William Rabkin - Psych - A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read

Shawn looked like he was going to argue; then he relaxed into a grin. He turned to Tara. “Do you mind making one quick stop?”

Gus sprawled out across the red leather of the backseat as Tara piloted them back to where she’d first seen him. Normally he would have used the travel time to work out an action plan with Shawn. But no matter how helpful Tara was being, it didn’t feel right to discuss their process in front of her. So Gus used the trip to experience every minor bump in the road as a wave of pain coursed through his entire body.

Which turned out to be just as beneficial a use of time as planning would have been. Because when the Mercedes pulled up across the street from the impound office, he heard Shawn mutter a confused expletive. Pulling himself up in the seat, Gus looked out the window.

The area in front of the shack was surrounded by police cars. Uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives stood outside the front door. Two EMTs loitered by their open, empty ambulance.

“What’s going on?” Gus said.

Shawn surveyed the scene. “I’d say you’re not the only victim of the criminal conspiracy. Looks like they’ve taken out one of their own. Or as they say in Law and Order-chung chung. ”

In cooking, no procedure is simpler or more foolproof than roasting a chicken. You turn the oven on to 350 degrees, slap the bird in a roasting pan, and pull it out after an hour or so. Of course there are plenty of ways to improve this basic recipe, but as long as you follow these easy steps, you’ll end up with a tasty dinner.

Even with a dish this basic, there are ways to destroy it. Let’s say you set the oven to something like 120 degrees and leave the bird in for a couple of days. You might think of it as slow roasting. But you won’t be cooking the chicken so much as speeding up its decomposition. And if you’ve forgotten to remove all those quick-to-spoil innards from the cavity, you’ll end up with a dish that’s almost as toxic as it is disgusting.

Whoever killed the attendant at the impound yard apparently didn’t know the rules for successful roasting. He had left his victim’s body in the 110-degree metal shack overnight, and he definitely hadn’t done any cleaning beforehand.

Which is why seven of the eight members of the Santa Barbara Police Department called to the scene were still standing outside the shack’s door, their faces covered with handkerchiefs, paper bags, or take-out coffee cups when Tara’s red Mercedes pulled up across the street. And why the eighth, one of the techs from the crime lab, blasted out onto the tarmac, fell onto his knees, and heaved just moments after he’d gone in.

Shawn leaned back over the front seat. “I guess our work here is done. Want to go home?”

“What do you mean our work is done? We haven’t done anything.”

“The guy who tried to kill us isn’t going to be trying again anytime soon. And it’s not like we can wreak any good vengeance on him now.”

Shawn was right. They could go home. For a moment, Gus imagined what it would be like to ease his aching muscles into a warm bath. And to stay there for a month. But then he remembered why his muscles hurt in the first place.

“We’re detectives, not rubber duckies,” Gus said.

“Duckies?” Shawn said.

“Never mind,” Gus said. “Let’s break this thing open.”

Shawn beamed at him. Those were exactly the words he wanted to hear. He threw open his door and marched across the street.

“Isn’t he amazing?” Tara said.

“Yeah, amazing,” Gus said, struggling to pull the door handle all the way back. “Would you mind helping me out of here?”

Tara slid out of the driver’s side and opened the back door for Gus. He grabbed the handle over the window and hauled himself to the doorway, then realized he was stuck. His top half was already leaning out toward the pavement, but his legs were trapped in the well behind the front seat, and he couldn’t lift them over the threshold. In about two seconds, he was going to tip over and fall face-first onto the asphalt.

“Little help here,” he called.

Tara grabbed his shoulders just as he was beginning to topple. Gently, she eased his trunk back into the car, then lifted his feet over the threshold. She held out a hand to help him get up, but he waved it off.

“I’m okay now,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Would you like me to help you across the street?”

Gus looked at the gaggle of police officers standing outside the shack. The open ambulance waiting for a body. He remembered how he had felt when he saw his first corpse. There was no need to put this poor woman through that.

“You’ve done enough,” Gus said. “In fact, you might as well go home. We can get a ride with one of the detectives.”

“I can’t do that,” she said, taking his arm.

Despite the apparent fact that his neck had lost the ability to swivel, Gus scanned the road in both directions, making sure there was no car within a quarter of a mile before he headed toward the impound lot.

“Sure, you can. I’m sorry I dragged you all the way out here.”

Tara looked puzzled. “You didn’t drag me here. Shawn did.”

He felt like the Tin Woodsman-his muscles seemed to be rusted solid, but once he started moving they eased up considerably. “It was really both of us who-”

“No.” There was an edge of steel in her voice that Gus hadn’t heard before. He didn’t understand where it was coming from. “Shawn dragged me here. That’s why I was here to see you fall. I was answering his call.”

“How could he call you? His phone was in my car, and my car was impounded,” Gus said.

Her ice blue eyes bored into his. “Shawn doesn’t need a phone to call me. He’s a psychic. He beams his thoughts directly into my mind.”

Gus stopped dead in the middle of the street. He would have, anyway, if his body hadn’t been experiencing a sense memory of his last journey over this particular stretch of road and propelling his legs forward without any input from his brain. “He does?”

“No matter where I am or what I’m doing.”

Gus realized he had made it to the other end of the street. So why did it feel like he had just stepped into quicksand? “Does Shawn know about this?”

“He’s the one beaming me his thoughts,” she said in a tone that suggested Gus had just come out of a short yellow bus, not a red Mercedes.

“But have you discussed this with him?”

“Did you talk to your feet before you sent them the mental order to cross the street?” she said.

Actually, today he had. But he knew what she meant. He needed to talk to Shawn about this right away.

“Are you getting any beams from Shawn right now?”

She thought it over, cocking her head like a puppy to aid her reception. “Nothing.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Gus said. “All those police radios are interfering with the signals.”

“I didn’t know they could do that,” Tara said. “It’s never been a problem before.”

“It’s a new invention,” Gus said. “With all the bandwidth going to cell carriers, the cops have switched to psychic frequencies for their radios.”

“I’d better get closer to him then.”

“No!” Gus said. “I mean, he’s asked me to relay a request-an order-to you.”

“I didn’t hear him do that.”

“Exactly,” Gus said. “That’s why I have to tell you that Shawn wants you to-Shawn orders you-to wait by the car.”

He waited for a moment for her to process this. Then she smiled and went back across the street. Forcing his legs to go faster, Gus walked over to the shack’s front door, where seven of the police were still standing frozen as the crime scene tech finally managed to get up off his knees.