Part 11 (1/2)

”Just what's in the picture.”

Gus squinted down at the drawing of the volume's spine. ”What are these squiggles?”

”Those aren't squiggles,” she said. ”They're numbers.”

”Not these numbers.” Gus looked again. ”They can't be.”

”They are,” she said. ”Why can't they?”

”Don't you know anything about the Dewey decimal system?” he said, trying to mask his impatience at her ignorance.

”I know it's how books are cla.s.sified in libraries,” she said.

”Then I suppose you also know that the numbers aren't a.s.signed randomly,” Gus said. ”That they have specific and precise meanings.”

”Sure. I guess. I mean, they'd have to, or what's the point?”

”Exactly,” Gus said. ”What is this number you scrawled on the Poe book's spine?”

O'Hara started to answer, then stopped herself. She took the paper back, studied it closely, and then put it down again. ”Six-eighty-two-point-seven MTN. Does that mean something?”

”I don't know yet, but I can tell you exactly what it doesn't refer to,” Gus said. ”The cla.s.sification for literature, which is the only Dewey designation that makes sense for this book, is eight hundred. If I remember correctly, American Literature in English is cla.s.sified in the eight-tens. Fiction, I believe, would put it in the eight-thirteens. So this book would be cla.s.sified as eight-thirteen-point-something Po. But Poe might not be cla.s.sified with the literature. It could be considered fiction, in which case it wouldn't have a number at all. The spine would just say FIC and then the first three letters of his last name--which in this case would be his entire last name.”

O'Hara felt her heart starting to pound. This could be something. ”So what do these numbers mean?”

”I might be tempted to say nothing,” Gus said. ”After all, we have no idea if the programmer responsible for this part of the game knew anything about the Dewey decimal system or if he just remembered there were supposed to be numbers on the spine of a library book. But those letters at the end suggest that's wrong.”

O'Hara looked at them again. ”MTN,” she said. ”Macklin Tanner.”

”That's what I'm thinking,” Gus said. ”Which means that those numbers have to be a map to where he is.”

”So what is six-eighty-two-point-seven?” she said.

Gus got out of his chair and walked across the office to the large desk that sprawled in the exact center of the window. He pa.s.sed his hand through one of those light beams and the panel slid open to reveal the face of the computer. ”Do you really think I'm such a nerd I'd know the entire Dewey decimal system?”

There didn't seem to be a way to answer that would actually move the conversation forward, so O'Hara didn't say anything. Gus started typing onto the computer screen.

”Okay,” he said after the display loaded. ”The six hundreds are all about technology.”

”That doesn't do us any good,” O'Hara said. ”We already know that Tanner is a technological genius.”

”But not this kind,” Gus said. ”Computer stuff all starts in the triple zeroes, because the entire system was developed a hundred years before Bill Gates was born, and there was no way to squeeze a new world of publications into existing categories.”

”So what kind of technology are we talking about?” O'Hara said.

”The kind that existed in the nineteenth century,” Gus said. ”In terms of the six-eighties, we're looking at 'manufacture for specific use.' ”

”How specific?”

”Well, six-eighty-five is leather, fur, and related items. Six-eighty-four is furnis.h.i.+ng and home workshops.”

”And six-eighty-two?”

He checked the display, then checked it again. ”Small forge work,” he said. ”Blacksmithing.”

Chapter Twenty-one.

As the door closed behind Detective O'Hara, Gus settled back into his desk chair and felt a familiar rush of satisfaction. He had grown tired of so much about the detective business, but he could never get sick of the thrill that came when the puzzle pieces finally began to fall together, when what had been a random set of facts and actions suddenly coalesced into a pattern.

It was true that they still had no idea exactly what the clue was telling them, what kind of connection might exist between Macklin Tanner's whereabouts and the art and industry of blacksmithing, but that would be a matter of grunt work, not inspiration. Now that they knew where to look, Shawn and Jules could start searching for any connection either Tanner or anyone who knew him had with metalwork.

That thought sent a little pang of jealousy through him. Shawn and Jules were going to have all the fun. They were going to track this clue down to its ultimate meaning, they were going to find Tanner and catch the bad guy--if there was a bad guy. And it would all be because Gus had spotted the misplaced number and understood the pattern.

Gus was so flushed with the excitement of the discovery that he'd picked up the phone and dialed the first half of Psych's number before he realized what he was doing. Even then he wasn't sure why he'd stopped himself from completing the call. He and Shawn had split on the best of terms. There was no reason why he couldn't help his old partner finish up a case they had started together. And odds were O'Hara was still returning her rental car to the airport lot--he and Shawn could jump on this new revelation and have it wrapped up before she even told Shawn what he'd come up with.

But what had he come up with, exactly? He'd taken a set of numbers and letters on O'Hara's sketch of a book she'd seen in a computer game, made an a.s.sumption about what they must have meant, and then jumped to an answer based on that. And it all seemed perfectly logical, as long as his basic a.s.sumption was right.

But what if it wasn't?

Gus had no idea who had put those numbers on the spine of the digital image of a book. He had no way of knowing if that person knew anything about the Dewey decimal system. Maybe he'd just remembered that there were supposed to be numbers on a library book and slapped some on at random. Or maybe there was a message encoded there, but not the one that Gus had puzzled out.

Gus knew he hadn't necessarily deduced the truth of these numbers. He'd simply made a decision. When he saw that the spine bore the wrong Dewey decimal cla.s.sification, he leaped to the idea that the numbers were to be interpreted via the system. That gave him an answer--but was it the answer?

The truth was those numbers could have meant anything. A date, for instance: Maybe 682.7 should have been read as June 7, 1982. It would be odd to write it out that way, but if they were looking for a rogue programmer, would it really be so hard to believe he'd write it out as a Star Trek- style star date? If that was right, then Shawn would have to search through Tanner's life to figure out what had happened on that day--and since the game designer had only been three at the time he'd also have to look at whatever else might have been going on at the same time. June 7, 1982 was, for example, the day that Priscilla Presley first opened Graceland to the public, although she kept the bathroom where Elvis died off-limits. Could that conceivably have anything to do with Tanner's disappearance? It seemed unlikely, but was it that much less plausible than the notion that Festus from Gunsmoke had s.n.a.t.c.hed the guy?

Or maybe it wasn't just the numbers. He'd stated as a fact that MTN had to stand for Macklin Tanner, but there was no way of knowing that for sure. For all he knew the correct way to read the spine was as a seven-digit telephone number: 682-7686, once he'd swapped out the three letters for their corresponding numerals. Granted, that was not a common format for writing out telephone numbers, but there were no standardized rules for leaving clues in computer games.

And those were just the first two possible alternative interpretations that popped into his mind. Who was to say the kidnapper--if there was a kidnapper--hadn't actually given out the address of Tanner's hiding place: 6287 Mountain? Maybe he was bragging that he'd shot Tanner with a Remington Model 700 Mountain LSS Bolt Action Rifle 6287. MTN could have referred to the Military Training Network of the Uniformed Services University and the number to a course or a research study.

Those letters and numbers could have meant anything. Gus had chosen his own interpretation and O'Hara had run out to act on it. But if he was right and his hunch led them to find Tanner, it would really only be luck. And if he was wrong--and he was so much more likely to have been wrong--then he might have just condemned the man to a terrible death.

Gus realized the phone was shaking in his hand. He lowered it gently to its cradle and waited until the tremors pa.s.sed, then dug a Kleenex out of his drawer and wiped the sweat off his palms.

This, Gus knew, was why he couldn't call Shawn and spitball ideas about what kind of mad blacksmith had taken Tanner hostage.

It was the fear.

It was why he'd left Psych in the first place.

Gus had tried to convince himself that he had grown tired of being a detective, that now he had become a man and it was time to put aside childish things. That the thought of being an executive was simply more exciting than working with Psych.

But now he had to face the truth. He'd left Psych because he had been scared.