Chapter 8
Gus pulled up right behind Lassiter, and he and Henry got out of the Blueberry, following the two detectives up to the front of Forster's house. Lassiter and Juliet pulled out their weapons before she knocked on the door, they didn't really expect to find Forster or Shawn here, but they had a warrant to search the premises, and they hoped that their search would lead them to their psychic consultant.
When no one answered, Lassiter wasted no time in kicking down the door, and the two detectives made their way cautiously inside, looking in each room to make sure the place was actually empty.
The house itself had quite an hospital vibe to it. On the ground floor, as you walked through the front door, there was a living area, which had grey leather seating surrounding a medium sized mahogany coffee table, and a TV mounted on the wall over a fireplace. At the end of the room there was a set of stairs leading to the upper floor, and to the side of the stairs was a large open archway, leading into the kitchen. The kitchen/dining area was fairly small, with marble table and counter tops, two white stools, grey wooden cabinets, and shiny silver metal kitchen appliances. The first room upstairs was Forster's bedroom, which had a double bed, with crisp white sheets, a small computer desk with a grey filing cabinet besides it, and a white wooden dresser. There was also an on-suite bathroom with a toilet and a shower. The much smaller second bedroom had been converted into a study, with wooden bookshelves packed full of medical books, several small grey filing cabinets, and a wooden desk covered in papers as you enter the room. Almost every wall was painted white, and ash wooden flooring covered the whole house, aside from the stairs, which had a grey carpet running up the centre, and the bathroom, which had white floor tiles.
"All clear." Juliet announced as she exited the last room, and the four of them went off around the house in search for clues.
As Henry walked slowly around Forster's house, and carefully scanned each room, something caught his eye...
A sheet of paper on the desk. Names of people listed on it. Various organs wrote next to them.
"What is it?" Gus asked in a hushed tone, he knew that look, he saw it on Shawn's face every time he found a clue.
"Hey, I've got something!" Henry announced loudly, waiting for Lassiter and Juliet to come over, "There..." He pointed to the sheet of paper, "A list of names and organs, some of which have been ticked off."
"Let me look at that." Lassiter said, grabbing the sheet, "O'Hara, give me that file, I want to check something."
"What is it?" She asked as she handed the file over.
Lassiter didn't answer, he was too busy looking between the two items, "Look at this." He said finally, "Every name on this list that's been ticked off, has an organ wrote next to it that was missing from the victims."
"I've seen those names before..." Juliet said, rushing out of the room and heading towards the large grey filing cabinet that was sitting in the suspects bedroom. The three men approached as she started to pull out various files, throwing them onto the bed, "They're all names of Forster's patients."
"Wait...So Forster's been killing off homeless people to get organs for his own patients?" Gus asked.
"Looks that way." Lassiter handed the evidence over to his partner, "Well at least we know we're on the right track..." He added, before heading off to look for more clues.
"That's all well and good, but it still doesn't tell us where Shawn is." Henry wiped a hand down his face in frustration.
"Oh my god!" Gus' face scrunched up in a panic "Forster's gonna slice Shawn open and steal his organs!"
"Gus..." Henry tried to speak.
"He's gonna kill Shawn!" Gus continued.
"Gus..." Henry said more firmly.
"Shawn's gonna die!"
Gus!" Henry shouted, finally getting the younger mans attention.
"What?"
"You need to focus, panicking isn't gonna help Shawn any." Henry told him, "So lets carry on looking around, and see what else we can find."
Gus' face straightened suddenly, and he nodded, "Right."
"In here!" Lassiter shouted.
All three of them rushed back to the study to find Lassiter looking through one of the filing cabinets.
"What is it?" Juliet asked as she approached her partner.
"Records," Lassiter handed her a file, "of all the victims."
Henry and Gus peered over her shoulder as she flicked through the file.
"There's notes here, of any healthy organs." Gus pointed out, "He must've been using the clinic as a front to scout out any potential organ donors for his own patients..."
"Yeah, whether they wanted to donate or not." Henry added.
A moan escaped Shawn's lips as he started to regain consciousness, and he winced at the head pain. Suddenly he became aware of something being wrapped around his head, and he started to open his eyes slowly, blinking once or twice in a bid to get his eyes to focus, "I thought you weren't gonna help me." He croaked.
"Yes, with your illness, but this injury was my bad Shawn." Forster reminded him as he finished bandaging up the wound he'd caused on the fake psychic's head.
"Right..." Shawn replied, still trying to work this guy out.
"You forgive me don't you?" Forster's voice was full of desperation, "For hitting you, you forgive me right?"
Shawn raised an eyebrow, "Uh...Sure?"
"Oh thank god, I couldn't bare it if this little incident would have put a dent in our partnership."
"Yeah...About that." Shawn asked carefully, not wanting to receive another agonising blow to his head, "How exactly is our little 'partnership' going to work?"
"Well that's easy Shawn," Forster smiled, "You are going to psychically scout out any hard-to-spot homeless types, and then they are going to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of my patients."
"Hm...Interesting plan." Shawn replied casually, "There's just one problem though, I can't scout people out from this long of a distance dude. I need to see them, feel them, smell them, you understand right? This place, here...Wherever we are, it's blocking all that out man." Shawn suddenly looked thoughtful, "No, this place isn't gonna cut it at all, if I'm going to help you, we're gonna have to move to a different location, but where..."
Just as Forster looked like he was about to say something, Shawn's face suddenly lit up, as though he'd just had a lightbulb moment.
"Oh...Oh, I got it!" The fake psychic exclaimed, "We should go back to the hospital, that way I'll be able to get a psychic reading on anyone coming in and out of there...And while we're at it, I guess it couldn't hurt to stick an IV line in me, and pump my body full of meds. That sounds good, right?"
"No Shawn." Forster replied, "It does not."
"Alright, listen up people!" Chief Vic got the attention of the officers and detectives in front of her, amongst them stood Lassiter, Juliet, Henry and Gus. She pointed to the whiteboard to her left, on it was a diagram showing photographs of each of the victims, with marker pen lines matching them to the photograph of the patient that most likely received their organ. To the side of the diagram, there was a photograph of Forster, and a photograph of Shawn. "We've had a breakthrough in our case." She turned to Lassiter, "Detective..."
"Right Chief." Lassiter stepped forward and pointed to the photograph of Shawn, "As I'm sure you're all aware by now, our psychic consultant, Shawn Spencer is missing, presumed captured by our serial killer." He pointed to Forster's photograph, "A witness statement led us this this man, Dr Delaney Forster, as a possible lead into Spencer's disappearance and the serial killings." He pointed to the diagram, "After a full search of Forster's house, we discovered patient files for each of his patients, all of which either were, or had been, on the organ donor list."
Juliet stepped forward, "We also found this." she held up an evidence bag, which held the list that Henry had found, "It's a list of Forster's patients, along with organs that the patients needed." She handed the evidence to one of the officers so they could pass it around, "As you can see, some of the names on this list have a tick next to them." She pointed at the photographs of Forster's patients, "These are all the patients with a tick next to their name, and each of them recently received a new organ."
Lassiter took over, "If you look at the victim files, you will notice that the organs received by Forster's patients, were missing from the victims." He held up the file he'd found, "We also found this at Forster's house, it's a record of each of the victims, and any healthy organs they have, leading us to believe that Forster was targeting homeless people so he could steal their organs, and give them to his own patients."
"Thank you Detectives." Chief Vic stepped forward, "I'm sure I don't need to remind any of you how important this case is, especially now that it's personal." She took Shawn's photograph down from the whiteboard, and held it up, "Shawn Spencer is one of our own, and right now he's sick, vulnerable, and in desperate need of medical attention."
"According to Shawn's Doctor," Juliet spoke up, "we need to find Shawn well within twenty four hours if he is to have any chance of making a full recovery."
Lassiter looked at his watch, "Right now Spencer's been missing for almost six hours, and we still have no leads to his whereabouts."
"Remember people, locating Mr Spencer is our top priority." Chief Vic told them, as she put the photograph back, "So everybody, get to work!"
