Disclaimer: I don't own Psych, The Hunger Games, or To Kill a Mockingbird.

A/N: See anonymous review replies and author's note at the end of the chapter. Please read, review, and enjoy! :)

The Finch and the Mockingbird

Chapter Two: Murder in the Twitter Feed

Henry was pulling weeds out of the garden when he heard his phone ringing from inside the house. He grunted, bones creaking as he rose from his knees and headed into the house to answer it. According to the caller ID, it was his son.

"What is it, Shawn?"

"Miss you too, Papa Monkey," came his son's sarcastic response from the other end. His tone took a slightly more serious tone. "What kind of bird did Sylvester leave on your doorstep?"

"What? Why?"

"I just need to know, okay, Dad?"

"I don't know, Shawn," Henry grumbled, even though he did. "It was a dead bird."

"Please, Dad. I know you go bird-watching every Sunday morning with a group of geezers at the park."

"What? Have you been following me?"

"Um, no," Shawn shot back instantly. "It's obvious. You keep a pair of binoculars on your coat hook, but whenever I've stopped by on Sunday evenings, they're sitting on the dash of your truck. That, combined with the Birds of the California Coast book on your coffee table, makes a pretty convincing argument. And you aren't one to go on such an exciting outing alone; you'll have a group of equally old and boring buddies to share in your little hobby. And trust me, I have much better things to do with my Sunday mornings than follow you around, namely watching the backs of my eyelids." Henry rolled his eyes, because although Shawn was dead-on with his observations and deductive reasoning, he had reached the irritation exacto early this morning. "So stop being so difficult and just tell me if it was a mockingbird or not."

Henry blinked. How Shawn had figured that out, he didn't know, but he was right: It had been a mockingbird. "How did you know?"

"I'm psychic, remember?" Before Henry could refute the absurd statement, Shawn added, "Thanks, Dad."

"What's going on?" There was something in his son's voice that made Henry uneasy, or maybe it was his cop instincts that were telling him that something wasn't quite right. "Are you on a case?"

"Actually, no. Just wanting to know what size coffin I'll need to get for the bird. I'll have a mockingbird-sized casket on its way ASAP."

"Shawn—"

Shawn hung up.

Henry glared at his phone for a long moment as if he could somehow transmit his irritation through the disconnected phone call, and then he put the phone away and went back outside to the garden, pushing the niggling feeling of unease out of his mind, telling himself it was just one little bird and that Shawn was simply being... well, Shawn.

Shawn hung up his phone and returned it to his pocket, suspicions confirmed. He turned to where the dead mockingbird lay, this one slightly smaller than the one that had been in front of the Psych office. Upon arriving at his place – the old Mimi's Fluff-n-Fold – after leaving Gus at the office to wait for Woody (Gus steadfastly refused to set foot outside the office until Tweety the Second had been picked up), he'd been hit with a serious sense of déjà vu when he'd spotted yet another lifeless bird lying on the sidewalk in front of the old dry cleaner's.

That had more than affirmed that he was right and something was going on here, and a quick but exasperating call to his dad had made him positive that it was for some reason centered around these mysterious murdered mockingbirds. Someone was killing these cute little guys and leaving them at places connected to Shawn.

But were they a threat? A message? Some kind of a sick prank? He wasn't sure, but he was going to find out. He hadn't mentioned any of this to his dad, and he hadn't explained it to Gus yet, either. Whatever was going on, it seemed that Shawn himself was the common factor. His dry cleaner's-turned-apartment. His dad's house. His psychic detective agency.

He remembered how his father and best friend had worried when Shawn had been threatened by Yang last year, and even though this could be nothing but a cruel prank, he didn't feel like having to deal with their concern about his safety if they thought he was being threatened. He'd look into it a bit on his own first, and then if he thought it was necessary, he'd get the Worry Squad involved.

His phone rang again, and he rolled his eyes, sure that it was his dad calling back to demand an explanation. "Dad, I told you—"

"Mr. Spencer, this is Chief Vick."

"Oh," said Shawn, telling himself that he really needed to check who was calling before he answered his phone. "What's going on, Karen?" There was silence, but Shawn could almost feel the chief's glare through his iPhone. He cleared his throat, properly chastised. "Chief Vick," he amended. Surely his father hadn't called her on this bird thing! Even he wasn't that paranoid and controlling, was he? Then again...

"Mr. Spencer," the chief repeated. "I have a case you might be interested in. I've put my detectives on it, of course, but they've got a lot on their plates right now wrapping a few other cases up as well, and I think we could use some additional help with this one."

"Oh, Chief, I thought you'd never ask!" Shawn simpered melodramatically. "What kind of case are we talking about here? Diamond smuggling? Murder? Espionage? Suit? Brief?" He grinned widely at his own joke, envisioning the chief doing the same at her desk at the station, but only exasperation was in her voice when she responded.

"We have a body. It seems like a pretty straight-forward case, but we'd like to wrap this up as soon as possible."

Curious and eager for another case, Shawn told her he'd be there within the hour. After digging around in his sock drawer, he found a pair of old socks, but them on his hands, braced himself for what he was about to do, and then used his sock-covered hands to pick up the bird, quickly placing it in a plastic baggie so that he could take it down to the station with him. He threw the socks into the trash can and grabbed his cell phone from where he'd laid it down on his dresser after talking to the chief. He was planning to call Gus to come pick him up as soon as Woody picked up the bird so that they could ride to the station in the Blueberry together.

As he hit speed dial and waited for Gus to answer, he solemnly addressed the dead bird in the plastic bag,"Okay, Tweety the Third. I'll go to the station, find out what the chief has for us, and then I promise that I will find your real killer and clear Sylvester's name. You have my word, little buddy."

His name was Carter Johnson, he was a wildlife conservationist and avid birdwatcher, and he had been stabbed four times and dumped in the woods a few miles from his home, only to be found by a couple of traumatized hikers earlier this morning. Woody had estimated the time of death to be about 4 p.m. yesterday evening.

Chief Vick had explained all of this in her office upon the consultants' arrival. Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara were present as well, and Lassie had a smug look on his Lassie-face.

"See, Spencer," he said, "this is what happens when you rely on good, solid police work and not crystal balls and spirits!"

Shawn furrowed his brow in mock confusion. "What happens? People get murdered violently? This dude is dead. I'm confused; how is that good?"

Lassiter fumed, and Shawn quite enjoyed the sight. "No," the detective ground out, "results happen. While you and Guster were taking your sweet time getting to the station, Detective O'Hara and I did real investigative work and found out more about the victim than all of your flailing around and idiocy would have."

"Oh, good," said Shawn. "So you know who killed him?" Lassiter spluttered indignantly. Shawn smirked. "That's what I thought. Lassie, you're going to have to do better than that if you want to beat me at my own game."

Gus elbowed Shawn in the side as Juliet rolled her eyes. The chief admonished, "This is not a game, Mr. Spencer, even if you have a habit of treating every case you consult on like it is one. May I remind you that a man is dead?"

"You may," Shawn allowed graciously, "but I can't promise I'll retain the information. I'll try my best though. For you." Now the chief was rolling her eyes.

"My detectives have been working diligently all morning, and they have managed to track down Mr. Johnson's next-of-kin, place of employment, and an impressive amount of information about him and his current lifestyle that could very well prove vital to the outcome of this case."

Shawn grinned widely. "In that case, congrats! This thing'll be solved by dinner!" he applauded, winking at Juliet, who just smiled slightly and looked uncomfortable. Once upon a time, she would have acted exasperated or would have teased him back, but since Shawn had started seeing Abigail, things had remained a bit awkward between Juliet and him, even though they had resolved not to let that happen.

Granted, Shawn probably shouldn't have been faux-flirting with Jules, but Abigail had been Uganda for two months now, she and Shawn rarely spoke anymore, not to mention she'd left their relationship status kind of ambiguous upon leaving the country. Sometimes he felt like he wasn't even in a relationship anymore, long-distance or otherwise, and he sorely missed the back-and-forth that he and Juliet had so easily taken part in before he and Abigail had gotten together.

Even though Juliet looked a little put-off by Shawn's silliness, he continued with his course of action, knowing that an opportunity to goad Lassiter – again – would be right around the corner. "Want to hug it out?"

Juliet shook her head slightly, a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of her lips, but she just walked out of the chief's office with a long-suffering expression on her face. Shawn turned to Lassiter with his arms outstretched in what he thought was a very warm, inviting manner. "Lassie," he said. "You look like you need a hug."

"I would rather make love with a cactus."

"Ouch," Shawn remarked, referring to both the painful implications of that alternative and the harsh dismissal. Lassiter followed his partner out of the room and Shawn turned to his best friend. "Gus? ... Gus, come back! Where are you going? You know I can't handle rejection! Gus?" He turned around to face Chief Vick, conceding that Gus was long gone. "What about you, Chief? Hug it out?"

Chief Vick managed to mostly smother her exasperated smile, but not quite. "Out, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn pouted, slowly lowering his arms, and slumped out of the room after the detectives and Gus.

Shawn studied the partially covered form of Carter Johnson lying on the table in the morgue. The deceased was on his back, and two of his stab wounds were visible from the front. He'd been stabbed two more times in the back. There were slight traces of bruising on his jaw and neck. There were also some scars on his forearms, more of indentations, really, small dots of what looked like claw marks... like something with talons had repeatedly dug its claws into his skin.

Shawn raised a hand to his head. "I'm sensing that this man did not only watch birds, but he interacted with them on a regular basis."

Juliet blinked, somehow managing to be adorably surprised whenever Shawn had a "vision," even after all these years. "That's right. He did bird shows for the local aviary for years."

"Small birds, right?" Shawn guessed, knowing that if he had worked with larger birds like owls or hawks, he would have been required to wear some kind of arm protection, which he obviously hadn't, judging by the marks on his skin.

"Correctomundo, my fine-haired friend," Woody spoke up from where he stood eerily looming over the victim's head.

Shawn's hand returned to his head, his mind making frantic leaps and bounds as it started to make connections between this morning's bird incidents and the bird-lover's death. "This spirits are squawking," he informed his audience. "Chirping... Tweeting?" He blinked, looking at Gus. "Can birds use Twitter?"

"Shawn."

"Right. Well, this just in from at I_Know_Something_You_Don't_Know, hash-tag #suckit: I know what this man's favorite bird was, and almost definitely why he was killed."

"Hash-tag suck it, Shawn? That doesn't make any sense."

"Okay, you know what? You can hash-tag suck it, Gus."

"I hate to interrupt this moment," Juliet said, looking very much like she would in fact love to interrupt, "but we're kind of in the middle of a murder investigation here. Shawn, are you saying that you've already figured it out?"

At the same time, Shawn said, "A rather large chunk of it, yes," and Lassiter growled, "No, he hasn't!"

"He spent a lot of time with mockingjays," Shawn revealed, flapping his arms dramatically.

"Don't you mean mockingbirds, Shawn?" Juliet asked. "Mockingjays are from The Hunger Games."

"I'm pretty sure we had the same conversation this morning," Gus huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Agree to disagree – on both counts," Shawn said stubbornly. "But fine, I'll say mockingbirds, but only because you asked me, Juliet." He wiggled his eyebrows at her, and she studied her shoes. Clearing his throat, Shawn announced, "He spent a lot of time with mockingbirds. I'd go so far to say they were probably his favorite. And he was a conservationist, correct? So he'd be keeping a relatively close tab on the birds in the area, particularly mockingbirds, which are all but extinct."

"No, they're not, Shawn," Gus snapped.

Shawn plowed ahead, not even bothering to declare that he'd heard it both ways. He was on a roll. Usually he didn't glean so much information right at the start of an investigation. Of course, usually he didn't find three dead mockingbirds in front of places he frequented, either. He knew without a doubt now that these two were connected – way too much coincidence for them not to be – which was allowing him to draw more conclusions a lot quicker than usual. "If someone was killing or hunting mockingbirds, and our guy was birdwatching or conservationing... conservating? ... conserving? Being a conversationist." Everyone in the room, save for Woody, who was now eating a jelly donut while he listened on in uncharacteristic silence, rolled their eyes in synchronization.

Shawn wasn't bothered by this, and he continued seamlessly. "If he caught someone killing the mockingbirds, he would be mad, right? And if the bird murderer... the birdurer, if you will," (more eye-rolls and a tongue-click from Gus), "had something more nefarious in mind than just killing defenseless little birds, and there was more at stake than just birduring, maybe he felt that the only way to protect himself was to upgrade from birdur to murder."

"That's even more far-fetched than usual, Spencer," Lassiter spat. "Why on earth would there be some bozo out there offing mockingbirds, and even if there were, what deeper motive could they have? Some sickos just like to make animals suffer. It's a way for them to feel empowered."

"True," Shawn conceded. "But there's something I haven't told you yet..."

He reached into his jacket pocket, where he'd been forced to hide Tweety the Third. He'd been planning on giving the bird to Woody after he'd talked to the chief, but now that it appeared that these two cases were connected, he knew he'd have to let the others in on the eventful morning he'd had. He pulled out the plastic baggie with the dead bird in it, watching as everyone's eyes went wide. "This was in front of my place this morning," he said, handing the birdie bag to Woody, who took it eagerly with jelly covered fingers. "Gus found one in front of the Psych office earlier. And my dad called me early this morning to ask me to catch a cat that had killed a mockingbird and left it on his doorstep." Everyone stared.

"I think... I think someone is threatening me, or trying to send a message. And I think that Carter Johnson was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if he saw the birdurer killing one of the mockingbirds, and the birdurer turned murderer because of it, then whatever this guy has planned isn't over by a long shot. There's a lot more at stake here than a fine for animal cruelty." He nodded at Woody. "Woody here's got the bird that Gus found in front of Psych."

"Haven't had a chance to do an autopsy yet, but from what I have seen so far, it looks like a simple strangling," Woody admitted. "This guy came in shortly after I picked up your bird. Besides, I'm still waiting for my teeny-tiny surgical equipment to come in. The perfect size for little bird innards. Adorable."

"I'm not sure an autopsy is necessary," Gus said, shaking his head, directly after which, Lassiter growled, "The chief will not be happy if this coming out of department funds." Woody shrugged noncommittally.

"Oh my gosh, Shawn," Juliet breathed. "Why would you wait to tell us this? This could be bad."

"Or it could be nothing," Lassiter countered, although he didn't look terribly sold on that idea. This new development was pretty coincidental and a bit too damning for Lassiter's 'it's-nothing-so-get-back-to-work-you-idiot' radar.

"Shawn," Gus muttered under his breath, "I'm going to kill you for keeping this from me."

"Spencer, if you're right, you could be in a hell of a lot of danger. You really are an idiot for keeping this from the police, you know that, right? Not to mention it's withholding evidence." Whether Lassiter believed it was nothing or not, he never passed up a chance to lecture his irritating co-worker.

"Shawn," Woody chimed in helpfully, "would you like a jelly donut?"

Shawn glared at his friends and Lassiter, shaking his head in irritation. "I didn't even know it was evidence until I found out about this guy," he defended himself, flinging a hand in Carter Johnson's direction. "I thought it was someone playing a prank. I was going to investigate a little on my own to see if it was anything worth reporting, and then I would've taken care of it, one way or another. And I told you now, so what does it matter? And no, Woody, I would not like a formaldehyde-flavored jelly donut."

"It matters because your life could be in danger, Shawn," Juliet said.

"I'm going to talk to the chief, see if we can confirm any of the new information about Johnson that Spencer gave us. In the meantime, I suggest you be careful. If it turns out there's a legitimate concern, the chief'll probably want to put an officer on you, Guster and Henry until we can figure this thing out."

Shawn rolled his eyes as Lassiter finished his warning/lecture and stalked out of the room.

"Well, no use hanging around here all day," he decided. "Gus, drop me off at my place, will you? I'm going to do some investigating of my own there. Talk to the landlord, do a little divining." In this case, divining was synonymous with Googling, but they didn't have to know that.

"I'm coming with you, Shawn."

"Gus, don't be the second Men in Black movie. As a matter of fact, don't be the first one, either. I need you to ask around the Psych office to see if any of the storeowners on the boardwalk or vendors saw anything."

Gus glanced at Juliet, who nodded, though she still looked troubled. "It's fine, Gus. Lassiter was just saying to be cautious. We really don't know what's going on here, but he's right; it could be nothing." She didn't sound too convinced.

"All right!" said Shawn, grinning widely at Juliet.

"Be careful, Shawn," she warned.

"Aren't I always?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Does Gus really sleep with a nightlight every night?"

"No, I don't!" Gus said a little too defensively, causing Shawn to grin wickedly.

Juliet just shook her head in resignation. "Goodbye, Shawn."

Replies to Anonymous Reviewers:

To Pippin Strange: Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the Mockingjay bit! I was cracking myself up writing it, which, now that I think about it, is pretty sad, but what can I say? I'm a dork. Thanks so much for your review! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!

To Hope: Thanks for the review! I'm SO glad to hear you say (well, read you write?) that you think I'm in character - that's one of my biggest obsessions with fan-fiction, having everyone IC, and I drive my sister (who is my guinea pig when it comes to all my stories) crazy, demanding after every chapter I read her, "Is everyone in character? Does that sound like something Shawn would say? Do you think that sounds like Gus?" etc., etc. LOL. So thanks a lot!

To Checkerz: Thanks! I don't always get told I'm a genius, but when I do, I squee like a five-year-old and jump up and down and generally make myself look as un-genius as possible in my excitement... which might invalidate your wonderful compliment, but I don't care, because you made me super happy with your review! So glad you're hooked; hope this chapter was to your liking as well!

To Guest: Thanks, glad you're interested! Yep, more soon - I'll be updating every Wednesday! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

A/N: Thanks so much to the people who have reviewed, favorited, and followed this story so far! Thank you to Feather32, Clara Brighet, Guest, ChucKelise, fantomfaire, Checkerz, Hope, mushushy and Pippin Strange for your wonderful reviews and interest to the story, and a special thanks to Clara Brighet for informing me that not only are mockingbirds the state birds of Tennessee and Florida, but Texas as well! Who knew those little guys were so popular? :)

We're still in the setup, but the whump begins at the end of chapter 3... so get ready! I guess I should warn you guys that it's going to get pretty violent later on, and a little gory. My 14-year-old sister had a hard time listening to me read a couple of scenes, but I really don't think it's anything bad enough to need to be considered 'M' rating material, but when we get to that point and if you disagree and think I need to change the rating, I will... :) It will get intense, so just be prepared. (I shouldn't be so excited and happy about this, and I kind of feel like a horrible person, but meh, it was fun to write and I don't really care!)

And just a side note, I wrote the Twitter part before season 8 premiered, and I kind of felt that the "Trending on Twitter" joke in episode 2 might steal a little of my thunder, but there's nothing I can do about it, and it was hilarious in the show, but I just wanted to let y'all know I came up with that before I saw any of season 8. :)

If you took the time to read this chapter, please, please review, because your feedback is very important to me! (And no, I'm not beneath begging, lol!)

Thanks again for the reviews for the last chapter! See you next Wednesday with chapter 3!

~Emachinescat ^..^