Mind-Altering Murder
( Psych - 5 )
William Rabkin
William Rabkin
Mind-Altering Murder
Prologue
1990
Santa Barbara police detective Henry Spencer stared down at the red mark on the paper. It was good, he had to admit. He’d been working on a big forgery case for the past few weeks, and nothing he’d come across there had looked as authentic as this.
Henry drew his thumb across the paper, pressing down hard as he tried to smudge the red ink. It didn’t smear. It had been on the page long enough to set.
That didn’t mean the mark was genuine. Henry’s prey was crafty and thorough. He would have taken the time to prepare his forgery well in advance. But no matter how good he was, the felon must have made a mistake somewhere.
Henry pulled a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer and peered at the red mark through it. He knew where he’d find the telltale signs of tampering-there would be an extra line added to the mark’s right side, or its bottom curve would have been erased and a new slash drawn through the middle.
But no matter how long Henry stared at the symbol, he could find no evidence that this was anything but the original mark. Which meant the impossible had happened.
Shawn had gotten an A on his book report.
Of course, that was only impossible if Shawn had actually written the report himself. The handwriting was his, but that had been true when he’d copied an essay out of the back of the teacher’s edition, too. Henry quickly skimmed the first page. It read like the work of a twelve-year-old, not of a doctoral candidate hacking out sample compositions to help make his student-loan payments.
That still left the question of which twelve-year-old had done the work. And before Henry broke out the ice cream to celebrate his son’s unprecedented academic triumph, he needed an answer.
He took the steps two at a time and threw open the door to Shawn’s bedroom as if he expected to catch him in the middle of an act of plagiarism.
Shawn barely looked up from his Hot Wheels. “It’s real, Dad,” he said. “I got an A.”
“Someone got an A,” Henry said. He turned his fiercest gaze on Gus, who had picked up a toy car and was studying it so intently he might have been working up a repair estimate for an insurance company. “The question is who?”
“It was Shawn,” Gus said, never looking up from the car’s undercarriage.
“All on his own?” Henry said, staring down at Gus.
“Don’t you have any faith in me, Dad?” Shawn said.
“Way too much to fall for this,” Henry said, still not taking his eyes off Gus. That kid would crack soon; Henry could tell by the nervous way he was spinning the car’s wheels. “So what did Shawn do, son? Did he copy off your paper?”
“Dad!”
Henry ignored him. “You can tell me, Gus,” he said in his most fatherly voice, the one he reserved for children who were not actually related to him. “Did Shawn copy your paper?”
“No, sir,” Gus said.
“Then I don’t suppose you’d mind letting me look at your book report,” Henry said. Before either of the boys could move, he snatched Gus’ backpack off the chair where it was hanging and pulled out a three-ring binder neatly arranged by subject and date. He flipped to the section marked “English” and then to this week’s assignment.
“Dad, that’s none of your business,” Shawn said.
“It is if his report is identical to yours,” Henry said. He turned a page and saw a book report with the same date as Shawn’s.
“See, Mr. Spencer?” Gus said. “They’re not identical.”
They weren’t. Not in any aspect. The subjects were different. The sentences were different. And most of all, the grades were different.
“You got a C minus?” Henry said, amazed. “You’ve never done worse than a B plus in your life.”
Gus stared down at the orange-plastic track. “Apparently my thoughts were ill formed, my grammar was sloppy, and my vocabulary didn’t rise to grade level,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound like the Gus I know,” Henry said.
“Well, it is,” Shawn said. “Your own son scored an A, and all you can do is whine about how bad Gus did. Way to encourage me to work hard in school, Dad.”
The anger in Shawn’s voice made Henry take a step back. Was he right? Did Henry reflexively discount his own son’s accomplishments? Was he actively sabotaging Shawn? He replayed Shawn’s sentence in his head. And then he knew he was being played again.
“That’s an interesting thought, Shawn,” Henry said. “Not particularly well formed, though. And it’s not grammatical to say ‘how bad Gus did.’ The adverbial form is ‘badly.’ Oh, and a vocabulary at your grade level would lead you to say, ‘Way to encourage academic excellence,’ not ‘to work hard in school.’ ”
Shawn glared at him, caught. “What’s your point?”
“I understand why you copied Gus’ paper and turned it in as your own,” Henry said. “What I can’t figure out is why Gus would claim yours.”
Gus seemed to be finding worlds of wonder in that orange track, because he refused to look up from it.
“It’s shameful enough to get a C minus when you’re capable of A work,” Henry said. “But if you don’t confess right now, I’ll take this to your principal and then you’ll both get an F.”
“But then Shawn will be held back!” Gus said.
Shawn slapped his forehead in frustration. “Falls for it every time.”
Henry ignored Shawn. He got down on his knees in front of Gus. “You helped Shawn with his homework so you’d both be in the same grade next year?”
Gus nodded solemnly.
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Henry said. “It’s wrong, but I can appreciate the sentiment. But why didn’t you just write two book reports and give one to Shawn? Why turn in his own lousy work as your own?”
Gus sniffled back a tear. “If I got another A, they were going to promote me to the advanced class.”
“That’s wonderful, Gus,” Henry said. “Congratulations.” And then he realized. “But then you and Shawn wouldn’t be in the same class anymore.”
“He said if I turned in his work, there’s no way they’d let me go to nerd school.”
Henry had been mad at Shawn before. Sometimes he felt that he’d gotten angry the moment his son was delivered and hadn’t calmed down since. But this was different. Shawn had betrayed his own best friend, used Gus’ love and trust against him. Henry had to force himself to keep his hands down for fear he might grab his son and throw him out the window.
“How could you do that to your best friend?” Henry said.
“Do what?”
“Trick him so he wouldn’t qualify for the advanced class,” Henry said.
“I didn’t trick him,” Shawn said. “He wanted to stay in the normal class with me.”
“That’s true,” Gus said.
“You may have just stolen his future,” Henry said.
“Gus doesn’t need a future,” Shawn said. “He can share mine.”
“That’s right,” Gus said. “I can share Shawn’s.”
Henry took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Recited the alphabet. Then, fighting to keep a calm smile on his face, he turned to Gus.
“I think it’s time for you to run along home now, Gus,” Henry said.
“Can’t I stay a little longer?” Gus said. “My mom’s still got her bridge friends over, and that house is nowhere for a boy when they’re there.”
“I think you need to leave now,” Henry said, ushering him toward the door. “Because Shawn’s immediate future is something you really don’t want to share.”
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Chapter One
As a store it wasn’t much. Fifteen feet deep, maybe half that wide, a long counter running down the middle. Behind the counter the wall was covered with liquor bottles, and the liquor bottles were covered with dust. The only ones that weren’t encased in grime were the strong, vile brews favored by those with deep thirsts but shallow pockets. The cheap corn whiskeys, the Bulgarian fortified wines, and the “malt beverages” made from grain alcohol sweetened with Kool-Aid twinkled brightly from a shelf the man behind the counter could reach without having to turn his back on the customer.
Not that he looked like he had any intention of turning his back on his customer. He stared across the counter at Gus, his ancient face crumpled into a permanent squint, one hand holding on to the tarnished register, either to keep it from walking out the door or to keep his knees from buckling, and the other just out of sight under the counter, undoubtedly fingering the shotgun hidden down there.
“You want something?” The owner’s voice was as cragged as his face.
This was the moment Gus had been dreading. The clues he’d been following had brought him here as surely as the Yellow Brick Road took Dorothy to Oz. But like that lemon-colored highway, this path held dangers at every turn. And so far not one of them had been as benign as the Scarecrow or the Lion. The only person he’d met who acted at all welcoming was a young woman in hot pants and a halter top, who’d offered to party with Gus in an adjacent alley for a mere forty dollars. Gus wouldn’t have been tempted to accept her offer even if he hadn’t seen the shadowy figure lurking just inside the alley’s mouth.
That danger recognized easily, he moved on as quickly as he could, stopping only to pick up a brick and smash the window of a Porsche Cayenne that someone had left at the curb. A note on the driver’s seat gave the address of this liquor store, and he ran here as fast as he could.
But now that he faced the withered shopkeeper across the grimy countertop, he wasn’t sure what he should do next. His first instinct was, as always, to be as friendly as possible and simply ask for help. But he’d already tried that once in the emergency room. It made him sick to think of what had happened next.
“It’s a store, not a damn museum,” the owner croaked, the sagging skin of his left arm twitching as his hand clutched the shotgun. “You want to buy something or you want to get out.”
Gus scanned the shelves of bottles, trying to make out a label underneath the grime. Nothing looked right to him. He had to bring something back to Morton; that was the only way he could prove he was trustworthy. At least that was how the dead guy who used to own that Cayenne was supposed to prove his worth. Since Morton had never seen either of them, all Gus had to do to win a place in the Organization was show up with the proper token.
It occurred to Gus that he should probably say something. The old guy might have been expecting Cayenne and would know to turn over the right item to him. If only there had been something on the note besides this address.
Maybe it’s not what was on the note, Gus thought. Maybe it’s the note itself. That didn’t seem likely. It was just a scrap off a yellow legal pad, nothing on it but this address scrawled diagonally across one side. The back was blank. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind Gus was certain he needed to show the note to the shopkeeper.
“You want to buy something or you want to get out,” the old man croaked again, and this time Gus was sure he could see dust rising out of his mouth.
Gus dug in the pockets of his silk suit and pulled out the scrap of paper. He unfolded it carefully, then slid it across the counter to the proprietor.
The old man didn’t even glance down at the paper. He stared at Gus. “You want to buy something or you want to get out,” he said.
“I’ll buy something,” Gus said, desperately trying to figure out what it was he needed. He glanced away from the shelves of bottles and studied the other side of the store. There was a rack of tattered magazines, their covers featuring naked women or motorcycles or naked women on motorcycles. A locked case held cans of what Gus could only assume was chewing tobacco, although it had never occurred to him that there could be so many brands of something no one he’d met had ever used. Against the wall were bare shelves littered with a few items that might once have been intended to be eaten-packaged snack cakes, their pink marshmallow and coconut shells turning brown and shriveling with age to reveal the permanently moist chocolate crumb underneath; cardboard tubes reportedly filled with chips made from “at least thirty-two percent real potato”; a cloudy plastic bucket containing soggy sticks of jerked something. There was nothing here that Morton could possibly have wanted to allow into his immaculate penthouse, even as an identification marker.
Gus turned back to the owner, who was still staring directly at him. “You ready to buy something?”
“Sure,” Gus said. “Let me have…” Desperately he scanned the shelves behind the old man. There wasn’t a hint of what he was supposed to purchase, just row after row of filthy bottles.
Then he saw something. A glint of light. It came from one of the upper shelves. Gus peered up and saw that there was one bottle that wasn’t dirty at all. It looked like it had just been placed there. “I’ll have that bottle of Glen Graggenlogan,” he said, hoping he was reading the label correctly from this distance.
The old man stared at him for a moment, then gave Gus an almost imperceptible wink. “Think you can handle it, junior?” he said.
Was this some kind of test, or was the old man really trying to warn him away for his own good? Gus couldn’t tell. “Is there something I should know?”
The shopkeeper didn’t answer, just kept staring. There wasn’t going to be any help coming from him. “Just give me the bottle,” Gus said.
The old man pulled his hand out from under the counter and turned slowly to a rickety library ladder attached at the top to a railing that ran parallel to the ceiling. Sliding it slowly into position, he managed to lift one leg up to the bottom rung, where he rested as if waiting for the strength to continue.
Gus checked his watch, then checked it again. Time was flying past. Morton wasn’t going to wait forever.
“Can I help you with that?” Gus said, if only to keep himself from screaming at the old man to hurry the hell up.
“Don’t need no help,” the shopkeeper said. “Not from a punk like you.”
Was that a deliberate provocation? Once again Gus wished he knew more about the old man’s role in his task. If he was in on it, if he was reporting back to Morton, it wouldn’t sound good that Gus was willing to take this kind of insult from him. Cayenne wouldn’t have. He’d have shaken the rickety ladder until the rungs broke free and the geezer fell to his death. But if he wasn’t, if he was just naturally unpleasant, then all that mattered to Gus was getting the bottle and getting out.
“Sure this is the one you want?”
Gus looked up to see that somehow the old man had reached the top of the ladder and grabbed one of the dusty bottles with the hand that wasn’t clutching the guide rail.
Gus’s first instinct was to thank him, then point out that he was close to the proper bottle. But now he was seized by the suspicion that this was some kind of test, and that he wouldn’t pass it with a demonstration of graciousness. “You blind, deaf, or just stupid?” he snarled. “I said the Glen Graggenlogan, not whatever swill you’re trying to pawn off on me.”
If the shopkeeper was unused to this level of rudeness, he didn’t show it. He thrust the dusty bottle back into its place on the shelf, nearly sending the entire row crashing down onto the floor, then extended his arm as far as it would go, his fingers barely brushing the bottle Gus had demanded.
Gus couldn’t look. He knew what was going to happen. The old man was going to nudge the bottle again and he was going to knock it off the shelf. The only thing he’d be able to bring Morton would be the broken neck, which was undoubtedly what Morton would give him in return.
A buzz sounded behind him. Th
e door alarm. Gus started to turn. Before he could see who had come in, two shots blasted through the air.
The old man flew off the ladder, smashing into the wall of bottles, then crashed to the floor in a rain of broken glass and cheap scotch.
Gus stared over the counter at the shopkeeper’s bloody corpse. “Why did you do that?”
Shawn stepped up to him, thrusting the. 44 Magnum into the pocket of his leather duster.
“The question,” Shawn said, “is, why didn’t you?”
Chapter Two
“Why didn’t I what?” Gus said. “Murder an old man who was trying to help me?”
“Is that what you call it?” Shawn said.
“Murder is what the law calls it,” Gus said. “It’s what the Bible calls it. It’s what everyone in the world calls it.”
“I could be wrong about this, but I seem to recall hearing that in different countries they have different words for things,” Shawn said as he stepped over to the shelves of snack foods and gave an exploratory squeeze to a package of Twinkies with a pull date from before the turn of the millennium.
Gus couldn’t pull his eyes away from the dead man lying on the floor in a pool of blood and whiskey. “Why did you kill him?”
Shawn put down the Twinkies and turned his attention to the freezer chest loaded with ice-cream bars. Or, as he discovered when he tried to take one out, loaded with a single ice-cream bar, as all the smaller units had melted and refrozen into a cube six feet on each side.
“Because it was him or you.” Shawn took two running steps, then leaped over the counter, landing in a crouch next to the body, his duster sending waves through the puddle spreading across the floor.
“What was he going to do?” Gus said. “Throw the bottle at me?”
“Worse. He was going to give it to you.” Shawn pulled the bottle of Glen Graggenlogan from the shopkeeper’s cold, dead hands and looked it over carefully. Then he pulled out the cork and turned it upside down. There was a rattle of metal on glass, and a small olive-colored device fell into Shawn’s hand.
Mind-Altering Murder p-5 Page 1