a master at the stuff." He turned back to Juliet. "They offered her a position of junior vice president of marketing. She declined. She sent a letter saying she had decided to end her career in pharmaceuticals sales, thanked the company for the opportunity, and said good-bye."

  "When did all this happen?" O'Hara said.

  Gus glanced down at the screen again. "Looks like it was a little over a month ago. Just before they made me the offer."

  "Maybe Guster killed her," Lassiter said hopefully. "Got her out of the way so he could steal her job. Sure, it's a long shot, but we've got to exhaust every possibility."

  "We'll get right on that, Carlton," O'Hara said wearily.

  Gus slapped a hand down on the table. "Now, that's what I call sarcasm," he said.

  "Is there anything else you can tell us about Mandy?" O'Hara said.

  "I'm e-mailing you her entire file right now, but I don't think you're going to find anything in here," Gus said, already entering her e-mail address into the SEND box. "She was doing fine on her own, but then she suddenly felt a desire to return home to live with her mother. Then she quit her job for no reason. It sounds like some kind of downward spiral to me. Maybe she started sampling the product--it happens sometimes. Or maybe she was always fighting depression and it finally got the better of her. Either way, if it were my case I'd have to think it was suicide."

  "If Guster thinks it's suicide, then I've finally got a reason to believe the poor girl was actually murdered," Lassiter said.

  "How I've missed your zany zingers," Gus said, getting up out of his chair. "It makes me wonder how I could ever leave my old career to take this job. Then I remember I get paid three times as much as you and it all becomes clear."

  "There are more important things in life than money, Guster," Lassiter said. "We do this because we want to make a difference in the world."

  "Well, people always seem happier after you leave a room, so I guess that's working out for you," Gus said. "And speaking of leaving the room, I've got a conference call. If there's nothing else?"

  "You mean in addition to the volumes of help you've provided?" Lassiter said. "No, I can't think of anything else."

  "I have a couple more questions," O'Hara said. "Please, Gus. It will just take a second."

  "I can let London and Mumbai talk to each other for a bit," Gus said. "I usually can't understand a word either of them says, anyway."

  "Ticktock, Detective," Lassiter said. "Not to mention ka-ching, ka-ching."

  "If you go now, you can get the car out before there's another twenty minutes on the clock," O'Hara said. "I'll meet you down on the street."

  "If there was street parking, we wouldn't have this problem," Lassiter said.

  "Drive around the block," O'Hara said. "I'll pay for the extra gas."

  Lassiter looked like he wanted to argue, but before he could open his mouth, an alarm on his wristwatch chimed. "I'm going around the block twice," he said as he headed for the door. "Then I'm heading back to Santa Barbara without you."

  He disappeared through the conference room door.

  "I don't thin
k you have to worry too much," Gus said. "This is San Francisco. With all the dead ends and one-way streets and crazy bicyclists, a single trip around this block is going to take longer than the drive back to Santa Barbara."

  "I don't need that much time," O'Hara said. "I just wanted to ask about you and Shawn."

  "No, you didn't," Gus said, giving her a look that was meant to be filled with compassion but instead seemed to be the product of eating day-old sushi for breakfast.

  "Okay, you caught me," O'Hara said, blushing just a little. "I can see you're fine. How's Shawn doing?"

  "How is he always?" Gus said. "He's great."

  "Really?" O'Hara said.

  "Really."

  She thought that over for a bit, then nodded. "Okay, thanks." She turned toward the door, then back to Gus. "It's just that he seems like someone who needs ... who isn't himself without ..."

  "An audience?" Gus said with a smile.

  She colored a little more deeply this time. "Pretty much, yeah."

  "I talked to him last night," Gus said. "He's doing great. He's got a whole virtual universe filled with people to virtually talk to."

  O'Hara felt an odd mix of emotions she couldn't quite identify, so she chose to ignore them all. "That's good to know," she said. "Next time you talk to him, say hello for me."

  "I have a better idea," Gus said. "Since you're both in Santa Barbara, why don't you say hello to him yourself? I'm sure he'd be happy for the company."

  "I'm sure I'll run into him on a case," she said.

  "Then you can say hello for me," Gus said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I really need to jump on this call."

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Gus was little, he had been astonished by the idea of a long-distance phone call. It seemed so miraculous that you could pick up the receiver and talk to someone who was hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

  Now Gus found himself astonished by the concept all over again. But it wasn't because he was able to talk to people in London and Mumbai at the same time. It was because no matter how many times he tried to get off the call, it would never end. Apparently the Indian sales team had some complaint about the British marketing department concerning the rollout of a slightly reformulated version of Nitrozine, Benson's hugely profitable cold-and-allergy medication, and the Brits were refusing to take them seriously.