Title: 1,000 Paper Cranes... Of Murder?
Author: DeMarcos
Rating: T
Disclaimer: This crap *motions down to the story* IS. NOT. MINE.
Santa Barbara - 1988
The first thing that Henry saw when he walked out onto the back porch through the sliding glass doors was his son Shawn, standing over his defenseless piggy bank with a hammer, Gus desperately trying to haul Shawn away from the ceramic swine.
"Shawn! What the hell are you doing?"
The sound of his fathers' voice stopped Shawn mid swing, causing Gus to slam into his back from the sudden stop. Both boys went tumbling onto the grass, missing the piggy bank by mere inches. Henry walked down the porch stairs into the yard, rushing over to the boys. He extended his hands to them, and after pulling themselves to their feet, they at least had the good taste to appear ashamed of being caught arguing over a pink pig.
Henry yanked the hammer away from Shawn and used it to motion between the two boys. "Now that that's out of your system, which one of you would like to explain to me what is going on?" Gus opened his mouth to speak but Shawn cut him off by stamping on his foot. Hard.
Gus fell to the ground, but he still managed to say in one breath "Shawn's trying to buy flowers to impress a girl!"
Shawn glared down and him and hissed. "Traitor!" He then looked up at his father, defiance burning in his eyes.
Henry just stared down incredulously at him. "You're breaking into your bike savings so you can buy cheap flowers for some girl? Shawn, what have I told you about priorities?"
Shawn groaned. "It's not just some girl! It's Sam Crisplin, the prettiest girl in homeroom. Mark Steele told me that girls like flowers. And I looked at some on the way home, but they're more than you gave me for allowance. I told the guy I'd be back once I got more money, but Gus tried to stop me." He tossed Gus a glare as tried to use Shawn's leg as leverage to stand up.
Henry sighed, rubbing his forehead in frustration. He really didn't want to talk to his son about girls, especially in front of Gus. It'd be just his luck that he'd go home later and spout whatever he told Shawn to his parents. The Guster's were nice people, but they sheltered Gus a little too much and Henry didn't look forward to being yelled at for teaching the boys about the birds and the bees. He motioned for the boys to sit at the picnic table anyway and thought about his words very carefully.
"Shawn…. When you're trying to impress a girl, flowers and chocolates are not they way to go. They only say two things. 'I have no idea what you like' and 'I did something really stupid.' That's not a message you want to send right off the bat to someone you care about. Besides, Mark Steele is a moron who eats glue by the spoonful." He once watched the kid go through a tube during a parent-teacher conference years back.
Shawn and Gus grinned to each other at that. Henry continued on and they straightened their faces, to show they were paying attention.
"If you really want to impress her, you'd ask her what she likes or do something she wouldn't expect that shows you like her. Something from the heart."
Shawn nodded in understanding, wheels already turning in his head. Henry shook his head, all too familiar with that look. He knew he would be receiving a call from the principal soon. But Shawn had to make his mistakes so he could learn from them, so he said nothing to dissuade him.
"Now, why don't you put you bank back in your room and get ready for dinner."
Santa Barbara – Present
"Dude, I think Lassie is mad at me."
Hurricane Shawn had entered the Psych office forty-seven minutes late, set his helmet down on his desk, plopped down in his chair, and twirled around for approximately thirty seconds before blurting out the previous statement in an extremely petulant manner.
Gus looked up from the paperwork on his desk and stared over at Shawn impassively. "Shawn, why do you always assume that, at any given moment in a day, I care about how Lassiter feels about you?"
He actually appeared to ponder the question for a minute, before smiling brilliantly when he found the answer. "Because as my bestest friend in the whole wide world, it is your duty to be happy for me and help me when the happy decides to ignore me at breakfast. And he totally ducked my have good day at work kiss."
Knowing there was no way to escape the conversation, Gus resigned himself to contributing. He stood up, crossing the short distance between them to sit on the edge of Shawn's desk. "Firstly, I am glad that you're happy, even though I now have to keep a suitcase by my door for when you call to tell me that you and Lassiter broke up and we need to leave town. Secondly, have you even considered the fact that you might have done something to piss him off?"
Shawn cocked his head cavalierly to the side as if to say Oh, Gus. "Of course! I had the entire ride over here to think about what I could have possibly done to make the already cranky man even crankier." He put his fingers on either side of his temple and closed his eyes, picturing the previous nights' events in his head. "We got to his place a few minutes apart, he talked for a while about some new idiot rookie that replaced some retiree. I told him about the store being out of pineapple smoothies and our run in with my dad at the petting zoo, which was creepy by the way-"
Gus nodded in earnest at the statement, not wanting to recall the sight of Henry Spencer cuddling a baby goat. "You know that's right…"
"-We watched the news before dinner, which consisted of me calling City Wok for takeout, we watched the end of some horrible cable show, we got ready for bed…"
Shawn opened his eyes with the horrified realization of what he'd done.
"He asked me about moving in with him! I was still stuck on the new level my dad had reached on the creep-o-meter and kind of..." He trailed off guiltily.
"Lassiter asked if you wanted to live with him and you blew him off?" Gus jumped to his feet, flying over to the window, as if expecting to see the detective outside in the bushes with a sniper rifle.
"Gus, I need to make this up to him! Quick! What's the best way to please an officer of the law?"
"Harsher punishments for parole violators?" He snorted derisively. "I'm not the one dating Robocop, so I have no idea!" Snapping the blinds down to keep anyone from seeing inside, he turned on his heels to face Shawn. "It's your mess, you clean it up! Good luck." Gus walked back over to his desk, paranoia making him hunker down in his chair as he turned on his computer.
"You're going to ignore this by playing internet poker? Really?"
Gus set his face to nonchalant and didn't answer him, focusing solely on the game and not on the thoughts of being murdered as an accomplice to the world's worst boyfriend.
Shawn tried to goad Gus into responding to him, but had zero joy on that front, so he resorted to throwing paper clips at him to throw off his game. Then, like a ton of bricks, an idea hit him, which was lucky for him, as he'd run out of paper clips. He stood up, grabbing his helmet off the desk and made for the door. Gus pretended not to watch him go, which worked for all of about a nanosecond.
Curiosity eventually got the better of him and before Shawn had even touched the door handle, Gus sighed. "Where are you going?" He asked, though he really didn't want to know the answer.
Shawn turned around and smiled. "To get a buttload of origami paper!"
Gus sat in the drivers' seat as they drove down the 101 to the local art supply store. Shawn sat to his right, idly drumming his fingers on his knees, watching the scenery go by. Gus rolled his eyes. Shawn was a full grown man who couldn't sit still for a fifteen minute car ride and sad to say, that was a vast improvement on how he used to be. It was much worse in school. The teachers were always trying to calm him down during class by trying to keep his mind occupied, but it was no use. Since the fifth grade, Shawn would take all his course books home for the weekend and memorize them, that way he could spend class time hitting on whoever he thought was the cutest.
By their senior year, teachers would give him all the week's work on Monday and told him to have it done by Friday and not to disrupt the class too much. His father didn't much like that tact but the principal said that he maintained his GPA and unless it dropped, there was no real problem. And it kept him from tanking the other students' GPA by distracting them.
He was ripped from his thoughts when Shawn started slapping his shoulder and telling him to turn right into the store parking lot. After finding a sweet parking spot near the front doors, they got out of the car and made their way inside, Shawn walking quickly, visibly thrumming with excitement. They passed an old lady greeter and gave her a polite wave as they passed her by, not even stopping to hear what specials were going on. The store wasn't too populated and some light jazz music filtered down from the speakers dotted along the ceiling.
"So why are we here, Shawn? What could we possibly find here that would make Lassiter happy? There aren't a lot of old ladies running an illegal racketeering game involving quilting bees."
Shawn sighed at Gus' pessimism and grabbed a basket from a stack of them near the entrance. "Ever hear the myth about folding a thousand paper cranes?"
Gus nodded. "Fold a thousand and you're granted a wish. So?"
They headed down the aisle marked art supplies, where a young, red haired woman was also looking at the origami paper bundles. Shawn maneuvered around her, grabbing stacks of differently colored paper. "If I paper Lassie's apartment and-" He made air quotes "- office with the cranes, he'll see that I'm making an effort to apologize and forgive me for being a space case. And then I'll wish that he stays with me and sexes me up forever."
Gus shuddered for a moment at the mental imagery of Shawn and Lassiter having sex as octogenarians and quickly tried to burn the thought from his brain. "Do you even know how to fold cranes? They're supposed to be one of the most difficult things to do in origami."
Shaking his head at Gus, Shawn tore open the cellophane wrapping on one of the bundles and proceeding to fold a perfect paper crane in less than a minute. Gus' mouth dropped open in shock. Shawn handed the crane to the red haired woman. She eyed him with surprise as he continued down the aisle without another glance back.
"You've known me for how long and you still have to ask me questions like that?" He tsked at Gus as they made their way to the check out lane.
"One of these days, I swear..." Gus grumbled.
Shawn simply laughed at him. "Dude, you've been saying that seventh grade!"
Gus narrowed his eyes threateningly. "And one of these days, it will actually happen!"
Shawn playfully punched his shoulder and pulled out his wallet to pay the check out girl. "Keep telling yourself that, maybe one day it will."
Lassiter sat hunched over at his desk, letting out a breath of defeat that fluttered the papers he was looking at. He glanced over at the time on his computer, which read 7:15 PM. He'd been poring over crime scene photos for hours, yet for all his efforts, nothing seemed to be popping out him. Three murders in five days and there was not a single thing linking the victims to each other, other than the killers M.O. The first victim was a forty-seven year old black male who worked as a CPA downtown. The second was a thirty-four year old white male who'd worked as a real estate agent in the 'burbs. The last had been twenty-nine year old Latino male, a Brazilian immigrant on a student visa who had working on his Ph. D in marine biology and worked at the local aquarium in his free time. All of them had had died from a single stab wound to the heart.
Chief Vick had been breathing down his and O'Hara's necks for some headway in the case but they couldn't make heads or tails of it. Serials normally stuck to a specific type for their targets, a gender, profession, or race, but this one was all over the place, which made them hard to profile. Unfortunately, Vick had given them explicit instructions not to involve Spencer in the case until it was absolutely necessary. 'Too many wins on his side makes us look incompetent. Let's get this one for us.'
Carlton had to laugh a little to himself. For months, he had tried to get her to stop employing the psychic on cases, but now that he and Spencer had been involved for almost a year, he actually looked forward to working with him. Of course that would be when Vick decided to keep him from a case, as if to spite him. The small laugh died on his lips when he thought about Shawn.
The night before, he had offered to take their relationship to the next level by asking him to move in and Shawn had more or less blown him off.
Shawn had climbed into with him bed after he made the suggestion but gone to sleep without even answering. Carlton on the other hand had laid up half the night pondering what was next for them. Did Shawn think that this whole thing was semi-serious? He had been the major factor in his decision to finally give his wife the divorce she had so desperately wanted, and Shawn had sat with him outside the mediator's office giving him a pep talk, the enormity of the divorce making him unable to remove himself from the cheap vinyl chair.
The night after it had all been finalized, Shawn had let him anger-fuck him into oblivion to relieve the stress. Afterwards, Carlton had spent an hour making it up to him by kissing every inch of his body before making passionate love to him. He'd later told Shawn he was sorry for taking his anger out on him with sex, but Shawn simply rolled over, kissed him softly and told him that now that he belonged to him totally, it didn't matter, because that's what people in love did for one another.
Shawn represented the culmination of all the changes Carlton had made in his life and with one shrug of a shoulder, he had thrown those life changing strides out the window. That morning, he chose to ignore Shawn. They ate breakfast in silence and Shawn didn't even really seem to notice. After cleaning up, he got ready to leave, silently grabbing his briefcase from the table beside the door and walking right past Shawn as he moved to kiss him good-bye. He let the door speak for him by slamming it shut on his way out.
It was the sudden presence of O'Hara at his side that brought him back to reality. Carlton glared up at her, waiting for her to speak. She bit her lip and scrunched up her face at the look he was giving her. "Can I help you with something O'Hara? Or are purposefully trying to piss me off?" That little nudge was all she needed to go off like a water sprinkler.
She dropped down onto the chair beside his desk. "It's just that for the past year or so, you've been… noticeably less angry than usual. We'd kind of gotten used to the new you and now you're all…" She raised her hands and turned her fingers into claws, "Grrr…" He narrowed his eyes, unimpressed with her impression. O'Hara wilted under his glare. "And I was… a little concerned."
He actually managed to not say the first snide remark that came to mind, instead taking a deep breath to keep himself calm. "Don't worry about it. It's nothing you need to get wrapped up in."
She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by Vick storming out of her office. "We got another one, people! Let's move out, before it gets cold!" Lassiter and O'Hara jumped up, grabbed their gear quickly to join Vick as she made her way out of the police station. As an afterthought, Carlton discreetly pulled his phone from his pocket, sending Shawn a text telling him he would be late for dinner. A few minutes later, his phone buzzed in his pocket with a reply.
It's all good.
Busy at the office.
See you tomorrow?
H&K's
Carlton began to feel that earlier anger build up inside of him once more. He had said he would be late for dinner. He didn't say that he hadn't wanted Shawn to come over. He had given him a key for that very reason, so after a long day or an especially brutal case, he could come home to waiting arms, or in some instances, commiserate together if they'd both worked the case. He didn't respond to the text, but snapped his phone closed and shoved it back into his pocket. He caught O'Hara looking at him with concern out of the corner of his eye. He outright ignored her, following the troops out of the precinct in silence.
Lassiter stood behind the forensics photographer snapping shots of the body, eyes flickering back and forth to catch something that would break the case. The click of O'Hara's heels signaled she was approached and Lassiter craned his head around to glance at her. "Same M.O. as the rest. Other than that, no connection to the other vics. Black male, thirty-four, worked as a mechanic at a shop a few blocks from here. According to all reports, a loving husband, good father, diligent worker, and friendly neighbor." O'Hara nodded as he spoke, never taking her eyes off the body and the vicious chest wound. After a moment, she turned away and moved to investigate the rest of the house.
Karen was outside talking to the reporters, or not talking to them, depending on how you looked at it. He could faintly hear her say no comment and make a statement at a later date, repeating herself against the relentless onslaught of questions. The man's wife and their two children were giving their statements to a uniform, leaving Lassiter to join O'Hara in looking around the house for clues. She was currently going through a stack of letters the wife had brought in before discovering the body of her husband.
When Lassiter walked in, she handed him a piece of mail. "Cell phone bill. Wife and kids are pretty normal, but look at the vics. One number dialed around lunchtime and late in the evening. Never any other time."
Lassiter gave her a slight nod of approval at her find. "So the loving husband had a mistress?" He handed the paper back to her. "Run the number and find out who she is. If she didn't do it, she might know more than the wife about why someone wanted him dead. And check with the uniform questioning the wife, make sure her alibi is solid."
O'Hara left to do just that, and Carlton did a walk-through of the entire house, but found nothing else of interest in the otherwise normal, blue-collar household. He walked back toward the living room just as the forensics team was finishing up. They sealed up their bags and kits, standing up to leave so they could start processing all the evidence.
One of them spotted Lassiter and approached him, holding up an evidence bag in his left hand. "This case might be looking up, Detective. We found a print on this one. Seems the perp slipped up this time. The rest were clean for prints or DNA, so this could be the break you're looking for. It'll be the first thing I run when we get back to the lab."
Carlton touched the bag with gentle fingers, mindful not to do anything that could compromise the evidence, eyes tracing the sharply folded lines of a single light blue paper crane.
By the time Carlton pulled up to his apartment, all the freaks were beginning to come out before the bars closed. He passed a few patrolmen clocking speeders and some very questionable looking women hanging out the street corners by his place. He had half hoped that Shawn might have changed his mind and stayed the night, but his Commando was not parked on the street, meaning that he was not going to be upstairs waiting for him.
Lassiter cursed himself for even thinking about letting Spencer move in with him. He vaguely knew of Shawn's track record with relationships and his commitment fears but he'd gone into their relationship anyway, thinking that theirs would somehow be different, that this time, they could make it work. As he moved to put the key into the lock, a thought crossed his mind.
Perhaps by mentioning them living together, he had scared Shawn away. Again, it all came down to Shawn being a commitment-phobe, but maybe he just wasn't ready for the next step. Fat chance, Carlton thought bitterly. Ten minutes into our first date, he was trying to get into my pants.' He pushed open the door, set his briefcase on the table and turned on the light.
He stopped short and very slowly scanned his apartment, heart hammering against his ribcage.
On his couch, his coffee table, kitchen table, sink and parts of the floor were hundreds of small paper cranes of various colors. A flash of fear ran through him, seconds before his carefully honed police instinct took over. Carlton grabbed his sidearm from the figure eight holster strapped around his shoulders and slowly made his way into the back rooms. The bathroom floor, tub, and sink were covered in more cranes. He cleared it of any intruders and made his way into the bedroom.
The bed was nothing but paper cranes and the two nightstands on either side of the bed were covered with them. The few items he had on top of the dresser weren't even visible under the cranes. Lassiter was taking stock of everything when he jumped about a foot in the air when someone knocked loudly on his door.
He made his way through the flock of paper birds, careful not to trample them in case they turned out to be evidence, and brought his eye up to the peep hole. He calmed down a little when he saw Shawn standing outside and let out a shaky breath. He holstered his weapon before opening the door.
Shawn's smile lit up the dark hallway. He held up a red paper crane in his hand, which was covered in Band-Aids. The number 1,000 was written on the crane with a marker. "Do I get my wish now?" He said, looking Carlton dead in the eye.
His mind took a minute to comprehend what the hell his lover was talking about. When the tumblers fell into place, days of researching the significance of origami cranes coming to the forefront of his mind, he cocked his head to the side and returned Shawn's stare. "And what is it that you would like to wish for, pray tell?" He said, a bit more rudely than he intended.
Shawn walked into Carlton's personal bubble until their noses were almost touching. "I wish I had said yes to the proposal you made last night."
Carlton had the decency to look shocked at the statement. He peered deeply into Shawn's eyes, looking for any sign of deception there, any hint that this was just a ploy to get back on his good side. Seeing nothing, he pieced everything together, with all the paper cranes and the dozen or so Band-Aids on both his lovers' hands, and the dark circles beginning to form under his eyes. "I am impressed, Spencer. You've outdone yourself this time. Bad timing and poor taste in choosing your method of apology, but I am impressed."
Perhaps those psychic vibes had picked up something, but because they hadn't brought Shawn in on the case, he hadn't realized what the cranes signified.
Shawn placed his hand on his chest and grinned. "Oh, Lassie-" He was cut off by a rough hand grabbing his shirt and yanking him forward.
"Wish granted."
Afterward, as they both caught their breath from their vigorous lovemaking, Carlton idly ran his fingers through Shawn's hair, making the younger man purred like a kitten. Before sleep overtook them, Carlton ceased his movements and nudged Shawn.
He grumbled a bit. "Hhmm, what..?"
Carlton chuckled softly at his sex drunk voice, resuming his gentle petting. "I wanted to know what possessed you to inflict carpal tunnel syndrome on yourself and make those damn birds, now, of all times."
Shawn shifted from his side and buried his face in his lover's fuzzy chest. "I wanted to do something from the heart and the idea just… came to me."
At face value, Carlton had no reason to disbelieve Shawn, but he couldn't ignore the quiet little voice in the back of his head, the voice that followed him into an uneasy slumber.
The first thing Juliet noticed was that the bounce that had been absent from Lassiter's step the day previous was back in full force. She even dared to say there was a small smirk on his face, though he tried to hide it with his usual sternness as he said good morning to his fellow officers. She was glad to see it back, considering how much pressure he had been under since this serial killer had been active, and it was nice to see that her partner had found some outlet that didn't involve guns or war reenactments.
She had been waiting for the head of forensics to come out from the chief's office with the profile on the killer, and had been for quite some time when she spotted Lassiter coming into the station.
At one point, she'd thought that the forensics guy had purposefully gone above her head to give the report to Vick personally, brazenly walked passed O'Hara without a single word and straight into the chief's office, but with every minute that passed, she had begun to second guess herself. It had been almost a half hour and she could see Karen through the windows, getting angrier with every word the tech said.
Finally, she had reached for the phone on her desk, motioning for the forensics guy to leave with a dismissive flick of her hand. Again, the guy passed by her without saying a word, passing Lassiter as he walked into the bullpen, and O'Hara's attentions were diverted.
"Well, you certainly look in better spirits today!" He didn't respond but the smirk got a little wider. She recognized that look from half the men –and some of the women– she worked with. He got lucky last night. Maybe he's been getting lucky for a while now, and his sour attitude yesterday was just a fluke, a fight or misunderstanding. Whatever it is, I'm glad he's feeling better. She grinned to herself, happy for him. Her fax machine beeped, knocking her back into the moment as the document started to print.
As she went to grab the paper from the tray, she tried again. "Forensics was in Vick's office for over thirty minutes. They must have found something at the crime scene, but whatever it was, she didn't look happy too happy about it."
"The guy I spoke to yesterday thought he found something." Lassiter deflated. "Maybe that fingerprint turned out to be nothing."
"Well, we'll find out about it eventually. For now, we keep working with what little we have."
Lassiter set his briefcase on his desk, his earlier bluster all but gone. "Don't remind me."
Juliet offered him a tiny, consoling smile as they got down to brass tacks, following up on leads and tracking down the suspicious number on their vic's cell phone statement. An hour or so later, she saw Shawn Spencer walk in, dressed in faded jeans that accentuated all the right parts, a yellow and green print jersey shirt, and beat up sneakers. His hair looked like an octopus ran its tentacles through it and as always, he had that self satisfied look on his face. Juliet wondered, not for the first time, how he could always be so laid back and casual, considering the work they all did.
She started to say hello when chief's office door slammed open, revealing a visibly livid Karen Vick. "Spencer!" She shouted, her voice booming around the bullpen.
Everyone jumped, including Shawn, his sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor as he stopped short to stare at her. Lassiter looked up from his work, not even realizing Shawn had come to the precinct until he'd heard his name shouted. He glanced between Vick and Shawn in confusion, Vick resolutely pointed her finger into her office, commanding him to comply.
With a nod, Shawn hurried past her into the office without a word, having never seen her this upset. She shut the door sharply behind her once he was inside and motioned angrily for him to sit. She then sat on the edge of her desk, glaring imperiously down at him as she handed him a manila folder.
Lassiter had wheeled his chair over to O'Hara's desk at that point and she blinked at him in confusion. "I thought she said she didn't want him on this case. What changed?"
He shook his head, completely in the dark, as he'd dutifully not mentioned a thing to Shawn about the case, lest he entice him to interfere, despite Vick's orders not to involve him. "She realized we desperately needed his help and called him in?"
Jules' eyes widened dramatically. She knew that the outright hatred Lassiter had for the psychic had waned, but she never thought she would hear Lassiter admit they needed his help. Ever. She turned back to look into the office. The chief was pointing to the file and if Juliet didn't know any better, she would have sworn Vick was grilling Shawn like a suspect.
Shawn closed the file sharply, a frown marring his features as he threw it on the desk. He kept shaking his head and throwing his hands up. Lassiter had seen this move on a thousand suspects, an unconscious defensive gesture, and he wondered what he needed to be defensive about. Karen was now standing toe to toe with Shawn, and he looked slightly frightened by the intimidation act. He finally shook his head, spun on his heel, and moved to leave the office.
Karen was hot on his trail, face contorted in rage. "Spencer!" She shouted again. He had almost made it down the hall when she yelled his name. He hung his head for a brief second before he turned to look at her, his face an eerily calm mask, like he knew what was coming next and didn't care.
She held her ground against his expression, not swayed in the slightest. Karen motioned to the nearest officer between them. "Mr. Spencer, you have the right to remain silent."
Lassiter and O'Hara jumped to their feet when she started reading Shawn his Miranda rights. Carlton rushed over to Shawn, who was arguing loudly with the officer cuffing him though he didn't physically resist. Everyone else watched the proceedings intently, the bullpen unnaturally quiet.
"Chief, what are you doing?" Lassiter asked incredulously. The officer finally managed to get the cuffs on Shawn and was holding him still, waiting for further orders.
Karen turned to O'Hara and Lassiter. "Lab reports came back this morning. The fingerprint on the crane found with Mr. Santander's body came back as a match to Mr. Spencer."
Jules was scandalized by the notion that their quirky psychic could kill someone and she stared at the chief with widened, disbelieving eyes. "That's not possible..."
Lassiter turned his head in disbelief to look at Shawn. It was all just a coincidence. An awful, unlucky coincidence. "Chief, why would Shawn want to kill a mechanic? One he had absolutely no connection to?" His only means of transportation was his motorcycle, which he worked on himself.
"Not just Santander, Detective Lassiter. We looked through the phone records of the first victim, Victor Pressman. Guess who he called three days before he died?"
At this, Shawn spoke up. "Pressman called me, yes. But not the husband, it was his wife I spoke to."
The chief made a little ah sound and smiled sardonically, like that solved everything. "But how do you explain your prints on paper crane? I know for a fact you weren't at that crime scene yesterday. And you won't even tell me where you were or what you were doing yesterday, during the time our victim died."
Shawn turned to look Lassiter dead in the eye. "I was making origami cranes at my office all day." He turned his back on them, wiggling his bandaged fingers at them, the cuffs jangling on his wrists.
Jules' face fell at this and Karen shook her head. "And what about this morning? We sent a black and white by your apartment, but you weren't there. Yet when I called you personally, you said you were at home. How do you explain that?"
Lassiter knew that if Shawn just told her the truth, he could alibi out of Karen's accusations, but in confessing, he would be crossing a line Lassiter wasn't ready to even toe just yet. In protecting his lover, Shawn was willing to take the fall for a crime he would never, ever commit.
Shawn peered over at Lassiter once more. "Easy. I lied about where I was. Big deal. All that proves is that I am dishonest when girls call asking where I am."
Karen managed a small, tight smile. It was obvious she didn't want to do this, that she wanted Shawn to exonerate himself, but he wasn't helping her to do so. "Then where were you, Mr. Spencer?"
O'Hara looked like she was about to have kittens. She knew that Shawn would never commit murder, but he was refusing every opening the chief was giving him to clear his name. After a moment, she realized that he was hiding something, something he didn't want to reveal, no matter the consequences, but couldn't figure out why.
Shawn shrugged with a casual, maddening ease. "Here and there."
Jules finally snapped, moving to place herself in-between Shawn and Karen. "Chief, look at this rationally. If Shawn says he talked to Pressman's wife, call her to confirm it. And besides his prints on the crane from the Santander scene, what connects him to the other two victims?"
Shawn nodded in earnest, latching onto anything that would explain away the coincidences without telling them what he'd really been doing. And who. "What she said. Why would I want to kill anyone of those people? Where's my motivation?"
Sighing, Karen put a hand on her hip. "That's true. But with his prints on the evidence and him not willing to divulge his whereabouts, this doesn't look good for him." She glanced at Shawn, silently pleading for him to deny any of this so she could hire him to find the real killer.
His response, unfortunately, was to look at everyone but her. "Mr. Spencer, please just explain this all to me so I won't have to throw you in a cell. Please?"
Shawn refused to speak, making a grand show of pursing his lips together, and Lassiter finally leapt into the fray. "Chief, a word in your office?"
She dropped her hand from her hip and nodded in frustration.
The door shut behind them softly and Carlton shuffled around nervously for a moment. Karen crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for him to speak. She knew that whatever the detective was about to tell her was uncomfortable for him, going by his body language alone, and not on her observations of his personal life. She wasn't blind.
She had her suspicions about what was causing her head detective to relax so much lately. When she'd first met him, she was convinced that he could swallow coal and excrete diamonds. Now, he seemed more at ease with himself, more so when Spencer was around. But she wasn't going to push the issue and force him to open up to her. Karen just hoped that whatever confession would be forthcoming would clear the name of their best chance of closing this case, however damning it was for the both of them.
"I can personally vouch for Spencer's whereabouts last night. And I can hand over all the paper cranes he said he made to the lab guys. They can see if they were folded by the same person, right? No one has the same finger print, so no one can fold something the same way. Shawn is right-handed, maybe our perp his left-handed at they'll be able to show they weren't created by the same person." He was grasping at straws, but anything was better than watching Shawn get thrown in jail.
"Why wouldn't Spencer just tell me that he went out with you last night? It could have saved us from having that huge scene."
Lassiter cocked his head. She was fishing for more information, he knew it, as it was her job to make sure an alibi was airtight. He turned to look out the windows of her office and saw O'Hara talking to Shawn as the uniform sat him down on the bench to hook him up to the restraint bar. Carlton internally sighed and dove in head first.
"We didn't go out last night. Before we reached Santander's house, Spencer told me was busy at the office. Guster was most likely there, he can vouch for that portion of the day. By the time I got home, he had already been there for at least three hours, waiting outside for me to arrive."
He thought back to how Shawn had set up all those cranes around his apartment. It would have taken him a while to park his bike two blocks over, walk back, get inside, and start arranging. But it still didn't explain how his prints had gotten on the evidence at the Santander crime scene.
Karen arched an eyebrow. "He was already at your home? He has a key to your place?" She knew that was a blatantly obvious attempt to get him to spill the beans, but she wanted some honesty this morning.
He didn't answer her, but simply looked away, resorting to an I didn't do it whistle. Karen recognized that would be all he would give her, in lieu of a real answer. She uncrossed her arms and at least had the good taste to give him a placating smile. Her head detective was giving Spencer an alibi, and Guster was too afraid of prison to lie to her if she called to confirm he'd been at the Psych office all day.
"I'll release him for now, but he is still our best lead in the case. Now, ethically, I can't have a suspect working on a case, but I think we can throw him a few bones."
Carlton visibly relaxed, sighing in relief that Shawn would be released, but still kept his composure. "O'Hara mentioned his connections to our victims. Keep him away from the Pressman and Santander files, but let him look at the other two."
Shawn tugged fruitlessly at the wrist restraints attached to the metal bench. He knew they wouldn't give, but he was having a hard time sitting still. He glanced into Chief Vick's office, where Lassiter was still talking to her. He had a sneaking suspicion as to what their conversation was about, and began beating himself up for backing his lover into this corner.
What were the freakin' odds that the same time he decides to fold a thousand paper cranes that some whack job was off doing the exact same thing? He wanted to kick himself for not snooping around the station earlier, like he normally did when Lassiter was on a case. But Lassiter refused to talk about it and Shawn hadn't received any calls about coming in to review the case, so he left it alone. And look at where his sudden maturity had gotten him.
O'Hara was on her cell trying to get a hold of Gus, while the uniform Vick had sicced on him was staring at him like hungry Native Americans used to stare at buffalo.
"Officer Frost, you can release Mr. Spencer."
Shawn jerked his head up in surprise. Vick had come out of her office with Lassiter trailing behind her. The expression on his face was all Shawn needed to see to know that he had told Vick the truth, or some version of it, to get him off the hook. The officer un-cuffed him and stalked away with a disappointed look on his face, leaving Shawn to wonder what he'd done to annoy him.
Shaking the thought off, he stood up as Jules rejoined them, slipping her phone back into her pocket. "Gus is on his way. He has one more delivery and then he'll make his way here."
Shawn thanked her profusely, though he was cut off when the chief slapped another file into his hand.
"Fred Donnelly and Raul Ramos. The second and third victims. Donnelly was a real estate agent and Ramos was studying marine biology. Neither knew each other and lived on opposite sides of town. Figure out how they're connected and I might just reconsider throwing you in a cell."
Nodding solemnly, Shawn made his way to Lassiter's desk and sat down. He opened the folder to pull out the crime scene notes and photos. He focused in on the pictures of the bodies. Gaping stab wound to the heart with paper cranes placed on top of them. The rest of the scene held no other hints as to how the killer got in or out. It was the same with both the victims.
After a while, Shawn couldn't make any sort of sense of what he was looking at, his eyes watering from focusing so hard. Nothing stood out to him and it was driving him nuts. He eventually gave up on the photos, turning instead to the reports to see if he could glean anything from them.
Gus came into the station a few moments later, making a beeline right for Shawn. "What the hell is going on? Jules says you were arrested for a quadruple homicide!" He stopped and looked down at Shawn, realizing only then that he was not in handcuffs or a cell. "Dammit, Shawn! I ran four yellow lights to get here!" He plopped down on a chair and sulked.
Vick saw Guster arrive and within seconds, she and Jules were at his side. He blanched at how quickly and quietly they had descended upon him.
"Gus," Jules said, apologizing with a glance for spooking him, "can you verify that Shawn was at the office with you all day?"
"I had to make an emergency delivery around 6:30, so I left around then, but yeah, we were together. We left to run some errands but we were never separated." Shawn mutely threw Vick an I told you so face. "And did you receive a call from someone named Pressman a week ago?"
Gus nodded his head. "Woman was hysterical. Swore up and down that her husband was having an affair and only Shawn here," he hooked a thumb to the man beside him, "could prove it one way or another. I put him on the phone and she talked his ear off for almost an hour. We missed the hot dog cart because of her…" That smug look crossed Shawn's face again.
Satisfied that Shawn was cleared for two of the victims, Chief Vick thanked Gus and walked away, O'Hara behind her.
"Whoa!" Shawn cried suddenly, digging back through the police reports to pull out the statements the officers had taken from the families. "Gus! Ramos and Donnelly's wives said that they suspected their husbands of having an affair. They won't give me the file on the other two victims, but I would bet you a million dollars that they were cheating, too!"
Gus wrinkled his nose up at that. "Pfft. Who goes around killing cheaters? These kinds of cases usually involve one cheater and the person they cheated on or with, not some random killer targeting whoever the cheater was. And why did they suspect you of murdering them?"
With a roll of his eyes, Shawn handed him the stack of crime scene photos. Gus took one look and almost upchucked right there. He barely managed to keep his breakfast down as he carefully thumbed through the photos.
"All four victims had cranes placed on their stab wounds."
He blinked at Shawn before it dawned on him. "All those paper cranes you folded yesterday."
Shawn nodded. "The last victim's crane had my prints all over it."
Gus whistled, shaking his head at the stroke of bad luck. "I don't know how you keep get yourself into these things." He threw the photos back on the desk with disgust. "So what, we make it like you had a vision and drag all the widows down here to accuse them of murdering their husbands in the exact same manner? Real smart."
"Oh, Gus. Have you no faith in me at all? The widows are innocent. Clean as a whistle, though maybe if they had gotten a little dirty, their husbands might not have strayed." Gus groaned and put his head in his hands. Shawn smirked and continued looking over the files, seeking more ammo for his upcoming vision.
Lassiter chose that moment to come up behind Gus, placing a hand on his shoulder. Gus glanced up sharply and Carlton cocked his head back, clearly telling the man to beat feet.
Getting the hint, Gus stood up and left with a wave. Shawn put down the papers he was poring over and looked at Carlton. "How much did you tell Vick?"
Carlton scrubbed his face with his hands and let out a bone weary sigh. "Enough to let her know where you were and in what capacity."
Shawn hissed. "Ouch."
Leaning forward, Lassiter dropped his voice. "Well, did you honestly think I was going to take the fall like that, just to protect me?"
Any snide remark Shawn had was forgotten when he ducked his head, looking away from Lassiter and back to the police files. His eyes landed on something in the police report and without hesitation, Shawn flung himself out of the chair. He began flailing round the bullpen in a fit.
"I see Shamu in a western style ranch! Wait! No. A Cape Cod! A little unassuming number where he could raise a family." By this time, a crowd had begun to form and Chief Vick and Jules were pushing through them to get a front row seat to the show.
"Ramos was buying a house from Donnelly! He was helping him find a house for when he graduated. I see Pressman filing tax forms for approval on the sale." He stopped flailing and opened his eyes to see Vick staring at him.
"And what about Santander? How does he fit in to all this?"
Smirking, Shawn shrugged slowly. "Where else would you take your car when it's broken down? All these men were cheating on their wives and Ramos is the connection between them!"
Vick didn't need anymore to go on. "Bring in Ramos' widow."
O'Hara and Lassiter nodded, gearing up to leave. Shawn raised his hand and motioned for Vick's attention. She turned back to him and sighed, rolling her eyes. "Yes, you can go with them, Mr. Spencer."
He thanked her and dashed through the crowd after Carlton and Jules. Halfway to the entrance, he passed Gus coming back inside. Shawn reached to grab Gus by his suit collar, making him yelp as he was dragged back outside.
Shifting slightly in her seat, Jules tossed a glance at Lassiter. His body language as he drove screamed to leave him alone but she just couldn't help herself. What Karen had told her seemed too bizarre to be believed, and while she knew the chief would never lie to her, she had to hear it from the horses' mouth. And since Shawn and Gus were following them to Marissa Ramos' apartment in their own car, she had to take her shot while she could. She opened her mouth to speak, but it was Lassiter beat her to it.
"Almost eight months, yes, it's pretty serious, and I didn't tell you because I still don't fully trust you, not after my birthday party." He hadn't taken his eyes off the road, not wanting to see the hurt look in O'Hara's eyes. Carlton had many valid reasons for not telling a lot of people about his relationship with Shawn, but it was more difficult with Jules. Despite her disastrous efforts, she only wanted the best for him, to see him happy for once.
Jules turned her head to glance back at Gus' blue car behind them, her eyes on the form in the passenger seat before looking to Lassiter. "I just would have never pictured you and Shawn, that's all. It's a bit of a shock."
Carlton snorted derisively. "How do you think I feel?"
O'Hara managed to laugh at that. It definitely was a case of opposites attracting and she had no doubt their attraction to one another had thrown the otherwise stoic detective off balance. "All the secrecy aside, I'm glad you found someone."
The rest of the car ride was silent, but no longer uncomfortable.
When they finally reached Ramos' apartment, Lassiter and O'Hara made their way up the short walk, Gus and Shawn close behind them. Lassiter opened the screen door and knocked sharply. "Santa Barbara Police Department!" When no one answered, Lassiter reached for the door knob, turning it slowly. To their surprise, it was unlocked.
O'Hara motioned for Shawn and Gus to wait outside while they entered the premises, clearing each room one by one. It was obvious after a few moments that no one was home, but they made their checks anyway. "You can come in now." She said, once they were done.
Shawn stepped inside and peered around the small, yet neatly decorated apartment. The doorway in the living room lead into the kitchen and Shawn immediately noticed no dishes in the sink, no dishwasher, and one knife missing from the block on the center of the island.
He placed his hand to his head and upped the amount of mysteriousness to his voice. "She is searching… for her next victim. I see her with the knife and she's going to kill again!"
O'Hara grabbed her radio from her belt and called the dispatcher, telling them to put out an APB on Ramos' widow. While she did this, Shawn made his way back into the living room, eyes scanning around for any clue as to where she would strike next. He zeroed in on a photo and frantically waved for Gus to join him.
"Did you find anything?" He asked, voice lowered so the detectives wouldn't overhear them.
"Gus, do you see what I see?"
Taking in the décor of the room, Gus nodded. "That his widow is colorblind? I mean, look at those curtains!"
Shawn moved his head back in shock, blinking rapidly. "Dude. I don't even know you." He pointed a finger at a picture frame sitting on an end table.
It was a picture of Raul and his wife at beach. Gus peered at it for a moment, his eyes widening in understanding. He started jumping up and down. Shawn joined him excitedly as Gus whispered vehemently. "It's the lady from the art supply store! You handed her the paper crane you folded! She must have thought it was her lucky day. She can kill her next victim and frame someone else at the same time!" Shawn and Gus ceased their celebrating and stared at each other.
"But why is she killing all these people and who is she going after now?" Gus asked him.
Shawn thought back to the police reports. "She must have found out Raul was cheating on her. Surrounded everywhere she went by cheaters and she just snapped. But she couldn't kill him outright and make herself the only suspect, so she kills Pressman first. If he was helping them with the tax paperwork for their new house, she could have easily known he was having an affair.
"After that, she waits to see how the police handle it. She watched the news and must have seen Vick talking to the reporters. Me and Carlton watched the same thing. Anyone with half a brain could have taken her reluctance to talk to the press as a sign they had no suspects. So she moves on to Donnelly. Same thing. He was helping them shop for houses and she probably talked to his secretary more than a few times while they were looking. And you know how women love to gossip.
"The secretary lets it slip and the missus tucks it away for future use. After she kills the realtor, she figures its safe to kill her husband. It goes off without a hitch. Police don't suspect a thing. But she needs a few more to be safe. The next victim she knew through her husband. Guys and their mechanics are usually tight. He mentions it one night at dinner and there goes Santander."
Gus pumped his arm in excitement. "We are so good! And we could probably get some major points from the chief after she wrongfully arrested you."
Shawn held up a hand, shaking his head. "I've already put her though enough, lying and making her think I'd really committed all these murders. But our problem now is where would Mrs. Ramos go for her final victim and why did she need another one?" Shawn moved further into the sitting room and perused it one more time.
Gus snapped his fingers. "Raul was a student at UC Santa Barbara, right?"
A smirk spread across Shawn's face. "What are professors famous for with their female students?" Shawn offered out his fist to Gus, who bumped it with a grin.
Shawn then dropped to floor, yelling in pain and clawing at his chest. O'Hara and Lassiter ran into the room to see what all the commotion was about.
"I see where she's going! Reese Witherspoon in a horrible shade of pink! John Belushi in a toga! Homoerotic frat boy hazing! Streaking!"
Gus stepped in for Shawn, interpreting the visions for the detectives. "College! Raul was a student at UCSB. She must have gone there looking for her next victim."
Not needing to be told twice, O'Hara and Lassiter were running back to their car, O'Hara on the radio barking orders. Gus helped Shawn off the floor and with one last fist bump, they too were out the door.
When they finally made it to the university, classes were beginning to let out and they had to fight their way through the crush of students. The finally made it into the registrar's office only a little worse for wear. Lassiter strolled up to the little old lady seated at the desk, who seemed so tiny and frail that a strong wind might blow her away.
Lassiter flashed the woman his badge. She was taken aback by the approach. "What can I do for you, officer?" She asked, her meek voice shaking.
Shawn and Gus had to bite back their laughter as Lassiter grit his teeth in frustration. "It's Detective. We need Raul Ramos' class schedule." She nodded her head and turned to a computer that was just as old as she was. It took several moments for her to hunt and peck for the information they asked for, but finally, the printer spit out a sheet of paper. She handed the paper to Lassiter, who snatched it from her with a grumbled thanks.
They all crowded around the schedule, quickly going down the list of classes.
"You can scratch off the female teachers." Jules said.
Lassiter reached for the pen clipped to the breast pocket of his suit jacket and crossed out all the female teachers.
"And Mr. Stover was old when I was here years ago." Gus chimed in helpfully.
Shawn tapped a finger over a name. "Mr. Harvey's wife died a few months ago, so he's got no one to cheat on." They all turned to stare at Shawn questioningly. "What? Don't you read the obits?"
Gus punched Shawn's arm to get him back on track. "That leaves five male teachers and we don't even know if they're married or not."
"Let me see that." The little old lady extended her hand and Lassiter returned the schedule to her, much more nicely than he'd taken it from her. She put on a pair of reading glasses and squinted down at the names. "Well, the only married ones are Professors' Muncie and Bazill." She looked at their confused faces. "When you've worked here as long as I have, you learn certain things."
Shawn leaned over the desk and smiled warmly. Grandmas loved him and he played into that shamelessly. He had scanned her nametag when they'd rushed in, so he looked her square in the eye, assuming a doting tone. "Say, Eunice…" She smiled back when she saw that he hadn't looked down to get her name, "You seem like a smart, knowledgeable lady, who knows all the comings and goings around this place. You would have heard about one of these professors having an affair, right?"
A scandalous expression crossed her face and she became an entirely different person, the meek voice gone. She scooted closer to stage whisper. "I've heard the rumors about Bazill, not that they're so much rumors but the honest to God truth. The Board investigated him a few times for fraternizing with his students before but hush money made it all go away. He's tenured, you know, and well renowned. Men like that never get in trouble."
"Well, he's about to, if we don't make it in time. You think you could help us out?"
With a fond wave, Shawn thanked Eunice profusely as they all ran out of the office and made their way across the quad. She had given them directions to Bazill's classroom and the faculty lounge in that wing. The students had made it to their next classes by then, leaving the way blessedly clear, so it was only a few short minutes to the other side of the campus. They made it just in time to see that Vick and their back-up had pulled up to the building.
The halls were clear and all that could be heard was the sound of all their shoes hitting the tile. They went to the faculty lounge first and burst in, scaring the crap out of two teachers seated at a table eating lunch. Not seeing any sign of Bazill, they apologized to the teachers, and ran like hell to his classroom. When they finally made it to Bazill's room, Shawn stopped to rub the painful stitch that had formed in his side as Carlton and Jules opened the door.
"Freeze!" Vick, Lassiter, and O'Hara all shouted at Mrs. Ramos. She paused mid-stab and looked up in horror at the police filling up the empty classroom. Shawn saw the deer in the headlights look on her face and knew that she would do anything necessary not to go to jail. He saw the she hadn't planned on being caught, hadn't accounted for what would happen if she did, and she was now frightened by that reality. Frightened, knife wielding killers were rarely a good thing. Before this became a hostage situation, he snaked through all the bodies to put himself ahead of the police line.
Lassiter shouted at him to get back, but Shawn never hesitated as he made his way to the woman. At this point, she was capable of doing anything and a bunch of adrenaline fueled police officers wouldn't be so inclined to react logically to any of her attempts to escape with Bazill. She wasn't going to die today, and neither was Professor Bazill, who was sweating bullets, desperately trying to get away from the psycho beast holding a knife over his head. This was going to end peacefully, no suicide by cop, no negotiations that went sideways and got the hostage killed. Everyone of them was going to walk away from this, the serial killer included. Her victims deserved justice, real justice.
Shawn calmly put up his hands to show her that he was unarmed. "Look, uh-"
"My name is Marissa!" She shouted, cutting him off. "Is it seriously a trait all men possess that doesn't let them remember a woman's name?" She arched her eyebrow and tightened her grip on the knife.
Shawn shrugged his shoulders. He'd hesitated oh, so briefly on her name and it had allowed her to take control, so he wasn't about to let it happen again. He assumed his normal, cavalier attitude.
"I don't know rightfully know. I've never really been the type to have a one-night stand without risking calling out someone else's name in bed. That's how you end up alone after getting kicked in the junk. But I'll tell you what I do know… if you don't drop the knife and release Bazill there, these police officers will not hesitate to shoot you. And you don't want to die, right? You want others like Raul to die, but not yourself."
Her eyes began to dart around the room at the mention of her deceased husband. "You don't know anything about Raul!" She shouted hysterically. She removed the knife at Bazill's neck to wave it threateningly at Shawn when he started approaching her.
"Oh, but I do." He said, keeping his voice even as he continued edging his way toward Marissa. "You swore to never leave his side, 'til death do you part. Then you found out he wasn't keeping true to his vows. He apologized to you, promised he'd change, do whatever it took to make it up to you."
She nodded her head as he spoke, picking up where he'd left off. "He promised me. And he swore he would make me a thousand paper cranes and use the wish to make me happy again."
Shawn glanced over his shoulder to toss Lassiter an apologetic look. "I guess nothing in this world can be considered original anymore." He turned back to Marissa, who still had a death grip on Bazill. He was deathly pale, looking for all the world like someone who was about to pass out from fright.
"So, Raul swore to make things right and you believed him. Took him back into your loving arms and forgave him. But lo and behold, after every promise he made, you caught him cheating again. And that was the last straw, wasn't it? You thought you had the perfect life, but everywhere you turned, you saw other men cheating on their wives. Your real estate agent, your mechanic… his professor. So you decided you were going to kill Raul for what he'd done. And use the other cheating men in your life to cover it up. Leave those bastards a crane for all the lies your husband told you."
A tear slid down Marissa's cheek, her grip on the knife loosening. "And when I ran into you the other day at the art supply store, you took the crane I so generously made for you and used it for evil. How dare you?"
Marissa glared at him, though the effect was ruined by her quickly reddening eyes as more tears fell down her cheeks. "Like you're any different from every other man? How long 'til you're cheating on your wife because you can't keep it in your pants?"
Shawn gracefully dodged that one. "And that right there was your problem. Why you couldn't stop after successfully hiding yourself from police scrutiny. For all the evil men you killed, more and more kept popping up. You don't want to stop, because there's more cranes to pass out for all of Raul's broken promises… but you know you can't keep this up forever. It's too much, and eventually, you'll drown in it."
He got to within a foot of Marissa and with smooth, gentle movements, he took the knife from her hand. As soon as she was disarmed, the detectives moved in to cuff her, and to remove Bazill from the scene before he had a heart attack.
Flopping down on the couch, Shawn turned on the television and flipped through the stations, looking for something to watch that would keep his attention for more than a few minutes. Carlton had called to say he would be late, but that had been hours ago, and now, it was almost one in the morning. He was tired from the drama of the day, and all he wanted to do was get some sleep. But he knew that Carlton wanted to talk to him, Shawn could hear it in his voice when he'd called, so he fought sleep by trying to find something entertaining on TV.
Carlton opened the door to their apartment –it was still a bit weird, considering it his and Shawn's apartment- and set his briefcase on the floor. He peeked his head into the living room, where the television was casting a blue hue on the figure seated on the couch. He walked over to Shawn, only to find him asleep. Carlton smiled and placed a tender hand on his shoulder.
At the touché Shawn jerked awake. "Sorry." He mumbled when he saw Carlton standing over him. "I tried to stay up. But you know how stimulating Bob Ross can be."
Chuckling softly, Lassiter sat down next to Shawn. The psychic immediately curled up next to him. "It's fine. I'm way later than I said I would be." He said as he wrapped an arm around Shawn, who was now using him as a human pillow.
"Marissa Ramos will be arraigned tomorrow morning and Professor Bazill was cleared by the hospital, though I don't think he'll want to leave anytime soon." Shawn tilted his head to peer up at Carlton in confusion. "His wife was there when we left and she was giving him the third degree. Someone clued her in on the reason Marissa had tried to kill him. Needless to say, she wasn't very happy."
Shawn laughed and languidly shifted himself against Lassiter, moving to press a feather light kiss to his lips. "And Chief Vick?"
Carlton let out a heavy breath. "You are officially cleared as a suspect in the case, and she wanted me to convey to you how sorry she is for arresting you…" He trailed off, his hand finding a way under Shawn's shirt to the warm skin underneath.
Shawn arched into the touch, humming sleepily. "I meant about what you told her."
"She told me that she fully supports us and our decision to keep things quiet. But she's no fool. She knows how the system works when cops come out. She informed me my options were to never talk about it and keep up the pretense, or come out, face review, and possibly spend the rest of my career jockeying a desk."
Shawn saw nothing. Henry had pretty much told him the same thing when they told him about their relationship. With all the new laws, the department couldn't do anything if Lassiter came out, and probably wouldn't, considering his sterling reputation, but cops were cops. There were a million different ways to retaliate. Especially if it got out that he was dating their resident psychic. Accusations of favoritism could crop up. If any lawyers found out, they could try to use their relationship to prove they'd been colluding on cases, to frame innocent people to bolster their arrest numbers.
The possibilities were endless, yet annoyingly creative, given how hateful people could be when they put their mind to it. And there were his fellows officers themselves, who might feel betrayed by his coming out, who might think back to any benign interaction in the field, in the locker room, in the showers, and find something malicious that had never been there before. Those officers could potentially use that as reason to not back him up on a call, as officers had years back. Shawn remembered the case, how the officer had died because his fellow officers had refused to help out the queer. He refused to even imagine that happening to Lassiter. Times were better now, minds were opening, but sometimes, despite growing enlightenment, shit just happened.
But what could they do about it? Stop seeing each other? They wouldn't give each other up, just because of a few prejudiced coworkers. The attraction between them had been there for a while, simmering under the surface of snarky remarks and surly glares. When they could no longer ignore it, Shawn had finally acted on all the tension between them and asked Lassiter on a date. There had been resistance at first, as he was still technically a married man, but all it took was a kiss and the rest was history. But all Lassiter had ever wanted to be was a cop, and Shawn wouldn't ever take that from him, so if it meant keeping themselves in the closet, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make, as long as Lassie was happy.
Shawn whispered into Carlton's lips as he kissed him again. "I love you and I would never make you choose. Whatever you decide, I'm with you."
Carlton wrapped his arms around Shawn tightly and buried his face in his neck. They pawed at each other for a few moments before Shawn rolled off the couch, holding his hand out to Carlton. He took it and Shawn tugged him up onto his to feet to pull him toward the bedroom.
"Right now, all I want to do is curl up in bed with you and forget this day. We'll figure out the rest tomorrow. Together."
"Wish granted." Shawn replied, unable to keep his voice from betraying how happy that truly made him.
For those of you who have never encountered my stories before, I like to employ what I call DeMarcos Reckoning (like Shire Reckoning, but without all the hairy feet) in my work. From what I understand from the special features on the DVD's, Shawn was 10 in 1985. So by 1988, he would be thirteen, in seventh grade and all about girls. Ten years ago when I was in the seventh grade, all the boys were finally getting over the girls have cooties thing and trying to get a girlfriend.