Chapter 2
"Now I want you two to behave. Just one item in this house probably costs more than your hou- uhh, I mean more than your car, Gus," Juliet stated as they approached the door of the huge mansion of the recently deceased widow.
"Don't worry, Jules", Shawn replied happily. "I only steal things that are useful to me and I doubt anything in here will be, unless it's a big screen tv with surround sound," Shawn replied as he rang the doorbell.
Suddenly a very well dressed man answered the door. "Yes, may I help you?"
"Uh yes, do you happen to have any grey poupon?" Shawn replied in an English accent.
Confused, the man stared at Shawn. "Excuse me, but are you ill?"
"We think so," Gus replied.
Juliet sighed in annoyance and continued. "We're sorry to have bothered you sir, but I'm Detective O' Hara from the SBPD and we're here to investigate Mrs. Parker's death."
"Ah but of course. I'm Chandler Adams, Mr. Parker's butler. Won't you come in?" he replied.
"Thank you," she said stepping inside. "Wow this is a beautiful home."
"Eh I've seen better," Shawn replied looking around.
"And where would that be, Shawn?" Gus asked.
"Uh, Aladdin?"
"That's a castle, Shawn!"
"Well you have to admit, castles are better than mansions, Gus!"
"Excuse me but are you two detectives as well?" Mr. Adams interrupted.
"Yes I'm psychic detective Shawn Spencer and this is my assistant, Ronald McDonald."
"Psychic detective? I've never heard of such a thing."
"Oh trust me, I know it sounds rather out there but I assure you he is one of the best and has helped us solve many cases," Juliet replied.
"Hm. Hard to believe but I'll take your word for it. Now what sort of questions would you like to ask me, Detective O' Hara?"
"Well in the report it says you found the body."
"Yes correct. I found her lying at the bottom of the stairs and when I felt no pulse, I called the police."
Juliet nodded and continued. "And did Mrs. Parker have any enemies or have there been any threats to her lately?"
"Oh I imagine there was some. Right after Mrs. Parker married Mr. Parker, she did some cleaning of his cooperation."
"What do you mean by that?" Gus asked.
"Well Mr. Parker was very loyal to his employees. A lot of them have been with him since his company began 20 years ago, so he refused to let them go. But when Mrs. Parker saw that they weren't making as much money for him as they could have been, she convinced him to fire quite a few of them and replace them. Needless to say there were many unhappy people."
"I see. We're going to need the names of all of his former employees," Juliet said.
"Sure thing. Follow me to his office," he replied.
As Juliet and Mr. Adams walked to the office, Shawn looked around for any clues that might catch his eye.
"Man someday, Gus, we're gonna have a house like this, complete with a movie theater with surround sound, a game room with vintage video games, a bowling alley-"
"Yeah right cause we just have millions of dollars lying around somewhere, Shawn."
"I said someday, Gus. This is why all of our dreams are crushed cause you have no faith."
"Okay fine, just let me know when you make your first million, Shawn."
"I will, Gus and then you won't be invited to go swimming in my Pac Man shaped pool."
"It'll be hard but I think I'll get over it."
"Fine but you don't know what you'll be missing out on-" Shawn stated, when suddenly something caught his eye at the bottom of the stairs. "Hm a lense from some glasses. Either Mr. Adams used to have a career as Mr. Peanut, or someone lost these from their glasses."
"I think it's safe to say it popped out of someone's glasses, Shawn," Gus replied as he leaned over to look at it as well. "It probably belonged to Rebecca Parker and popped out of her glasses when she fell down the stairs."
"Or when she was pushed down the stairs. We need to find the rest of her glasses."
"You mean these?" Gus replied picking up some broken glasses from behind one of the railings.
"Precisely," Shawn said.
"But what are broken glasses going to prove?" Gus asked confused.
"I don't know, but they might prove useful later on, Gus. When are you going to learn not to doubt me?"
"When you give me a reason to trust you, Shawn."
"That hurts, Gus! Now you're defiantly not invited to swim in my Pac Man pool!"
Later that day Gus and Shawn decided to do a little investigating of their own. They headed to Woody's office, aka the morgue, to see if Shawn could get any "psychic" visions that might help the case.
"Oh Woody!" Shawn shouted bursting through the door.
"Oh hey guys!" Woody said looking up from the body of Rebecca Parker. "You're just in time I was just getting ready to look through her stomach contents."
"Say what?" Gus replied, taking a step back.
"Well ya know just checking everything. I just sent in a blood sample to be tested and I'm checking her organs and stomach contents to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary. Wanna help me look through this?" he asked as he held up a bowl of digested food.
Trying not to toss his lunch, Gus made a beeline to the door. "I'll catch you guys later!"
"Hm, well he held out longer than I thought he would," Woody said.
"You and me both," Shawn agreed. "So what did our lovely rich lady have for her last meal?" Shawn asked, looking at the stomach contents.
"Well nothing out of the ordinary it looks like. Actually not much at all. Just mostly caviar and salad. Hm, must be a rich person's diet."
"Yeah a rich person's diet that ended up being deadly," Henry stated as he walked through the door. "There were traces of rat poison in her blood. My guess is when she succumbed to it, she happened to be by the stairs. So her death was no accident, and I'm guessing her husband's wasn't either."
"Oh oh can I tell Lassie that?" Shawn asked eagerly as he raised his hand.
"No I'll tell him. What you can do is go through the suspect list with Juliet and help us find a lead," Henry replied walking out of the morgue.
"But what about doing some more searching? I bet you there's a stash of rat poison somewhere in that gigantic place, dad. Come on let me go do my psychic thing!"
"No Shawn, it's too dangerous. We don't know who we're dealing with here. These were some rich and powerful people and that makes their enemies dangerous as well. So I want you to stay far away from there, you understand me?"
Shawn sighed. "Yes, oh wonderful father of mine."
Just then Juliet came around the corner with a woman following close behind. "Oh hey guys. I'd like you to meet Claire Monroe, Mrs Parker's sister."
The mysterious woman then came out from behind Juliet and removed her sunglasses, shocking everyone as she looked identical to Rebecca. "Hello," she replied shyly.
Shawn let out a high pitched scream as he took a step back. "No it can't be- ZOMBIE!"
Henry rolled his eyes and smacked his son across the arm. "Would you knock it of and try acting like an adult for once?"
"This is obviously her twin sister, Shawn," Juliet said. "And she's here to answer a few questions and to identify the body. So if you'll excuse us," she finished as she made her way past Shawn and Henry.
As she started to follow Juliet, Claire suddenly stopped dead in her tracks when she got next to Shawn and stared at him intensely.
"Uhhhh if you're going to eat my brain you should know it's not as big as my friend Gus's, who should be around here somewhere," Shawn replied nervously.
"I know you from somewhere," Claire said as she stared directly at him. "You're that psychic that's always in the newspaper for solving cases."
"Yup that's me. Please no autographs. Okay maybe one, but no pictures, I'm having a horrible hair day."
"Just find out who did this to my sister, got it Mr. Psychic?"
"Yes mame," Shawn replied in another nervous tone, as she walked away.
"Wow," Henry stated.
"I know, I think she could make all those dead bodies in there nervous," Shawn replied with a shiver.
"Well if I were you I would do what she says. I would hate to think what she could do if you didn't."
"Yeah probably kill me and use my skin as a coat," Shawn said walking away.
"Shawn, why are we here? You told me we were going to go get some pancakes," Gus complained as Shawn drove up to the Parker mansion.
"All in good time my friend. But first we need to do some good old fashioned snooping," Shawn replied as he headed up to the house.
"And how do you expect us to do that? What if Mr. Peanut doesn't let us in?"
"Gus you underestimate me. He has a golf outing right now."
"And how do you know that, Shawn?"
"Gus I'm a psychic remember?"
"No you're not, Shawn!"
"Alright I snooped through his appointment book the other day while we were here. Just come on."
"How are we gonna get in?"
"Uh from the spare key I found the other day, duh, Gus!"
"You mean the key you stole, Shawn!"
"Gus, trying to prove you're Mr. Know It All all the time isn't a good color on you," Shawn replied as he opened the door.
"Alright now you look in the kitchen and I'll look in here," Shawn said, walking towards the rec room.
"I don't think so Shawn, I ain't searching all over the place while you're in here watching a movie on the big screen tv!"
"Like I said, not a pretty color, Gus," Shawn said as he headed towards the kitchen.
As Shawn headed to the kitchen he couldn't help but notice some pictures along the way. Particularly some of Mr. and Mrs. Parker. In many of the pictures they were posing with Mr. Adams. Which was rather unusual as many rich people don't usually get so close with their butlers. He then made his way into the kitchen and after what felt like an hour couldn't come up with anything.
"Did you find it?" Gus asked as he entered the room.
"Oh yeah. I just decided to hide it again so you could have the pleasure of finding it, Gus."
"Well it's not in any of the places I looked and we don't have enough time to search the whole house. We need to get out of here."
Shawn started to reply, when suddenly something caught his eye. It was an uneven tile close to the back door. Shawn then went over to it and with a butter knife managed to pop it out of it's place, only to reveal a small bottle of rat poison.
"Gee it must be a pain getting this in and out every time they have a little critter to kill," Shawn stated as he held the bottle up with a dish towel.
"Man if this is what happens to rich people, then I don't mind being stuck on the poor side," Gus replied. "Now come on, let's go!"
"Hold on let me put it back, so as I may "find it" later with my awesome psychic abilities," Shawn said as he put it back in the floor and secured the tile over it. "Boy I amaze myself."
They then quietly and quickly headed out the door, trying not to be seen by any neighbors or passer byers.
"Okay now it's off to partake in some pancake goodness, and then some psychic goodness," Shawn said as he headed towards the car.
"Alright but I'm driving this time," Gus said grabbing the keys out of Shawn's pocket.
"Suit yourself, but the seat is stuck, so have fun with that one," Shawn replied. "Unless you just wanna cut a hole through the floor and do it Flintstone style."
"That's it, you're never driving my car again, Shawn!"
"Man you're no fun anymore. Take some "get a life" classes, Gus."
"I think I'll just tie my shoe first, is that okay with you?" Gus said bending over.
"Whatever floats your weird boat," Shawn replied with his hands in the air.
As Shawn headed towards the car he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw fresh tire tracks that had drove over theirs. As Shawn turned his head to see who else might be there he heard a sudden squealing of tires and a black convertible moving at a high rate of speed towards Gus.
"GUS!" he shouted, running fast as he could towards him.
Within a split second, Shawn made it just as the car came within a foot of Gus, and as he pushed him out of the way, felt a sudden pain as the car ran into him, causing him to flip over the front of the car and land on the pavement, hearing the squealing of the tires and Gus's frantic shouts as he succumbed to the darkness that overcame him.
