A Fatal Frame of Mind

Chapter Forty-seven

“You have to admit: Things could have turned out a lot worse,” Gus said. “For one thing, these orange jumpsuits are much more comfortable than the tuxedoes.”

Shawn didn’t even waste a glare on him but just turned back to his hard labor.

“Okay,” Gus said. “I admit it. This was my fault. I got us into this, and you are paying the penalty for my mistake. But at least we’ve got the sun on our backs.”

A car tore by no more than five inches from Shawn’s foot, kicking dust in their faces at it sped down the 101 freeway.

“And don’t forget the fresh air,” Shawn said. “Lots and lots of fresh air.”

Gus lifted his stick and speared a cigarette butt from among the succulents, then dropped it in his shoulder bag. “Considering what we were charged with, it could have been a lot worse.”

It certainly could have been if Shawn hadn’t managed to put it all together. As soon as Ralston had been confronted on the witness stand, he broke down and confessed the whole thing.

Not all at once, and not coherently at first. Because he kept breaking into sobs and pleas to be forgiven. He’d taken part in the scam only to help the museum. He’d never dreamed that anyone would get hurt.

The plan had been Flaxman Low’s, of course. He’d been listening to Kitteredge obsess about that nonexistent painting for so many years he had half decided to paint it himself just as a prank. But once the idea was in his head, he realized it could be so much more lucrative if he took it beyond the level of practical joke.

Low knew how much financial trouble the Santa Barbara museum was in, so he went to Ralston with a proposal. He would arrange for a lawyer to contact curator Filkins and offer the museum The Defence of Guenevere. Of course Filkins would leap at the chance, especially since the only condition of the bequest would be that it remain entirely anonymous, even to all museum personnel. Then they’d get Kitteredge to declare it a masterpiece, thus establishing its provenance. And then the painting would be tragically “stolen,” never to be seen again, and incurring an insurance payout in the tens of millions.

And it was all going so well until the day of the painting’s official unveiling. Filkins had never been completely comfortable with the anonymous gift, and he’d been studying the picture closely. That day he told Ralston he suspected a forgery, and took him into the gallery to show him what he’d discovered. That’s why the surveillance cameras had all been turned away-Filkins hadn’t wanted to alert anyone to his suspicions until he’d shared them with Ralston.

Panicked, Ralston told Filkins the truth, hoping to enlist him on his side. But the curator was outraged and vowed to go to the museum board and have Ralston fired. The executive director claimed his memory was fuzzy on precisely what happened next, but there was a scuffle, and when it was over Filkins was dead and Ralston was holding the bloody knife.

There was no way he could hope to transport the body through the museum. He knew he was going to be caught, and he was prepared to turn himself in. Then he had an idea. Thanks to Kitteredge, there was a mythology about a conspiracy surrounding this painting. Why not make it look like the Cabal had killed Filkins? He found a sword in the museum’s archives that was a fairly close match to the one in the picture and ran the corpse through with it.

But as the premiere drew closer, Ralston began to panic again. How could he hope that sane people-police detectives-would believe a ridiculous fantasy about a global conspiracy? They’d be much more likely to assume that anyone spinning such a tale was insane. And thus came the idea to slip the murder weapon into Kitteredge’s pocket when the professor hugged him on the museum steps. After that, all he had to do was cut the forged painting out of its frame and make sure it was never seen again.

During Ralston’s entire sobbing confession, Kitteredge barely looked up once. His spirit seemed to have been completely broken, either by the revelation that his decades-long obsession had been ridiculous or by his guilt over how it had led him to betray the people who’d tried to help him. After he had been cleared of all involvement in the murder, and the escape charges had been dropped as a matter of justice, the professor had taken a leave of absence from the university and checked himself into a mental hospital.

That should have completely cleared Shawn and Gus as well. After all, they’d done nothing but try to help an innocent man clear his name. But in doing so they had accidentally committed an act of theft, and their victim demanded that they face justice. Not only had Shawn and Gus stolen two tuxedoes; they had taken them out of the country. And by the time the tuxes were recovered, they were so disgusting that they couldn’t be cleaned and had to be destroyed.

Which is why they were spending four days in orange jumpsuits picking up trash from the freeway median. Right under the sign reading “This stretch of freeway maintained by Sami’s Formal Wear.”

“Clearly,” Shawn said, “this is a time to revisit our rules.”

“I know, I know,” Gus said. “No cases that require formal wear.”

“That’s never going to be a problem,” Shawn said. “I’m sure we’re on a national tuxedo blacklist and we’ll never be able to rent again. No, I’ve got other rules in mind. Lots and lots of other rules.”

Gus braced himself. Whatever Shawn had come up with now was going to be big. And after getting them involved with Kitteredge, Gus would have no choice but to go along with it. “Let’s have them.”

Shawn leaned forward, bracing himself on his stick. He opened his mouth to speak. And then closed it again. He smiled. “You know, I think we’ve had enough of rules for a while.”

Gus stared at him suspiciously. “How long a while?”

“I don’t know,” Shawn said. “When’s lunch around here?