Psych
Friday Night Psych- Down
Prologue
1988
"I can't believe you watch this garbage." Henry Spencer said to his son, Shawn, who was busy watching Hulkamania run wild.
"There's nothing wrong with it." Shawn said.
"It's fake, Shawn. It's like you're watching lies." Henry said.
"It's not fake!" Shawn shouted.
Henry laughed. He had raised his son to be reasonable, intelligent. How could Shawn buy into this crap?
He knew that Shawn had the action figures and the plastic ring that went with them, but he had no idea that he actually watched the show. He figured his son had just gotten the toys from his best friend Gus.
"One…Two…Three! Yes!" Shawn shouted, he got up and started running around the room shooting Hulk Hogan poses.
"Alright, that's enough, Shawn." Henry said, turning off the TV.
"Dad, why did you turn it off?" Shawn asked.
"Because, I'm not having you watch this junk." Henry told him.
"It's not junk, Dad. I've learned a lot from watching the WWF." Shawn said.
"Like what?" Henry asked.
"Like…. that I should eat my vitamins, say my prayers, and go to bed on time." Shawn told him.
"And you do all of that so very well." Henry reminded his son. "Point is, Shawn; I can't have you running around pretending that it's okay to beat the life out of someone."
"But, Dad…"
"Listen, Shawn." Henry said, sitting his son down on the couch. "This wrestling stuff, it's fake. Not real. It's acting."
"No it isn't." Shawn said, picking up a magazine and flipping to a page. "Look at this, King Kong Bundy broke Hulk Hogan's ribs two years ago."
"Is that so? That's what you believe?"
"Yeah, Dad."
"Alright then, I want you to use the skills I taught you, and look at Hogan. Does he look like he really has broken ribs?"
Shawn looked a picture where Hogan had no bandages on and saw that there was no bruise.
He looked at another picture of him training, he saw that Hogan's ribs were hit, yet he had a smile on his face.
"No," Shawn said, "I guess not."
Henry turned the TV back on, two guys Shawn didn't recognize, were fighting.
"Now, look at that." He said to Shawn. "Watch when one guy hits the other; look at his hand, and then his foot."
Shawn did and he saw the punch miss, saw the wrestler stomp his foot.
Henry looked at Shawn who looked like he had just been told about Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny all at once.
"How did you know all of this?" Shawn asked.
"Last year, I arrested a wrestler for a DUI. When he was released, he told me all the secrets." Henry told him.
"Oh," Shawn said, sounding disappointed.
"So, no more wrestling, understand?" Henry asked.
Shawn nodded sadly.
"Why don't you go up and work on your model." Henry suggested.
Shawn nodded and walked upstairs.
Henry looked over at the TV, where the two guys were fighting. He sat down and decided to sit and watch the match. What Shawn didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.
Chapter 1
2011
This wasn't the first time Shawn had dragged Gus to something. But this was different; Shawn had promised Gus that they would go to the William Shatner Film Festival. Instead, when Gus got out of the car, they were at a well sized gym. He looked and saw a big sign advertising Extreme Pro Wrestling. So here they were, front row, watching the cartoonish storylines of Extreme Pro Wrestling, or EPW play out in front of a local TV crew, and about two to three hundred fans.
"I don't even understand what's happening Shawn. Who's the bad guy?" Gus asked.
Shawn sighed, as if Gus' question had created a huge inconvenience.
"That guy," Shawn said pointing to the ring,
"Is Bone-Saw, he's the bad guy. The other guy, is Fire-Dragon, he's the good guy." Shawn explained as Bone-Saw cracked a plastic chair overtop of the head of Fire-Dragon.
"Bone-Saw and Fire-Dragon, that's the best they could come up with?" Gus asked.
"You know, you didn't have to come." Shawn said.
"Uh, yeah, I did." Gus said, "You dragged me here, telling me we were going to the William Shatner Film Festival."
"And you believed me? So whose fault is that?" Inquired Shawn, "Whoa, wait a minute…Yeah!" Shouted Shawn, "One…two…three!" He screamed.
Fire-Dragon had won the match.
"Can we go home now?" Gus asked.
Shawn shook his head, "Not yet, this was just the opener, there's still another two hours left to the show."
…
As they were walking out of the gym after the show, they saw Detectives Juliet O'Hara and Carlton Lassiter, standing over a dead body. This wasn't any dead body; it was Fire-Dragon's dead body. Shawn looked over and saw Officer Buzz McNab talking to the medical examiner.
He looked at the body and saw the bruise on his head. Saw the bruise on his neck. There had been a struggle. He saw the drool coming out of his mouth. Saw the empty pill bottle on the ground. This was murder.
"What are you two doing here?" Lassiter asked.
"Solving a murder, what about you?" Shawn said.
"This wasn't murder, it was clearly suicide." Lassiter explained.
"Whoa, agh!" Shawn screamed and moved around, motioning a fight going on. He then fell on the ground and started rolling around.
"Can't you stop him?" Lassiter asked Gus.
"Not possible. When the spirits are at work, it's dangerous to Shawn's health to try and interfere." Gus said,
"Then someone please, interrupt this madness, maybe then we won't he to deal with it anymore." Lassiter said, angrily.
Shawn popped up off the ground. "The spirits say this man was murdered!"
"And the spirits are wrong." Lassiter said. "Pro wrestlers are always overdosing."
"The spirits say a struggle took place, and then the killer dragged him out here. But he was stopped when the show let out, so he cleaned up and left." Shawn told him.
"The struggle wounds are probably from the match he was in." Lassiter said.
"Actually, M.E says that he was murdered. He says that there are signs of struggle, not from his match. The guy never got hit in the neck during his match tonight, or before. Shawn's right this time." McNab said.
"Aw, crap. Let's set up crime scene." Lassiter said, sighing.
Chapter 2
As they sat in the Psych offices, Shawn and Gus couldn't take their mind off of the case. Gus hated pro wrestling, yet even he couldn't stop thinking about it. The thing was, the case made no sense. Fire-Dragon's real name was Riley Bauer, and he had indeed been attacked and drugged. But they couldn't find anyone with a motive, there wasn't even an opportunity, there just wasn't anyway that someone could've attacked Bauer and gotten away with it. There were twenty-five other wrestlers backstage, and the only other place he could have been attacked was right on the street, and then thousands of people would've seen him. That is unless someone wasn't telling them everything.
"It just doesn't add up," Gus said.
"I know," Shawn said, "I don't understand what's wrong with Randy."
"What are you talking about?" Gus asked.
"Why Randy Quaid is trying to leave the country to get away from the fake conspiracy he made up in his head." Shawn told him. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the case we've been hired to do." Gus said.
"Oh," Shawn said, "I think we should go interview all the wrestlers."
"The police have already done that, they all say they didn't hear or see anything." Gus explained.
"Perhaps they're lying." Shawn said.
This was true, chances are, someone wasn't telling everything, and Gus knew that he and Shawn could get answers out of them.
"Alright," Gus said, "let's go down there."
...
When they arrived at the gym, they saw Bone-Saw and another wrestler out front, talking.
"Hi," Shawn said, "we'd like to talk to you for a second."
"Do I know you two?" Bone-Saw asked.
"Last night when you came over to get a chair, I shouted 'you suck!' and then you gave me the finger and told me to go to hell. It was a pretty cool moment." Shawn said.
"I do that about five times a week, sorry buddy, I don't remember you." Bone-Saw said.
Shawn looked disappointed, but kept on. "Anyway, we were wondering what you could tell us about Fire-Dragon."
"Bauer? He's one of the nicest guys out there. It confuses me why he couldn't draw." Bone-Saw said.
"He didn't know how to draw?" Gus asked.
Shawn should have known Gus would have asked a stupid question like that.
"Nah, he could, but for some reason, the fans wouldn't get behind him." Bone-Saw said.
"He was an artist?" Gus asked.
Bone-Saw and the other guy laughed hard.
"He's not a fan." Shawn explained to them.
"Oh," the other wrestler said. "To draw means to make money. To draw money forward, to make money for the promotion." The other wrestler said.
"Oh," Gus said, sounding embarrassed. "Did you feel the same way about Mr. Bauer?" Gus asked the other wrestler.
"Of course, I can't think of anyone who didn't like him. He was everyone's friend." The other guy said. "Call me Jake by the way." He said.
"So you can't think of any reason why someone would want to kill him?" Shawn asked.
"Not at all; he was like a bizarre Ward Cleaver. He loved his wife and kids—like we all do—but he was different than us. When we bring our wife and kids to matches, it feels awkward. But when he brought his family it was like bringing them to a call center office. It was a bit strange." Jake said.
"Cool, thanks for your time." Shawn said.
"Think we should talk to his wife?" Gus asked when they got in their car.
"I think we might be able to learn something new. The cops never talked to his family." Shawn said.
"Let's go then." Gus said, as he started the car. Shawn looked up the Bauer's address on his phone.
"You know something Gus?" Shawn asked.
"What?"
"I think Randy Quaid might be on drugs."
Chapter 3
Mrs. Bauer didn't accept Shawn and Gus the way most people did. At first everything seemed okay, when they told her that they worked for the police. The problem came when she asked what they did. When Shawn explained that he was a psychic and that Gus was his partner, she seemed uneasy, but okay with the situation. It was when she asked how they were able to convince the police that Riley hadn't committed suicide that things went downhill. "I channeled your husband's spirit to tell the police of his murder." Shawn said.
"What? If someone is going to channel my husband's spirit, I think I should be consulted about it first." She said.
"I was trying to help solve your husband's murder." Shawn said.
"You were trying to make a profit of my dead husband's spirit! No one makes money of my husband but me!" She shouted.
"We weren't trying to make money of your husband, honest." Gus said, feeling like he was being scolded by his mother.
"Get out of my house!" She screamed.
As they were leaving, Shawn saw the pill bottles on the floor.
"She did it." Shawn said, once they had gotten into the car.
"What? How can you just determine right then and there that she did it?" Gus asked.
"Because, she had an empty pill bottle and was extremely defensive." Shawn told him.
"That doesn't make her a killer." Gus said.
"The pill bottle was the same on found by the body."
Gus sighed, Shawn had found their man, or well, woman. The problem was, how could they convince the police?
Chapter 4
"I'm getting huge psychic vibrations coming from Bauer's house. His wife, she's the one." Shawn had told Jules over the phone. However, he didn't expect it would turn into the shoot-out it had. Mrs. Bauer was hiding behind a play set in the backyard, holding a shotgun. When they police arrived at her door she confessed to killing her husband for life insurance. Then she whipped out a knife and stabbed an officer, she ran away, grabbed a shotgun and the jumped through a window into the backyard. Jules tried coaxing her out to no avail, Lassiter told to get out before he shot her out, but nothing worked. That's when Shawn had his idea; above the play set was a deck, he would climb on to the deck jump off and dropkick Mrs. Bauer.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." Lassiter said, after Shawn had run the idea by him.
"Come on, let me try it. It works all the time in wrestling." Shawn pleaded; Gus nodded approval at Shawn's statement, even though he had no idea what a dropkick was.
"Alright," the chief said, "but if you get hurt, it's not our fault."
Shawn climbed up onto the deck and let out a war cry, he jumped off and landed a perfect dropkick onto Mrs. Bauer…or well, it was perfect in his mind, in real life it was a mess, he fell and possibly broke his leg. While he lay there, crying in pain. Gus came up and DDTed her into the ground. Gus looked down at Shawn, while the police arrested Mrs. Bauer.
"You know, Shawn, this wrestling isn't that bad." Gus said.
Chapter 5
"One…Two…Three!" Gus shouted, after the case was done, Gus convinced Shawn to come with him to watch EPW live. Shawn said that this would be his last pro wrestling encounter, that after the jump off the fifteen foot deck, he was done.
"I hate you." Shawn told Gus, jokingly, while he sat there in a wheelchair with a broken leg, while Gus jumped up and down with the crowd at the excitement of the event.
Gus shushed him as Bone-Saw came out. After a while Bone-Saw came over to the same as before to get a chair.
"I want to try some thing." Gus said. "You suck!" He shouted at Bone-Saw, who just stared at him.
"What's the matter?" Gus asked Shawn.
"He's the good guy now." Shawn explained.
The other wrestler came over to get his own chair.
"You suck!" Shawn shouted. The other wrestler gave him the finger. "That's how you do it." Shawn said to Gus.