William Rabkin - A Fatal Frame of Mind

Gus read the letter again, and this time he finally saw it for what it was. A plea for cash. How could he have been such a fool?

Shawn saw the despair on his friend’s face and stepped in. “Still,” he said, “you might not have needed the help of Santa Barbara’s finest psychic detective agency when you wrote this letter, but it’s hard to deny you’re in trouble now.”

Kitteredge turned his withering stare on Shawn. “Psychic?” he boomed.

It’s an interesting thing about conversations in public places: sometimes two or three people can talk for hours at the top of their voices about the most intimate subjects and no one will notice. And then at other times one of the speakers will utter one simple word and the entire zip code will overhear.

That was the effect of Kitteredge’s exclamation. Everyone standing on the steps around them swiveled to see what the commotion was about.

“Maybe we should keep our voices down a little,” Gus whispered, pulling Kitteredge down the stairs.

Kitteredge allowed himself to be led, but he didn’t take his eyes off Shawn. “This is a psychic detective agency?” he said, his volume still well above what any mother would consider his inside voice.

“It is for now,” Shawn said. “But in about two minutes it’s going to be a psychic inmates’ association.”

He pointed down the steps to where the two policemen had been directing traffic. But now the cars were hopelessly snarled as drivers tried to jockey their way through the crowd of pedestrians with no one to give them direction.

Because the cops weren’t paying attention to the cars any longer. They weren’t standing on the curb.

They were heading up the stairs toward Kitteredge.

When he first joined Shawn in the business, Gus had often felt embarrassed at telling people whose respect he craved that Psych was a psychic detective agency. The work they did was excellent and their solve rate was the highest in town, but for so many intelligent, educated professionals the word “psychic” invoked so much skepticism that all they could hear afterward was “fraud.”

That might not have bothered Gus so much if it weren’t for the fact that they were, indeed, frauds. Shawn wasn’t the slightest bit psychic. He simply had astonishing powers of observation and an amazing ability to interpret the tiny details that only he noticed. Gus had spent weeks trying to get Shawn to give up the pretense of supernatural powers and to simply take credit for his great skills.

But Shawn had insisted that being psychic was their brand. More importantly, it was fun. Shawn took great pleasure from the fact that so many people assumed he was a phony. That way, when he solved the case his audience would be doubly astonished.

Over the years, Gus had come around to Shawn’s way of seeing things. He, too, relished the skepticism that inevitably accompanied the announcement of Shawn’s psychic abilities, because he knew they’d leave the cynics desperately grasping to explain how Shawn had solved the case without the aid of the spectral world.

But as he guided Professor Kitteredge through the throngs of people clustered on the museum steps, Gus felt that old embarrassment flooding back. Kitteredge was a noted intellectual, one of the foremost scholars in the world. Of course he’d see through the ludicrous notion of a psychic detective agency. This hadn’t seemed important to Gus before-after all, he’d been operating under the assumption that Kitteredge had turned to Psych for help. Now that he knew the truth, he was doubly humiliated. He’d mistaken a form letter asking for cash for a personal plea for aid, and he’d been exposed as the kind of lowlife phony who preyed on the weak of mind.

“So you’re a psychic?” Kitteredge said as Gus maneuvered him around a clutch of Danish teenagers and the mountain of backpacks surrounding them.

“Not me,” Gus said. He yearned to tell Professor Kitteredge the truth, to explain that the psychic claims were just a marketing gimmick, that behind the false advertising there lay a great private detective agency. But he couldn’t-and he wouldn’t. “Shawn’s the psychic. I’m just a detective.”

“It’s better that way,” Shawn said. “You don’t want two psychics in the same room. It’s like having two homeless guys begging for change on the same corner. The spirits don’t know which way to turn.”

They reached the sidewalk. All they had to do now was get across the street to the parking lot and make their way to space forty-nine, where the Echo was waiting for them.

Except that wasn’t exactly all they had to do, Gus realized as he risked a glance over his shoulder. They had to make it to space forty-nine before the two policemen caught up with them and beat them to the ground with their nightsticks. And the rate at which the cops were closing the distance between them made that prospect seem increasingly unlikely.

“You don’t have to believe that Shawn’s psychic, Professor,” Gus said desperately, trying to get Kitteredge to increase his pace. “Just have a little faith that we’re your friends and we’re trying to get you out of the serious trouble you’re in.”

“At least that’s what the spirits are saying,” Shawn said.

To Gus’ horror, Kitteredge did the worst thing he could possibly do. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“If you’re psychic, then tell me one thing,” Kitteredge said.

“When you were seventeen,” Shawn said.

Gus could feel himself dying a little inside. The fact that Shawn was almost inevitably right, both about the question people-well, men anyway-would ask to test his prowess and about their age when they lost their virginity, did nothing to keep him from dreading this moment. Not every male human being thought exactly the same way, and someday Shawn would run into a man who had a different test to assess his powers. There was a good chance that Kitteredge would be the one.

Kitteredge didn’t even seem to notice that Shawn had spoken. He was still in the process of formulating his question. “Do you use postcognition and psychometry, or are you simply a telepath?”

Gus was about to leap to Shawn’s defense when he realized what the professor had asked. “You believe in psychic powers?” he said.

“It’s not a question of whether I believe or not,” Kitteredge said. “Either they exist or they don’t, and my belief one way or the other can’t have an impact on that at all. And if your partner does possess supernatural powers, I’d like to know which ones he claims.”

Gus risked another glance back over his shoulder and saw that the officers were only a few steps back. “Unfortunately, teleportation isn’t one of them,” Gus said. “Can’t we talk about this in the car?”

“I really need to know,” Kitteredge said. “If he can truly commune with spirits, there might be a way out of this for me.”

“My powers take all kinds of forms,” Shawn said. “Pretty much at random. You never know how they’re going to manifest themselves. It’s kind of like the prize inside the Cracker Jack box.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Kitteredge said.

“Sometimes spirits talk to me,” Shawn said. “Sometimes I get visions. Like right now.”

“What are you seeing?” Kitteredge said.

“It’s a stone room in a big castle,” Shawn said.“There’s a woman standing in the middle of the floor, holding out her arms as if begging for help. The rug she’s standing on is woven with a pattern of leaves and flowers. And-”

Kitteredge was staring at Shawn.“That’s the painting,” he said. “You’re seeing The Defence of Guenevere.”

“Is that what it is?” Shawn said.