Title: Shawn and Gus: Murder at the Book Club
Author: Trixietru
Summary: When a member of Gus's book club dies suddenly, Shawn and Gus are on the case!
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: A huge THANK YOU to teragram for creating the Psych Case Fic Challenge (and happy birthday!)! Without it, I don't know that I ever would have gotten around to writing this story, and on a completely selfish note, I'm glad that I did because it was ridiculously fun to write.
And a second, equally huge THANK YOU to moodilylit for the amazing artwork she created for this story. When she first asked me what kind of art I wanted, I mentioned old Hardy Boys books as being an inspiration for the kind of tone I wanted for the title, and she took that idea and made this awesome vintage mystery (with a Psych twist) artwork. This is the first time that I've worked with an artist for a story, and it was such a great experience. She was totally patient with my terrible procrastination, and months ago, when she saw the rough draft of this story her enthusiasm and encouragement gave me a much needed boost. PLEASE CHECK OUT ALL OF THE ART SHE DID FOR THIS STORY at her Livejournal (curse fanfiction dot net for not allowing me to link here; I'll put a link up in my profile) and let her know how awesome she is.
Gus had just opened his mouth to ask what the others thought about Offred and the commander playing Scrabble together when Hazel Kershner clutched her throat, gasped for breath, and collapsed face-first into the cheese platter that Callie had bought for their meeting (which Gus privately thought was a bit weak; there wasn't even any brie). Callie shrieked, Mason dropped his wine glass, and Winston jumped out of his seat and knelt beside Hazel.
"Oh my god," he gasped, "I think she's dead."
Gus was as shocked as his fellow book club members, but his time as part owner of a detective agency had instilled in him the protocol to follow when presented with a dead body; still, he sighed as he pulled out his phone. Maybe it was his overactive imagination, or the fact that she had seemed perfectly healthy when he had spoken to her earlier, but the suddenness of Hazel's collapse had him suspicious that she'd been poisoned, which meant that he was going to have to call in Shawn as well as the police. So much for his one night a month of doing something civilized and grown-up.
"Let me get this straight," Shawn said an hour later, looking around Callie and Winston's neat living room, "you meet with these people every month to talk about…what? Chick lit?" He plucked the well-worn copy of The Handmaid's Tale out of Gus's hands and flipped through the pages, dislodging all of Gus's carefully placed color-coded post-its with his notes.
"Shawn! You're messing up my discussion points!"
Shawn had arrived right before Lassiter and Juliet did, and in his customary Shawn-like fashion had taken in the sight of the body and the scene of the crime—assuming there was a crime—with a few sweeping glances. Now that poor Hazel was being taken away and the cops were questioning the other club members, he was free to make fun of Gus's intellectual pursuits.
"Your discussion points? Oh, Gus. Buddy. You're never going to get a girlfriend this…huh," Shawn paused, looking around the room at Callie, at Sofia, at Mason, then swung back to Gus and hissed "This place is full of hotties! Have you been holding out on me? Do you come here so you can have the pick of the litter without having to compete with me?"
Gus snatched his book back and glared at Shawn. "There are so many things wrong with what you just said that I don't even know where to start. First of all, I come here because it's intellectually stimulating, something I need since I spend most of my free time with you."
Shawn's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Wait, is that an insult or a compliment? Like, are you saying that I'm so intellectually stimulating that you need outside assistance in order to keep up with me, or are you saying that I'm so dumb that you have to seek out intelligent companionship elsewhere?"
"It was an insult, Shawn."
"Got it," Shawn said nodding. "You need to be a little clearer. Okay, go on."
"Second of all," Gus continued, as if he hadn't been interrupted, "I have not been 'holding out on you.' I told you that I attend a book club meeting every month, and you told me that you didn't want to hear about my nerd club for nerds."
"Yeah, but that was before I knew that we were talking about hot nerds. That's an entirely different species."
"Third of all Shawn, I'm insulted that you would think that the only reason I come here is to meet attractive women."
"I don't think it's the only reason. I know you can't resist a good cheese platter."
They were interrupted by Sofia, who came over and threw her arms around Gus's neck. "Can you believe this happened, Gus? Poor Hazel!"
Gus patted her on the back and tried not to pay any attention to Shawn, who was giving him a thumbs up. They were joined by Mason, who was shaking his head sadly.
"How could this have happened?"
"That's what I'm here to find out," Shawn said.
"I thought that was what the cops were here to find out," Mason replied, giving Shawn a frankly appreciative once-over. "Who are you?"
Shawn preened at the attention. "I am Shawn Spencer, Head Psychic for the Santa Barbara police department, beef jerky connoisseur, and dilettante archeologist." He put his hand to his head, closed his eyes, and added dramatically, "The spirit of Stephen King sent me here because…"
He paused and swiveled quickly towards Gus. "What was her name?" he whispered frantically.
"Hazel," Gus muttered under his breath, and Shawn turned back to Mason.
"…because a great injustice has occurred in the sanctity of this book club! Hazel was murdered."
Mason frowned. "Stephen King isn't dead, so how could his spirit be contacting you?"
"Dude, come on. If anyone alive could psychically communicate information about murders, wouldn't it be Stephen King?"
They were joined by Juliet and Lassiter, who pointedly ignored Shawn in favor of Gus. "You were here when it happened, Guster?"
"Yes. We had just wrapped up our discussion on the symbolism of flowers in The Handmaid's Tale when Hazel started gasping for breath and collapsed."
"New theory," Shawn interrupted. "She was actually bored to death."
Lassiter continued to ignore him. "Did you know her well? Had she been ill, or did she have any health problems?"
Not appreciating Lassiter's inattention, Shawn sidled up to him and put his hand against Lassiter's face, which earned him a glare. "No, no, no," Shawn declared. "I'm sensing that her health was just fine until she got here…it was something she ate…no, no! Something she drank. She drank something that no one else did, didn't she?"
Gus tried to hide the fact that he was mildly impressed; even after all these years, he still didn't completely understand how Shawn picked up on the details that he did. "Yeah, Hazel didn't drink alcohol. The rest of us usually have wine at the meetings, but she always brought her own herbal tea bags."
Strangely, Lassiter hadn't swatted Shawn's hand away yet. Shawn didn't move either, wondering how long Lassie would allow the contact to continue. This was a recent development, the way Lassiter no longer pushed him away immediately with extreme prejudice; lately, he had been allowing the moments when Shawn groped him during a "vision" to linger. Shawn liked it. He only hoped that his palm wasn't sweaty.
"O'Hara, make sure we get the mug she used and any tea she had on her into evidence. Get your hand off of me, Spencer, I'm working. What else can you tell me about her, Guster?"
"She was an accountant. She's married, but her husband travels a lot for work. I think she said earlier that he was out of town this week."
"Yes, that's right," Sofia confirmed, sniffling, still clinging to Gus (he didn't mind). "He's in Omaha at some kind of sales meeting."
"We'll need to contact him," Lassiter said to Juliet, who nodded as she took notes.
"I'm sensing," Shawn said loudly, "that she had enemies. Is that right, Gus?"
Gus did not like speaking ill of the dead, but Mason apparently didn't have the same qualms. "She could be kind of a bitch sometimes," he said. "It was one of the things I liked most about her."
"She had strong opinions," Gus said diplomatically.
"There's nothing wrong with that," Juliet said with a frown in Mason's direction.
"No, there's not," Gus agreed, "but she could occasionally be strident in how she presented those opinions. But she also had a great sense of humor and she was amazingly smart."
"She could be kind of mean," Sofia said in a small voice, still sniffling, adding "I can't believe this happened." Gus patted her on the back soothingly, wondering how crass it would be to make a move on Sofia when Hazel was barely cold. He had been interested in her for months, but this was the first time she had ever seemed to reciprocate his interest. Well, something good should come from such a tragedy, he reasoned to himself, and surely Hazel wouldn't have begrudged him some happiness.
Shawn nodded, his suspicions confirmed. "I'm seeing her sipping tea and giving you all judgey judgmental looks while you got snockered and talked about dirty books. Yes, that's it Lassie," he said, pointing to Lassiter, who was radiating disapproval. "That's exactly the way she looked at the rest of you."
"That's amazing," Mason said. "Well, not the part about dirty books. She wasn't a prude. But she came from a family of alcoholics, and she didn't approve of even social drinking. How could you possible know that?"
Shawn touched his temple dramatically. "Psychic."
"Interesting," Mason said, stepping a little closer to Shawn. "So, can you tell me what I'm thinking right now?"
Shawn gave him a flirty little grin. "Not in mixed company."
"Oh, you are good," Mason said. "Why have you never come to book club with Gus before?"
"Spencer never progressed past Go, Dog, Go," Lassiter said snidely. "Is there anything else you can tell me about the victim?"
Mason shrugged. "Unless it's important that her favorite writer was Margaret Atwood, then no."
Lassiter shoved a business card at him. "Call me if you think of anything actually relevant. In the meantime, if this is a poisoning then everyone here is a suspect, so don't leave town."
"Why would I want to leave when there are so many interesting things to do right here in Santa Barbara?" Mason asked, his gaze still on Shawn, who looked bemused.
"Wow," Gus muttered under his breath, not impressed by Mason's lack of subtlety. He focused his attention back on Sofia, who was still holding on to him. "Would you like me to drive you home, Sofia? I can stay as long as you like, if you don't want to be alone."
"You're so sweet! Thank you, Gus, I would really appreciate that."
"Gus!" he heard Shawn call after him as he headed for the door with Sofia, "you can't go! We have a case!"
"No you don't," Lassiter said. "Technically, Guster is also a suspect. The Chief will never hire you to work on a case that you're personally involved with."
"But Lassie!" Shawn started to argue, only to be cut off by Juliet.
"Carlton, you don't really believe that Gus is a suspect."
"Everyone's a suspect, O'Hara," Lassiter said grimly, but at her expression (profound disappointment in him) he relented to add "it's probably not Guster, though. I know how much he hates dead bodies."
Gus had stopped at the door with Sofia to hear the end of this exchange, and he scowled at Lassiter. "Yeah, that's the only reason I wouldn't kill a woman I knew and liked. My distaste for corpses."
Lassiter shrugged. "Everyone's capable of murder."
Gus rolled his eyes. "On that note, I'm taking Sofia home. Shawn, I'll see you at the office tomorrow."
Shawn gave a half-hearted wave as Gus left, turning his attention back to the other people in the room. The married couple who owned the home, Callie and Winston, were standing a couple of feet away from each other, both with their arms crossed over their chests. Callie was openly crying, and Winston's face was tight, like he was holding back tears of his own. When Shawn had first arrived, they had been standing together, Winston's arm around her, but something had changed since then.
Perched on the edge of a chair near where the body had been lying was an older lady that Juliet was currently questioning; Shawn thought that Gus had said her name was Martina. Looking at her now, Shawn could see that she looked pale and shaken, suggesting that she was genuinely shocked. He put her at the bottom of his suspect list.
That left Mason, who smiled faintly when he saw Shawn looking at him again. "So, you and Gus are partners?"
"It's strictly business," Shawn said, "as long as you stretch the definition of business to include our weekly Magnum P.I. marathons and the occasional sleepover. It's all very innocent though. It's hard to make a move on a man wearing footy pajamas."
Mason looked intrigued. "Is it you or Gus in the footy pajamas?"
"That's not the kind of information I'm comfortable sharing with someone I just met," Shawn said.
"Is it the kind of thing you would be comfortable telling me after I bought you dinner? Tomorrow night, maybe?"
"Could be," Shawn said, grinning. "I guess we'll find out tomorrow."
"Spencer, I thought you had gone," Lassiter grumbled, coming up behind him and spoiling his flirting.
"And miss out on valuable bonding time with you? Not a chance, Lassie."
"I already told you that you're not going to get hired for this case, so you might as well leave."
"Why am I being punished because Gus is a giant nerd?" Shawn demanded. "I've never met these people before! I'm not a suspect, and the spirits are insisting that I investigate. You don't want to thwart the spirits, Lassie. You'll end up with all of your shoelaces tied together again."
"That was you?" Lassiter snapped, then shook his head. "Of course it was. You can tell the 'spirits' that it's a potential conflict of interest for you to work on this case, and that if they break into my house again, I'm bringing them up on charges."
Shawn tried not to grin, really he did, but he couldn't help himself. "The spirits are pleased that you believe in them now, Lassie, but would like to point out that they aren't bound by your puny human laws concerning breaking and entering, and that really no breaking took place anyway, and there's no law against entering."
Lassiter pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed tiredly. "Spencer, leave my crime scene before I have McNab remove you by force."
"Crime scene hog," Shawn muttered, but started for the door, pausing only to hand Mason a Psych business card. "You can call me whether you think of anything relevant to the case or not."
The next morning when Shawn arrived at the Psych office, Gus was already there.
"We're taking this case, Shawn," Gus said before Shawn could even sit down.
"Okay," Shawn said agreeably.
"I liked Hazel. Sure, she could be a little snooty sometimes, but she was a Harry Potter fan, and she was Team Peeta, and she and I agreed that the Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice was good. I know the miniseries was more faithful, and no one is arguing that Colin Firth isn't –"
"Gus," Shawn interrupted, "you have to stop talking now while I still have a sliver of respect for you. Of course we're taking this case! Don't be the smell that lingers after you burn a bag of popcorn in the microwave."
"That was your fault, Shawn! You set the microwave to 'defrost'."
Shawn chose to ignore that, mostly because it was true.
"Okay, tell me about the people in your book club. Let's start with the lovely lady you took home yesterday."
"That would be Sofia Markos. She works at the Read 'Em on the Cheap used bookstore. Hazel had a part-time job there too, because her husband was away on business a lot, and she said she liked to keep busy while he was gone."
"Were Sofia and Hazel friends?" Shawn asked, tossing the Nerf football he kept on his desk to Gus.
Gus caught it neatly and returned the throw. "Nah. I guess it was kind of strange that they ended up spending time together socially. I think they both loved the idea of a book club, but they had very different taste. It kind of drove Sofia crazy that Hazel would pick apart her favorite books. I think there was almost a fistfight over Jane Eyre. Like Mason said yesterday, Hazel was...well, I certainly wouldn't call her a bitch, but she was straight-shooter who never pulled her punches."
"Sounds violent. So, if they weren't friends, why did they go to the same book club?"
"Well, they weren't friends with each other, but they are both friends with Callie. She used to work at the bookstore too, until she got a job in a doctor's office. I think the club was Callie's idea in the first place; she wanted to be able to talk about books with her friends after she left the bookstore."
Shawn stood up and went over to the whiteboard, where he started idly sketching stick figures. "Callie works in a doctor's office? Is that how you got involved?"
"Yeah. I was waiting to meet with the doctor at the office she works in and she saw me reading and we got to talking."
"And Winston is her husband," Shawn stated, still drawing.
"Right. They've been married six, seven years, I think. One kid, a little boy."
"So what about Mason? How does he fit in?"
"He was a friend of Hazel's actually. He works at the same accounting firm she did."
Shawn turned to look at Gus, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "That dude is an accountant? I always think of them as being, you know, stuffed shirts. Like Lassie when he's acting especially repressed. So, what's Mason's story?"
"Are you asking for the case or for yourself? A woman is dead, Shawn! It's not the time for you to be picking up guys."
"You're right, you're right," Shawn said, returning his attention to his sketches. "So, how was Sofia after you took her home? She was clinging to you like a Kardashian clinging to fame."
Gus glared at him. "That wasn't the same thing, Shawn! I was comforting her in her time of need. There wasn't anything sordid about it."
"Of course not. Wait, you said that Mason was Hazel's friend?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Huh. Kind of weird that he was putting the moves on me right after they carted her body out of the room. Seems like he would be more upset. I'd wait at least an hour to try to pick someone up if you died, even if it meant losing my chance with someone as hot as me."
"Thanks Shawn, that means a lot to me," Gus said sarcastically. "As for Mason, you're right; it is weird that he seemed so unaffected by Hazel's death. Maybe we should go talk to him."
"Already taken care of, Gus. I'll talk to him tonight, on our date."
"You have a date with him? Shawn! He might have murdered Hazel!
"I know! This will be an excellent opportunity to question him about that."
Gus made a show of studying his laptop screen so that he wouldn't have to look at Shawn. "I thought you were saving yourself for someone else."
"Uh, I hate to tell you buddy, but it's a little late for that," Shawn laughed.
"You know what I'm talking about. I thought you were laying off dating because you're all hung up on—"
Shawn cut him off before he could say the name. "It's never gonna happen."
Gus did look at him now, more than a little surprised. "It's not like you to be so pessimistic."
"I'm just being realistic for once," Shawn said with a shrug. "I still think he's interested, but he's never going to allow himself to go for anything he wants. Anyway, Mason and I are just going on a date, not getting married. It's not a big deal."
"It'll be kind of a big deal if he poisons you while you're sharing nachos," Gus said.
"Is that some kind of euphemism?" Shawn wondered. "If so, it's kind of weird. You know Mason much better than I do; do you think he's capable of murder?"
"Before yesterday, I didn't think anyone in my book club was capable of murder, but apparently I was wrong."
"We need to go down to the police station this afternoon. If I know Lassie, he'll have had a rush job done on the autopsy and the toxicology, and we need to see those reports."
"Do you think Chief Vick will hire us to work on this case?"
"Nah, Lassie was probably right yesterday when he said she would see it as being a conflict of interest. But if we solve the case and hand her a murderer, I bet we can talk her into paying us for it."
Shawn finished his sketch on the whiteboard and stood back to admire his work. Gus got up to join him and see what he had drawn. In the center of the board was a stick figure woman (identifiable by her skirt) lying on her back – Hazel, Gus assumed. Around her, Shawn had drawn stick figure book club members. Gus looked for himself first, and found that his stick figure representation was inexplicably wearing a giant wizard's hat. Holding his little stick arm was another figure, this one more an hourglass than a stick. Sofia, Gus assumed.
"Shawn, why am I wearing a wizard hat?"
"I thought you'd like it. You can pretend you're Gocart."
Gus snorted. "You mean Gandalf, and don't play Shawn, I know you read those books in junior high too, and you saw the movies."
"I can't be expected to remember things I read in junior high! Anyway, I only read the first one. Henry found them and got rid of them because he didn't want me filling my head with fantasy crap at the same time that he was trying to fill my head with cop crap. And I only saw the movies because of Viggo. He was being all manly and virile, and you know I can't resist that."
Gus didn't answer because he was studying the sketch again. "Why did you draw Winston and Callie like that?" he asked, pointing to the figures who were standing apart from each other, stick arms crossed and little round faces frowning.
Shawn shrugged. "That's the way I saw them. There's some kind of tension there, something wrong."
"A friend of theirs did just drop dead in their living room," Gus pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but that means they should be comforting each other, right? They weren't though. Do you know if they've been fighting about anything?"
"No. I mean, I don't know. I talk to Callie when I see her on my rounds, but other than that, I only see them at our meetings."
"You haven't told me about this lady yet," Shawn said, pointing to the figure he had drawn sitting down, tears running down her face.
"That's Martina. She's from the bookstore too. I think she's a manager there? She and Hazel were pretty good friends. She likes mysteries: Tana French, Gillian Flynn, writers like that."
Shawn went back to his desk, putting his feet up and leaning back in his chair. "I don't care what kind of books she likes, Gus. I just want to know what her relationship with Hazel was like."
Gus went to his own desk, pulling a notebook out of the drawer. "You want to know about our book club, you should know what we've been reading. That's why we meet in the first place, and it's what we talk about most of the time we're together."
"Hazel wasn't killed because of what she'd been reading," Shawn scoffed, but opened the notebook Gus handed him, his brow furrowing as he opened it. "Tell me what I'm looking at."
"We each take a month and pick a favorite book for the others to read," Gus explained. "We each try to choose something that we're really passionate about, so that we'll have something to talk about. This was Hazel's month, and she chose The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood."
"TV led me to believe that book clubs exist as an excuse for suburban housewives to drink wine and gossip about their neighbors. Are you telling me that's not true?"
"No Shawn, that's not true. Not in this case, anyway. We actually discuss books. This is our reading list for the past two years, including who chose each book."
Shawn skimmed down the list, looking for Gus's choices first. He started laughing almost immediately. "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, seriously Gus? Tell me the truth: have you secretly been a ten-year-old girl this whole time?"
"It's a classic, Shawn! It was one of the formative books of my childhood!"
"That's because you didn't know what any of that stuff meant! And because it had girls talking about their boobies."
Gus narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Everything you say just proves that you read it too."
"Shyeah. The same time you did, after you stole Joy's copy when we were kids. I haven't read it as an adult manperson. That's just creepy, Gus."
"I paired it with Tiger Eyes and everyone loved it, Shawn! People wept at that meeting."
"Yeah, because they were scared of the sight of a grown man reading books meant for pre-pubescent girls," Shawn said, still laughing. "Okay, this is better. Something Wicked This Way Comes. At least that one has a creepy carnival."
"Will you stop critiquing my reading choices? Don't we have a case to work on?"
"You're the one who handed me this list and insisted that it was relevant! Hang on, I have to see what Mason picked. I need to know if he's into anything too weird for me."
"There's a 'too weird' for you?" Gus wondered, while Shawn ran his finger down the list, looking for Mason's name.
"Interview with the Vampire, The Stand, and The Corrections. That seems like an acceptable list."
"You've never read any of those books, so how would you know?"
"I've read The Stand," Shawn said defensively. "I kept it in my backpack when I was in Thailand. It was useful both as a distraction and as a weapon. And I saw the movie of Interview with the Vampire, which was only sort of terrible."
"You only feel that way because you thought Tom Cruise was hot as Lestat."
"THAT is a filthy, bald-faced lie," Shawn declared. "Brad Pitt, yeah, sure, everyone thinks that. Even you think that."
"He's a handsome man," Gus agreed.
"But not Cruise. Not any time after Top Gun, anyway, and there it was mostly just borrowed heat from standing so close to Val Kilmer. He has shark eyes, and he does the robot run. Just for suggesting it, you have to buy me some tacos before we go down to the station."
"I was probably going to end up buying you tacos anyway," Gus pointed out, "and you're acting awfully defensive about something you claim isn't true."
"It's not true," Shawn insisted as he started flipping furiously through the pages of the notebook, "and I can't believe that you would accuse me of anything so heinous. Now, what else is in here, Gus?"
"Just some notes I made about the books we were reading, some literary definitions, stuff like that. Here, give it to me and I'll walk you through it."
Shawn held on to the notebook. "I don't need literary lectures from you now any more than I needed them from Mrs. Palgrave in the eleventh grade. I'll just do what I did back then: skim over your notes and make a 'B' on the test."
Gus threw up his hands in a gesture of defeat. "Suit yourself, Shawn. Don't come running to me when you can't figure out the difference between 'allusion' and 'illusion'."
"You just said the same word twice," Shawn scoffed as he started to read. It only took a few minutes for his eyes to grow wide.
"Holy crap!"
Gus, who had retreated to his own desk, smirked. "What? Giving up already?"
"No! This description of the Moronic Hero—"
"Byronic hero," Gus corrected.
Shawn ignored the interruption. "It's Lassie!"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"This definition you have for Byronic heroes: proud, moody, cynical, miserable, arrogant, anti-social, yet capable of deep love and affection. Tell me that's not Lassiter!"
Gus stood up and snatched the notebook out of his hand to read it again for himself. "I hadn't really thought about it before," he admitted, "and I can see why you might think that, but Byronic heroes are also usually rebellious anti-authority figures."
"That would make ME a Byronic hero. Should I start brooding more?"
"Uh, no. Also, 'capable of deep love and affection'? That doesn't sound like Lassiter either."
"Oh, I don't know," Shawn said, spinning around in his desk chair, "I think Lassie's capable of deep and strong affection. Or at least of deep and strong boning."
Gus scrubbed his hand across his face, like he was trying to erase the mental image Shawn had just provided. "You're paying for the tacos. I deserve some sort of compensation for being forced to hear that."
After tacos, followed by churros, followed by an in-depth discussion of whether or not the original Terminator movie was superior to the first sequel, followed by a quick stop by the arcade, they went to the police station.
Gus's job was to keep Lassiter and Juliet distracted by telling his story about how Hazel had once pissed off Martina by suggesting that Shakespeare's plays had really been written by the 17th Earl of Oxford. Shawn had barely listened to this theory when Gus proposed it over tacos, although it was apparently a big deal in certain book-geek circles, but he couldn't see it being a motive for murder. Still, Lassie and Jules would have the information if it turned out that there was anything to it, and in the meantime, he could sneak over to Lassie's desk and take a look at the evidence.
He grabbed the file folder with Hazel's name on it, which was conveniently lying out in the open, and sat down on the floor, hoping that Lassie wouldn't be able to see him from where he was standing on the other side of the bullpen.
The first thing he saw was the toxicology report; Hazel had died from ingesting something called cicuta maculata, which Shawn would have to ask Gus about later.
"Boring, boring," he muttered to himself, flipping through the folder and seeing only facts about Hazel's life that Gus had already told him, but he stopped as he came to several pages worth of photocopies of letters that, according to Lassiter's notes, had been left in Hazel's mailbox over the past year and a half.
"You Don't Know What True Love Is," the first one read.
"DIE YOU BITCH," the second one read.
"He's so much better than you are," read the third. "You're just too stupid to realize it."
Shawn was so absorbed in studying the notes that he didn't realize that Lassiter was standing beside him until the file was snatched out of his hands.
"Ow! I think you just gave me a papercut!" He looked at his finger speculatively, then held it up in the air. "Kiss it and make it better?"
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Spencer?"
Shawn continued to sit on the floor, looking up at Lassiter, who seemed eleven feet tall from this perspective.
"I was getting psychic vibrations from that folder from all the way across the station, Lassie! You can't expect me to ignore that kind of thing."
Lassiter scowled at him. "I SHOULD be able to expect you to keep your hands off of official police files, but I know better. So I'll tell you one more time: don't touch anything on my desk without permission. And it's safe to assume that I'll never give you permission."
"But you might," Shawn said hopefully.
"But I won't. Now, take Guster and get out of here," Lassiter said, and to Shawn's surprise, he extended a hand to pull him off the floor. Shawn took it, savoring for those too-brief seconds the feeling of Lassiter's warm, strong, hand wrapped around his.
"When did Hazel receive those notes?" Shawn asked, as Lassiter sat down at his desk and started booting up his laptop.
"Can't you 'divine' that?" Lassiter asked. "I thought you were supposed to be psychic. Why do you always need me to tell you the details of a case?"
"I don't need you," Shawn scoffed, "I just like the sound of your deep and manly voice explaining things to me. It makes me tingly."
Lassiter sighed noisily but, much to Shawn's surprise, answered his question. "She received the first one more than a year ago, the second over six months ago, and the third three weeks ago. According to her husband, she found the notes on the windshield of her car when she left work."
"And the husband's alibi was solid?"
"Yes. He was out of the state for business, and he has co-workers who can confirm that. Now will you leave?"
"Yes, but only because I'm meeting Mason Warfield in a little while and I need to shower and change," Shawn said, looking at his watch.
"Spencer, unless the Chief hired you without telling me, this isn't your case. If I hear that you've been going off on your own to question the suspects..."
"No worries, Lassie! I'm not meeting Mason to question him. Well...there might be some light interrogation, but he's buying me dinner, so I'll probably go easy on the third degree."
"Buying you...are you going on a date with one of the suspects, Spencer? Are you some kind of idiot?" Lassiter closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Never mind. I already know the answer to that."
Shawn sat down on the corner of the desk closest to the detective. "Are you worried about me, Lassie? I don't think Mason is planning on poisoning me tonight, but if he does, I can count on you to avenge me, right?"
"You can count on me to stand over your corpse and say 'I told you so'," Lassiter informed him.
Shawn smiled happily. "I knew I could count on you for something!"
"Seriously Spencer, what the hell are you thinking? Don't you have any sense of self-preservation?"
"I always use protection, Lassie, if that's what you're worried about," Shawn said glibly, enjoying the way Lassiter's ears turned pink.
"Spencer..."
"Oh, don't worry so much Lassie. It makes you sound like Gus. I'm going to have a meal with the guy, not go off to an isolated location with him...unless things go really well, in which case we probably should go somewhere private so that we don't scandalize the patrons of Red Robin."
Lassiter opened a file and stared down at the page in front of him. "Spencer, I have work to do, and despite what you seem to think, I don't want to hear about your dating habits."
Glancing down at the page Lassiter seemed so intent on, Shawn noticed with some interest that it was upside down. "I'm just kidding. I don't go that far on a first date. No further than third base."
Lassiter's cheeks were pink now too. "Third base is…"
"Third base is what, Lassie?" Shawn asked curiously.
Lassiter straightened in his chair, frowning. "I know that the entire world is a playground to you, Spencer but I'm at work and this conversation is inappropriate."
"Well, maybe we can get together after work and you can tell me your thoughts on third base. Not tonight of course, since I already have a date, but –"
Shawn froze as Lassiter lifted his head and looked directly at him. Lassie's blue eyes were very, very blue, Shawn noted, as his stomach flip-flopped in a way not unlike the way he had felt riding the Tower of Terror at Disney World.
"Shawn! Are you done? I need to go by my office and pick up some things."
"We were at the office all morning, Gus," Shawn said, trying not to show his disappointment as Lassiter turned back to his work.
"Not that office, Shawn," Gus said in exasperation. "My other office."
"Fine," Shawn huffed, annoyed. Gus was going to go off and leave him for the rest of the afternoon, and Lassie might as well have put up a wall between them given how distant he suddenly looked.
Gus was already moving towards the exit. Shawn started to follow him, pausing long enough to say to no one in particular, "That's cool, I'll have plenty of time to get ready for my date. I need to rest up just in case someone hits a home run. Later, Lassie." The last glimpse of Lassiter he caught as he left was of Lassie grimacing like he had just bitten into something rotten.
"I got a look at the toxicology report," Shawn said as he got into the passenger seat of the Blueberry, ignoring the way Gus was tapping on the steering wheel impatiently. "She was definitely poisoned. What's circle matriculates?"
Gus frowned. "Um, two random words that you put together? Matriculates means to be enrolled in a college or university. Circle means…a circle. Are you suggesting that Hazel was killed by a college educated circle?"
"Probably not," Shawn admitted. "Maybe it was cicada macaronium."
"I don't think so," Gus said, disturbed. "I don't even want to know what insects have to do with macaroni, or how either one could be involved in Hazel's death." His brow furrowed in thought, he suggested "Do you mean cicuta maculata?"
"Maybe," Shawn said uncertainly. "What is it?"
"Cicuta maculata is the Greek name for spotted water hemlock. It's a member of the carrot family and it grows in a lot of marshy areas in California, so it would be very easy for anyone to get their hands on. It's extremely poisonous. It's also called cowbane because it can kill a cow in fifteen minutes.
"Yikes. So, someone traded out some of Hazel's tea leaves for this spotted water hemlock. Who had access to the tea bags?"
"Everyone," Gus said. "She left them in the kitchen, and we were all in and out of there before the meeting got started. All someone would have had to do was exchange one of her tea bags for one with the poison in it."
"Do you remember anyone lingering in the kitchen? Or anything unusual happening?"
Gus thought for a moment before shaking his head. "Callie wanted everyone to see their new refrigerator. Oh, and Mason and Martina had a little disagreement over what kind of wine would go best with the cheese platter."
"Oooh la la," Shawn said snootily. "Did you tell them that your favorite wine is the Bartles & Jaymes Fuzzy Navel?"
"That's not a wine, it's a wine cooler. With cheese, you would serve a Pinot Noir, or maybe a Chardonnay," Gus said, ignoring Shawn's ostentatious yawn. "And anyway, my favorite wine cooler is the Pomegranate Raspberry, you know that. Fuzzy Navel is your favorite."
"I do like Fuzzy Navels," Shawn agreed, and sighed. "Do you think Lassie's navel is fuzzy? I figure the sternum bush —"
Gus wrinkled his nose. "Shawn! No. You know that talking about Lassie's body parts is strictly off-limits."
"You've never cared that much when I talked about other guys before!"
"That was different. I want to be a supportive friend, but it's too weird when you're talking that way about Lassiter. I know him. I don't want to be thinking about his navel—or any other part of him—the next time I see him. He'll catch me staring and think that I'm the one with a creepy crush on him."
"It's not creepy!" Shawn insisted. "And you can't get a crush on him, Gus. I have firsties."
"Uh, no problem, Shawn. He's all yours."
"I wish," Shawn muttered, and shook his head. "Back to the case. So, if everyone had access to the tea bags, then we're right back where we started. I'll see what I can find out from Mason tonight, and tomorrow maybe we can go check out that bookstore where everyone worked."
"I have a meeting I can't get out of tomorrow morning," Gus warned, "so you might have to go without me."
"Your stupid other job is interfering with my investigation," Shawn complained.
"My other job is not stupid," Gus said as he pulled in front of the Psych office to drop Shawn off. "It paid for our tickets to that Jean-Claude Van Damme film festival last week."
"Man, I still can't believe that they skipped Street Fighter," Shawn said. "Hello, Ming-Na Wen AND Kylie Minogue? That's a dream cast!"
As Shawn opened the door to get out, Gus said "Be careful on your date tonight. I mean, I like Mason, he's cool, but if he turns out to be a murderer, text me."
"Will do," Shawn promised.
