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

“Variety?”

“Because she didn’t do it. Which means we didn’t tell her to do it. Which means we’re off the hook.”

Gus desperately wanted to believe Shawn. If only he could get past the one small flaw in his logic. “We saw her standing over him, holding the knife.”

“Right,” Shawn said. “So we know it was a perfect frame. Now who had a motive to want Steele dead?”

“Us?”

Shawn thought long and hard. He scrunched his eyes shut as he mentally replayed every moment of the case. Then he jumped up out of his chair. “Reynaldo!”

“Who?”

“The new wife’s old lover, the handsome but poor artist. He couldn’t stand to lose his true love to this arrogant billionaire, so he turned all his seductive powers on Tara. When she was completely under his control, he killed Steele and framed her for it.”

By the time he was done, Shawn was practically glowing with amazement at his own genius. Gus wanted to share in the moment, but he was still stuck on logic issues.

“That’s really good,” Gus said.“Couple of small things. First, if anyone had Tara completely under his control, it was you. Remember?”

“She could have been using me to protect him.”

Gus sighed. “Okay, maybe,” he said. “But there’s one other problem. Reynaldo doesn’t exist.”

“He doesn’t?”

“You made him up when you were trying to figure out why Steele invited us to Eagle’s View. Steele said he had a new wife, and you-”

Shawn jumped up from his chair. “Exactly what I meant! It’s the wife!”

Of course it was. It had to be. Steele had no other living relatives either of them knew about, so she stood to inherit his billions. And there was clearly something strange about their relationship. Steele was willing to spend a hundred million dollars simply to win an argument. If she didn’t have immediate access to that much cash, maybe a knife through the heart would have seemed like the appropriate response. If they could confront Mrs. Steele, Shawn was sure he could prove she was the real killer.

Gus didn’t doubt Shawn’s abilities. The trouble would be in finding her. They didn’t even know her first name-Steele had always referred to her only as his bride. There was no announcement of the wedding in any newspaper, local or national. City hall had no record of their marriage. And somehow the wedding of Forbes magazine’s Sexiest Billionaire Alive of 2007 and 2008 had managed to go unnoticed by tabloids that give saturation coverage to the nuptials of anyone who’d ever been in the same ZIP code as a celebrity.

After a fruitless afternoon of online searching and another hour wasted at the county’s hall of records, Gus was almost ready to give up and say there was no Mrs. Steele. But Shawn would not let him quit. He was sure he was right. And besides, if he admitted Steele wasn’t married, he’d have to come up with a new theory.

The next morning, armed with business cards identifying themselves as segment producers for E! Entertainment Television, they hit every florist, caterer, and bridal shop within a five-dollar cab ride’s radius of their office. Even promises of a prominent role in a thirteen-week docu-soap about the wedding got them nothing but blank looks from the employees. They checked the gift registries of the most expensive stores on State Street, but the name Steele never appeared.

“This is useless.” Gus dropped a wad of business cards into a wastebasket outside an art gallery. “No one’s heard of this wedding. There is no Mrs. Dallas Steele.”

“He said he was keeping it quiet,” Shawn said, fishing the cards out of the trash and slipping them back into Gus’ shirt pocket. “Billions of dollars buy a lot of privacy. But she’ll have to show up sometime if she wants to claim her inheritance.”

“That could be weeks from now,” Gus said. “Months even. If she’s smart, she’ll wait until Tara is convicted.”

“She may be smart, but she’s got one weakness,” Shawn said. “She loves the big dramatic moment. Why else would she stage her husband’s murder for an invited audience?”

“So what are you suggesting? We should hold auditions for a phony musical, and see if she shows up to read for us?”

For a moment, Shawn actually seemed to be considering the idea. Then he shook it off. He rapped on the plastic screen of the Santa Barbara Times box. Beneath the scarred Plexiglas, the paper’s front page was filled with a headline: “Private Services for Steele Tomorrow.”

“We don’t need to offer her a stage. She’s already got one. We just need to make sure we’ve got good seats.”

A quick scan of the part of the article visible above the fold strongly suggested those seats wouldn’t be easy to come by. Admittance to the service was strictly by invitation; apparently Steele’s fondness for privacy extended into the grave. To make sure there would be no press or other interlopers in attendance, the entire cemetery would be closed all morning, another one of the perks a few billion can buy. And while Shawn and Gus might have been able to make a plausible case for themselves as Steele’s old high school chums, their more recent friendliness with the woman accused of his murder suggested they wouldn’t be welcome.

Fortunately there was a costume-rental store within walking distance. Although tempted by a dented suit of armor-on the theory that if he was spotted, he could stand on a grave and look like a statue-Shawn ultimately decided on a Roman Catholic cassock, an ankle-length, close-fitting priest’s robe. That way, he pointed out, if their investigation took them to the Vatican, he could use the costume a second time, getting value for their money.

Since there was only one cassock, and Gus refused to wear the matching nun’s habit, Shawn dug through his own closet and dragged out a coverall he’d been issued on his first and last day working as a mechanic years ago. It was bright green and the embroidered name tag read LUBITY LUBE TRAINEE, but a quick pass with a Magic Marker blacked that out and brought an appropriately funereal accent to the ensemble.

Dallas Steele’s memorial service was scheduled for ten o’clock the next morning. Shawn declared they should be there no later than eight, so they could see everyone arriving. Since their transportation issues hadn’t improved overnight, that meant taking a series of local buses to reach the cemetery. Gus didn’t mind riding the bus, especially since he was unclear on several parts of Shawn’s plan, and looked forward to spending the time patching up the holes. But Gus hadn’t anticipated how popular a Catholic priest might be on a Santa Barbara bus. Shawn spent the entire trip taking confessions and giving absolution to their fellow riders. By the time they reached the cemetery gates, Gus was no clearer on what they were doing next than when he first dropped his dollar twenty-five into the fare box.

Getting through the employee entrance was so easy that Gus forgave Shawn for the poorly fitting jumpsuit. He grabbed a time card at random and jammed it into the machine, then passed through. It took Shawn a little longer to persuade the gate guard to let him in, but after a few shouted “Begorrah”s and the occasional mention of a lake of fire, he joined Gus inside.

“Begorrah?” Gus said. “When did you become Irish?”

“When the guy at the gate was named O’Malley,” Shawn said. “Besides, everything sounds convincing with an Irish accent. Now grab that shovel.”

Following the road that snaked through the cemetery, they found an open grave on top of a hill that looked down over the entire park. At the center there was a large lake. Off to one side, a large area, the size of at least eight normal grave sites, was marked off with chains.