Part 1 (1/2)

Psych.

The Call of the Mild.

William Rabkin.

SILENT KILLER.

Shawn hadn't moved. He was staring back towards the snack bar, looking for the vanished mime. ”There was something wrong with that mime,” Shawn said.

”By definition,” Gus said.

”No, something else,” Shawn said, still looking back where they'd last seen the mime. ”Something I noticed but didn't register until after we left.”

There was a long moment of silence. Then Gus spoke quietly. ”You mean like he had a gun pointed at my head?”

”I think I would have noticed that a little quicker,” Shawn said. ”No, it was-”

”Shawn!”

”Yes?”

”The mime has a gun pointed at my head.”

Shawn turned back to his partner. The mime stood in front of Gus, his white-gloved hand leveling a gleaming pistol at Gus' forehead.

”Please,” the mime said. ”Don't make me kill you.”

For Rufus R. and the woman who loves him.

Prologue.

1988.

Henry Spencer's head was about to split in two. Part of it was due to the horrible high-pitched whine coming from the backyard. But mostly it was caused by the even more horrible low-pitched whining from the woman on the other end of the phone line. She'd started complaining the second he picked up, and she hadn't stopped to take a breath in five minutes.

Finally there was a pause in her tirade. Maybe she needed air. Maybe she'd keeled over from a stroke. Henry didn't care. He saw his opportunity and he seized it.

”You want to sue, I'll see you in court, lady!”

He slammed down the phone receiver, then picked it up and slammed it down again. It didn't help. His head still throbbed.

This wasn't the first time Henry had been threatened with a lawsuit. Half the creeps he'd arrested in all his years on the Santa Barbara police force had screamed police brutality and vowed to take him to court.

But it was the first time he'd been threatened with a lawsuit because of something his son had done. Or, rather, not done.

Henry ma.s.saged his pounding skull, then shouted, ”Shawn!” There was no answer, of course. And the whining kept getting louder.

Henry stalked through the kitchen and and flung open the screen door. Shawn was standing in the middle of the lawn, a radio-control box in his hand.

”Watch out!” Shawn said.

”I'm not the one who-” Henry's sentence was cut off as a model airplane crashed into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

”Well, that's just great,” Shawn said, flipping a switch on the control box. ”You killed it.”

”Then half my work is done.” Henry pulled air into his lungs, then picked up the airplane and looked it over. It was a nice model, finely detailed. These things weren't cheap. ”Where did you get this?”

”I bought it,” Shawn said.

”With what money?”

”Money I earned,” Shawn said.

”Would that be money you earned taking care of Mrs. Calloway's garden?” Henry said.

”Why do you ask?”

”Because she just called,” Henry said. ”Apparently she paid you in advance for your work, and now all her flowers are dead because you never showed up to take care of them. She wants to sue you.”

”Good luck to her,” Shawn said. ”It's not like I have any a.s.sets, thanks to a medieval allowance policy around here.”

Shawn turned the control box upside down and banged on the bottom. The plane in Henry's hand gave a cough and a shake, and the propeller kicked over. Henry grabbed it and held it in place until the toy stopped struggling.

”Maybe I should have said she wants to sue me,” Henry said. ”But the lawsuit isn't the important part. h.e.l.l, if she was stupid enough to pay you in advance, she shouldn't be allowed to own plants anyway. But you said you'd take care of her garden and you killed it.”

”It was a weasel,” Shawn said.

”Oh, that's good,” Henry said. ”You took care of her flowers, but a weasel destroyed them.”

”I'm not talking about a rodent,” Shawn said. He walked over to his father and tried to pry the plane out of his hands. Henry didn't let go. ”I'm saying I didn't lie. I told her I would take care of her plants to the best of my ability. Well, this was the best of my ability. That's a weasel.”

Henry stared at his son, wondering as he had so many times before exactly what he had done in a previous life to deserve this. ”You want to go into court and explain this weasel to a judge?”

”It's the truth,” Shawn said.

”A weasel is not a legal defense,” Henry said. ”If anything, it's going to make a judge really angry. He'll find a way to put you in juvie just for smarting off to him.”

Henry was pleased to see that Shawn actually looked a little nervous. ”What should I do?”