William Rabkin - Mind-Altering Murder

“Of course not,” Gus said. “And I should thank you for going along with me on this and pretending you didn’t know anything about it until now.”

Shawn’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out. Was it possible that Gus was patronizing him?

“This was always going to be a really hard decision for me,” Gus continued, “and it was one I needed to make all by myself. I kind of wish you’d have given me another day alone on this, just so I had all the information I needed, but my mind’s pretty much made up by now.”

“So you’re going to work for another detective agency?” Shawn said. “What are they offering you that’s so great? You’ve already got the best cases, the best offices, and the best work schedule anyone could ever ask for.”

At least this wiped the look of pity off Gus’ face. And while his bones didn’t seem to be cracking under Shawn’s heel yet, the expression of surprise was slight improvement.

“Why would I work for another detective agency?” Gus said.

“That was my question,” Shawn said. “You’re the one who’s supposed to give the answer.”

“I’m not interviewing for a detective job,” Gus said. “I’d never leave Psych for another agency.”

Before Shawn could rap the brass nameplate to provide a physical action that would lend a visual underline to his next statement, the heavy door swung open behind Gus and a scrawny punk in dirty khakis and a wrinkled polo grabbed him from behind in a bear hug.

“You are the man, Burton Guster,” the punk said, his ponytail bobbing enthusiastically. “I want you to start work tomorrow.”

Even though Shawn had figured out exactly what was going on, to hear it confirmed like this stabbed him like an ice pick in the heart. “So you’d never leave Psych for another detective agency,” Shawn said, then turned to glare at the punk. And he saw. Saw the designer thread count of his khakis through the layer of grime. Saw the full carat twinkling in the stud in his ear. Saw the admissions wristband from Sid’s Joint, one of San Francisco’s trendiest and most expensive clubs, holding back his ponytail. Saw the folded copy of Pharm Report sticking out of his back pocket.

And he knew the truth. “This guy isn’t a detective,” Shawn said. “He’s a high-ranking official in a pharmaceuticals company.”

“Hey, that’s really impressive,” ponytail said, beaming. “How did you know that?”

“I speak to the spirits.” Shawn was about to turn back to Gus, but ponytail grabbed his arm.

“That’s really cool,” he said. “I want to know more about it.”

“Some other time,” Shawn said.

“Anytime,” ponytail said. “Stop by my office whenever you feel like it. I’m Diarmuid Robert Benson, president, CEO and owner of Benson Pharmaceuticals. But to my friends I’m D-Bob, and since you seem to be a friend of my new friend Gus, that makes you my friend, too.”

Shawn pulled away from D-Bob’s clutch. “Your friend Gus?” Shawn said. “You always make friends this fast, Diarmuid?”

“Only when I can offer them a quarter mil a year, plus housing allowance, hiring bonus, and three weeks’ paid vacation,” Benson said cheerfully.

Shawn stared at Benson, then turned to Gus. “What’s going on here?”

“I told you,” Gus said. “Rutland Armitage isn’t a detective agency. It’s a headhunting firm.”

“And Gus is the head they’ve hunted for me,” Benson said. “Burton Guster is Benson Pharmaceuticals’ new junior vice president of marketing.”

Carlton Lassiter strode quickly down the marble corridor, forcing Juliet O’Hara to scramble just to keep up with him. It was certainly a change from the way he’d been acting the past couple of weeks. In the month since they’d been called to the scene of Mandy Jansen’s death, he’d been dragging his heels every time she wanted to investigate further. Now that they were at Mandy’s former workplace, it seemed he couldn’t wait to get to their appointment.

“Our meeting isn’t for another fifteen minutes, Carlton,” she said, as he sprinted for the elevator and pounded his index finger against the already lit button.

“We get in early, we get out early,” Lassiter said.

“If Mandy’s old boss can see us early,” O’Hara said. “And even if that’s the case, we’re here to get certain information. That’s going to take as long as it’s going to take.”

“You’ve got sixteen minutes,” Lassiter said as the elevator doors slid open. He stepped into the car and jabbed the DOOR CLOSE button, forcing his partner to leap in before the panels slid shut in front of her.

“What’s the hurry?” she said.

“It’s a little thing called money,” Lassiter said. “Maybe it doesn’t mean anything to you, but it certainly does to the department. And I don’t feel free just to fritter it away.”

“They’re paying us the same whether we talk to this guy for five minutes or five hours.”

“It’s not our salary I’m worried about,” Lassiter said. “It’s the parking in this building. Fifteen dollars for twenty minutes? If we’re going to arrest anyone in this pit of depravity, it should be the guy who runs the garages.”

“You could have badged the attendant,” O’Hara said.

“As I’ve mentioned about eight thousand times, we have no jurisdiction in San Francisco,” Lassiter said. “Which means we have no right to expect to be treated as if we did. Which would make free parking an illegal emolument.”

“Maybe we could get a validation.”

“And if there actually is a killer and it turns out to be someone at the company?” Lassiter said. “Tell me then how we’re not hideously compromised.”

O’Hara flirted briefly with the idea of telling him a lot more than that, but she decided to let it pass. She knew Lassiter had only agreed to this trip because she had begged him. He still believed that Mandy’s death was a suicide and saw no reason to investigate further. If he’d stated his opinion firmly to Chief Vick that would have been the end of the case. But instead he gave the chief a passionate argument for keeping it open just a little longer, and even for taking a day trip up north to check out Mandy’s former employer.

That didn’t mean he was happy about doing it or that he believed they would find anything up here. But partners stick up for each other, he said. If Juliet hadn’t been willing to back down-and he could tell she wasn’t-then his only choice was to let her lead or put in for a new partner.

They’d spent the first part of the drive up the 101 going over the details of the case. Since there were essentially no details, that took them about as far as Solvang; then they’d ridden the remaining ninety percent of the way in silence. That was fine with her. She knew if they’d talked Lassiter would have spent most of the time trying to convince her that Mandy’s death had been self-inflicted and that they should close the case. That was a conversation she wasn’t eager to have again because she still didn’t have a substantive response for him. She couldn’t say why she refused to believe that Mandy had killed herself. She just did.

She knew it wasn’t just because, as Lassiter had hinted several times, she was identifying with the victim. It was true that the sight of a twenty-eight-year-old woman hanging by the neck in her cheerleader’s outfit had an immediate emotional resonance with anyone who’d ever called the Rebel Yell or the Tiger Roar or the Duck Quack. You couldn’t help but think of that time you were at your lowest ebb, fired from a job or dumped in a relationship or just lost in your life, and you put on the colors “just to see if they still fit.”