“It turned out the cannibals weren’t really cannibals,” Gus said. “It was all a plot by-”
“Don’t tell me!” Shawn said.
“The episode’s been on DVD for five years,” Gus said. “If you cared that much, you could have seen it a hundred times by now.”
“It’s not the same,” Shawn said. “If there isn’t at least one commercial with Jacko urging me to knock a battery off his shoulder, I can’t watch it.”
“And I can’t watch you putting yourself in danger,” Henry said.
“It’s as simple as that.”
Shawn shot Gus a pleading look over Henry’s shoulder. Gus shrugged helplessly. Shawn turned back to Henry. “I’ve got to do this,” he said. “Please.”
“It’s a hard lesson to learn and a hard way to learn it, but you don’t owe this woman anything, son,” Henry said. “She asked you to find her necklace. You did. What happens in the rest of her life-even her death-is simply none of your business.”
“She was our client,” Shawn said. “When a man’s client is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of her. She was your client and you’re supposed to do something about it. ‘And it happens we’re in the detective business. When one of your organization gets killed, it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.’ ”
For a moment Henry seemed impressed by Shawn’s passion for the profession. But something about the words nagged at him.
“ ‘Partner,’ ” Henry said as the memory fell into place.
“Yes!” Shawn said. “We’ll be partners.”
“No,” Henry said. “It’s ‘when a man’s partner is killed he’s supposed to do something about it.’ ”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” Shawn said. “Because I promise if Gus is killed I’ll stick with that case, too.”
“Thanks,” Gus said. “Really means a lot.”
“It’s from The Maltese Falcon, ” Henry said. “You want me to let you stay on this case because of some speech by a fictional detective.”
“I can’t think of a better reason, can you?”
“No, and that’s the point,” Henry said. “Now, if you’re not going to step off this case, there’s a dentist, a lawyer, and a real estate developer who can’t finish their song until I play my drum solo.”
Henry took the two steps back to the cabin door.
“You win,” Shawn said. “We’re off this case.”
“Not good enough,” Henry said, slipping out into the dimming Ojai sunlight. “Too much wiggle room.”
“I promise that as long as you are working with Lassiter on this case that neither Gus nor I will do anything to investigate, explore, probe, scrutinize, deconstruct, interrogate, or in any other way examine the circumstances surrounding the violent slaying of our former client, the late Ellen Svaco,” Shawn said.
For a moment Henry looked convinced. Gus was almost convinced himself. There were only two ways he could see for Shawn to weasel out of the promise, which was at least three fewer than Shawn usually built into such a sentence.
“I accept,” Henry said after brief consideration.
“Excellent,” Shawn said.
“Except for two things,” Henry said. “The deal is binding for as long as I’m on the case, no matter what level of involvement or noninvolvement Carlton Lassiter shares in it. And since we don’t have precise information at this moment on the exact manner of this woman’s death, you will apply the same interdiction to any consideration of any eventuality that led to it, violent or not.”
Gus was impressed. These were two of Shawn’s best weasels, and Henry had spotted both of them. No wonder Shawn hadn’t been able to talk himself out of a grounding since he turned eleven.
But Shawn seemed to be taking his defeat in stride. He put out his hand for his father to shake. “You really won’t get fooled again,” he said. “They need you at the police station in the morning.”
Henry took his hand. “We’ll do right by you, son.”
“Just make sure you change first.”
Henry glanced down at his sweat-soaked rock and roll clothes. “I don’t know,” he said, “I’m getting to like this look.”
The cabin door banged shut and Henry was gone. Gus moved out of his corner, finally feeling free to fill his lungs more than halfway. “What do you want to do now?” he said. “Because if you don’t have any plans, there’s a bookstore in town with a tree growing in the middle of it. I’ve always wanted to see that.”
Shawn stared at him as if he’d suggested they pass the afternoon at a Wiggles performance. “Are you kidding?” he said. “We’ve got work to do.”
“On what?”
“On our case.”
Gus replayed the last few minutes of the conversation in his head. Shawn’s promise seemed as unweaselable as the nondisclosure agreement Gus’ pharmaceuticals employer had made him sign before they admitted to him that there really was no such thing as restless elbow syndrome and that the only reason they’d sold so much of their drug to treat the disease was a long series of “seminars” in Hawaii they’d paid doctors to attend.
“You just promised your father that we wouldn’t have anything to do with Ellen Svaco’s murder,” Gus said.
“And we won’t,” Shawn said.
“But that was our case,” Shawn said.
“Never was,” Shawn said. “No one hired us to investigate that.”
“Then what?”
“Ellen Svaco hired us to get her necklace back,” Shawn said. “That’s the case we’re working on.”
Chapter Fifteen
Gus and Shawn drove in silence back to the Psych offices. Gus assumed Shawn was lost in thought about how to find whoever was behind the theft of the necklace. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen when Henry found out that he and Shawn were still working on the case. Because, despite Shawn’s rationalizations, Gus knew they were deliberately flouting the agreement.
It wasn’t until they were back in the office and Shawn was firing up the computer that Gus raised the point. “If your dad finds out that we’re working on this case, he’s going to be really mad.”
Shawn didn’t even look up from the computer. “I already told you; it’s not the same case.”
“Yes, as weasels go, this is as close to a ten as you’ve ever come,” Gus said. “But we both know that’s only going to make him even madder. All I’m saying is let’s make sure we stay out of the way of the official investigation.”
“We will be out of their way,” Shawn said. “Because Lassiter will be running his investigation his way and we’ll be doing ours the right way. Odds are we’ll never cross paths. Now come help me hack into the police department’s computer.”
“Shawn…”
“Okay, okay,” Shawn said. “It’s not like we’d learn anything that way, except that Lassie hasn’t won a game of solitaire in five years. What I really need you to do is to hack into the computers of the Descanso Gardens lost-and-found department. If we’re lucky they have a camera positioned above the booth to record the face of anyone dropping off or claiming an item.”
That was a task Gus didn’t mind tackling. Unfortunately there was one small problem he couldn’t solve.
“It seems that the Descanso Gardens lost-and-found department doesn’t have a computer,” Gus said after some time of fruitless searching. “Or, if they do, it’s not online.”
“How about the snack bar?” Shawn said. “Can you get into their computer?”
“Why?”
“I want to know if they’ve restocked their ice-cream sandwiches yet,” Shawn said. “If we’re going to have to schlep all the way down there again, I want to know there’s at least going to be a tasty treat at the finish line.”
Gus dropped into a guest chair. “This is crazy.”
“I know, I know,” Shawn said. “It’s much cheaper to buy our own ice-cream sandwiches at the supermarket and bring them with us, instead of paying the ridiculous markup they charge at tourist traps like Descanso. But even if we bring a cold bag, they’re still going to be pretty melty by the time we get to La Canada.”