William Rabkin - Psych - Mind Over Magic

“So,” Shawn said, “what’s going on here, anyway?”

“We’re not sure,” Detective O’Hara said, tightly surveying the scene. “There were reports of an explosion.”

Shawn looked around. All the houses seemed to be intact.

“Not exactly Trinity, is it?” he said. “If it was a bomb, I think it fizzled.”

“Or that’s what they want you to think.”

The voice was female and familiar, and the second Shawn heard it, he felt his arm moving to salute. He grabbed his hand and pulled it down, then stood to see Major Holly Voges coming up to the car.

“It’s a standard technique of terrorists these days,” Major Voges snapped. “They set off a small explosion and wait until the area is swarming with police, fire fighters, and EMTs. Then they set off a much bigger bomb, taking out the first responders.”

“You spend a lot of time researching terrorists at the Federal Communications Commission?” O’Hara said icily.

“Hey, they’re all over the TV,” Shawn said.

“And the radio,” Gus said. “Soon as you turn one on, you’re going to learn something about them.”

“Major Voges,” Lassiter called across the car, “what’s the situation here?”

“I’m just an onlooker, Detective,” Voges said. “Here to lend whatever assistance I can. But I’m not the one to ask.”

“Then who’s in charge?” Lassiter said.

A tall man dressed head to toe in Kevlar stepped up to Lassiter. “Captain John Sturges, bomb squad,” he said. “We’ve got the area nearly secured, and we’re readying a robot to enter the premises.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Lassiter said.

“Did anyone ask the robot how it feels about that?” Shawn said. “Because it might not want to sacrifice its life for us puny humans.”

“Can you tell us what you know?” O’Hara said, ignoring Shawn.

“At two forty-seven p.m., we got several reports of an explosion from inside this house. The 911 operators who took the calls asked if it might have been a shot, but apparently the people who live in this neighborhood are familiar with the sound of gunfire, and they said it was different. We’ve tried to contact the homeowner, one August Balustrade, but there’s no answer.”

Gus was certain he’d heard that name somewhere before, but he couldn’t place it. Shawn was faster.

“Balustrade?” Shawn said. “Fat, balding guy with a face like a cherub? Real big with the five of hearts?”

“We’ll know when we get in there,” Sturges said. “That is, if he’s in one piece.”

Lassiter inserted himself between Shawn and Sturges. “Is that all?”

“One of the neighbors, a Mrs. Wilma Naugatuck, reported seeing a woman fleeing the house just after the explosion.”

“Was she injured?”

“Mrs. Naugatuck said her face was discolored, as if she’d been caught in an explosion,” the captain said. “And the explosion seems to have blown her clothes off. She ran out in her underwear.”

Down at the end of the street, a uniformed officer waved at them. Sturges nodded back at him, then turned to Lassiter. “We’re clear.”

“Let’s send in the robot,” Lassiter said.

“Hold on a second,” Shawn said. “Let’s talk about this woman in her underwear.”

“Let’s not,” O’Hara said. “Your adolescent fantasies can wait until we’ve cleaned up this mess.”

“I’m not sure there is a mess,” Shawn said. “The neighbor said her face was discolored as if from a bomb blast?”

“That’s what the lady told us,” Sturges said.

“Let’s say you’re a skilled, bomb professional,” Shawn said.

“He is,” Lassiter said.

“No, say the words, all together now.” Shawn raised his hands as if to conduct a group sing-along, but no one seemed interested in joining him. “Fine, whatever. Anyway, in all your years of skilled, bomb professional experience, have you ever known anyone to emerge from an explosion with their clothes blown off and their face charred black?”

“Only in Bugs Bunny cartoons,” Sturges said.

“And, judging from all your years of skilled, bomb professional experience, are we now in the middle of anything resembling a Bugs Bunny cartoon?” Shawn asked.

“Only one of us is,” Lassiter snapped, then cast an accusatory glance at Gus. “Maybe two, if you count Tweety Bird over here.”

“Lassie, I’m trying to-”

Lassiter cut Shawn off with a wave of the hand. “Interfere with an ongoing police operation. Now, get out of the way.” Lassiter turned back to Sturges. “Go ahead, send in the robot.”

Shawn tried to object, but Lassiter walked away. Shawn studied the scene, then nudged Gus hard. “You heard the man.”

“I heard the man,” Gus said, “but that doesn’t mean he was talking to me.”

“Of course he was,” Shawn said. “When they write the history of Santa Barbara, you’ll go down as the city’s finest semiprofessional robo-mime.”

“They have written the history of Santa Barbara,” Gus said. “In fact, they’ve written many histories of Santa Barbara. And not one of those voluminous texts has included or ever will include a single word about the short-lived trend of robo-miming, or any of its practitioners, myself included.”

Shawn glanced at the bomb squad truck and saw a metal box on miniature tank treads rolling down a metal ramp that extended from the open rear doors.

“Fine,” Shawn said. “If we fail to solve this case, I only hope that Benny Fleck never learns it was because you were unwilling to do something you once did to impress girls or pick up spare change to feed your comic book addiction. ‘Sorry, Benny,’ I’ll have to explain, ‘we thought your case was fairly intriguing, but ultimately not quite as important as Deathlok the Destroyer, number fifty-seven.’ I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Gus glared at him. “You wouldn’t.”

“I’m sworn to tell the truth to my client, especially when it serves my purposes,” Shawn said. “And right now, my purposes are to keep Lassie from destroying his own crime scene.”

“You mean your crime scene,” Gus said.

“I like to think of it as our crime scene,” Shawn said. “Now robo.”

Gus sighed, then tightened his face into an impassive mask. He straightened his posture, stiffened his joints, and glided through two mechanical steps before freezing in place. He turned his head exactly ninety degrees to survey the area, then eased it back into starting position. He might have allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation at his ability to snap into robot mode after twenty years without a moment’s practice, but the discipline of the act required keeping his mind entirely blank.

Gus swiveled on the balls of his feet, then started toward the front door of the Cape Cod, his arms moving mechanically with every step.

“What the hell is he doing?” Lassiter snapped.

“You said you wanted to send in a robot,” Shawn said. “Gus does the best robot in Santa Barbara. It’s in all the history books.”

“I mean a real robot,” Lassiter said. “That thing.”

The metal box was all the way out of the bomb squad truck now, and a flock of technicians were huddled around it, flipping switches, checking readouts, and tightening the treads.

“What’s the point of sending in a robot with no personality at all?” Shawn said. “With no heart and no soul, just a mindless box that beeps and boops and rolls around? Don’t you realize that real robots look like Haley Joel Osment and yearn endlessly through the centuries for the adoptive mothers who casually toss them away when they have real children? Would this metal cube be content to sit at the bottom of the ocean, dreaming of Mom while eternity ticks away?”