William Rabkin - A Fatal Frame of Mind

“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.”

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 recognized 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.”

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.