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

Chief Vick shook her head. “We’ve been studying the house’s security logs for that night. It turns out that most of the doors and windows are monitored. Thanks to that, we believe that Tara broke in through the underground garage and went straight to the auditorium. As far as we know, the door to the north tower didn’t open between the time Shepler took you up there and the time he brought you down.”

“That would certainly clinch our innocence,” Shawn said, “if only it weren’t for modern technology.”

“That’s right,” Gus said, his spirits rising. “We could have plotted the entire thing out on our cell phones.”

“Except there’s no reception anywhere within five miles of Eagle’s View,” Vick said.

Coules’ glare shifted from Vick to his two prime suspects. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing-”

“We’re not playing. We’re trying to help you,” Shawn said. “Where were we again?”

“You were explaining how you conspired with Tara Larison to kill Dallas Steele,” Vick said.

“Right,” Gus said. “All we need is to pinpoint the moment when we gave her the order to commit the murder, and we’re going down.”

“I’ve been working through the time line, and I can’t see any point where we could have communicated to Tara after we got to Eagle’s View,” Shawn said.

“That’s easy,” Gus said. “Clearly we gave her the order after Shepler picked us up.”

“That could work,” Shawn said. “Does make us look pretty stupid, though.”

“Why is that, gentlemen?” Vick said.

“Well, when Shepler came for us, we thought Dal wanted to see us because we had made him a fortune,” Shawn said.

“And we were going to share in that fortune,” Gus said. “Ten percent of all profits were supposed to go to us.”

“There were no profits,” Coules growled. “That’s one of the reasons you hated him.”

“Yes, definitely,” Shawn said. “After he told us that, we certainly were miffed.”

“If only he’d told us before we went up to see him, this all would have been so much easier to arrange,” Gus said.

“I guess it’s possible that we hated Dal so much that we arranged to kill him before we collected our vast profits, even though his death would probably mean we’d never see a nickel,” Shawn said.

“So we told Tara she should follow us everywhere we went, just in case we popped up to Eagle’s View, so she could murder Dallas Steele in the exact time and place that would put the biggest burden of guilt on us,” Gus said.

“That must have been what we did,” Shawn said. “Except that it’s not only incredibly stupid-it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“I’m sure it will to a jury,” Gus said.

“As long as the jury is made up completely of idiots,” Shawn said. “Think they can arrange that?”

Coules was breathing heavily, and his hands were shaking. Chief Vick pulled him aside gently.

“I don’t think you’re ready to charge them yet,” she said.

“They’re guilty, and everyone in this room knows it,” Coules said through gritted teeth.

“If you want to charge them, I can’t stop you,” Chief Vick said. “But in two minutes they’ve been able to poke huge holes in your case. Wouldn’t it make more sense to release them now and rearrest them when you’ve got everything lined up?”

“By which time they’ll be in Argentina.”

Shawn managed to put on a look of shock. “This is our home,” he said. “We didn’t move here after spending most of our lives across the country like some people. We grew up here-and we’re not going anywhere.”

“What Shawn is trying to say is, we have deep roots in the community,” Gus said.

Gus could practically see the neurons bouncing around in Coules’ head as he tried to find a way to hold on to his case.

“Fine,” Coules said finally. “Let them go for now.”

Shawn and Gus exchanged a high five, a low five, a medium five, and a couple other fives that didn’t have precise definitions.

“But you’d better enjoy your celebration now,” Coules said, “because I am going to put you away for multiple murders.”

Coules turned and walked out of the interrogation room.

“That man needs to slow down and enjoy life a little more,” Shawn said.

“Don’t be fooled by the red face and shaking hands,” Chief Vick said. “Bert Coules loves his job. There’s nothing that gives him more pleasure than putting a criminal behind bars.”

“Except in this case,” Shawn said, “I think he’d prefer to put us there.”

“There’s one thing you need to understand, Mr. Spencer,” Chief Vick said. “I didn’t believe he had the evidence to charge you today, and I wanted to spare you and Mr. Guster a great deal of unpleasantness and Mr. Coules a great deal of humiliation. But if we find evidence against you, I’ll be working with him.”

She opened the door and ushered them out to the corridor, where two state marshals were leading a manacled woman in an orange prison jumpsuit toward the door. As soon as she saw them, she started screaming.

“Shawn! Help me!”

It took Gus a second to recognize the woman, if only because he’d never seen her in anything that wasn’t tight and red before. Now, stuffed into the baggy jumpsuit, her hair still wet and stringy after the blood had been washed out of it, eye shadow running down her face like tears, she didn’t look like the dangerously hot daughter of Satan. She looked like a little girl. A psychotic, delusional, murderous little girl, true, but even so, Gus felt his first twinge of pity for her.

“Shawn,” Tara cried again,“I only did what you wanted me to!”

All traces of pity vanished from Gus’ heart. Regan MacNeil was only a little girl, too, and she could make her head spin all the way around. There was no reason to think that this one couldn’t have made Marichal’s head do the same thing, let alone plunge a knife into Dallas Steele.

The deputies pulled Tara out of the room. Before the massive oak doors closed behind her, Gus got a glimpse of the short gray bus that would take her to the state prison for women near Chowchilla.

“Poor girl,” Shawn said. “We’ve got to help her.”

“We can testify in her defense, I guess,” Gus said. “Try to explain to a jury how crazy she really is.”

“We could do that,” Shawn said. “Or we can do something really useful.”

“What’s that?” Gus asked with a sinking heart.

“We can figure out who the real killer is.”

“ The real killer,” Gus said. “You’ve said that about six thousand times,” Shawn said.

“I keep hoping if I say it one more time the words will actually make sense.”

Chief Vick had arranged for a squad car to take them back to the Psych office. During the ride, Shawn had refused to let Gus discuss the case on the assumption that the officer behind the wheel would report back every word they’d said. Which Gus hoped fervently wouldn’t turn out to be the case, since Shawn had spent the entire trip talking about how much more alluring Chief Vick had become since they’d removed the Interim from her title.

The mindless conversation did allow Gus to think through what Shawn had said at the station. But by the time the squad car pulled up outside their bungalow, he still couldn’t find a way to see it as anything but wishful thinking. They’d seen Tara standing over Steele’s body, the knife in her hand. How could anyone disprove that?

“Think about it,” Shawn said. “What do we really know about Tara?”

“She’s crazy, for one thing,” Gus said.

“Let’s not use technical terms,” Shawn said. “What else?”