A/N: Well, I just binge-watched Psych (the tv show) and now I'm here. I went through "Yesterday Was Hard On All Of Us" by Vindicata really fast, and damn, I really love that fanfic. I was so mad it wasn't finished and hasn't been updated in 3 years as of today, October 5, 2018.

So without further ado, I give you this little piece (which will kick off this series called 58 Jobs and Counting). It can be read separately from this crazy fic idea called "There's Pain in Laughter" by me. As of October 5, 2018, I haven't posted, but I hope it'll be coming by December.

I. Brilliant

July 7, 2006

Sitting at his swamped desk, Carlton Lassiter narrows his eyes at his partner, Detective Lucinda Barry. Her blonde ponytail sways behind her. She stops in front of him and slumps down into the chair on the other side of his desk.

"Lucinda?"

"It is that psychic." Carlton could clearly hear the air quotes surrounding psychic.

His head tilts up as he looks determinedly at her. "Fraud. I'm going to—"

"Carlton," she simply says. "I don't believe in the supernatural. But he is something today during the arrest. Overdramatic at times. Bit of an attention whore. Brilliant observer."

His mouth drops. "You actually like him."

She shrugs, leaning back in her chair. "Hard to not like a kid who went against orders and did the right thing anyway. Found out what happened. Got the guy to confess, too."

A bad feeling suddenly sends his stomach spinning. "Lucinda. . ."

"I'm being transferred to LAPD." A pause. "It's the right thing to do. Especially with the rumor that Vick is going to put in a no dating policy."

Carlton barely notices his hand dropping his pen. "Lucinda. . ."

"Goodbye, Detective," she says, standing up. She straightens out her grey jacket. As if having an afterthought, she adds, "That kid, you know. . . We went down to the shooting range, and I saw him shoot. He's quite a crack shot."

II. Unusual Knowledge

January 16, 2008

"I can't believe this, Shawn!" Burton Guster shouts.

Police has completely secured the crime scene. Two dead bodies, both men, lay on the ground. Bodies are a mess and burnt beyond recognition. A metal rod went through one man's stomach while another one was missing a leg as if someone chopped it off. It took the firefighters two hours to subdue the fire.

Carlton glances around at the grimy lab in this abandoned warehouse near the docks. He has heard from O'Hara that it used to be a factory to process caught fish.

It smells nothing of fish now. A prevalent burnt smell assaults his nose. Whoever used this place has set it up to allow something other than fish to be processed.

Guster, looking a little sick, glances away from the bodies. "You told me we were going to the movies!"

Standing a little too close to the bodies, Shawn Spencer replies, "Gus, don't be Meg Ryan giving up her bookstore."

Gus gives Shawn a look. Then he makes his mistake as he accidentally glance down at the bodies, immediately bolting out of the warehouse.

"I'm sensing something!" Shawn, true to form, raises his right hand to his temple. "Four. . . Four something. . ." He kicks the damaged counter below the sink open.

Carlton's jaw drops. Pristine white bags roll out. They are relatively intact. He has seen this kind of thing every few months, but usually in smaller amounts.

"Four hundred thousand dollars worth of powder cocaine," Shawn says. "They are using this lab to turn powder cocaine into crack. But something went wrong. The murderer sabotaged the ammonia and they died from it. Then tried to torch this place to clean up evidence."

Carlton laughs. "Come on, Spencer. Sabotage ammonia? How would they even do that? How would they even know that?"

He nearly takes a step back at the dark look in his eyes. He barely hears Spencer's next words.

"It requires very specific knowledge." Spencer says it do quietly that Carlton doesn't even know if he realizes he's talking aloud. He straightens and yells, "I know who the murderer is!"

III. Crackshot

October 16, 2009

He wishes he could switch cars. Anything. A bloody Fiat. Pickup truck.

It really isn't fair. Carlton just got this car. It's all brand new. With the new car smell. He grits his teeth as Henry Spencer in the navigator seat takes ahold of Carlton's gun. He hears gunshots and curses under his breath as he controls the steering wheel, keeping the car ahead of the perp.

Shawn Spencer, holding onto the hood of the car, screams, "Dad, I have a clear shot. Give me the gun!"

Henry flips the gun around, handle to his son just as Shawn Spencer shouts, "Do it!"

He empties the gun of five bullets, the last one sending the perp's engine smoking. Bullets from the perp whiz by, missing all of them.

Carlton spins the car around, completely coming to a stop. He reaches out to the gun in Shawn's hand and takes aim at the perp in the driver's seat, yanking Spencer off the hood. He never even flinches when the perp squeezes the trigger to no avail.

"Stand down! Hands where I can see them!"

It is only after the perp is put in the back of a patrol car did Carlton shake his head at Spencer's shooting. Bullet wound in left shoulder, shooting with the bad shoulder, hanging onto a hood of a car driving over eighty miles per hour. . . And yet, still hitting the engine of the perp's car.

Crackshot.

IV. Beating the Test

October 12, 2011

The brand new release of Axon Polygraph 2011x has Carlton in serious love. It had amazing upgrades and capabilities. Voice analysis, sweat analysis, heart rate monitoring. . . The SBPD used to have their 2006 edition but finally, finally got its upgrade.

Now he even has Spencer hooked up to the machine. With subtle glee, he asks the standard questions and checks his physiological responses as base lines.

Amazingly, he completely passes the first set of interrogation questions about that mysterious picture with ease.

Then of course, Spencer goes off in his usual tangents. "You're gonna have to deal with the fact that I love her, okay?"

This has Carlton pausing. He, like Guster and older Spencer and Vick and O'Hara, all look at the detector results.

Truth.

Spencer stands up. "Okay. Can I go now? I'm just about to solve this case."

"One more question," says Carlton. It is not a request but an order.

"If it'll make you happy."

"I think it will."

Spencer sinks back into the chair.

"Are you psychic?"

He blinks. "Excuse me?"

Carlton slowly repeats the question, his eyes analyzing for any sign, anything. "Are you, Shawn Spencer, psychic?"

The older Spencer adds, "You're going to have to answer that one, Shawn."

It feels like an eternity has past for all of them. Carlton raises his eyebrows in expectation.

He's going to fail. He's sure of it.

Shawn simply answers, "Yes."

He glances down at the results, so damn sure. . . But no. No. It doesn't show he's lying.

"No deception indicated," notes O'Hara.

"Wait, hold it. Are you psychic?" Carlton stares at Spencer with disbelief.

"Yes."

Repeat questions has Shawn confirming and passing every damn answer. Even in Spanish.

Truth, truth, truth.

Finally the Chief puts a stop to it. "I think we have enough of this, Carlton."

Shawn holds up the photo of someone's back. The same someone who looks extremely like Shawn. "This is not me—"

Carlton glances down at the polygraph. It has to be faulty. Truly faulty. There is no damn possible way Shawn Spencer is a psychic or telling the truth. And that man in the photograph is most definitely Shawn Spencer.

"Oh, and if anyone's interested, I know who killed that woman."

V.

November 2, 2011

He arrives a good ten minutes before the ambulance at the scene and takes a quick scan. Guster, looking fairly sick, holds desperately to the bleeding wound in the upper left chest area of his best friend. Close to the heart and shoulder.

The murderer of the week is knocked out in the corner of the living room. McNab cuffs him and yanks him outside.

Carlton pushes Guster aside, ordering, "Put pressure on the wound." He pulls off his jacket and takes out his pocket knife, cutting away Spencer's blood-soaked shirt.

But as he pulls away the dirt, the leaves, and the wet mess of blood and sweat to reveal Spencer's chest, he nearly pauses at the single circular almost-bruise like scar near his heart.

A scar left by a bullet.

It's years old.

As he removes the shirt to reveal the extent of the stab wound, blood quickly spurt out. It has hit an artery. He pushes his jacket and hand hard against the wound, yelling. "McNab, where's the ambulance?"

Almost as if on cue, paramedics begin their work on Shawn. Carlton steps aside as soon as one of them takes ahold of the wound and applies pressure.

"The knife hit an artery," he shouts. The paramedics quickly pull Shawn onto the stretcher, leaving for the hospital.

He glances down at his bloodied hands, the red lights of the ambulance flashing across his face. He can't help but see that circular wound, that old bullet scar in his vision over and over and over again.

He comes to a startling realization that Shawn Spencer has never, in the years he has worked with SBPD, been shot in the chest.

VI.

March 8, 2011

He calmly squeezes the trigger. Thirty feet away, holes in the target sheet begins to form. He holsters the gun and runs for the next range, mindfully keeping the time.

He stops and repeats the process at two more ranges before coming second at the end line. Carlton lets out a few breaths, turning to face the winner in this shooting competition in Dallas, Texas.

"What's your name?" shouts the dark haired man, his ear protection still snugly fit.

"Carlton Lassiter. Santa Barbara Police Department!"

"Greg Stone! Baltimore Police Department!" Stone gestures to the awards building. "Come on!"

Once the two men are both inside, they both remove their ear and eye protection. Stone watches the middle of the pack pick up his rifle and shoot at the target sheets with concentration. "What's your name again? I'm a little deaf in the ear you shouted at."

"Detective Carlton Lassiter, Santa Barbara Police Department."

Stone holds out his hand for a brief handshake. Carlton returns it. "Greg Stone, officer with Baltimore Police Department. You got a nickname?"

Carlton shakes his head. "My first time here."

Turning away from the viewing window, Stone laughs. "You're very good. Already giving me a good run for my money." He points to a section among the shelves of trophies and trophies behind a glass. "That shelf over here is just mine."

Carlton steps closer. They are all very impressive, and he noted that Stone has won sniper awards straight from 1999 to 2009. A decade long.

He scoffs at the name on the trophies. "Your nickname is Crackshot?"

"Yep. Been undefeated champion for sniper shots since 1999."

"I don't see your 2010 ribbon."

Stone points to the trophy case close to the entrance. "Over there is last year's champs." Then he waves at the table in the middle of the observation room. "Those are the club records. In Dallas, anyway. My 2010 ribbon is in there from beating Peashooter's 1998 sniper distance."

He honestly doesn't know whether to focus on the fact that this guy's record took ten years to beat or the ridiculous nickname. He picks, "Peashooter?"

Stone's grin recedes, his eyes flickering over the awards. "My old partner actually. Best shooter in the club's history. Graduated top of our class at the Academy in Baltimore. Joined BPD and worked on patrols. He's a bit of a goof, but damningly brilliant anyway. Detectives were hounding him for help even before he was made detective!"

"His 1998 record of longest distance with handgun is 932.2 meters?"

"Which is why we call him the peashooter. That kid can take that tiny ass gun and still work with it. He's good with snipers. Such a shame he hasn't come by since '98." He points to the tube-like object foot of the table. "We got him an actual peashooter a long time ago."

"What happened to him?"

Stone shrugs. "He became a detective, got a partner, and then transferred to Chicago Police Department to work in their narcotics division. No one's heard from him since. Probably up to his eyes with dangerous things now."

One plane flight later and Carlton can't seem to figure out what Officer Stone told him is bothering him. There's a slight detail that just seems to be so weird. . . Or familiar.

When he reaches to his work desk, he begins working through a few cases. Then he pauses, glancing right and left to see if anyone is paying attention to him. No one is.

Perfect.

He types in Greg Stone of BPD into the computer. He finds a list of partners including one with a redacted name. A peek into a file reveals that partner was transferred into CPD for the drug task force and is now no longer employed by the CPD after gaining a bullet in the chest in 2003. A little note at the bottom of the file notes he is also fluent in Spanish.

Carlton pauses and then closed the file. Redacted. He has seen it once before, when an undercover officer had to get everything wiped before taking on a new cover. Whatever Peashooter did, it must have been important for it to still be sealed tight.

He closes his eyes. Finally, he can put his curiosity to rest. But a tug in his stomach says otherwise.

Brilliant.

Peashooter.

Best shooter.

Peashooter.

Worked in narcotics.

Peashooter.

Undercover.

Peashooter.

Shot in chest.

Peashooter.

Then Carlton stands up in shock. Shawn Spencer, as well. His mind quickly thinks back to all the times where Shawn managed to stay calm in the most dangerous of situations. Never one to be quite shocked by a dead body or a gun pointed to his head. Lucinda's old words float by him. And the day with the cocaine, the ammonia where Spencer was absolutely correct. And the polygraph. It would make sense why an undercover officer could beat a lie detector.

It all makes damn sense.