William Rabkin - Mind-Altering Murder

There was one moment where nobody moved. Then the husband jumped forward, threw his arms around Shawn’s avatar, and gave him a hug. “I should have done that years ago,” he said. “Because I don’t like complaining, either. And, say, you know who else doesn’t like complaining? My boss Morton. He’s going to like you, my boy.”

That was it. End of level six, move on to seven and the next test to prove if he was indeed brutal, vicious, and sick enough to merit a meeting with the great man of Darksyde City. And all it took was the will to betray the one person in the world who trusted you.

Even though it had moved him up a level Shawn hadn’t felt good about that particular play for a couple of days. It had left him feeling soiled in a way that all the game’s massacres and murders never could.

But no matter how dirty he’d felt afterward Shawn couldn’t argue that the simple act of betrayal hadn’t propelled him further and led him closer to the clue he was searching for. In the end wasn’t that really what was important?

He wasn’t searching for a hidden message in a computer game anymore. He was trying to solve a string of murders. More important than that-much more than that-he was trying to save Gus’ life. If Gus refused to acknowledge that a killer was stalking his company he would never see the ax before it fell.

Which meant that Shawn couldn’t afford to worry about his own feelings. If the only way to protect Gus was to commit an act of personal betrayal, he’d do it and he’d take the consequences.

The question, Shawn thought as he walked down the corridor away from Gus’ office, was what kind of betrayal would work for him now? Obviously he’d need to keep his position in the company for a little while and continue to investigate while he was here, but that might not be fast enough. That would make Gus mad enough, since he’d explicitly asked Shawn to go back to Santa Barbara and leave him alone. But Shawn knew he’d need to do a lot more than simply hang around. The killer had been too careful up until now to allow himself to believe it would be easy to spot him setting up his next murder.

No, Shawn had to do something active. Or even proactive, if that word had any meaning at all, something he’d doubted for a long time.

Shawn was so deep in thought he barely noticed he’d started down the steep stairs to the lobby until he was passing the receptionist’s desk.

“Are you coming to the memorial service for Mr. Ecclesine tonight?” she asked. “I need to put together a list for the caterer.”

“Of course I’ll be there,” Shawn said. “Wherever there’s a caterer serving hungry people, you’ll find me. It’s kind of like my motto.”

Chanterelle gave him a warm smile, then stood to grab a flyer announcing the reception from the far side of the desk. Shawn wondered briefly if there was a store that specialized in mourning clothes for the adult-film community, or if the receptionist simply shopped in the short girls’ section to save money on her wardrobe and never noticed how little of her body she managed to cover. Before he could make a decision she handed him the flyer, which gave driving, biking, and public transportation directions to the San Francisco Bay Yacht Club, where the ceremony was going to be held.

“I’m glad,” she said with a smile that made Shawn think the San Francisco fog had been replaced by Santa Barbara sunshine. “People come and go so quickly here these days. Sometimes it feels like I never really get to know anyone.”

“Everyone certainly knows you,” Shawn said, only half thinking of the way that the men in the company would find any excuse to learn more about the receptionist by following her up those steep stairs. “Although I’m a little surprised that you haven’t gone off to run some other company.”

A faint blush colored her cheeks and her smile turned shy. “I’m not very ambitious,” she said. “Everybody around here seems to be trying to fix the world or at the very least use their jobs here to climb to some better position. I’m more like my da. We’re lifers here and we’re happy about it.”

“Some of the people who’ve left recently were also lifers,” Shawn said. “They just didn’t know it.”

She gave him a blank smile as if to acknowledge that she realized he’d said something funny even if she didn’t have the slightest idea what it could have been.

“You father is Jerry Fellows, right?” Shawn said.

“Since the day I was born,” she said. “Or even longer, if you believe the biology books.”

“He must like the company, since he was willing to bring you in to work here,” Shawn said, an idea beginning to percolate in his mind. “But all those years delivering mail must get kind of dull after a while.”

“Nothing’s dull when your mind works the way his does,” Chanterelle said.

“And which way would that be?” Shawn said. The phrase would be equally appropriate for the kind of mind that could understand string theory or one that couldn’t figure out how to untie a knotted string.

“He delivers mail now, but that’s just a temporary gig,” Chanterelle said. “He can do almost anything he puts his mind to. As a little girl, I used to spend hours watching him as he taught himself whatever caught his interest, from electrical work to construction to hypnotism. He’s going to do great things for this world. As soon as the time is right.”

“Glad to hear he’s not rushing anything,” Shawn said.

“I used to urge him to take a better job. But he loves what he does. It’s like he used to tell me: You don’t have to be the king to help the country,” she said.

“That’s what I say all the time,” Shawn said.

“Really?”

“No,” Shawn said, but when that lovely smile turned to a frown he was quick to amend his statement. “But it’s a nice saying and I’m sure I would have said it if I’d ever thought of it.”

He was heading toward the elevator when the thought hit him. Hit him so hard and fast he almost gasped for breath. This was the moment he lived for, when everything became clear and bright. Out of habit he turned to Gus, meaning to give him some cryptic comment that would let him have a hint that he had figured everything out without actually giving him any information, only to remember just before the words left his mouth that Gus wasn’t next to him anymore.

That was going to change soon, though. It would have to. Gus was going to be a detective again or he was going to be dead. Shawn was going to make sure of that.

This was her punishment, self-imposed and self-administered. Detective Juliet O’Hara had spent every night for the last weeks canvassing the homeless population of Santa Barbara’s main business street, trying to get even one of them to say he’d seen a pedestrian knocked down by a speeding car.

This was a nothing case, she knew. Walon O’Malley, the victim, hadn’t been anyone important, just an older retiree who had stepped out of his adult living community late one night to grab a pack of smokes. His wife had died years ago, they’d never had any children, and if he’d had any friends in or outside of the home where he lived, none had materialized. He was apparently an unhappy old grouch, passing his final days waiting for the Reaper to swing his scythe.

The department would never let her waste this much time on the case; there was no question of that. So she didn’t ask them and she didn’t use their time. She put in a full day at work, clocked out, and then hit the streets. No one had to know until she got results, and even then she wouldn’t put in for the overtime. This was her own personal mission. Her penance.

Even as she walked down State Street she knew she was wasting her time. She had talked to every homeless person on the street who was ever going to talk to her. At first she tried to tell herself the reason she kept going back was so that the street people would get used to her presence there and finally begin to trust her. She even started bringing them the occasional cup of coffee or box of cookies.