Chapter 6 – I just called to say…where did all the money come from?

Shawn didn't know how he got to the office. He didn't even know for how long he had sat on that bench, staring at his father's name mocking him from the page of the Internal Affairs file.

So his Dad had been under investigation twenty years back. And not only that, he had been one of the five officers in the SBPD who had been under suspicion right until the end of the investigation. Right until the investigation had been closed because eight months of investigating had brought forth no proof of their guilt.

But no proof didn't mean they were all innocent, it just meant that they hadn't been found out. So now Shawn had a mob-boss who claimed that his father had been crooked, and he had a file which staid that his father had been under close scrutiny because Internal Affairs also believed he might be crooked.

Damn.

Shawn couldn't particularly put a label to how he was feeling right now. Betrayed, definitely, he felt betrayed, though he couldn't explain why. Maybe because the man who had taught him all those lessons about honesty and not cheating his way through life, because the man who had taught Shawn that he needed to stand up for his mistakes, because that man, his father for crying out loud, obviously never practiced what he preached.

But how could that be? How in the name of all that's good could that be? Sure, money was a great motivator, and people had done a lot worse things for money, but his father? Shawn just couldn't see his father taking bribes, or turning a blind eye, or in any way doing something just because a mobster told him to. But Delgado said he had. And the file said might have.

His Dad had been under investigation, from Internal Affairs, no less. For eight months. And Shawn knew that this didn't just happen to a police officer. A cursory inspection maybe, that could happen to any policeman at a time if somebody alerted IA for some reason, but an eight months long investigation that focussed on his father as one of five main suspects spoke a different language entirely. There had to have been enough leads for IA to believe that Henry Spencer was crooked, and that thought froze up something inside Shawn.

It all just fit together so bloody well, but it couldn't be true.

"Shawn?"

Startled, Shawn looked up and was surprised to see Gus looking at him with a worried from. He was even more startled when he realised that he was sitting on his bike, helmet in hand as if he had just taken it off, right outside the Psych office. Problem was, he didn't even remember driving here.

"Shawn, are you all right? You've been sitting out here for over five minutes."

Shaking his head to clear the cobwebs in brain, Shawn got up from the bike and walked past Gus into the office.

"Shawn, what's going on?"

Shawn put his helmet down on his desk and sank down into his desk chair. "Can I ask you something, Gus?"

Gus sat down so that he was facing Shawn, the worried expression still on his face. "Sure."
"Your Dad is working for the health department, right?"

Gus nodded. "Yes. I thought you knew that."
Shawn sighed. "I do. It's just…if somebody told you that he was taking money in exchange for turning a blind eye on restaurants that didn't fulfil hygiene standards, what would you say?"

"That they're lying. Shawn, what is going on? Did you get to look at the file? And stop staring at the wall, you're starting to creep me out."

Shawn stared at the wall ahead for a moment, then he focussed his eyes on Gus. "You might as well refill your coffee, the story is a bit longer."

And he told Gus. Everything. He told him again about how his father had reacted to hearing Delgado's name, he told him everything Delgado had said, he told Gus about Disneyland and the money, about his parents fighting about the money, about his father's visit to his apartment in the morning, and he told him about the Internal Affairs file.

As he was finished, he sank against the back of his chair, exhausted and with a murder headache starting to develop. Gus was sitting with the open file in his hand, opened on the page that held Henry's name, but he wasn't looking at it.

"You stole the file?"

"Gus, do you really think that's the most important thing right now? I'll figure out a way to replace it without anybody noticing, and that stupid file is really the least of my worries right now."

Gus drew a deep breath. "Well, I don't really know what to say, Shawn."

"Gee, thanks. That helps a lot."

Gus rolled his eyes and put the file away. "Listen, this all is a bit much to take in, right? You're telling me that your father is working for the mafia, and all just because of a trip to Disneyland. That does sound strange."

Shawn jumped to his feet and started pacing. "Did you even listen to what I've been telling you? This is not about Disneyland, Gus. It's about the fact that we didn't have the money for the trip, and suddenly we had the money. And just around the same time, Internal Affairs starts investigating my father for eight months, eight months Gus, because somebody in the SBPD is working for the mob. And a mob-boss tells me that my father was being paid off by him. What am I supposed to think about that?"

Gus looked at Shawn for a long moment, then he shrugged. "I understand that all this sounds pretty strange. But if you want some advice, go and talk to your Dad."

At that, Shawn laughed out loud. "Yeah? Weren't you the one who freaked out yesterday because you thought I was suggesting we go and ask former cops whether they were crooked? And now you're suggesting I just go ahead and do exactly that?"

Gus rolled his eyes. "No. I'm suggesting that you go and talk to your father, Shawn. Obviously, he also wants to talk to you."

"No, he doesn't want to talk to me. He wants to yell at me for getting involved with the mafia, which by the way wasn't even my fault at all. And I can't really stand that hypocritical bullshit right now."

Gus sighed deeply. "Listen, Shawn. If you don't talk to your Dad about this, all you're going to get out of this is an ulcer because you keep on brooding about it. I'm not saying that it doesn't sound really strange. But if there is an explanation for what has been going on twenty years ago, your Dad is the one who can give it to you. I doubt that you'll get any satisfying answers if you don't go and talk to him."
Shawn stared unfocusedly at the wall ahead. "And what…what if Delgado is right? What if my father, for what reason ever, really was a crooked cop?"

That was the real reason for his worry, Shawn realised. Whatever he had unearthed so far, nothing had brought the proof of his father's innocence that he had been hoping to find. What if there was none because his father wasn't innocent? What if the man he had known for all his life suddenly turned out to be a totally different person?

Gus shook his head. "I don't believe that, Shawn. Not your Dad. But as I said, you'll never find out if you don't talk to him."

"He probably won't answer me anyway. Or he'll lie."

"Shawn, you go and talk to your Dad right now. If you don't, I'll call him and have him come here. If you're letting these things fester it won't help you any, either."

Shawn ran his hand through his hair and mussed it up, lost deep in thought. After a minute or two, he got up and grabbed his helmet.

"All right, I'll go talk to him."

Gus nodded. "You're okay to drive, or shall I give you a ride?"

Shawn shook his head. "No, I'm okay."

He grabbed the file from Gus' desk and shoved it into the backpack.

"Let me know what comes out of this."

Shawn nodded. "Sure."

Outside, Shawn put on his helmet and straddled the bike. On the drive to his father's house he caught himself taking the longest route he could think of. He didn't need a psychologist to tell him that this meant he didn't want to face his father right now. As he turned into his father's street, he kept his eyes out for his father's truck. If it wasn't in the driveway, he'd just drive past and pretend all this wasn't happening.

But his luck for the day had run out. The truck was standing in the driveway, and with his heart beating fast in his chest, Shawn parked the bike next to it, got off, took of his helmet and walked to the front door.

It took Henry a minute to react to Shawn's knock, and as he saw who was standing in front of his house, he kept the screen door locked.

"Shawn."

"Dad, we need to talk."

Henry raised an eyebrow and did nothing to hide the ire on his face. "Really? Now all of a sudden we do?"

Shawn drew a deep breath. "Yes, we do."

"Shawn, if you think for just one moment that I'm playing along with your stupid games, then you're wrong. Just this morning you slammed the door in my face and climbed out the window because I wanted to talk to you. Come back when you've grown up."

He turned away.

"If you want to know what Delgado said to me yesterday, you have to let me in. I'm not telling you while standing out here on the porch."

Suddenly, the screen door opened and Henry pulled Shawn into the house by his arm. Not bothering to lock the door, which Shawn couldn't remember ever happening before, Henry pulled Shawn along into the kitchen.

"What did you just say?"

The anger had completely vanished from Henry's face for the moment, and it had been replaced by an expression Shawn hadn't seen before. Henry's eyes were roaming up and down his son, as if worried that Shawn was missing a crucial body part.

Shawn sighed. "Listen, Dad, it's complicated."
"Did he hurt you?"

"What?"

"Did Delgado hurt you, Shawn?"

Shawn shook his head. "No. I'm all right."
"What about those bruises?"

"Nothing. I slipped while shaving."

"Shawn, this is no laughing matter!"

Shawn sighed. "Delgado had a goon with him who didn't share my sense of humour. But that's not important now, and it's not why I came here."

"Not important?", Henry sputtered. "Not important? Shawn, being roughed up by a mafia goon is not exactly what I'd label not important."

"Well, from where I'm standing it doesn't seem all that important", Shawn said and couldn't keep a touch of hostility out of his voice. Henry frowned and leaned back against the kitchen counter.

"All right, I'll play along. Why are you here?"

Shawn pulled off his backpack and pulled out the file. Henry's eyes widened as Shawn showed him the cover of the file, which said in bold letters "1987 Santa Barbara PD Internal Affairs: Lorenzo Delgado / Bribery Charges".

"Where did you get that?", Henry rasped out.

"Doesn't matter. The important thing is that I got it. Care to explain what it says inside?"

Henry closed his eyes for a moment, and Shawn could literally see how his father fought to keep control over his facial expression.

"Shawn, the principle of an Internal Affairs Investigation is that it's for the eyes of the IA only. I don't know what it says."

"Oh don't give me that crap. You want to tell me that you were the focus of an IA investigation for eight months and didn't know about it? Sure, that's credible."

Henry sighed, thought for a moment, and then leaned back against the counter.

"And you think that by stealing a file from the police station you've earned yourself a chance to talk to me about it?"

"This is not about earning a chance", Shawn yelled. He didn't know where it came from, but suddenly the anger was there and refused to vanish again. "This is not one of your stupid games, Dad. Right now I don't care how many hats there are in the room. This is about you being suspected of being crooked. You were one of five suspects, Dad. One of five police officers suspected of being on the mob's payroll. That's what this is about!"

At those words, Henry laughed. Shawn's fury rose. "I don't think it's a laughing matter, Dad."
"No, neither do I. The fact that my own son believes being a suspect is the same as being convicted is no laughing matter. But it's ridiculous."

"Really? Then how did your name end up in that file? Why would you be investigated for so long if there was nothing to the story?"

Henry leaned back and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "My name ended up in that file because those Internal Affairs bastards were harassing the entire department for months without figuring out just the tiniest thing. Being suspected without the least shred of proof is something different than being proved to be a crooked cop, Shawn."

"Then what about the money?"

Henry frowned. "What money? What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the money that suddenly appeared in 1987. The money for our holiday which we didn't have, and which we suddenly did have. Even though Mom didn't find another job until later. Even though the car needed to be fixed. The money you and Mom were fighting about the entire time, late at night when you thought I didn't hear, that money!"

Something crossed Henry's face at Shawn's words, something like regret, but it vanished as quickly as it had come. Then, much to Shawn's chagrin, he shook his head and silently laughed again.

"You think I took money from the mob so we could go to Disneyland? Shawn, of all the things you've ever come up with, that has to be the most hare-brained, insanely stupid one of them all."

"Yeah?", Shawn snapped. "If it's so insane, then maybe you could explain to me where the money came from."

"Yes, I can. You could have simply asked, you didn't need to steal a file and come into my house accusing me of being crooked to get that explanation. The money came from honest work. Your mother did freelance accounting for some months, in the mornings, when you were at school."

"Oh, and that paid for all the expenses of that year?"

"No, if you want to know it didn't. But I worked overtime. And when my shift plan allowed it, I worked a second job as a security guard at the marina, at night. That's what your mother and I were fighting about, because she didn't want me to do that. I was overworked as it was, and I was hardly ever home. Not to mention that if word had gotten out about it, I'd have been in serious trouble at the station. But I did it nevertheless, because you were so bloody keen on going on that stupid holiday. Your mother and I were cutting corners wherever we could to make it work, and now you come here and accuse me of taking money from criminals? Just what is wrong with you, Shawn?"

"I don't know, Dad, maybe it's because a certain mob-boss has told me an entirely different story about where the money came from!", Shawn yelled back.

Henry looked as if he had been slapped, then after a moment he went over towards the wall and got the telephone.

"You don't believe me? Fine. It's a bit sad that you believe a mobster more than you believe your own father, but so be it. If you don't believe me, ask your mother."

Henry started dialling, and Shawn looked at him in total astonishment. "You know Mom's phone number, off the tip of your tongue?"

"Believe it or not, we do talk occasionally." Henry's voice was pure venom.

"Oh yes? And what should you two have left to talk about?"

"The only thing we still have in common. Our son. Margaret? It's Henry. No, nothing happened, he's all right. In fact, he's here right now and he wants to ask you something."

Henry held the phone out to Shawn. "Go on ahead, just ask her."

Hesitantly, Shawn took the phone. He didn't want to talk to his mother now, he didn't want to be set up by his father just so that it ended like it always did – with Henry being right and Shawn having done something stupid. Slowly, he brought the phone up to his ear.

"Hey Mom."

"Shawn, is everything all right? Your father sounded strange."

"No, everything is all right. We've just been…talking."

"He said you wanted to ask me something?"

Shawn hesitated for a moment. He most certainly wouldn't walk into the trap his father had set up and ask his mother about the money. If Henry was that willing for his mother to confirm his story, then she would. Probably because it was the truth.

"I was just wondering whether you'll come to Santa Barbara sometime in the future."

There was a short pause on the other end of the line. "I hadn't planned on it, Shawn. Why, do I need to come over? Are you all right? Or is anything wrong with your father?"

"No, nothing is wrong Mom. I was just wondering, you know, with Christmas coming up."

"Shawn, it's June. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yes, yes I am. Sorry, I didn't want to bother you, just a stupid discussion with Dad that got out of hand. No need to worry about anything, I promise. I'll call you sometime next week, all right?"

"Sure. Promise me you'll let me know if anything is going on."

"Promise. Bye Mom."

"Bye Shawn."

Shawn disconnected and put the phone down on the table. Henry watched him with barely concealed fury on his face.

"You have the guts to come here and accuse me, but you don't dare to ask your mother a simple question?"

Shawn sighed and rubbed his temples to stave off a starting headache. "If you already tell me to call her, then I know what her answer will be."

"What, you think I threatened her telepathically to answer the way I want her to?"

Shawn shook his head. "No. So I was wrong about the money for the holiday. I'm sorry, all right? But that doesn't change the fact that something is going on here and you're not telling me the truth. Your reaction when I first mentioned Delgado's name was totally over the top. Personal. There is something going on about him, and you're not telling me what it is."

Henry grabbed the phone and put it back onto the fixture on the wall. "This conversation is over, Shawn", he said tiredly, without looking at his son.

"No, it isn't."

"It is!", Henry spun around and pointed into the direction of the front door. "Go, now!"

Shawn glared at his father for a few endless seconds, but Henry didn't so much as blink. Angrily, Shawn snatched the file from the kitchen table, stuffed it in his backpack and grabbed his helmet.

"All right, if that's the way you want to play it. I'll leave. But believe me that I'll get to the bottom of this."

"You will stay out of this, Shawn! You promised you'd stay away from the investigation. I'll call Karen if that's what it takes to keep you out of it. I'll blow the horns on this whole fake-psychic thing you've been playing on everybody if I need to, but you will stay out of this!"

Shawn drew breath to reply, but found that for the first time in ages he didn't find any words to respond to that. Without as much as glancing at his father again, he stormed out of the house.

He drove straight back to the office, where he slammed the door shut behind himself and for good measure tossed his helmet onto the couch without looking. It nearly hit Gus in the head.

"Hey! That's how people get killed!"

"Sorry dude", Shawn said tiredly and sank down in a chair. Gus turned off the TV and looked at his friend with both his eyebrows raised.

"You don't look as if talking to your father had been a huge success."

"Oh well, that depends. I now know that the money for our holiday didn't come from the mob, and oh, before I forget, I climbed up another two or three steps on the "What have I done to earn such a son"-scale. All in all, I couldn't think of a better way to spend my lunch break, except maybe for getting lunch."

Gus got up from the couch. "I bought some burritos earlier. I'll pop them in the microwave."

"Thanks Gus, you're my saviour."

"Well, I'd say I hope you think about that next time I tell you that something you're about to do is a bad idea, but I already know that hoping for that is in vain. So why don't you just tell me what your father said."
Shawn laughed mirthlessly and rubbed his eyes as Gus placed the food in the microwave. "Oh, you can sum that up nicely. 'Hare-brained idea, idiot for thinking I take money from the mob, the money came from honest work, here, call your mother if you don't believe me.' That's about it."

"Ouch. But at least now you've got that cleared up. Maybe we should ask Vick if she has another case for us, something not mafia related."

Shawn shook his head. "I got nothing cleared up."

Gus' eyes widened. "You don't believe your Dad?"

"Oh, I believe him about the money for our holiday all right. But that doesn't mean nothing at all was going on back then. There is something he's not telling me, and I will find out what it is. Something happened back then that caused my Dad to be spooked enough to threaten to rat out on me to Vick if I don't keep away from it, something happened that caused that IA investigation against him and those other four cops, and I'm going to find out what it is."

"Wait, wait, wait. Your Dad threatened to tell Vick that you're a fake?"

Shawn nodded.

"But still you want to dig into it and try to find out what is wrong? Are you nuts, Shawn? You'll get into deep trouble for that."

Shawn shook his head. "It's a threat, nothing more. If he tells Vick that I'm not a psychic, then he also needs to come up with an explanation why he covered up for me in the first place. He won't do that. It's just his way of saying that he's serious about not wanting me to get involved any further."

"And yet that's exactly what you're going to do."

The microwave dinged, and as Gus pulled out the burritos, Shawn got up from his chair and started pacing. "Yes, that's exactly what I am going to do. I need to find out what was going on with my Dad back then, and I need to do that without him, the police, or the mob noticing. To the bat-cave, Robin, Gotham City needs us!"

The ringing of the phone spared Gus of answering that. Gesturing for his friend to go ahead and start eating, Shawn went over to his desk and picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"I thought you had received clear instructions, Mr. Spencer."

"Yes I know, but I really didn't have time to brush and floss today. Who is this, the dentists' union?"

"You should have taken this more seriously. You received a fair warning about not getting involved any further."

Something leaden settled into Shawn's stomach.

"Who is this?"

Gus looked up from his food with a worried frown.

"You went to the police station this morning, despite the warning of what would happen if you did. Now I'm afraid you'll have to bear the consequences. Maybe you should call your father and warn him that his dirty little secret is about to come out."

"I was only getting my bike back!", Shawn yelled, but all he heard was the dial tone. Slowly, Shawn put the receiver back on its cradle and sank down in the nearest chair.

"Shawn, who was that?"

"They were watching me. Delgado, or his men. They knew that I was in the police station this morning."

"But you were only getting your bike back, you weren't even there for the case!"

"Either they don't know that, or they don't care."

"This is not good, dude."

Shawn shook his head. No, it definitely wasn't good. He still didn't know whether Delgado had been telling the truth about having evidence against his father, but he certainly wouldn't threaten to make it public if he didn't have something that would throw a bad light on Henry Spencer. And now he was going to make that public. Man, this was so not good, not good didn't even begin to describe it.

Shawn thought back on his meeting with the mob-boss. Those cold eyes. In fact, the only time Delgado's eyes had shown any form of emotion at all had been when he had threatened Shawn and his father. The man enjoyed that kind of thing, and Shawn was sure that nothing in the world would stop him from what he was about to do now. Whatever documents or else Delgado had, they would come out. Shawn didn't even want to think about it.

But who was to say that this was the end of it? Within less than a day, Delgado had figured out all the vital information not only about Shawn himself, but about the people close to him. Showing Shawn those little dossiers had been an obvious threat, one he had not really thought about now. It was bad enough that his father was going to be dragged into this even deeper than he had already been involved, but whatever happened, Shawn would not let the mob-boss drag anybody else into it, as well.

"Gus, you should keep out of this from now on."

Gus frowned. "And why is that?"

"Right now, that bastard is dragging my Dad into this, trying to ruin his life by bringing up whatever went down twenty years ago. But who says he'll stop there? I only fetched my bike this morning, and now this happened. What if Delgado decides that going after my Dad wasn't enough? I don't want you to be involved in all this just because you're my friend."

Gus sat back down on the couch and regarded his friend with a disbelieving frown.

"But that's just the point, isn't it? Everybody knows I'm your friend. Delgado knows, as well, nothing we can do about that anymore. Shawn, half the city knows we're best friends. If he's got somebody at the police station working for him, he's bound to know. If he's watching you, he's bound to know. If he's asking people, he's bound to know. It's not as if we've tried to keep our friendship a secret, even that cute barista over at the coffee shop knows that we're best friends."

Shawn grimaced. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that. You see, it might be that due to a totally unplanned and coincidental misunderstanding, the barista might not exactly think we're best friends."

"Oh no?" Gus' eyebrows went up. "I was planning on asking her out in the foreseeable future, so you've got all of ten seconds to tell me what it is she thinks we are, Shawn."

Shawn sighed. "That we're…well, that we're kinda like…together, you know. But it wasn't my fault", he hastily added. "The last time I was over at the coffee shop, we started talking. She might have mentioned that she thinks you're cute. I wanted to step in for you and agreed with her, and somehow, that gave her the wrong impression. Who would have thought how quickly a harmless conversation can take such a strange turn."

"Shawn!"

Shawn raised his head in a pacifying gesture. "But I already have a plan, Gus. At the opportune moment, we're going to stage a huge break up while waiting in line for our double espressos, and after a short period of silently contemplating your sexuality, bingo!, you can go ahead and ask her out."
Gus shook his head. "I won't say anything about this right now. I'll just sit here and pretend those last few minutes haven't happened."

"That might be the best approach to the situation, yes."

Gus sighed. "Right. And what are we going to do about the mob-boss threatening you and your family?"

Shawn reached for one of the burritos, cold again by now, and leaned back in his chair. "I need to think about that for a moment. And then I need to call my father and give him a warning about what might be happening. I'm sure he'll find a way to blame that on me as well, but I'll just have to live with it."

Gus looked at Shawn with an expression that conveyed clearly that he was glad not to be the one who had to make that particular phone call. "I'll just leave you alone for that particular conversation."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Right Brutus, just twist the knife once more on your way out."

"All right, all right, I'll stay."

Gus sank back in his chair and Shawn picked up the phone and dialled his father's cell phone. The phone rang six times, then it went to voicemail. With a sigh, Shawn hung up and dialled again, this time his father's landline. Right now he didn't want to play hide and seek with his father.

Henry picked up on the fourth ring, sounding slightly out of breath as if he had just come hurrying in from outside.

"Hello?"

"Dad, it's me."

Silence. For a full ten seconds.

"Dad, are you still there?"

"Yes. But I won't be if you don't give me a good reason not to hang up real quick."

"Something happened."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes Dad. Listen, when I had my little…chat with Delgado yesterday, he told me in no uncertain times to keep out of the investigation."

Henry sighed. "You told me that earlier, Shawn. Come to the point."

Already, Shawn felt his temper rise again at his father's grumpy reply, but he fought to keep it in check.

"He also said that he had his eyes and ears everywhere, and that he'd know if I even went to the police station again."

"So? If you stuck to what Karen told you, you had no business being in the police station at all. I don't see where the problem is."

Shawn sighed. "I got my bike from the station this morning."

Again, all he heard from the other end of the line was silence and static. "Dad, I got a call just a few minutes ago. Somehow Delgado got wind of me being in the police station, totally misinterpreted it and now is making good on this threat."
"What threat?" Henry's voice was strangled. "You didn't say anything about a threat earlier. Damn it, Shawn, when will you finally…forget it. It's not as if a lecture now had any chance of success. So what was the threat?"

"To publicly expose what he told me – that he paid you off. He said he had proof."

For a few long seconds there was silence, then all Shawn heard was the dial tone. Frowning, he pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it as if it was a vicious little creature.

"He hung up on me", Shawn said, disbelief evident in his voice. "He just hung up on me like that."

"Well, see it that way: it could have been worse."

Shawn turned towards Gus and raised both eyebrows. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Gus merely shrugged. "I'm just saying. And think about it, he could have yelled."

Shawn slowly nodded his head and put the phone back on its cradle. "Yes, he could have yelled."

And deep down inside, the fact that his father had not yelled at him like he usually did was pretty disconcerting.