Psyc 03_The Call of the Mild (15 page)

Then Shawn straightened up and stared at Shatner. Stared and
saw
. Saw the ragged line of white flesh near his hairline. Saw the sharp edge of the leather watchband of his Patek Philippe. Saw the puckered spot on his silk tie and the dull spots on his nails where the clear polish had chipped off.

“The wrong ocean,” Shawn moaned. “It’s the wrong ocean.”

The lawyers snapped out of their argument and wheeled to face Shawn, who was clutching his head as if in pain.

“What is he doing?” Shatner snapped.

“I believe the metaphor has returned,” Gus said.

“I see a shark,” Shawn said. “He’s a happy shark, although it’s kind of hard to tell, since they always look like they’re smiling. Anyway, he’s king of his neighborhood, snacking on all the other fishes. Then one day he’s scooped up in a net. When he wakes up, he’s still the same shark he always was. Got the same instincts and appetites. But he’s been dumped in a different ocean. All the nooks and crannies he used to hide in to wait for his prey are gone. And the waters are filled with other sharks who are just as tough as he is, but they know the place so much better. Now every mouthful is a fight for him. Every time he spots a target, one of the other sharks swoops in and steals it from him. He’s getting hungry—starving, actually. And every day that goes by without a meal makes him weaker. If he doesn’t find a big school of fish soon, he’ll be so feeble he won’t even be able to swim fast anymore. And you know what happens then? The other sharks stop preying on the local fish and turn on him.”

Gus noticed that Shatner had gone pale under his tan. He sank slowly down into his seat.

“But why am I still talking about seafood?” Shawn said cheerily. “I think someone had an objection?”

“No objection,” Shatner said, staring down at the table.

“In that case, I believe our business is concluded,” Rushton said. “Let’s take an hour to finish up last-minute details. The chopper departs precisely at noon.”

Rushton waited until the other lawyers had left the conference room before clapping Shawn on the back. “I won’t ask how you knew Morton Mathis was a recent transfer from the Detroit District Attorney’s Office, but I will congratulate you on silencing him,” Rushton said. “It gives me great confidence that I made the right decision in hiring you.”

“Yes, you did,” Shawn said.

Something was troubling Gus. “But I don’t see what we’re going to be able to accomplish here if everyone else is leaving.”

“That’s all taken care of,” Rushton said. “There’s room on the chopper for the two of you as well. This week is our corporate retreat, a time I set aside every year so that the lawyers can bond together into a family.”

“I can see how well that’s working,” Shawn said. “They’re just like every family I’ve ever known.”

“It’s a perfect time for you to get to know them, ferret out their secrets, and report it all back to me,” Rushton said. “I want to know who killed Archie Kane.” He touched a lever on his armrest and his wheelchair glided back from the table.

“We didn’t really pack for a retreat,” Shawn said. “Unless by ‘retreat’ you mean staying at home eating Funyuns.”

“I do not,” Rushton said. “But you don’t need to worry about packing. Everything you could possibly want will be provided for you.”

“I don’t know,” Shawn said. “I can want some pretty strange things.”

“Of that I have no doubt.” Rushton reached into the leather satchel that hung from his chair and pulled out a large manila envelope, which he placed carefully on the table. “Background information on the lawyers, and a little brochure about the retreat. And if you need to make any arrangements for your sudden absence, just dial nine on that phone. I’m afraid I block all electronic signals in my conference room, so you can’t use your cells—it’s the only way I can keep anyone’s attention during meetings.”

Rushton wheeled silently to the rear door, which opened automatically as he approached it, then closed behind him. Gus reached for the envelope, but Shawn snatched it out of his hands.

“You won’t be needing any background information,” Shawn said. “I’ve already solved the case.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

W
hen Shawn was little, Henry had a recurring fantasy that one day the two of them would partner up on the Santa Barbara Police Department. There wasn’t much of a chance it would ever happen, of course. The department had strict rules against relatives working closely together. But there was nothing that made Henry happier than imagining himself and Shawn, father and son, cracking case after case together.

Then Shawn started to talk, and Henry gave up on the fantasy. But sitting in the generic accounting office that served as the mailing address for the Fluffy Foundation and watching Officer Rasmussen interview the skinny little dweeb who administered the charity, Henry felt those old feelings stirring for the first time in decades.

This is what he had always dreamed of, the relationship he’d thought possible only with blood kin. The dance between partners who could coordinate their strategy without a word. Rasmussen ran the interrogation, but Henry was able to direct him with nothing more than the slightest of looks. It was like telepathy—the real thing, not the phony version Shawn practiced.

Within minutes of their arrival in the one-man office nestled between a convenience store and a Laundromat in a down-market strip mall, Rasmussen started getting the information they needed. The Fluffy Foundation had been in operation for five years, and while it had recently begun to attract some new donors, almost all its money came from the anonymous angel who had set up the fund. That person had started the charity with a donation of fifty thousand dollars, and similar amounts came in at irregular intervals. The dweeb had been alerted to expect another gift shortly.

This sent Henry’s internal radar tingling. If Ellen Svaco was indeed the anonymous donor behind the foundation, there was no trace of it in any of her financial records. And if she was about to have fifty thousand untraceable dollars to give away, that would have given someone fifty thousand good reasons to kill her. Their entire case could depend on the answer to Rasmussen’s next question: Who is the anonymous donor?

Henry gave Rasmussen the nod, and the officer sat forward in his chair. “It’s very important that you tell us the identity of your donor.”

The dweeb pushed his horn-rims up the bridge of his nose with the tip of a pencil and cleared his throat nervously. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” he said.

“Not even if I told you it was a matter of life and death?” Rasmussen said.

“Not without a court order,” the dweeb said. “I’m just not at liberty to divulge that information.”

Rasmussen hesitated for a moment, then got up. “Thank you for your time,” he said. “We’ll come back when we have a warrant.”

It took Henry a couple of seconds to realize that Rasmussen was actually walking towards the door. Henry leaped up out of his chair and grabbed the officer before he could reach the knob. “What are you doing?” he whispered furiously.

“ ‘If the law doesn’t respect the law, then no one will,’ ” Rasmussen said proudly. “ ‘The police officer must act with complete fidelity to the rules, or the force is nothing but a mob.’ You taught me all that.”

If Henry had had more hair, he would have pulled it out. For a moment he considered pulling out Rasmussen’s. Instead he moved the officer back towards the dweeb’s desk.

“I’m thrilled you remember my lessons so well,” Henry said. “But that was a classroom situation. This is real life.”

“ ‘If our principles can’t stand up in the face of an adverse reality, they aren’t principles, they’re just whims,’ ” Rasmussen said. “I’ve lived my life by that.”

“And I’m really flattered,” Henry said. “But you might want to cover your ears right now.”

“Why?”

Henry marched up to the dweeb and pounded his fist on the desk. “Listen, pal,” he barked, “we’ve got reason to believe this entire charity is a front set up to launder drug money. And that makes you a kingpin. So unless you want to spend the rest of your pathetic life in supermax, you will give us the name of your donor.”

The dweeb looked like he was about to cry. Rasmussen rushed up to the desk. “That’s not exactly true,” he said. “What Detective Spencer means—”

“—is that you’ll be lucky to get life,” Henry said. “If we find evidence that some of this drug money is going to support terrorists, we’ll go for the death penalty.”

“It’s not drug money!” the dweeb said feebly.

“We do know that,” Rasmussen said.

Henry pushed him out of the way and pounded on the table. “The name! It’s Svaco, isn’t it?”

The dweeb gulped so hard his Adam’s apple nearly tore through his throat. “Yes, the donor’s name is Svaco.”

Henry turned to Rasmussen and gave him a tight smile. “Here’s one I probably forgot to mention in class: Make the case first; make it pretty later.”

“It’s no good,” Rasmussen said. “We can’t use that information. It’s tainted.”

“Except we’re not putting Ellen Svaco on trial,” Henry said. “We’re trying to solve her murder. And this man has just given us the vital clue we need.”

He patted Rasmussen on the shoulder and stalked to the door. Rasmussen stayed at the desk and handed the dweeb a business card. “Thank you so much for your cooperation. I assure you, we will arrange for a warrant so that you will not have violated your fiduciary duty to your client. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes. One,” the dweeb said. “Did he say, ‘Ellen’?”

“Yes, Ellen Svaco, your donor,” Rasmussen said.

“I don’t know who that is,” the dweeb said. “The foundation’s principal donor is Arnold Svaco. That’s the only Svaco I know.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Y
ou always do this,” Gus said. “You say you solved the case, and then when I ask for details, it turns out you’re not even close to a solution. You’ve just come up with some obscure detail that half the time has nothing to do with anything.”

“Because the other half of the time it has everything to do with everything,” Shawn says. “And those are the ones that people remember. You can get away with a dozen wrong guesses in a row as long as you hit the last one out of the park.”

“We’re not in a park, we’re in a law firm,” Gus said. “And we’re about to be away on some corporate retreat.”

“Which is why it doesn’t matter if I’ve actually solved the murder or not,” Shawn said. “Because there’s no way I’m staging a reveal before we get to ride on the company helicopter.”

“You’re going to let a killer go free so you can go joyriding in the sky?”

“So
we
can go joyriding in the sky,” Shawn said. “Personally, I can’t think of a better reason to let a killer go free. Except maybe if he has such a rare blood type that he is the only tissue match for an innocent little girl who will die without an organ transplant, but he won’t agree to the operation unless he gets a full pardon.”

“Sure, but once you set him free, how will you guarantee he’ll go through with the transplant?” Gus said. “And what if she needs a second transplant later? And what if he does give the girl the organ, but then he kills again? Do you think that little girl would want to know her life was purchased with the blood of innocents? And what if the transplant surgeon is secretly in love with the killer’s wife, but she is loyal to her husband, so the doctor is planning to have something go wrong in the operation, killing the convict and making the wife available?”

“What are you talking about?” Shawn said.

“The same thing you are,” Gus said. “
General Hospital
circa 1991.”

“They really did run out of steam, didn’t they?” Shawn said. “I mean, after you’ve seen Robin Scorpio befriending space aliens, how are you supposed to take it seriously when she says she’s HIV-positive? Not that I ever watched soap operas, of course.”

“Right, me neither,” Gus said.

“Anyway, the real point is that the killer won’t be getting away at all, because we’ll be going with him,” Shawn said. “And we know who he is.”

“We do?”

“Didn’t I just get done telling you we did?” Shawn said.

“You told me you did,” Gus said. “But you didn’t say who it was. And I’m not getting into any aircraft until you do.”

Shawn let out a deep sigh. “You’re taking a lot of the fun out of this,” he said, but Gus’ sharp gaze didn’t waver. “Fine, it’s Shark Boy.”

“William Shatner?” Gus said, then remembered he hadn’t had a chance to share his nicknames with Shawn. “I mean, Morton Mathis? How do you know?”

“The first part was easy,” Shawn said. “He’s wearing a watch that looks like it costs more than your car.” Shawn glanced down at the Timex on his wrist. “Of course, so am I. But his looks like it costs more than a good car—until you notice that the leather strap is actually plastic. It’s a cheap knockoff. His tan is sprayed on. There was a dried water spot on his silk tie where he tried to wash off a stain instead of spending a few dollars on dry cleaning, and his manicure is weeks old. He’s not used to getting them, or he’d never have let it get chipped like that.”

“That’s how you knew he was a recent transplant,” Gus said. “But what makes you think he’s the killer?”

“It was the way he reacted when he thought I was reading his mind,” Shawn said. “He panicked. But there was nothing I was saying that everyone in the room didn’t already know. They’d all been here when he arrived at the firm; it wasn’t a secret he was from out of town. And the fact that he hasn’t won a big case since he got here is the kind of statistic that every lawyer in a firm like this knows. He was afraid I was going to reveal something they didn’t know. Which means he’s got a secret.”