"I apologize for being late." Dr. Hellerman said, entering the office and quickly shutting the door behind him.
Shawn was still sitting in the chair, staring slack-jawed at Henry, who was glaring at him from the other side of the room.
"Clearly, you started without me…" Dr. Hellerman observed, clearing his throat as he took his seat, his eyes darting back and forth between the father and son. "Does someone want to catch me up?"
"Yeah!" Shawn offered, still gawking at Henry. "We were talking about my dad's pathological hatred of everything cool!"
"Breaking your neck isn't cool!" Henry shot back.
"Okay…" Dr. Hellerman raised his hands as if sending two boxers to their separate corners. "Slow down."
He turned to Shawn first.
"What makes you think your father has a…pathological hatred of everything…cool?" He asked.
"He hates my bike! He's always hated it!"
"And by bike you mean…motorcycle, I assume?"
Shawn nodded, crossing his arms resentfully.
"Okay…" Dr. Hellerman turned to Henry next. "Is that true? Do you hate his bike?"
Henry grunted, pacing to the other side of the room, but very pointedly refusing to sit down.
"Yeah. I hate the bike."
"Why?"
Henry's eyes locked with the doctor's.
"You're not going to psychoanalyze me." He snapped. "I'm here to tell you why Shawn's mistakes are his own damn fault!"
"Believe me, I'm not psychoanalyzing anybody." Dr. Hellerman assured him. "I'm just trying to figure out why I apparently walked into the middle of World War III…is all this tension really over a bike?"
"Yes!" Shawn and Henry both shouted together.
Dr. Hellerman blinked at the ferocity of their response.
"Okay…"
"You should see us at holidays…" Shawn muttered, rolling his eyes.
"Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you're not really fighting about the bike?"
Shawn and Henry both looked at each other, their brows wrinkled in confusion. Clearly, neither of them had ever considered this.
"What?" Henry growled.
Dr. Hellerman cleared his throat and pressed on cautiously, still watching the warring parties out of the corners of his eyes.
"Shawn, you said your dad has a pathological hatred of everything cool. Clearly, you consider the bike to be cool…a value your father, apparently, doesn't share."
"A value he pathologically hates." Shawn corrected him.
"And, Henry…" Dr. Hellerman continued. "You said breaking your neck isn't cool. Obviously, you worry about Shawn when he's on the bike."
Henry's ears turned red as Shawn stifled a laugh.
"It's just a thought." Dr. Hellerman concluded with a shrug. "But maybe when you're fighting about the bike, you're really fighting about your opposing views of how Shawn should live his life. Henry, you want to keep him safe. Shawn, you want to make your own choices. It's actually a very common tension between fathers and sons…"
For a moment, no one spoke. Shawn and Henry just stared at each other, both trying to read the other's impassive expression.
Finally, Henry spoke.
"Trust me, Dr. Hellerman." He intoned. "It's about the damn bike."
Shawn watched silently as his father signed out at the front desk, for once having no idea what to say.
Henry, however, didn't seem to be suffering from that affliction.
"Solve the case, Shawn," he ordered, dropping the pen back on the clipboard. "Fast."
"I will." Shawn promised quietly. "I told you. I have leads. Dozens of them."
"Name one."
"Okay…" Shawn glanced around the common room, finally spying Lou sitting alone in the corner. "See Lou over there?"
"Yeah."
"I don't think he's really crazy. At least, not as crazy as he wants everyone to think."
Henry looked again, his eyes narrowing as he actually looked closely at Lou for the first time.
"Lou?" He repeated the name softly, his wheels starting to spin furiously.
"What?" Shawn asked, but Henry wasn't listening. He was suddenly lost in his own Henry World, making connections Shawn could only guess at.
"He must have lost fifty pounds…" Henry murmured to himself, his eyes so narrow that Shawn wasn't completely sure they were actually open anymore. "…That's why I didn't recognize him earlier...But that's him…it has to be him…son of a…"
"What?" Shawn almost shouted.
Henry snapped out of his own head, turning back to Shawn.
"You don't know who that is, Shawn?" He demanded, his voice lowering to an urgent whisper. "Damn it, Shawn! You've been here a week and you don't know who that is?"
"It's Lou." Shawn shrugged, completely baffled by his father's sudden rage.
"It's Lou Dancini, Shawn!" Henry snapped. "He's a mob hitman!"
"A what?"
"A hitman! I've been following the case! They've been after him for years, but witnesses kept turning up dead so they could never get a case together. They finally busted him a few months ago, but after two days in jail he suddenly had a mental breakdown. His lawyer pulled some song and dance and got him committed. They're going for an insanity defense."
Shawn looked back at Lou, suddenly seeing the quiet man in a whole new light.
"He rolled his eyes, Dad."
"What?"
"I made some lame joke…and he rolled his eyes. He's faking it."
"It's been months, Shawn. How the hell could he fool the doctors around here for months?"
"He's good. Damn good. He had me fooled for a week."
"It'd take more than that." Henry shook his head. "The DA is pushing to prove he's sane. If he slipped up even once, they'd be all over it. No…If he's kept the act up this long and never faltered once, he has someone helping him from the inside. Someone coaching him, fixing records…something. There's no way he could keep it up on his own."
"But he did slip up..." Shawn replied quietly. "And I'm the only one who saw it."