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

Gus risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Shepler, his gray pinstripes traded for simple black, go around and open the passenger door. After a moment, a woman’s legs emerged.

They were probably not the most attractive female legs Gus had ever seen. That honor still went to Tara. But they were close enough that Gus started formulating a theory on the relation between a woman’s appendages and her propensity toward homicide.

Gus glanced toward the grave and saw that Shawn was also watching as the widow emerged from what was now her car. Her hair and face were covered by a black hat and veil, her hands and arms by long gloves. Her black dress was simple and classically elegant, except for the neckline, which plunged almost to her shoes. Gus kneeled down, picking an imaginary flake of paint off the ground, and tried to get a glimpse under her veil, but all he could see was her tight, firm jawline.

The widow seemed to be lost in a fog of grieving. Paying no attention to Shawn or Gus, she walked directly to the coffin that rode astride the empty grave and draped herself over it.

Gus ordered himself not to look. It was bad enough to find his eyes moving involuntarily toward any cleavage, no matter how slight the exposure. This was much worse. The poor woman was here to mourn. It was positively indecent for Gus to be taking advantage of her.

But the part of the male brain that ordered eyes to cleavage had been around far longer than the notion of decency, and Gus could no more keep himself from looking than a dog could choose to ignore a steak someone had dropped on the floor.

At least he was enough of a gentleman to feel guilty about it. Apparently wearing a priest’s garb didn’t have any effect on Shawn’s behavior, because he was not only staring straight into Mrs. Steele’s cleavage-he was waving at Gus with one hand and pointing with the other. If his own sense of propriety wasn’t enough to keep Gus from sneaking a peek, Shawn’s schoolboy behavior certainly was. He crossed his arms, lifted his head, and conspicuously refused to look where Shawn was pointing.

Shawn grabbed a dirt clod from the lip of the grave and chucked it at him, then pointed again, this time even more urgently. Silently he mouthed a word. Gus tried to read his lips.

“Stag party?” Gus guessed. “This is a funeral!”

“Strawberry!” Shawn said.

Stunned, the widow straightened to stare at him. But not before Gus caught a glimpse of the familiar birthmark, and the freckle on top that looked like a stem. She whipped off her veil, revealing the red hair and green eyes they’d last seen in the Santa Barbara courthouse.

“Veronica?” Shawn said.

“I knew I couldn’t hide from your psychic powers forever,” Veronica Mason Steele said, sinking into the one folding chair that had been set up for her. “I never should have tried.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Gus said.

If she heard him, she didn’t show any sign of it. Those deep green eyes never left Shawn. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Gus had so many responses to that. He struggled to pick the right one. He was trying to decide between “As soon as you pay us” and “Not until you confess” when he noticed that Shawn had gone over to her, knelt at her feet, and taken her hand.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, “although I don’t think I’m supposed to say that when I’m wearing this suit.”

She seemed to notice for the first time that he was dressed as a priest. “Is this what I drove you to? Subterfuge, disguises, lies, all because I couldn’t trust anyone with the truth.”

She spoke in the same desperate, breathless tone Gus had found so much more convincing when she was describing her great love for Oliver Mason. Although her performance was no less emotional now, Gus was having trouble overlooking the coincidence of a second dead, rich husband in one year. To say nothing of the weeks of unreturned phone calls.

Shawn didn’t seem to share any of Gus’ misgivings. “Of course,” he said. “I can see it now. During the days of your travails, a phone call out of the blue. A colleague of your late husband’s, reaching out to give you condolence. A brief conversation that led to a meeting between two people facing challenges the masses could never understand.”

“Yes!” she said.

“You mean the challenges of living with the burden of hundreds of millions of dollars?” Gus said. “Give me a break.”

Shawn and Veronica didn’t seem to hear him.

“And then that understanding turned into love,” Shawn said. “A love that had to be kept secret from the prying eyes of a world that would unfairly judge these two souls. That’s why your entire relationship was a carried out in secrecy. Why you got married in the only place you knew no reporters could follow you-your private island.”

“Yes,” she said.

“You mean Oliver Mason’s private island,” Gus said.

“Which she inherited after her tragic loss,” Shawn said. “Try to keep up here.”

Gus grabbed Shawn and pulled him away from Veronica. “Don’t you realize what’s happening?”

“Yes, it’s a chance meeting,” Shawn said. “Although maybe it would be better to call it fate. Destiny. Kismet.”

“Don’t you dare think of Kismet-or any other kind of kissing,” Gus said. “This woman killed her husband.”

“Impossible. We already proved she’s innocent.”

“Not that husband.” Gus leveled an accusing finger at the mahogany box in front of them. “ That husband.”

Veronica Mason took a lace handkerchief out of her tiny black purse and dabbed gently at her eye. “This is why I kept my marriage to Dallas a secret. Because if even close friends like you, Gus, can’t believe me, who can?”

Shawn patted her hand consolingly. “You can’t help it if you’re attracted to rich men with abnormally short life spans.”

A tear trickled down her cheek. “You do believe me, Shawn?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then will you help me? Will you find my husband’s real killer and prove I didn’t do it?”

“I guarantee it,” Shawn said.

“No, we don’t,” Gus said. “If you killed Dallas Steele, we’re going to expose you.”

“I accept those terms,” Veronica said. “Thank you, Gus.”

“For what?” Gus reran the conversation in his head to see what he might have said that she’d find helpful. “What terms?”

“You’ll investigate Dal’s death, and if you find evidence that I did it, you’ll turn me in to the police,” she said. “I accept that because I know I’m innocent-and you two are the only ones who can prove that.”

Gus didn’t remember making that deal. He didn’t remember making any deal. He knew somehow that this wasn’t what he’d meant, but he couldn’t find the spot where her logic diverged from his own. “And you’ll pay us.”

“Every penny I owe you, and a big bonus on top,” she said, those huge green eyes lighting up in relief. “I felt terrible about not paying before, but Dal was so jealous of the way I gushed about you, he wouldn’t let me give you a penny, not even out of my own personal funds. Every time I brought it up, he just muttered something about shoelaces.”

Shawn glowed with triumph. “I knew it!”

“When he offered you that consulting position, he told me it was to reward you for saving me from prison,” she said. “He didn’t tell anybody what his real plan was. If only I had known…”

Veronica spared them the bus ride back to their office. As Shepler drove, she told them the full story of her whirlwind romance with Dallas Steele, their instant wedding, and the brief, troubled marriage that followed. Dal was not what he seemed. He always came across as a happy, confident, genial person, but inside there was darkness and insecurity. Somehow all of that had become focused on Shawn and Gus. Although he was grateful that they had rescued the woman he loved, it made him crazy that he wasn’t the one who could save her. He had to punish them for doing what he couldn’t.