XXI. The Wheeling Sky

It was one of those rough nights for Carlton. Lots of tossing, turning, some flinging, some dangling. Moments awake were rarely rewarded with long reposes. The night seemed interminable. When his alarm went off at 6:30, a reminder to get going, get out there, exercise, coffee, etc., and so forth—Lassiter stomped his alarm into oblivion and joined it there in another unsponsored gush of sleep. It was almost eight when he was finally ready to get up. His head was full of things—unfinished tasks, lingering nightmares, embarrassments and anxieties.

Last night, he almost confessed the truth to Shawn. He'd have to, soon. It was eating away at him. He knew what would happen if he did. Either he could choose not to sleep at night because it was hanging over him like a tooth-filled tapestry, or he could go on not telling Shawn and let it stab at him with special knives that only flung blades at the guilty. He would have to choose.

The house smelled like coffee and cinnamon rolls, and finding Shawn on the couch watching television helped dispel many displeasures.

Even before Shawn said anything, Lassiter had sucked in the staggering amount of evidence that Shawn had come over in the middle of the night. The comforter from the guest room bed was on the couch, a big wave of blue and white. Shawn's sleeping attire seemed to match the nautical theme, with blue and white plaid pants and a plain pale blue t-shirt. His feet were bare, tucked under him on the sofa. An oversized blue coffee cup was in both hands. The whole tableau was sort of compelling and almost pretty.

"That explains a lot," Lassiter grumbled the words into a yawn, as he flung himself into the kitchen. It explained why he hadn't slept well after one in the morning, Shawn's usual time of arrival. He'd poured coffee into a mug, took it into the living room to stare Shawn into a justification for his presence.

"I couldn't sleep," Shawn started, the first sweeps of guilt overcoming him. He didn't move, let his eyes hang on the gloss of colors from the screen, though he had no idea what the images actually were. All he could see was his past cutting strongly into his future. "I drove the bike over here around one. A little before. Or did the bike bring me? It's really hard to be sure."

It alluded to Lassiter's talk last night about the magic of the Norton. He must've heard Shawn come in, though he'd long since known that Shawn could sneak in without much noise, and leave very little footprint behind him. The things Shawn were capable of unnerved him. Sneaking into the house at an early morning hour really shouldn't be one of them. As he knew and acknowledged, Shawn was going through a lot. Creature comforts were a must. Happiness might be nothing more than a flash in the pan, but it was those flashes that helped shine a light on the dark, dark areas of life.

Lassiter sipped his coffee, struggled with it against his tongue. He looked at the liquid: pure brown-black. He'd forgotten to put anything in it. He made himself swallow, but the acidic bitterness of dark roast hit him in the throat. Shawn, to his credit, hadn't made the coffee too weak or too strong. Like most actions he executed, should he choose to take action, it was done with strategic perfection. Lassiter just didn't want black coffee.

"The cinnamon rolls are almost ready," Shawn told the being that retreated to the kitchen. He had to give Lassie a few minutes to wake up. Judging by the amount of noise Shawn had heard last night, as he also hadn't slept well, Lassiter would need more than two cups of coffee to feel awake. Shawn thought about suggesting that they go out somewhere for coffee that morning, seeing as how he'd imposed himself on Sunberry Lane. However, Shawn discarded the idea. He wanted to lounge in his pajamas as long as possible. Maybe go back to sleep when his belly was full of cinnamon rolls.

The timer went off on the old stove, more like a buzzing sound than a chime as newer stoves emitted. He turned the knob to turn off the timer. Lassie had just given his coffee a final stir, and peeked into the opening oven door to espy the tray of treats within. They were golden at the edges, and some of the cinnamon mixture was bubbling. They looked done. Shawn took them out and set them on a burner, proud of his morning achievement.

Lassiter inspected them. They were not made with yeast but looked puffy and delicious anyway. "Where did these come from?"

"From that bowl in the sink," Shawn said, not sure what the question was for. "I made them. What do you think?"

"By hand?"

"I didn't use my feet, if that's what you mean. I'm not talented enough with my feet to use them for cooking. It's my left foot, you see, it's always giving me a lot of trouble—maybe Daniel Day-Lewis has some advice. First, you think my bike is magical. Second, you think there are fairy-folk that go around giving people cinnamon rolls."

"Is the Pillsbury Dough Boy a fairy?"

"Probably," Shawn retorted, put-off by Carlton's sense of humor. In the following silence, Shawn waited for questions that never appeared. Until it snapped like a firework into his own mind: What am I doing here? To demand it of himself spun the moment out of reason, into a slight tilt, into a ripple that threatened to expose his inner chaos. He ducked his head and did what any self-respecting adult hanging at a delicate escarpment would do: he went to the bathroom and shut the door quietly behind him.

Carlton tucked into a cinnamon roll without asking questions. Did he have to? After all, Shawn's presence was rather self-evident at this point, and adding words—actual, verbal nonsense—to the whole thing would only be Lewis Carrol nonsense. Anyway—he was feeling a twinge of guilt. More than a twinge. The tiny pinprick that'd been bothering him since he found out about Shawn and Adrian's split was now the size of Pluto, and about as dark and unknown. He couldn't analyze it while eating. He told himself not to. He was going to ride out the guilt. He'd have a nice morning. There were cinnamon rolls and an uncomplicated television show to tune himself into. There was decent coffee that, for once, he didn't have to brew himself. And, for the first time in days, the sun was out and shone brightly. He paused a moment, considering the lack of clouds, the golden-white beams of morning. Shawn had been as gloomy as the weather. Shawn was psychic, so he claimed. Maybe Shawn controlled the weather—

Seeing the disarranged presence emerge from the bathroom, twist himself into the kitchen on the wisp of a loud yawn, Carlton doubted Shawn had any control over the weather. No more than anyone else who concentrated on a cloud to make it disappear. Wasn't that from a book? Sure, he was sure it was from a book he'd read. Probably in college. But what was the name of that book?

He asked the walking encyclopedia that just sat down on the couch, his cinnamon roll in a bowl—who ate cinnamon rolls in bowls?—and a fresh cup of coffee.

"What's the name of the book with the character that goes around smashing clouds with his mind until they disappear?"

Shawn stared—stared hard—and felt a bit of cinnamon roll get stuck against the side of his throat. He coughed, dislodging it. It required no brain energy whatsoever to reach the answer to the curious query. "You mean Illusions? Richard Bach? Uh—1977—Random House? No, wait. Dell. Dell—yes, Dell. Is that the one you're talking about?"

"I think so. I think I own it—somewhere."

"You do. It's in a box in the guest room closet. The small one in the back corner. On top of another box of old socks. Why do you have old socks? In a box? Just a slave to rhyme, Lass?"

Carlton started to answer, bewildered, and, too bewildered to go on, threw himself into a silent undulation of possibilities. He doubted and questioned his own antics. Or had he simply forgotten? He could no longer remember what they'd been talking about, since now all he could think about was the box of socks in the closet.

Oh, right. Illusions. Chasing away clouds with the mind. Was that really all he remembered from that book? He really should dig it out and reread it.

Shawn grabbed the remote, able to turn the volume up now Lassie was awake.

Eidetic memory. Carlton thought about it again, wondered if that was the key to Shawn's so-called powers. He doubted it. Remembering things didn't help a person solve crimes. In some cases, mostly fictional, it worked. Barbara Gordon from Batman mythos. Sure. And sometimes Sherlock Holmes used his indelible memory to solve a crime. His talent was mostly in the accumulation of evidence, however, not memory. Still, he could be on to something. He could get to the bottom of Shawn Spencer. Eventually.

Then again, part of the mystery and the draw of allure was not knowing how he did what he did. No more than Carlton understood when Shawn might fly into one of his spontaneous, self-professed "possessions," or throw himself into a thespian retelling of the events that brought a person to commit murder. He could explain it all: motive, action, the subsequent tumble into vileness.

Shawn got up without precedent, set down the cinnamon roll, what was left with it, and made a gesture as he started heading down the hallway. "Don't touch that! The middles are the best! And I still haven't made the icing yet!"

Carlton looked at the mess of a roll in the bowl. It was just the middle, gooey and soft. The middles really were the best part. He went back to eating his, and, in a moment, as commercials came on, Shawn returned. A thin paperback landed in his lap just before Shawn reclaimed bowl and seat.

"Thanks," Carlton looked at the book—he remembered the black background and the bright blue feather. Wasn't there something about manifesting feathers? But he couldn't recall. He'd remember when he started reading it again. He could chalk up its sudden appearance to one of Shawn's feeble psychic moments. He would've known Carlton was thinking about the book, and now wanted to read it again. That wasn't really being psychic, just a level of intuition and understanding.

"Was it weird?" Carlton asked, not sure how he might've stopped himself. "Last night. The date. Was it weird being on a date again?"

Shawn gave a shake of his head, mouth full, but Carlton took that to mean that it hadn't been weird. "Don't misunderstand, I was trying to tell you that it wasn't weird because it wasn't a date. Or maybe it was weird because it wasn't a date? I'm not sure. I'll decide later. We talked about some stuff, you know, new age stuff, and um—he uh—" Shawn delayed. But, what the hell! What did it matter? He angled in his seat to open up to Lassie a little more. "Look, this is really, really weird and I didn't know this ahead of time or I wouldn't have agreed to meet him—maybe—but—he knew who I was."

"Ah, well." Carlton judged this with a fair amount of accuracy. "It's probably getting more difficult for you to wander around town using aliases. You're in the paper a fair amount. Perhaps if you made an effort to be in the paper less, then that would—"

"No, it's not from my work with the SBPD." Shawn swallowed, thinking that this, too, was weird. Sitting on a couch in Lassie's house, eating cinnamon rolls and about to make a confession that'd kept him awake most of the night, even after he snuck in using the back door. Lassiter must've thought he'd come, though: the house alarm hadn't been set. "Look, um—" How was he going to even say this? It was wringing out a bit of hell from inside of him. He had to say it fast. Worse than ripping off a bandage, more like ripping off a scab. "Will used to date Adrian—let me finish—until September. They broke up in September."

Carlton let this float around the room. If he admitted that he knew why that was important, he'd be admitting to a lot. Perhaps it was just as well that he did. Perhaps it was time to start squeezing them into it, the argument yet to come. "But you two were already—"

"Yeah." Shawn turned back the other way on the couch, went back to watching the screen without really being sure what it showed. He didn't want to talk about it more than he already had. Lassie was smart enough to connect the dots. The abrupt cessation of his assessment proved it. "But he did bring me the case, too. I think it's got to be the same guy."

"We'll go over to the address you've got and check it out in a little bit. After I've downed about three more of these," he emphasized his mug. "Do you want Gus and O'Hara to come along?"

Gus needed time and space to deal with his own issues. It was an unanticipated bonus that Lassiter said he'd tag along. "No, I think they're doing their own things today. We can handle it ourselves."

It took a while, but they did just as Shawn predicted. And just as Lassiter predicted, he had three more cups of coffee and a quick, cool shower before he was ready to go. He was amazed at Shawn's ability to leave the house without being freshly clean, and in most of yesterday's clothes.

"What do you want me to do," Shawn said, protesting, "borrow your fancy underpants?"

"You went into my underwear drawer? When?"

"I didn't, but now I know you wear fancy underpants. Do they have lace on them? Are they bright neon zebra stripes?"

"I find it hard to believe that somewhere in my house you haven't tucked away an extra pair of—of—"

"Undies? You can say it, Lass. Undies."

The idea of talking about unmentionables with Shawn was plain unnerving.

"Or would you prefer we call them unmentionables?"

Lassiter winced at the person on the other side of the car. How did he do that, anyway?

"And I do have a pair of unmentionables tucked somewhere in a shadowy, dark corner of your abode, Lass. I do." They were in the car, then, and Shawn was swift to latch himself in. Carlton's movements were slower, more deliberate and cautious. "Tell me more about your underwear, though. Now I'm curious. Are they floral? Dolce and Gabbana? Hugo Boss? Although they're a German label, and I can't imagine anything German is comfortable, can you? Perhaps you prefer classic Calvin Klein. Nothing wrong with that. No judgment. It's all right. All Gods children are great and good in neon zebra stripe bikini-roos. Are they neon zebra stripe, though? Really. I must know."

Because he'd said it with a light Spanish accent, a la Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, Carlton spun it right back.

"Get used to disappointment."

There was no retort to this—nowhere under the sun, nowhere in the back of the moon. Shawn slipped down into the seat, and tried not to think about what sort of secrets Lassie kept in his underwear drawer.

They made an unexpected stop at Platypus Park. Lassiter wanted another cup of coffee to steel his nerves, and to get into the fresh air for a moment, but told Shawn he could wait in the car. He took Shawn's order with him to the counter. It was the usual Sunday morning team, and Carlton was glad he didn't even have to say what he wanted, not for himself.

"A large chai, too, please. And a slice of almond kringle. To go."

He had his order within a few minutes, then was back at the car. Shawn took his chai, tasted its perfection, and peeked into the bag. "Is this for later?"

"For later," Lassiter commented. Now the rough part began. Trying to get through a possible interrogation at a suspicious location. "Spencer, listen, when we get there—"

"Let you do the talking, don't touch anything, and don't spazz into my psychicness. Yeah, I got it. You're like a broken record."

The maintenance shop was west, off Hollister but past Turnpike Road. Not an area Shawn knew very well, and it was just as well that Lassiter was driving. Like most major thoroughfares, it was packed with stuff. Restaurants, stores, more restaurants, clinics, churches, and, finally, a storefront that looked like something from 1985. It said Hollister Fountains & Water Care. The right spot had been found.

It wasn't open and no one was inside.

"That figures," Lassiter grumbled, dropping his hands to shield the glass from the sun, to see what he could see of the interior. "All the lights are off, except maybe a security light on in the way back. It's a small place. Not much to it."

"It says they're closed Sundays," Shawn said, pointing to the sign on the front door.

Lassiter had a way around this lack of information. He was a cop. He scrounged for his clues, even if, occasionally, they stumbled their way into Shawn's lap instead. The building next door proclaimed itself a yoga and dance studio. They were open, and a nice woman with a white pageboy inexpertly dyed to a less natural brown hue, waited at the front desk. Immediately, she stood on alert. Lassiter looked like a cop, and there was no mistaking his presence for someone interested in a sunshine salute or a jitterbug class. Shawn wasn't noticed at all; it hardly hurt his feelings.

"Can I help you?"

Lassiter went through the spiel of introducing himself, flashing his badge, etc. "Looking into the owner for the business next door. The fountain and water care place. Do you know them?"

"Him," she corrected, showing some sass. "Yeah, I do. A little. Enough to know he leaves his junk lying in the alley out back because he's too lazy to throw it in the dumpster like he's supposed to. I've called the city on him a few times, but they give me the usual runaround."

Lassiter wrote this down with his stubby pencil with its perfectly sharpened tip, into a tiny spiral-bound notebook that fit into the palm of his hand.

"What sort of stuff is back there?" Shawn asked. She noticed him for the first time, her hesitation clear.

"You don't look like a cop. Unless you two are playing Coiffed Cop, Messy Cop." Their auras didn't match up, but she didn't want to say so. The messy one had a messed up aura. The other one had a big gold and white aura, a sign of a guardian, a protector.

Lassiter didn't try to explain—much. "He's been hired by someone to find the man from the business next door. I'm here on a different matter." He wasn't, really, but she didn't have to know that. "But we both want to speak with him. You don't have to answer his question." Valid as the question was, the two of them could sneak into the alley and take a look for themselves. "Do you know his name?"

A young man came in and tried to hurry along Sheila, the woman they were talking to. The class was nearly ready to start and they needed their instructor. Shawn got a low-level stare of intrigue and assessment from the young man as he swerved back to the classroom. Shawn wondered if the breakup made him appear sultrier and sexier than usual. Maybe all the crying, well, the sobbing at least, made his eyes puffier and more bedroom-like. He doubted it. He doubted it hard.

He doubted a lot of thing when heard what the woman said next.

"His name? His is Jasper, but he goes by Jas. Don't know his last name for sure, at least not until I finally sue him, but I think it's Collins."

It was like the bottom fell out of his shattered everything—one more time.