I do not own any part of Psych. No copyright infringement intended.
Chapter 2
Two hours later, Shawn was still at the station. He had reported to Chief Vick, and then he'd given his official statement on the attack. Gus had joined him as soon as he'd heard; his fears of evil clowns overshadowed by Shawn's experience. After he was done giving his statement to Buzz, Shawn had settled in at Juliet's computer to look through some mug shots.
"Shawn why are you looking at those if you said you couldn't see his face?"
"I don't know, Gus," said Shawn with resignation. "I guess I just feel like doing something. Maybe I'll recognize his teeth."
"Dude, you really know how to get yourself into the strangest predicaments," said Gus as he munched on some vending machine chips.
"I know, man," said Shawn. "It was all so disconcerting, like watching a Saturday night Syfy Original Movie."
Gus shivered and nodded.
"I mean, the guy seemed so...happy. And he knew Lassie. And he was wearing a ski mask *and* sunglasses. But all he wanted was the gun. Yet, he already had a gun. Seriously? Are criminals really that greedy these days?"
Gus wrinkled his brow and opened his mouth to respond.
"Actually, don't answer that," said Shawn. He clicked through a few more screens of mug shots, then grabbed for his phone when it started to ring.
"Shawn Spencer, clown-nabber and mugger-bait," he said, knowing already that it was Juliet calling.
"Shawn, please," she said, sounding tired and frazzled.
Shawn could just imagine what kind of an experience she'd been having while accompanying Lassie to the hospital. He remembered what Lassie's knee had looked like when the paramedics had cut his pant leg open, much to the detective's dismay, and his stomach did a mini-flop at the image. Lassie's knee had been red and swollen, and there was an odd bump on the outside part of the knee that the medics explained was his knee cap. It had been dislocated by the impact of the car door. Shawn shivered at the thought. The medics had mentioned that they'd need x-rays to determine the severity of the dislocation. If it was serious enough, it would require surgery.
As bad as he felt about the experience, Shawn had been relieved to accept a ride from Buzz to the station while Juliet rode in the ambulance with Lassiter. The detective was still radiating a black cloud of anger and despair and, Shawn suspected, embarrassment at the fact that he'd lost his weapon. Shawn was happy to be away from that cloud for a while, so he could try to think through the experience more clearly.
"I'm sorry, Jules. Just blowing off steam. How's Lassie?" he asked.
"He's doing okay, considering. It could've been a lot worse. There's no concussion, thank goodness. His knee cap was dislocated, but it didn't tear any cartilage and won't require surgery. They've got it immobilized for now, and he'll need to wear a knee brace for a while."
"Well, that's good. Is he, uh, feeling any better?" Shawn asked, not sure if Juliet knew what he meant.
"He's calmed down, a bit. I think the drugs have helped, but," she said, and Shawn could almost hear her shrug. "He's pretty torn up about it."
Shawn gave a mirthless laugh, "Yeah, you can say that again."
"Shawn, give him a break. Put yourself in his place," said Juliet, with as close to a tone of admonishment as she ever got with Shawn. "He feels responsible for what happened, even though he couldn't have prevented it, from what you said."
"I know Jules, you're right. He couldn't have prevented it. Maybe I could've, if I'd noticed something sooner, anything, but I didn't. It was an ambush, and we walked right into it," said Shawn with an edge of irritation.
"Shawn, don't beat yourself up about it, too. I can only handle one self-flagellating co-worker at a time, okay?"
"Okay, Jules," said Shawn. Then he covered the phone and whispered to Gus, "What does self-flatulating mean?"
Gus looked puzzled. "Do you mean self-flagellating?"
"Can you just pretend that I do, so I don't have to try and say it again?"
Gus gave him a long-suffering look. "It means that you're punishing yourself for something."
Shawn said, "Ah, okay. Thanks." Then he uncovered the phone to address Juliet. "So when are you getting back?"
"I'm going to take him home and help him get settled. Then I'm going home too. It's almost 1AM. Vick says we'll pick up the investigation first thing tomorrow. You should go home and get some rest yourself. We'll need you."
"Sure thing, boss," he said as he gave up on the mug shots. "I'll see you in the morning, then. Thanks, Jules."
"Good night, Shawn."
Shawn rubbed his forehead, feeling a sudden and urgent need for sleep. "Let's get out of here, buddy. I need to crash."
"Yes, you do," said Gus.
oOoOoOoOoOoO
He seemed so happy, like he was really enjoying himself. It's not every day a crook gets to mug a cop. Why did he do it? Why did I let it happen? And for God's sake, why did I just let him take my gun? Lassiter drew in a ragged breath, trying to keep it from sounding too much like a sob. He wasn't dreaming, though it felt like a dream. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to sleep fully enough to dream. He was stuck in that weird, drug-aided netherworld of sleep-but-not-sleep, where his brain was still running a million miles an hour, where the pain of his knee dulled but never disappeared, and where the weird ski mask/sunglasses figure of the man who had taken his gun morphed disturbingly with that of the damned clown he had arrested only a short while before the attack.
I didn't just let him take my gun. I let Spencer give him my gun. Lassiter's eyes opened, staring into the darkness of his room as if he was still staring into the darkness left in the wake of the mugger's escape. He wasn't a mugger. He knew who I was. It was an ambush. Lassiter felt an ache of anger, mixed with embarrassment, that rivaled the continued ache of his right knee. He looked at the clock. It was almost 6AM, as good a time as any to get up for the day. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the pain of getting out of bed and moving around.
At 7:30AM he called O'Hara. During the previous hour and a half, he'd gotten out of bed, awkwardly, due to the knee immobilizer. The contraption stretched from mid-thigh to ankle and forced his leg to remain straight. He had the feeling he was going to hate it with a passion before the week was over. It was uncomfortable and ungainly, but he'd started getting used to moving around with it and the crutches. He had washed up, shaved, and taken a dose of painkillers with two pieces of toast and coffee. He had also taken one 10 minute break to ice his knee. With some strategic cutting on an older pair of slacks, he had fashioned a pair of pants that would fit over the immobilizer. Maybe one long pant leg and one short wouldn't win any fashion contests, but at least he could walk around in public in something other than pajama bottoms or sweats.
Now, it was time for the hard part. He was mostly sure O'Hara would be awake. It was bad enough, thinking about what her reaction was going to be to his call, without adding in the possibility of actually waking her up, too. He took a deep breath as he waited through the rings.
"Carlton? Are you okay?" she said.
"I'm fine, O'Hara. What time are you heading to the station?" he asked.
There was a pause. "Um, I was just about to head in now, actually," she said hesitantly, as if she knew what was coming next.
"Can you swing by and pick me up, then? I'm ready to go."
"Carlton, you're not supposed to go to work today."
"O'Hara, I'm ready to go," he said, allowing a steely edge to slip into his voice.
She sighed heavily. "Is there any point arguing with you?"
"Absolutely none."
"You know the chief is going to stick you right back into a squad car and make an officer guard you all day."
"That would be a waste of manpower. And anyway, I'll tell her the same thing I'm going to tell you now. If I need to, I will walk to the station."
She sighed again. "We'll see how well that goes over with the chief," she muttered. "Okay, Carlton, I'll be there in 15 minutes."
"Thank you," he said, relief plain in his voice.
"Are you really sure?" she asked.
"Absolutely," he said. After he hung up, he sat for several minutes leaning on his elbows with his face in his hands.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Shawn was yawning widely as he walked into the station a little after 10AM. He hadn't slept well, and his dreams had contained evil clowns and the echoes of Gus's running feet. He turned the corner into the main squad room, and stopped in his tracks.
"Spencer where have you been?" barked Lassiter from across the room. He was nestled in at his desk with an extra chair full of cushions to prop up his injured leg, various water and juice and medicine bottles strewn about, and several large stacks of files threatening to tip over. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and supporting a large bag of ice on his injured knee with the other.
Shawn wasn't sure why he was surprised that Lassiter was already back to work. It's just because I'm not awake yet. He walked over to the detective and said, "Lassie, you'd better watch out. You're going to start a new trend with those pants. And they will be known as: Lassie-Pants!"
"Stow it, Spencer," grumped Lassiter. "I've been waiting for you to come in. Where's Guster?"
"He just dropped me off. He has, like, some other job or something, I guess," said Shawn with a shrug. "Where's Jules?"
"She's at the scene of the attack, checking in with forensics. We need to compare notes."
"So, Vick's just letting you work on this?"
Lassiter frowned and looked down at one of the files on his desk. "She's got me on desk duty. I'm supposed to finish up paperwork on all of my other cases. But she knows I'm not going to just let this go, either."
Shawn nodded, with a "no-kidding" look on his face as he pulled over a chair and sat down so that he was looking at Lassiter across his desk. He glanced at the detective's injured leg. At the moment, the wrapped-up knee was exposed enough for icing. The immobilizer was lying open under the leg, on top of the cushions that had been scrounged up to help elevate his knee. It was a funny looking thing, with a lot of Velcro straps that wrapped around and secured two long metal support splints which kept the leg from bending.
Just then, Buzz McNab walked up and asked, "Is there anything else you need, detective?"
"Yeah, take this stack and bring me the reports from the month earlier. And put this back in the freezer," he said as he handed Buzz the ice pack.
Buzz nodded eagerly and grabbed the teetering files Lassiter pointed to and the slightly dripping ice pack.
"Are you going through old burglary reports?"
"Just the ones involving car break-ins."
Shawn grimaced and shook his head. "There's not much to go on, is there?"
Lassiter sighed, looking perturbed. "No. Now, did you get any kind of vibes or visions or anything last night that might be useful?"
Shawn shook his head. "Unfortunately not. I think that hot girl in the Jeep that passed us scrambled my signals for a few moments there."
Lassiter let out an exasperated sigh. "Great. Well, what else did you see? He was in all black, nothing distinguishable, that I noticed. My head was a bit muzzy there for a few minutes," he said with a grimace. "He was wearing sunglasses. That was weird."
"Yeah, Ray Bans. It had to be hard for him to see very well with them on, in that dark lot. Was he trying to be cool, or hiding something?"
"Like eye color?"
Shawn shrugged.
"You said the glasses were Ray Bans? I guess that's the one distinguishing characteristic we can list."
"Sure, except about 50% of Santa Barbara probably wears those."
Lassiter took a deep breath and then let it out in a mirthless laugh. "Well, 50% is better than nothing, I guess."
Shawn looked at him sharply. "Did you just make a joke?"
"Did I?" Lassiter raised his eyebrows with a look of innocent confusion, but Shawn detected a wry look in his eyes.
Shawn chuckled and then cleared his throat. "It looks like you're feeling a little better, at least."
"Oh yeah, I feel super," said Lassiter as he a flipped open a file.
"I know, I just meant..." he faltered, not really sure what he was trying to say.
"Don't let my sunny demeanor fool you, Spencer. I'm pissed off," he said, face reddening slightly. "I really think I would shoot the guy, if he was suddenly standing right here."
Shawn pursed his lips and nodded.
"But," said Lassiter, in a quieter tone that made Shawn look up at him. The detective was gazing resolutely down at one of the reports. "I'm only angry with that guy. No one else." He flicked his eyes up to meet Shawn's before looking down again.
Shawn drew a breath and felt some tension release in his shoulders. "Okay, that's cool," he said with a small smile. "But, are you sure about that? Really?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're not pissed off at anyone else? Like, any tall, dark and handsome head detectives of Irish descent?"
Lassiter grimaced and opened another file.
"Cause, y'know, you shouldn't be," continued Shawn quietly.
"Drop it, Spencer," growled Lassie.
"Consider it dropped like a hot potato," said Shawn, adding a gesture of shaking his hand and blowing on his fingers to complete the picture.
Lassiter just rolled his eyes.
