Mind-Altering Murder

by William Rabkin

  "Yeah, there's that," O'Hara said. "Nice level of creativity with the cops eating doughnuts, by the way. Really raises my opinion of the programmers. But I was more interested in the buttons."

  Shawn looked again. The buttons on the uniform shirt were standard plastic, with four holes for the thread to pass through. There was absolutely nothing special about them, no markings, no color, no insignia. He was about to say something to that effect when he realized what O'Hara was talking about.

  "They're on the left side," Shawn said. "That's not a shirt--it's a blouse."

  "And unless the security guards here are all cross-dressers ..." O'Hara said.

  She didn't have to finish. Shawn bent down over the security guard and grabbed him by the crew cut. "Hello, Fawn," he said.

  Shawn gave the guard's scalp a tug and it tore off in his hand, leaving a jagged hole in his head. Inside, Shawn could see Fawn Liebowitz's long brown hair. He grabbed a piece of loose skin and tore down the guard's body. It ripped an opening all the way down, like the easy-open string on a twenty-pound bag of doggie kibble, and then the guard's body melted away, leaving the familiar form of Fawn Liebowitz behind.

  "This is the one we've been looking for, right?" O'Hara said.

  "Detective Juliet O'Hara, meet Fawn Liebowitz," Shawn said, giving the student a nudge with his foot. "Fawn, Jules has some questions for you. Although if you'd like to settle this with a hot-oil wrestling match, that would be okay with me."

  "Hello, Fawn," O'Hara said. "You know what we want from you, don't you?"

  The student stared up at her, impassive.

  "That's how you talk to a student?" Shawn said. "Or is that the special language women use with each other?"

  "I'm just getting started," O'Hara said.

  "My name is Fawn Liebowitz," Fawn said. "I'm a student at Darksyde University. My major is library science."

  "We know that, Fawn," O'Hara said. "I'm looking for information. Please."

  Shawn looked down at Fawn and saw that she was reaching into her backpack. It couldn't be this easy. How could he not have thought of something so basic? There was only one possible answer--it was Gus' fault. All the years they'd been in the detective business, he'd let Gus handle all the intellectual issues like dealing with museum curators and college students because Gus liked talking to that kind of person. And Shawn had gotten out of practice. Thank God he was on his own again.

  "Are you telling me it never occurred to you to ask her nicely for the information you needed?" O'Hara said.

  "It was on my list of things to try," Shawn said.

  "Uh-huh," O'Hara said. "And it never made it to the top because?"

  Shawn glanced down at Fawn again. "Maybe because of that," he said.

  O'Hara followed his gaze and saw that Fawn's hand was coming out of the backpack, holding a fist-sized green oval marked with striations. And it was ticking.

  "Grenade!" O'Hara shouted.

  Shawn took a step forward and kicked the grenade like he was trying for a game-winning field goal. It soared through the air and exploded in a fireball over the dam.

  "Do you have any other brilliant ideas?" Shawn said.

  "I'm thinking!" O'Hara said.

  "That's a plan," Shawn said. "One strategy this game really rewards is standing around doing nothing. You get to learn all sorts of new and exciting ways to die that way."

  "You worry about the threats, I'll deal with the girl," O'Hara said. "You're such an expert murderer by now, I'm sure there's nothing you can't handle."

  "Absolutely nothing," Shawn said. "Except maybe for that."

  He pointed up at the dam. Directly under the spot where the grenade had gone off, a spiderweb of cracks was crawling across the concrete surface.

  "That's not fair," O'Hara said.

  "Now you're learning," Shawn said. "So maybe you could speak to our friend before the Shawnstown flood begins."

  O'Hara cast another glance up at the dam and saw how quickly the cracks were spreading, then turned back to Fawn Liebowitz. "Have you considered rushing Pi Phi? Because I'm sure they'd love to have you."

  "You're kidding," Shawn said.

  "Did you try asking her about sororities?" O'Hara said. "That can be an important part of a college girl's life."

  "Well, unless Al-Qaeda's got a branch at Darksyde U, I don't think she's interested in social organizations," Shawn said.

  While Shawn and O'Hara had been arguing, Fawn had reached into her backpack again and come out with a metal briefcase.

  "Now what?" O'Hara said.

  "My guess is it's a suitcase nuke," Shawn said.

  "An atomic bomb?" O'Hara said, incredulous. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

  Shawn grabbed the briefcase out of Fawn's hands and gave it a shake. It started to tick loudly.

  "And the bar is raised," O'Hara said. "The suitcase nuke is no longer the dumbest thing I've ever heard. A ticking suitcase nuke is even dumber. Nuclear bombs simply do not tick."

  "Everything in this world ticks when it's about to blow up," Shawn said. "Ten ticks and you're done."

  "Then get rid of it!"

  Shawn hurled the briefcase down the hill. It bounced on its corners three times, then came to a stop.

  "That's it?" O'Hara said.

  "Two more ticks," Shawn said. "One--"

  The briefcase exploded in a blinding flash, and then a miniature mushroom cloud.

  "Now what?" O'Hara said when her ears stopped ringing. "Are we going to die of radiation poisoning?"

  "I don't think that's going to be a problem," Shawn said.

  "You sure about that?" O'Hara said. "The sick bastards who designed this thing seemed to think of every other possible torture."

  "You're probably right about that," Shawn said. "It's just that we're not going to live that long. Look."

  He pointed back at the dam. The nuclear explosion had accelerated the spread of the cracks and now they were wide enough that water was beginning to trickle through.

  "This is so not fair," O'Hara said. "Why did I let you talk me into coming back into this damn, dumb game?" O'Hara said.

  "Because you said you knew how to solve the puzzle," Shawn said.

  "And I would if you'd let me think," O'Hara said.

  "There's no time for that," Shawn said.

  There was a thunk as a chunk of concrete from the dam landed at their feet, nearly taking off Fawn Liebowitz's head. Water blasted through the hole it had left behind, and more concrete was crumbling under the pressure.

  "Come on, Jules. We've only got seconds left," Shawn said.

  "I'm trying!"

  "Try harder!" Shawn shouted over the roar of the water.

  "Will you be quiet and let me think?" she said, but her words were lost as the concrete in the dam began to crack apart.

  "What?" Shawn said.

  "Quiet!" she yelled.

  The water was rushing under their feet now. In another few seconds the dam would give way completely and they'd be swept away in the flood, drowned or pulverized or eaten by sharks. In other words, Shawn thought, another disaster.

  He looked down, expecting to see Fawn Liebowitz grinning up at him as she always did right before he died. But Fawn wasn't smiling. She was twitching and shaking and blue smoke was coming out of her ears.

  "You did it, Jules," Shawn shouted triumphantly. "Do it again!"

  "Do what?" O'Hara said.

  "I kept thinking of her as a college student and a woman," Shawn said. "I didn't realize that what's really important is what she's studying. She's a librarian."

  Now O'Hara understood. She kneeled down by Fawn and yelled in her smoking ear. "Quiet!"

  At the command, the student stopped shaking. The smoke stopped coming from her ears. She reached into her backpack again.

  "Get back!" Shawn shouted, feeling disappointment flooding through him even more strongly than the water was coming out of the d
am.

  "Not this time!" O'Hara said. "You be ready in case she tries something."

  The water was up to their knees now and it was getting hard to stand against it. Shawn braced himself as the librarian slowly pulled her hand out of the backpack.

  "I see something!" O'Hara said.

  It was long and straight. Shawn was so prepared to see a weapon it took him a few seconds to realize that what was coming out of the backpack was actually a book.

  "Grab it, Jules!"

  O'Hara reached out and got one hand on the book and then the other. She gave it a yank and it came free.

  "I've got it!"

  There was no answer. O'Hara looked up, but Shawn was gone. So was the dam. The last thing she saw was the gigantic wall of water crashing down on her.

  Chapter Twenty

  "I wish I could help you, Jules. I really do," Gus said. "I just don't have the time to get back to Santa Barbara."

  "And I didn't have the time to fly up here," O'Hara said. "Or the money. And it's not like the department is paying for this trip."

  As they walked through the wide hallways of the Benson Pharmaceuticals headquarters, O'Hara found she practically had to run to keep up with Gus. Of all the strange things that had been going on lately, this had to be the strangest. The Gus she knew was always the guy who was lagging behind shouting, "Hey, guys, wait up!" He wasn't the leader. But he strode through these offices as if he owned the place.

  "I've given you every bit of information we have about Mandy Jansen, Jules," Gus said. "There just isn't any more."

  O'Hara felt a tremor of guilt flit through her at the mention of the name. Since she'd gone to see Shawn two days ago she hadn't done a thing about that case. But the book in the game had pushed everything else out of her mind.

  "You've been more than helpful on that case," she said. "But that's not why I'm here."

  "Then what?"

  "It's Shawn."

  "What about him?" Gus said, his step slowing slightly.

  "He needs your help on the Macklin Tanner thing," she said.

  Gus stiffened and increased his pace. "If Shawn needs my help he knows where to find me."

  "I'm not sure he does," O'Hara said.

  "He's a detective," Gus said. "He tracked me to San Francisco when I was trying to keep my destination hidden from him. It'll be much easier now that he has my business card with my phone number on it."

  "He doesn't want to bother you," O'Hara said. "He knows you're in an exciting new phase of your life, and the last thing he wants is for you to think he's trying to drag you back to Psych."

  "So he sent you to do it instead."

  Gus stopped outside a door. The nameplate read BURTON GUSTER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT.

  "Last time I was here, hadn't you just been promoted to senior vice president?" she said.

  "It's one of the things that make this such an exciting company to work for," Gus said. "Lots of room for advancement. But it also means there's a huge amount of work for those who are ready to take it on. And I'm already backed up."

  "All I need is a couple of minutes," O'Hara said.

  Gus sighed and pushed open the door and led her into an office the size of the house she grew up in. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island and the East Bay. She couldn't help but stare at the view--not only because it was so beautiful, but because she couldn't quite bring herself to reconcile it with its owner. People like Gus didn't get offices like this. And yet here he was.

  Gus led her to a sitting area in one corner of the office, two armchairs and a couch all arranged for maximum appreciation of the view. He sat in one of the chairs and motioned for her to do the same.

  "Tell me about Shawn," he said.

  "There's not much else to tell," she said. "He's completely obsessed with this computer game."

  "That's not much of a surprise," Gus said. "It's pretty addictive if you like that kind of thing--and Shawn likes that kind of thing."

  "That's what I thought at first, too," she said. "Just Shawn being Shawn. But it's more than that. He's got to find Macklin Tanner or he'll tear himself apart. And he's convinced that the only clue is the one he'll find in the game."

  "That's nothing new," Gus said.

  "But this is," she said. "We found the clue."

  "We?"

  The look on his face told her he was reading much more into this pronoun than it could possibly carry. "I helped him out one time. It was the least I could do after all the cases you guys worked on for us."

  "So you found the clue," he said. "That's great. Why do you need my help?"

  "Because we can't understand what it means," she said.

  "You're two great detectives," Gus said. "If you can't figure it out, why do you think I can?"

  "Because it's a book," O'Hara said. "You like books. You understand books. I've always been something of a reader, but I never had the passion. And Shawn--well, you know."

  He did. "I'll do what I can. But I'm not going to be able to get to Santa Barbara anytime soon, and I can't imagine there's a way to get into the game from here."

  "You don't need to," O'Hara said. "I've drawn it for you."

  She pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and unfolded it on his desk. She had drawn the book's front cover and spine.

  "What about the back cover?" Gus said, studying the pictures.

  "Nothing," she said. "Black leather."

  "And inside?

  "Blank page after blank page."

  "It could be some kind of invisible ink," Gus said. "If so, you've got to do something to make it appear. If that's the case I can't help you."

  "I don't think it is," O'Hara said. "We've already tried a couple of ideas, and the pages just get dirty. Whatever the clue is, it's here."

  Gus picked up the paper and looked at it again. "It's by Edgar Allan Poe, which seems appropriate for the game," Gus said. "But what's this title?"

  "The One That No One Has Actually Read," O'Hara said. "I have researched every word Poe ever wrote, and there's nothing with a title anything like this."

  "Of course there isn't," Gus said, breaking into a broad smile. "Because this isn't a title. It's a description."

  "We did think of that," she said. "But what good does it do us? I mean, sure, we can rule out the things we read in school--'The Raven,' 'The Tell-Tale Heart.' But he wrote dozens of stories and God knows how many poems and a lot of them are pretty obscure. Where would we start?"

  "With 'actually,' " Gus said.

  "I don't understand."

  "The title isn't 'The One That No One Has Read,' " Gus said. "It's 'The One That No One Has Actually Read.' Which means that it's something people refer to as if they've read it, even though they haven't."

  "And this means something to you," O'Hara said.

  "It sure does," Gus said. "Would to you, too, if you'd ever worked as a private detective. Because people who think they're smart always like to suggest that the solution is much easier than you know it has to be. If you're searching for something, they want to suggest that the reason you're not finding it is because you're looking too hard, and not in the most obvious place. And when they do that, they always make reference to 'The Purloined Letter.' "

  She looked at him blankly. "I'm thinking that's a Poe story."

  "It is," Gus said. "Although I've never read it, either. Nobody has. But we all know the solution--that the reason the police were never able to find the stolen letter was because the thief knew they'd look in every elaborate hiding place, but they'd never notice it if it was left out in plain sight."

  "That's ridiculous," O'Hara said. "The police always check the obvious places first."

  "Maybe police work was different back then," Gus said. "Or maybe it's a lousy story. That would certainly explain why no one bothers to read it. But the solution is famous, and that's what this book title refers to."

/>   "So it's saying that Macklin Tanner has been in plain sight all along?" she said. "But that doesn't make any sense at all. He's not like a letter you can stuff in an envelope. If he was at his home or at the office, someone would have noticed him a long time ago."

  "Then maybe this isn't the clue you think it is," Gus said.

  "It has to be," O'Hara said.

  "What else can you tell me about the book?" Gus said.

  "Just what's in the picture."

  Gus squinted down at the drawing of the volume's spine. "What are these squiggles?"

  "Those aren't squiggles," she said. "They're numbers."

  "Not these numbers." Gus looked again. "They can't be."

  "They are," she said. "Why can't they?"

  "Don't you know anything about the Dewey decimal system?" he said, trying to mask his impatience at her ignorance.

  "I know it's how books are classified in libraries," she said.

  "Then I suppose you also know that the numbers aren't assigned randomly," Gus said. "That they have specific and precise meanings."

  "Sure. I guess. I mean, they'd have to, or what's the point?"

  "Exactly," Gus said. "What is this number you scrawled on the Poe book's spine?"

  O'Hara started to answer, then stopped herself. She took the paper back, studied it closely, and then put it down again. "Six-eighty-two-point-seven MTN. Does that mean something?"

  "I don't know yet, but I can tell you exactly what it doesn't refer to," Gus said. "The classification for literature, which is the only Dewey designation that makes sense for this book, is eight hundred. If I remember correctly, American Literature in English is classified in the eight-tens. Fiction, I believe, would put it in the eight-thirteens. So this book would be classified as eight-thirteen-point-something Po. But Poe might not be classified with the literature. It could be considered fiction, in which case it wouldn't have a number at all. The spine would just say FIC and then the first three letters of his last name--which in this case would be his entire last name."

  O'Hara felt her heart starting to pound. This could be something. "So what do these numbers mean?"

  "I might be tempted to say nothing," Gus said. "After all, we have no idea if the programmer responsible for this part of the game knew anything about the Dewey decimal system or if he just remembered there were supposed to be numbers on the spine of a library book. But those letters at the end suggest that's wrong."