A/N: A little idea in my mind that quickly took root with a substantial plot...enjoy. :)
Changes of Heart
by writingraconteur
"There's a kid in the lobby, Lassie."
Carlton Lassiter looked up to see the least-wanted face approaching through the crowded bullpen. Shawn Spencer grinned widely, saluting with his ever-present buddy Burton Guster at his side.
"Spencer, go away." he growled shortly.
"Awh, come on Lassie-face," he prodded good-naturedly. "I know children are your specialty."
"Tell O'Hara, she'll take care of it," he muttered, flipping through sheets of paper. "She loves the damn things like they're useful or something."
"Carlton!" Shawn gasped in fake-disbelief. "How could you!"
"What's going on?" Juliet O'Hara stepped in, apparently in a better mood than normal.
"There's a ickle gurl in the lobby, Jules," Shawn whispered secretively.
"We've just heard Lassiter here insult kids and you in one sentence." Gus put in, affronted.
"Oh, really?" she brightened, determined, apparently not hearing the last bit about the head detective. "Okay. I'll go see what she needs then." She set the files down on her desk, marching away. Carlton watched her retreating back in disgust.
"Kids." he muttered, shaking his head.
"You sound sixty-five already, Lassie," Shawn murmured sorrowfully, but was quickly dismissed with a crumpled paper ball to his head.
Meanwhile Juliet had made her way across the floor to where the benches were, and quickly spotted the young girl among the juvenile delinquents, old geezers and bikers in leather jackets.
The girl was sitting, hunched attentively over a ridiculously thick paperback, medium-length, wavy brown hair falling around her face like private curtains. She wore a simple turquoise shirt and brown shorts in the hot Santa Barbara summer weather, a cheap white plastic watch around her right wrist and a hairtie on the other. Her skin was obviously tan from the California sun. O'Hara drew up quietly until she stood before the silent girl and cleared her throat.
The girl looked up quickly, pushing rectangular wire-rimmed glasses up her nose nervously. Her eyes were a wide dark brown, darker than her hair, and the junior detective immediately got a sense of silent intelligence in those orbs.
"Hi," Juliet said perkily. "I'm Juliet O'Hara, junior detective of the SBPD."
"Hello," she said flatly. She was of Asian heritage, though she spoke without an accent. "Can you help me?"
"Of course," the detective smiled."What do you need?"
"I need you to arrest my parents."
"Chief, what is this about?" Lassiter stepped into Karen Vick's office, bewildered, eyes glancing accusingly at the younger visitor standing by O'Hara in a corner.
"She needs us to arrest her parents." Juliet supplied a bit dazedly. Carlton snorted in disbelief, looking back and forth between the two women and guest in the room. He eventually found his voice, leaning over to address the girl a foot shorter than himself.
"Look, honey," he spoke slowly, a patronizing smile on his face. "Your mom refusing to buy you a candy bar at checkout is hardly worth a criminal arrest."
Juliet smacked him sharply over the head for his rudeness, but the girl only gazed steadily back at the proud head detective.
"Condescending tones are hardly appreciated, aren't they, detective?" she said, a practiced coldness seeping into her own words. "And in case you were mistaken, I am twelve years and three months since the 7th of April. It hardly warrants such ettiquette, don't you think?"
A faint smile played across the girl's lips now, and Lassiter only stared, slightly dumbstruck and unable to speak. There was a long moment of satisfied silence before Vick cleared her throat and the two started.
"That was hardly professional, detective," the chief smiled wryly. "It was unasked for, certainly. Please listen to the child's words before you cast your opinions."
Carlton straightened slowly, looking to his senior officer and nodding quickly before sitting down on a chair. Juliet managed to hide a snort behind a supposed sneeze.
"My foster parents are growing illegal marijuana plants in the backyard," she said shortly. The others raised their eyebrows.
"Are you sure?" Juliet frowned. "How could you-"
"I see them deal it," the child continued. "I hear them talk, they use it while I'm in the same room."
O'Hara stared, revolted, but the head detective rolled his eyes.
"That's enough stories, kid-"
"There's more," she snapped impatiently at the man, much to his affronted chagrin. "This morning they were fighting. With a customer, I had thought, I don't pay attention anymore. Their voices were raised, they were screaming, when the stranger yelled my name. I came to the window, I was hiding in the curtains when I saw the stranger go down." Her voice was flat, expressionless, wavering. "The husband had stabbed with his penknife. They called me out, still under the influence, more than normal, screaming at me to come out of the house and see the man they had killed." She trembled slightly now, and Juliet laid a hand on her shoulder. "I had to, I had no choice. They were good to me, they leave me alone when they're sober, but you don't know what they'll do when they have a handful of crazy things in their veins. I come outside, and they're laughing, spitting off to the side, kicking the body, throw rocks at it, it's ridiculous. They make me pull the knife out of the body, they make me pull it into the bushes. They make me do everything, they never touch it. It's nine-thirty in the morning on a Monday, nobody is around, the neighborhood has never been really attentive or close knit." Her haunted eyes turn pleadingly to Lassiter's, who is glued to the chair, frozen. "They finally let me leave, and I run into the house, wash off everything, take a shower. I come out and see that the car's gone, they've probably left to a friend's house to drink or something. I pack up my stuff in a suitcase, I take money from their wallets. I run."
"I took a bus, found a map. Followed a route, and here I am."
Tears brimmed in her eyes, and Juliet hugged her tightly. Karen regarded her in a mix of pity and rage at the people who had committed the act, but Carlton only stared, beyond words.
"You're only a kid," the junior detective assured her. "Nobody will suspect you."
"I've tampered with the body!" she whimpered. "My tears, my DNA, my fingerprints are probably all over the crime scene. A judge won't listen to a child's testimony!" Carlton realized the book she had set on the desk was a huge volume; Solving Crime With Hints of Identities.
"Is there anything else that we need to know?" the chief said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone.
"Guys!" Shawn burst into the office along with Gus, making the occupants leap up in shock. "Special Agent Ewing is dead!"
Dun dun duuunnn...reviews?