A Fatal Frame of Mind (16 page)

“To protect Spencer and Guster.” He pointed at the shattered glass where Kitteredge had clearly broken in. “I’d guess that the mad professor came after them. They thought they’d be safe if they locked the door and cowered in the back, but he smashed his way in and took them hostage. Or is it worse than that?” He tried to peer over her shoulder. “Did he leave their battered bodies bleeding in the back room?”

O’Hara’s face hardened and she stepped up to block his view. “Kitteredge didn’t break in, Carlton,” she said.

“Then who did?” he said.

“I did,” she said. “With the authority of a court order signed by Judge Haskin.”

Lassiter tried to make sense of what she was telling him. But none of the pieces fit together. “Why?”

“Because Shawn and Gus were seen helping Langston Kitteredge escape,” O’Hara said. “They’re wanted for aiding and abetting a fugitive, as well as being the chief suspects in the theft of
The Defence of Guenevere
from the museum. And every police officer in Southern California is looking for them.”

“A
hunchback?” Shawn whispered furiously to Gus.

“We’re about to be gunned down by a homicidal hunchback in a mysterious valley? When did we turn into the Hardy Boys?”

“We’re not the Hardy Boys,” Gus said, wishing his last words might be something more inspiring to future generations.

“You’re right,” Shawn said. “The Hardy Boys had a couple of chums. All we’ve got is
him
.”

Gus reflexively glanced over at the
him
in question. But Professor Kitteredge wasn’t on the ground where Gus had set him. He was on his feet, walking toward the armed man with his hands raised high.

“Not a step further,” the hunchback growled.

“Not even a box step?” Kitteredge said. He stopped walking forward and demonstrated the move. “How about a grapevine? It certainly seems appropriate here.”

Gus covered his eyes and waited for the rain of Professor Kitteredge’s body parts that would follow the inevitable gunshot. But when no sound came, he peeled his hands away from his face.

The hunchback had lowered the shotgun. And while Gus would not claim an ability to read expressions on that twisted face, he thought he saw something like a smile there.

“Professor Kitteredge?” he said, taking a step forward through the headlight beams.

“It’s me, Malko,” the professor said. “Now let’s see a couple of those moves.”

To Gus’ astonishment, the hunchback held his gun up like a dance partner and with surprising grace executed a perfect box step. “Haven’t forgotten a thing you taught me,” he said when he finished.

“A dancing hunchback,” Shawn said. “We’re leaving the Hardy Boys and joining up with Mel Brooks.”

“Malko, let me introduce you to a couple of friends,” Kitteredge said, turning back toward the car. “Gus, Shawn, come over here.”

Shawn and Gus exchanged a look, then stepped away from the car and toward the other two. Kitteredge waved them closer. Malko narrowed his one good eye and stared at them.

“Are these the two that helped you get away from the police?” he said. “When I heard they were last seen wearing tuxedoes, I thought the reporters were joking.”

Gus felt his heart pounding. So the cops were after them now. He couldn’t be surprised. He knew it would happen sooner or later. But he’d hoped that they would have time to find the real killer before they actually became wanted fugitives.

“We’ve been on the news?” Kitteredge said.

“You
are
the news,” Malko said. “We were expecting you. Come.”

Malko turned and started to walk away. Kitteredge followed.

“Wait a minute,” Shawn said loudly. “You were expecting us?”

Malko stopped and glared back at him. “Yes.”

“You shot at us,” Shawn said.

Malko shook his head wearily. “Yes.”

“What would you have done if you hadn’t been expecting us?” Shawn said.

“Aimed better.” Malko started to walk again.

“What do we do now?” Gus said.

“We know what’s behind the curtain,” Shawn said. “A long, dark walk back to Buellton, where half the police in the state will be looking for us. So we might as well go with what’s in the box. And hope.”

“Hope for what?” Gus said.

Up ahead, Malko and Kitteredge were about to disappear out of the range of the headlights.

“Hope that whatever is in the box isn’t us.”

I
f Malko had led them to a hidden Chamokomee tee-pee village where all ten thousand tribe members had been hiding for three hundred years, Gus wouldn’t have been surprised. At this point in the evening he was willing to accept anything as long as it didn’t start firing shotguns at him again.

But the hunchback merely led them to a battered golf cart filled with gardening equipment. He threw the tools on the ground and told the three guests to get in. Then he took off at what felt like fifty miles an hour until they reached a high stone wall. He turned the cart and followed the wall.

Gus wanted to ask Malko where he was taking them, but the hunchback’s attention was totally focused on Kitteredge, who was involved in a lengthy disquisition on the etymology of the word “foxtrot”—it was, apparently, commonly believed to be named after the vaudeville performer Harry Fox, but Kitteredge had come across a document suggesting that an earlier practitioner had actually coined the name for what he saw as vulpine movements—and when Gus tried to interrupt, Malko simply ignored him.

“There is no way this is going to end well,” Shawn said.

“Since when are you so concerned about our safety?” Gus said.

“Being shot at does that to me,” Shawn said. “I’m funny that way.”

“We’ve been shot at before and you’ve never complained,” Gus said.

“There’s a good reason for that,” Shawn said.

“What’s that?”

“Those were cases I chose,” Shawn said. “And I would never get us killed.”

Until this moment, Gus had been filled with competing feelings. He was hungry, he was tired, he was in pain where his bruises from the car’s rough stop were being jostled by the golf cart’s rougher ride, and he was scared that he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail or shot down like Warren Beatty at the end of
Bonnie and Clyde
. But now all those emotions were swept from his mind by a tidal wave of self-righteous anger.

“I knew it!” Gus said. “You’ve been a complete pain all day. Complaining about the kind of stuff you do all the time.”

“I haven’t been complaining,” Shawn said. “I’ve been observing.”

“You observe with your eyes, not your mouth,” Gus said.

“That’s right,” Shawn said. “What I do with my mouth is eat. And thanks to you, we haven’t been able to do that, either.”

Gus started to respond, then snapped his mouth shut. There was no point in taking this conversation any further. Shawn had been sulking ever since Gus told him they weren’t going to the C.Thomas Howell Film Festival. But it wasn’t because he’d missed his chance to see
The Thirst: Blood War
on the big screen. It was because Gus had taken the lead on this case, and Shawn couldn’t stand taking second position to anyone, even his partner and best friend.

Gus and Shawn rode in silence as the cart made its way along the wall. Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably less than two minutes, they reached an opening and turned onto a flagstoned driveway into a courtyard.

At least Gus assumed it was a courtyard, although the night was so dark he couldn’t see the building that enclosed it. But as the cart stopped, strings of overhead lights flickered on, bathing the area in a warm yellow glow.

It was as if they had been transported to Tuscany. Rough stone walls broken by shuttered windows loomed above them, the harshness of the building materials softened by blooming wisteria vines that drooped from every surface.

The illusion was only enhanced by the man who stepped through a large glass door into the courtyard. His face gnarled with age and cloaked in a long white beard and framed by a cascade of white hair, he looked like he had stepped out of a painting by Rembrandt. Of course Rembrandt was Dutch, not Italian, and Gus had no idea whether the painter had ever set foot in Tuscany, but then there was a reason he’d failed Professor Kitteredge’s class all those years earlier.

The old man raised a hand in greeting. “I had hoped you’d come to me, Langston,” he said in a voice filled with warmth.

“If only it were under happier circumstances.” Kitteredge strode across the courtyard and embraced the man in a hug so hard Gus expected to hear bones snapping. “I hate the thought that I might bring the police to your doorstep.”

“We’ll worry about that if it happens,” the old man said.

“I’m afraid it’s not going to be if—it’s going to be when,” Kitteredge said. “Someone’s going to figure out before long that you’re my friend.”

“Then we have no time to waste,” the old man said.

“We have a little time to waste,” Shawn said. “The police are going to have to find their way in here. So maybe you can take a few seconds to tell us who you are.”

Kitteredge glanced back at him as if he’d forgotten that Shawn and Gus had come along for the ride. The old man looked puzzled.

“They came in the back way,” Malko said.

“Ah,” the old man said. “That would explain why you arrived later than I expected. I’m afraid that when the police arrive they will simply drive through the front gate and right up to the house.”

“The front gate.” Shawn glared at Gus, then at Kitteredge. “Wonder why we never thought of that.”

“But there is certainly time for introductions,” the old man said. “I am Flaxman Low. This is my home.” He waved around the courtyard. “And of course, as long as you choose to stay, it is your home as well.”

“That’s too generous of you, Flaxman,” Kitteredge said.

“Not at all,” Low said. “Perhaps you’d like to introduce me to your friends—although I feel I already know them, thanks to the TV news.”

Kitteredge motioned for Shawn and Gus to join him. “This,” he said, “is an old student of mine, Burton Guster.”

“That explains why he was willing to risk his life and freedom to help you,” Low said. “I’ve never met a student of yours who wasn’t.”

Kitteredge waved the compliment away and gestured to Shawn. “And this,” he said, “oh, Flaxman; you will not believe it. This is
The Defence of Guenevere
.”

“H
e’s the killer.”

Gus seriously considered ignoring Shawn’s declaration. All he wanted was a few minutes to close his eyes before dinner. And the room the hunchback had taken them to seemed to want the same thing. Its two queen beds were huge and firm and covered with deep down comforters. Its shutters were open, and the soothing sound of a fountain wafted through the soft air. And it was so large that Shawn’s voice seemed to be coming from miles away.

Still, the accusation was so outrageous that some kind of response seemed obligatory. Gus cracked open one eye. “The old guy?”

“Who else?” Shawn said.

“What do you mean who else?” Gus said. “It could have been anyone else. There are billions of people in this world, and the only ones we know for sure didn’t do it are you and me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my friend,” Shawn said. “Well, it’s the place where you are most currently wrong. If we wanted to go back through the catalog of all the places you’ve been wrong, we’d have to start with Mrs. Peyser’s first-grade class, where you thought you were putting your hand over your heart and pledging your achievements to the flag. But this is the big one.”

“I still think it would be better to pledge my achievements than just my allegiance,” Gus said. “That way I’m actually doing something for my country. And I don’t see how I’m wrong here.”

“Look back on everything that’s happened on this case so far,” Shawn said. “Who have we dealt with? Jules and Lassie, of course, but I think we can rule them out pretty safely. That guy from the museum.”

“Hugh Ralston, the executive director,” Gus said.

“Right,” Shawn said. “But he’s pretty boring. I mean, he works in a museum. He’s going to start killing people? Not on my watch. Who else does that leave? A bunch of uniformed cops, not one of whom we met more than once. And that trucker guy with the crazy wife who wanted us to wait on them. I don’t think so.”

Gus wanted to keep his head comfortably nestled among the down pillows. But the insanity of what Shawn was saying lifted him up like a possessed teenager levitating for the exorcist. “Those are just the people we’ve encountered,” Gus said. “Why does the killer have to be someone we’ve met before?”

“There are rules to this kind of thing,” Shawn said.

“You don’t believe in following rules,” Gus said.

“I told you, I don’t believe in man-made rules,” Shawn said. “But even I can’t ignore the immutable rules of the universe.”

“And which rule would this be?” Gus said. “Because I really don’t think that the key to this mystery lies in how many French fries I give you.”

“Think about it,” Shawn said. “Think back on all our cases. Has the killer ever turned out to be someone we hadn’t met in the course of the investigation?”

Gus cast his mind back over the hundreds of crimes they’d investigated. “What about that serial killer, Mr. Yang?” he said. “Not only hadn’t you met Yang earlier in the case—you didn’t even know she was a female.”

“Really?” Shawn said. “That’s the best you can come up with? A serial killer I was in phone contact with for ages before she revealed herself? Of course we’d met. Just not face to face.”

Gus wasn’t sure that counted, but he decided to let it go. There had to be another example. He just couldn’t think of one. “That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen,” he said finally.