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

She sniffed back a sob. “I knew you’d understand.”

“And now we have to make the police understand.”

“No!” She stepped back from him. Her back was up against the wall.

“Come on, Tara,” Shawn said as gently as he could. He reached out and took her hand. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

She seemed to melt under his touch.

“Easy, Shawn,” Henry said. Gus gasped his agreement.

Shawn waved them back. He had this under control. Slowly, calmly, he took her other hand in his. “It’s all going to be okay,” he said.

She gazed up into his eyes, and he felt a buzz of electricity running up his arm. Then she squeezed her hand shut, and he got the entire shock.

Shawn collapsed to the ground, his arms and legs twitching uncontrollably.

“Shawn!” Henry shouted, rushing over to him.

“Ack!” Gus agreed, still trying to regain control of his vocal cords.

Tara let out a piercing scream and ran right at them, waving the stun gun wildly. Gus and Henry fell back on the floor, trying to avoid the crackling weapon, and she blasted out the front door. Scrambling to their feet, Gus and Henry got to the door just in time to see a red Mustang screaming away down the street, a blur of orange jumpsuit all they could make out of the driver.

Shawn let out a groan and managed to pull himself to his feet. “I do not want to know where she was hiding that thing when she was in jail,” Shawn said.

“I’m thinking she picked up a new one since she got out,” Henry said. “You’d be on the ground for an hour if she hit you with the same one she used on me.”

“We have to call the police,” Gus said. Actually, it came out sounding more like, “We ah oo leese,” but both Spencers were able to make sense of it.

“We do have to call the police,” Shawn said. “And tell them we now have proof that Tara is innocent of both murders.”

The outrage flooding Gus’ body was enough to bring back his power of speech. “She just tried to kill me!”

“Absolutely,” Shawn said.

“Not to mention Aunt Enid and Fred Larison and all the other phony psychics who broke their necks in tragic accidents,” Gus said.

“Phony psychics?” Henry said, cocking an eyebrow at Shawn.

Gus filled them in on what Lassiter told him. Henry’s scowl got more disapproving with every new detail. But Shawn was completely undaunted.

“Exactly what I was saying,” Shawn said.

Henry’s cell phone trilled. “Hold that thought. Or whatever it is that passes for thought in your head.” Before he could flip the phone open, the ringing stopped. Henry glanced at the incoming number. He pressed the CALLBACK key and let the phone on the other end ring five times before he disconnected, looking troubled.

“One of my clients,” Henry said. “No answer when I called back.”

“Maybe we can deal with that when the serial killer stalking us is back behind bars,” Gus said. “How are we going to stop her, Shawn?”

But Shawn wasn’t listening to Gus. He was deep in thought. “Which client?” he said finally.

“The first one,” Henry said.

“That was the widow of the tackle shop guy who used to be a cop?”

“Yes,” Henry said. “Not that it makes any difference.”

“It might make all the difference in the world,” Shawn said. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Gus had given up trying to follow Shawn’s logic.

“You heard my father,” Shawn said. “There’s a scrapbook emergency out there, and we’re the only ones who can help.”

During the ten-minute drive into the hills, Gus tried repeatedly to get Shawn to explain what they were doing. Or why he was now so completely convinced that Tara was innocent despite witnessing her trying to kill him. But for once Shawn seemed to have nothing to say. He drummed his fingers on the truck’s seat, fidgeting nervously. His anxiety even seemed to affect Henry, whose foot got heavier as they got closer to Betty Walinski’s house.

When they finally arrived, Shawn jumped out and ran to the front door. It was slightly ajar. As Henry and Gus joined him, Shawn held up one finger for silence. He pointed to Henry and waved toward the back of the house. He tapped Gus’ chest and indicated that he should stand under the open kitchen window and be prepared to dive through it. Then he jabbed a thumb toward himself and wagged it back at the open front door. He’d handle this one personally.

“Whatever,” Henry said, and pushed past Shawn through the open front door. “Betty?”

Shawn sighed heavily. “I spent a long time coming up with those hand signals.”

Gus clapped him on the shoulder, then followed Henry into the house. As soon as he got through the door, Henry barked at him, “Stay back!”

Henry was crouching in front of the sofa. Betty Walinski was lying on her stomach, but her head was looking up at the ceiling.

“Damn it, Shawn,” Henry said as his son came into the room. “If you’d just done the right thing from the first instead of trying to be so clever. You knew this woman was crazy, but instead of helping her, you used her. And now another innocent person is dead.”

Shawn stepped up to his father. “This isn’t my fault.”

Henry wouldn’t even look up at him. “You enabled Tara for-”

“Absolutely,” Shawn said.“But Tara didn’t do this. And now I know for sure she didn’t kill John Marichal.”

“You said you knew that before,” Gus said.

“Yes, but at the time what I meant was, I had a gut instinct about it,” Shawn said. “Now it’s a fact.”

“You’re going to have to explain this to the police.” Henry pulled out his phone and started to punch in the number.

“I will,” Shawn said. “But not here.”

“Then where?” Henry said.

“Think back,” Shawn said. “Where did someone try to kill us?”

“In our office,” Gus said.

“Before that,” Shawn said. “The first time.”

Gus remembered the searing pain as he grabbed Marichal’s shotgun. “The impound lot.”

“And the second time?”

Gus heard bullets thwocking into abandoned cars. “The impound lot.”

“So where should we go to find the solution?”

“The impound lot?”

“Eagle’s View!”

Gus and Henry stared at him. “What does Eagle’s View have to do with any of this?” Henry said.

“Nothing,” Shawn said. “But that impound lot is a dump. Who’d want to waste any more time there?”

When Shawn called Veronica Mason with his request, he didn’t have a chance to finish the question before she agreed. The call to Detective Lassiter wasn’t quite as friendly. In fact, Lassie hung up on him three times before Shawn finished explaining what he needed the Santa Barbara Police Department to do.

“Don’t make me go over your head, Lassie,” Shawn said when Lassiter picked up the fourth time.

“If you’re thinking about calling Chief Vick, be my guest.” Shawn could practically hear Lassiter’s smug grin through the phone. “She and Detective O’Hara will be happy to spend a couple of hours explaining how demeaning they find it to be treated as sex objects instead of law enforcement professionals. God knows they’ve already spent most of the day on the subject.”

Shawn put a hand over the speakerphone’s mike and turned to Gus. “How did Chief Vick know what I said about her?”

“I don’t know,” Gus said. “Maybe the same way Tara knew which BurgerZone outlet you prefer. Maybe sound can actually travel between the front and back seats of an automobile.”

Shawn leapt out of his seat. “That’s it!”

“Umm, yeah,” Gus said. “It was pretty obvious to anyone who’s ever ridden in a car.”