The Call of the Mild p-3

by William Rabkin

  “Not at all,” Shawn said. “Guy like you wants to hire and fire the best, first he’s got to make sure they’re really the best. Which means studying all the competition, just in case there’s some new best guy you could brag about firing instead.”

  Gus had the strong sensation that if Rushton lifted his arm and spoke the right word, lightning would flash down out of the clear blue sky and strike Shawn dead. Or, with Shawn’s luck, miss him and strike Gus dead instead. But when he sidled around the wheelchair to get a glimpse of the old lawyer’s face, Gus thought he could see a trace of a smile there.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Rushton said. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here, unless you’ve tracked me down simply to give me a baseline for comparison.”

  “We’re here for the same reason you are,” Shawn said. “Because while we know the truth, we’re still hoping against hope that it’s actually some unlucky joyrider in that Town Car, and not one of your closest and most dedicated employees.”

  The raft had reached the shore a few dozen feet away from them. Rushton didn’t waste a glance on Shawn. He hit a lever on his armrest and the wheelchair powered out of its rut, cutting two deep lines in the sand as it headed towards the Town Car.

  “What are you doing?” Gus whispered to Shawn as they followed Rushton’s chair.

  “Same thing we’ve been doing since yesterday,” Shawn said. “Looking for a necklace.”

  By the time they reached the Town Car, one of the police divers was already reaching for the handle on the driver’s-side door. Gus noticed that before he pulled it he glanced at Rushton, and waited until the lawyer gave him a curt nod of approval.

  The diver yanked on the door handle and jumped back as salt water flooded out of the interior and soaked into the wet sand. As he jumped back to keep his shoes from getting soaked, Gus saw that there was a man belted into the driver’s seat. His white shirt and khaki slacks were, not surprisingly, soaked through; his dark hair was plastered to his head.

  One of the cops stepped in Gus’ line of sight, so he didn’t have a chance to get a good look at the dead man’s face. But he saw enough to be pretty sure it wasn’t covered in white makeup, and there was no doubt its owner wasn’t wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt, white gloves, and a beret. If this man was their mime, there didn’t seem to be an easy way to prove it.

  Rushton wasn’t having any similar problems making his identification. He stared at the body in the Town Car, and even though his expression didn’t seem to change, Gus could feel his sorrow.

  “That’s him,” Rushton said. “That’s Archie Kane.”

  There was commotion at the police tape, and Gus glanced up to see a team of paramedics struggling to wheel a stretcher down the soft sand. Before they could reach the Town Car, Shawn stepped up to its open door.

  “Do you mind?” he said to the cop stationed there.

  The officer was about to tell Shawn how much he did mind when he noticed the look on Rushton’s face and stepped out of Shawn’s way. But not before Shawn snagged a ballpoint pen from the cop’s pocket.

  Shawn bent into the open car door and examined the body closely. After a moment he straightened up. “Come here, Gus,” he said.

  Gus didn’t want to. It wasn’t that he was squeamish around dead bodies, just that he found one per week was perfectly sufficient. But Shawn was glowering at him, and the EMTs were getting closer. If he was ever going to do what Shawn wanted, it had to be now, and if he wasn’t, he should have started yesterday before he agreed to go to La Canada.

  Gus stepped up to the car, trying not to look too closely at the dead man.

  “Recognize him?” Shawn said.

  Gus forced his eyes to the body. He couldn’t say for sure that he’d never seen the man before, in the same way he’d never be able to guarantee he hadn’t noticed a specific grain of sand. He was just an average guy with average features and average hair. It was ridiculous to think that Gus would be able to say it was the same man he’d only ever seen covered in whiteface.

  “No, and neither do you,” Gus said.

  “What if I told you he didn’t listen to his mother?” Shawn said.

  “When she told him not to drive off cliffs?”

  “When she told him to always wash behind his ears.” Shawn took the pen and gently folded back one of the dead man’s earlobes. In the hollow behind his jawbone was a thick smear of white makeup.

  “That’s him,” Gus said. “That’s-”

  Shawn stomped on Gus’ foot before he could say the word “mime.” He glared at Shawn until he heard a voice behind him.

  “That’s who, Mr. Guster?” Rushton said.

  While Gus was still reeling over the fact that the lawyer had known who he was all along, Shawn answered.

  “That’s our client.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Henry Spencer had never had any patience for the concept of mixed feelings, and had never felt any sympathy for those who claimed to suffer them. A man made a decision and stuck to it; it was as simple as that. If you were right, you won; if you were wrong, you paid the price. To bellyache about how you were torn between two possible decisions was nothing more than a way to justify the consequences of your bad choices.

  But as he stepped through the heavy wooden doors into the Spanish-style headquarters of the Santa Barbara Police Department, Henry’s feeling were as mixed as he’d ever allowed them to be. He had loved coming to work in this place for so many years, and the mingled smells of bad coffee, overheating computers, and sweaty prisoners made him realize how much he’d missed walking into the station every morning ready to take up the fight in the eternal struggle between chaos and order.

  At the same time, though, the same smells made him realize just how happy he was to be retired. After all the years of acid reflux, incipient carpal tunnel syndrome, and aching muscles, he’d had enough of the coffee, computers, and prisoners for one lifetime. Let someone else battle for the forces of order. He’d put in his time and now he was ready to rock.

  But no matter what his feelings were, Henry had made a decision and a promise, and he wasn’t about to go back on either one of them. The force needed his help with a case, and he’d agreed to give it to them. He was theirs until the case was over.

  Henry was heading towards Lassiter’s desk when he heard someone call his name from across the station. He turned and saw a trim woman in her early fifties, impeccably outfitted in a tailored business suit. Even though she’d had the position for several years now, and had proven herself over and over, it was still a small shock to Henry to realize that Karen Vick was the chief of this department. It wasn’t that he was opposed to women in positions of leadership; it was only that he’d spent so many years railing against the incompetence of his own chiefs that he had a hard time accepting one who was as good a cop as he was.

  “Chief Vick,” Henry said warmly as he crossed the station to take her outstretched hand in his.

  “Henry,” she said again. “Is there a reason you’ve stopped using my first name?”

  “Protocol, Chief,” Henry said, giving her hand a squeeze before releasing it. “As long as I’m here in a professional capacity, you’re my commanding officer. Using the title helps me to remember that.”

  “Then let me start by officially thanking you for your help on behalf of the department,” Chief Vick said. “The good news is, I don’t think we’re going to need to take up too much of your time.”

  “Making progress?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Considering Carlton and Officer Rasmussen have only been at it for a little more than an hour, I think they’re doing pretty well. But I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

  She led him through the bustling squad room to a set of glass doors backed with Venetian blinds. Henry turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  Henry’s first thought was that someone had set up a charcoal grill in the room and the detectives inside had been overcome by carbon m
onoxide gas before they knew what was happening. Carlton Lassiter and his partner, Juliet O’Hara, sat motionless in their chairs, staring ahead with cold, unblinking eyes.

  The only one in the room who looked alive was the tall blond kid in the tight blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. He was standing by a white board that had been covered with microscopic scrawl, and he was pointing to one tiny collection of letters with a black Dry Erase marker.

  “I then spoke to the resident who lived six doors down from Ms. Svaco,” the kid was saying. “Like the neighbors to whom I had previously spoken, she reported that she was not home at the time of the murder, and thus had not witnessed anything out of the ordinary. I moved on to the next house and-”

  He broke off as Henry came through the door, and his face broke into a smile of boyish glee before he got it under control. “Detective Spencer, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “That’s ex-detective,” Henry said. “What’s going on here?”

  “Officer Rasmussen has been detailing the investigative steps he’s taken since we found the body,” Lassiter said.

  “With the emphasis on ‘detail,’ ” O’Hara said.

  “Emphasis like you wouldn’t believe,” Lassiter said.

  Henry wouldn’t have thought it was possible to miss the sarcasm and irritation in the voices of the two detectives. Somehow Officer Rasmussen managed. “A very great policeman once told me that the solution to every crime lies in the details.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Henry said.

  “Of course you can’t,” Rasmussen said. “You’re the one who said it.”

  “For which we thank you more than we can express,” O’Hara said. “If it hadn’t been for that pearl of wisdom, we might be out investigating, instead of learning how many cracks there are in the sidewalk between Ellen Svaco’s house and the curb.”

  “The number of sidewalk cracks provided the solution to one of Detective Spencer’s most famous cases,” Rasmussen said.

  Henry had to hide a proud smile. The Haskell Smith murder had been one of his finest moments. It also had also taken place years before this kid was born. Why would he know anything about it? “Of course that case involved a safe supposedly dropped from a third-story window, so the number of cracks in the pavement was slightly more germane that it might be here,” Henry said as he took a seat.

  “You can’t know too much,” Rasmussen said.

  “That may be true,” Lassiter said, “but when what you know is nothing, you can just say you know nothing.”

  “Please,” O’Hara said. “You don’t need to tell us everything you failed to learn.”

  “But I do,” Rasmussen said. “You might spot some detail that I missed. And the solution to every-”

  “I think we’ve all got that one,” Henry said before Lassiter could start throwing furniture at the younger officer. “Details are vital, but so is time. Since these two very brilliant detectives have already heard the details, why don’t you give me the broad picture?”

  Rasmussen stared as if Henry had just offered to turn all the station’s water into wine. “You want me to present the case to you?”

  “Unless Detectives Lassiter and O’Hara have a problem with that.”

  Both detectives quickly waved off any possible objection. Rasmussen took a deep breath and stepped to the far left side of the board. He gestured with the marker and was about to begin when Henry interrupted. “Just remember, details are crucial, but so is the overview. We need to start with the general first, then work down to the specific.”

  Rasmussen nodded happily at the lesson, then turned back to the board. “Victim is Ellen Svaco, forty-three years old, second-grade teacher at Isla Vista Elementary. She was single, lived alone; only immediate relative a cousin in Pasadena, waiting notification; no pets. Finances were what you’d expect from a woman in her profession: she made fifty-seven thousand dollars a year, had thirteen thousand and change in a 401(k), and a few hundred in the bank. She was friendly with her neighbors, but only on a superficial level. They really only spoke to her when she was outside working in her garden. Apparently she was partial to sweet peas, although in the fall-”

  Henry cleared his throat gently. “Big picture, right?”

  He was surprised to see Officer Rasmussen blush. “Right. Sorry.” Rasmussen moved his marker a few inches down the board. “She was a popular teacher, and while some parents were upset over a recent field trip in which some of the children came back with poison oak, no one was angry enough to want her harmed. She sat on several school committees and-”

  This time Rasmussen cut himself off without needing Henry’s prompting. His marker jumped all over the board as he reeled off more facts. “No sign of forced entry at the house. Victim was strangled with some kind of cord, probably nylon, although we’re waiting for lab work on that. Motive didn’t seem to be robbery, as nothing was taken, as far as we can tell. The entire house was ransacked, as though the killer was either sending a message or looking for something.”

  “In brief, we have no motive, no suspects, and no leads. Is that what you’ve been trying to tell us, Officer?” Lassiter said.

  “Yes,” Rasmussen said.

  “And it’s only taken eighty-five minutes,” O’Hara said.

  “There was one thing that seemed odd,” Rasmussen said. “Ms. Svaco had a cat box filled with litter, plus cat dishes and cat toys. They were all inscribed with a name: Fluffy. But according to all her neighbors she didn’t have a cat.”

  “Maybe she was going to get one,” O’Hara said.

  “I did consider that, Detective,” Rasmussen said. “But I keep thinking about something Detective Spencer once said: ‘A life properly lived fits together like a puzzle. When there’s a piece that won’t go, that means there’s something wrong with the life.’ ”

  O’Hara glared at Henry, as if she thought he’d come up with the phrase years ago simply to prolong this meeting. But Lassiter jumped up out of his chair excitedly.

  “Who can argue with that?” Lassiter said. “This is our first and only lead. You and Detective Spencer must follow it up.”

  “That’s a general rule, but-” Henry started, but Lassiter was already leading Rasmussen towards the door.

  “This could be the break we’ve been looking for, and you’re just the man to crack it wide open,” Lassiter said, pushing Rasmussen into the corridor. “You and Henry Spencer, of course.”

  He pulled the door closed, then turned to Henry, a pleading look on his face. “Please do this.”

  “You said you wanted my help solving this case,” Henry said.

  “I do,” Lassiter said. “And getting this kid out of our way is the biggest help anyone could ever be. I’m begging you. Please.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  If the offices of Rushton, Morelock, and Weiss had been in Los Angeles or New York, they would have commanded the upper stories of the tallest skyscraper in the city, and Rushton’s office would have been the penthouse. But Santa Barbara didn’t have skyscrapers; no building in the city was allowed to rise higher than sixty feet. Instead, the firm demonstrated its power and success in the idiom understood by the locals: beachfront access.

  The offices occupied the bottom two floors of a sprawling, four-story Cape Cod situated directly behind a long, curving strip of white sand and an endless stretch of ocean. At either end of the property the beach jutted out into stony promontories resembling the claws of an enormous crab; there was no way onto this sand except by boat or through the multiple guard gates along the winding private lane that ran through a dense pine forest, also part of Rushton’s property. Or, of course, by helicopter, Gus noted as he steered the Echo around a vacant helipad.

  Gus hadn’t known what to expect when Shawn started mouthing off to Oliver Rushton, but the one thing he hadn’t anticipated was an invitation to this private estate. Apparently it was Shawn’s plan all along.

  “You’ve got to figure a guy like Rushton only does busin
ess with the biggest detective agencies in the business,” he explained as Gus drove back and forth along Edgecliff Lane, searching for the promised turnoff to the lawyer’s private road.

  “Those guys probably get him what he needs before we even get up out of bed. But on that level they’re practically law firms themselves, or insurance companies. They’re totally corporate, which is great when you need someone to testify in a lawsuit. But I figured that someone like Rushton grew up watching classic detective movies. Deep down that’s what he thinks a private eye is supposed to be like. A tough, hard-boiled gumshoe.”

  “And that’s us?”

  “Me, anyway,” Shawn said. “I don’t think he saw you as hard-boiled. More like scrambled. Say, are you hungry?”

  Shawn spent the rest of the drive hunting through Gus’ glove compartment looking for stray Skittles that had spilled there months ago and explaining his plan for their meeting, and by the time Gus parked the Echo among a fleet of Jaguars, Mercedeses, and Maybachs, he was feeling confident about the day for the first time. Even the appearance of a tuxedoed butler at the ring of the mansion’s doorbell didn’t throw him off.

  The butler led them down a long, dark corridor and threw open a door. Gus was nearly blinded by the sun blasting through a wall of windows looking out onto the ocean. No doubt that was the purpose of the dark hallway, he thought. To make this view even more spectacular.

  The office itself was furnished and decorated in a nautical theme, from the signal flags on the walls to the ship’s steering wheel in front of the windows. Just as well, Gus thought. This close to the ocean, the house felt like it was only one big storm away from being swept out to sea. Maybe that wheel would actually work.

  A door in the side of the room opened. Oliver Rushton glided in and positioned himself behind his massive mahogany desk. “Please sit down,” he said brusquely.

  As he took his seat in a large armchair, Gus studied the lawyer carefully. For one moment when Rushton first saw the body he identified as Archie Kane, Gus was certain that he saw a flash of vulnerability in the old man. Now he couldn’t imagine how that could have been. Gus might as well have been staring at a steel rod.