Title: To Be Determined Later (That is the title...)
Timeline: As usual, ignores a lot of show stuff after Season 4; and may not match the continuity of the show (I always liked the idea that Psych itself had no general continuity: episodes were just episodes, but that the series was not necessarily aired in any sort of chronological order, especially early on).
Characters/Pairings: Shawn and Carlton (UST); Shawn and OMC (breakup); Gus and Juliet (established)
Rating: Teen+ for television-style swears, sexiness and readability—not given greatest to least importance there...
Disclaimer: Psych is owned by NBC Universal Television and several other production companies, none of which I am affiliated with.
Notes: This is a prequel to Apply Liberally at Sunrise, and seems to take place about a year to four months before. In my opinion, you needn't read Apply Liberally at Sunrise to read this. It'd be interesting to read them close together, since there are tidbits in this that tie in with ALAS. I might've missed some things that connected the two but nothing major. 6/02/20 - Story upload complete. I'm trying to eat typos like Pac-Man.
-x-
I. Never Explain Anything
2010...
Shawn had met Adrian while standing in line at a Vons in Ventura. The Vons at East Harbor Boulevard, not the Vons on East Main, or the one—well, let's stop there. Your dear author might be here all day if all the Vons in that area had to be listed to differentiate one from another. Anyway, it was the Vons on East Harbor Boulevard in Ventura, California, and it was in May of 2010. A year, of course, before this story takes place. There's a reason for that.
Before you ask, "What was Shawn buying at Vons, and doesn't he seem more like a Trader Joe's kind of guy, because there's one just a couple blocks away?" it should be declared that details about Adrian and his purpose in this story are poignant and—dare it be said?—emotional. As a sentimental moon, Adrian eclipses nothing, only gives this story a little bit of a poetic glow. Much like that whole sentence, the one you just read.
Shawn thought Adrian looked like poetry, at least as much as any human flesh-sack can look like sprawling language and aurally matching syllables. Long-limbed, black-haired, fair-eyed, a hint of a guy just growing out of his hipster, counter-culture phase. Maybe thirty, maybe not. Twenty-nine, Shawn found out later. Twenty-nine and a Sagittarius. It wasn't even a very poetic sign. Lots of writers had been Sagittarians, though: LM Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Shirley Jackson, and the biggest of the big, the great god of all poetry under which all others must suffer inglorious emulation: Emily Dickinson.
Standing in line at a Vons in Ventura, California, Shawn purposefully kept his mind from noticing details. He could tell where this person—still nameless, but how long would that last?—had been, what he'd been doing, and even what he was going to do with the rest of his day. Have a cookout, or he just really liked hot dog buns. It was a pleasant Saturday: it was an afternoon hour, sunbeams just beginning to turn gold. It would be a nice night to cook slabs of meat over heat and flame.
"You should get a pineapple and grill it, too," Shawn blurted out before he could stop himself. Once, as a kid, his mom used to worry that he'd be too friendly with the wrong kind of person. End up lost, despaired, another tragedy like too many Shawn had witnessed being in and out of the cop shop most of his life. His mother had a right to worry. And perhaps that's what really started it all: her apprehensions about Shawn not being vigilant enough, Shawn being too friendly, Shawn, in essence, being everything he really was. These earmarks of Shawn's personality might've been perceived as potentially harmful to one cop of the Santa Barbara Police Department: Henry Spencer. Seemed that, to Shawn, about that time, when his mom tried to talk to him about villainous strangers, that his dad started rearing him to be what he was now: a master of parlor tricks.
Maybe it worked. It wasn't until he was about twelve that his parents realized his instincts about people were better than their own, and his mom was a therapist and his father was a cop: jobs that relied on intuitive judgements, not mellifluous chicanery.
But then, the unknown carb-hauling hunk tossed an expressionless glance at the daring speaker behind him. Shawn could feel his friendliness increase. They had to be friends. They could even be more than friends.
"Haven't you ever had grilled pineapple? It takes a little longer, depending on how you slice it, thin or thick, but it's really good. Brings out the sugars and the sweetness."
Shawn said all of this while tossing a pineapple—his pineapple—from one hand to the other, like a prickly tennis ball.
"Is that what you're going to do with your pineapple?"
It speaks, Shawn thought. The pantheon god of poetry—no, really, who was the god of poetry again?—he speaketh unto me. He had a nice voice, and Shawn disliked that it was the first thing he thought. Everyone says that about instant crushes met in supermarket queues: Oh, he has such a nice voice. Smooth and distinguished, effortlessly poetic and able to recite the most obscure poetry.
Now that he'd gotten the god to speak, he wanted to get the god to laugh. Gods only laugh when humans make plans, after all. He stopped tossing the pineapple and looked dead serious, partially bewildered. "Wait, hold on. You can actually see me?"
That did bring out a snicker. "I can see you. Ghosts don't usually wait in line to buy pineapples."
"You got me there. And I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet. Fruit salad with mini marshmallows? Maybe. Pina coladas? Only if I get caught in the rain. Break out my grandmother's Polynesian chicken recipe? Eh, not so likely. Slicing it for grilling? That would require a grill. And that I don't have."
"On a day like today, you don't even really need one."
A reference to the weather. It'd been hot that day. Not scorching, but hot. Hot for May. Smoke hung in the air like sorry whispers. At least this character in front of him was decent at small talk. There was a recognized boldness between them, as if they had that in common.
"Tell you what, stranger," Shawn heard him say, as the pineapple slowly lifted from his palm, "I'll buy the pineapple if you come and keep me company at what's likely to be a very boring barbeque."
That was an uncanny suggestion. Shawn was momentarily cautious—not like him. "How do you know I'm not some pineapple-eating serial killer?"
"Well, if you are, death would still be a better adventure than the barbeque."
"Ouch. I hope you don't like these people. Who are they? Do I get to tell them what you said? Maybe even if I just paraphrase it a little? Hide it metaphorically in a story that no one will be able to tell is about us meeting at a Vons queue? Might be fun."
They were joined together then, separate purchases now one. Close enough to the conveyer belt, the unknown god of poetry laid out the fresh comestibles. "A graduation party for one of my cousins. Graduation parties are notoriously boring. There'll be so many people there that it won't matter if I bring a friend."
Shawn wanted to ask if they really were friends—seemed an odd leap to make but sometimes that's what faith, and a good dollop of stupidity, did. "We should come up with a backstory in case they ask."
"They won't ask. But, if anyone does, I'll tell them that I met you at a Vons. In Ventura. The one on the west side of town. Are you from here?"
He paid cash for the items, a soft wallet, newish looking, full of twenties. Shawn wondered what he did, and excluded hard labor for the lack of calluses and cuts and bruises. He probably had a cushiony job, like Gus and his pharmaceuticals. "No—Santa Barbara. Just passing through."
That took him by surprise. He blinked, and his eyes were mostly gray and sometimes faintly blue. He plucked the reusable bag, but Shawn took it from him. It was the least he could do if he was going to go and eat at a graduation party full of strangers. All strangers but one.
"I'm Adrian."
"Shawn—Shawn Spencer."
They never even shook hands or anything. By the end of the graduation party, it didn't even matter. They were barely out of one another's company the next two days, or the next year.
-x-
2011…
It didn't take long for Shawn to realize where he was. The blowing breeze from open windows ruffled his forelocks even before he was fully awake. In the kitchen, noises of utensils, a pan landing on the burner, a plate on the counter. He was at his father's house, where he'd grown up, or where he'd pretended to grow up. Growing up was really just a guessing game, anyway. It didn't happen magically, like he and Gus "grew up" thinking it would. It didn't happen at graduation. It didn't happen with the loss of his V-card (a phrase he himself didn't use, because he was too old for that slang to resonate in his brain; it was strictly one for those born after 1988), and it didn't happen when his parents split, and it didn't happen when he traveled the country, and parts of North America, looking for himself only to find himself back in Santa Barbara and waking up on his father's couch. His couch. The one he used to nap on when he was five and it was Christmas day, and he'd opened all his presents and eaten most of the candy dug out of the far reaches of his stocking.
He blinked at the ceiling. Was it still there? Adulthood, the pain of it and the guilt of it. He fished around for it and found it hanging around his neck like a tight, tight noose, cellophane over his nose and mouth, and gagging him on his own embarrassment, his own fear of what had happened between him and Adrian. It was all dark now, and darkness never could be righted. The perpetual dark side of the moon. Except that Adrian was a Sagittarius, no moon strangely placed, no ruling planet but the wideness and scope of far-reaching Jupiter. Shawn had looked at Adrian's astrological chart once, at Adrian's request after Shawn had gotten his first bullshit essay on astrology published online. "You want to do this for a living?" Adrian had asked when the reading of the chart came to an end, and the two were sitting on the bench by the beach, the bench where they always sat and their conversation unfolded naturally, rolling like the waves hanging out of their reach. "Seems like the work you do for the cops is good enough. But, yeah," he looked at the chart Shawn had given him on his phone, the screen dark against the heaviness of the sunshine, little glyphs meaning nothing, broken into "houses," twelve of them, meaning nothing to him but easily interpreted by Shawn. Easily and deftly and eerily. "Yeah, you're scarily spot on. Psychic pineapple god."
Shawn might've let his first impression of Adrian, at the queue at Vons, the one on the west side of Ventura, slip one night between them. When they thought it'd be funny to talk about that first meeting and relive it and color it. And now they called one another little gods. Pet names, rich in detail and intimacy.
Shawn winced, the pain searing through him. That didn't matter. It was gone. He'd been overthrown as the Psychic Pineapple God. Humiliated. Debunked. And frauded by someone he'd thought was so wonderful. Kind, not nice. Loving, but paranoid. It was all there, though, draping through the background.
Shawn had let his intuition slip when it'd come to Adrian. He should've seen it. He should've seen it a mile away. He could've smelled it, like hot charcoal and flame, like haze, like the salt in the air before the rain sweeps across the coast. He'd noticed nothing. All his knowledge was based on hindsight, the worst gift of all. It only added to his regret.
He rolled to his side, eager to check his phone for messages and emails, but dreading it—the absolute silence, the horrendousness of loss. He knew in his guts, because his guts had never been wrong about Adrian, that there'd be nothing. No email, no message, no calls. It was over, and maybe today would be the first day that it actually felt like it was over. Somehow, he doubted it. His insides shook as he picked the phone off the coffee table, lit up the home screen. A message, yes—from Gus.
"Are you ok?"
It was sent an hour ago. It was nine in the morning. Gus had sent it before he went to work. Shawn typed back, "Yeah." That was all. No emojis, no jokes. Gus would know that Shawn was sincere, but Gus would know that his "yeah" was only partially true. No, it sucked, and he wanted Adrian back and he wanted it now and how did they even ever get to this point? His mind was already running thoughts—digging for the truth—trying to find out what was behind all of this loss. He was limited in who he could talk to about it, and what he could say. Gus had guessed a lot of it. That was Gus's way. Dad knew something, only that Shawn had lost his friend. Funny phrase, "lost a friend." Like Adrian had gone out to sea and disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. He was missing, or just his compassion and his sense were missing. Shawn was tempted to travel to one of the Gaddis vertices of the Triangle: Miami, San Juan, Bermuda. Just to see if it was true. He might find a vague outline of Adrian lurking in a cosmic ocean mist.
In the kitchen, Henry looked up to see his son padding on bare feet into the pale light of the sun-drenched room. His hair was on end, his plain white t-shirt crinkled, the hem crooked over plaid boxers that now looked a size too big. Henry didn't know what to think. He tried to stay away from Shawn's life, only get as close as Shawn would let him. It was a difficult thing to juggle. Shawn had come over yesterday evening, haggard and destitute, some waif from Dickens. Henry had just finished mowing the grass, which, Shawn thought, was too bad because he could've used an activity to get his mind off of things. Dad took his appearance well, and continued to show his maligned humor when it came to the difficulty Shawn ran into with his ramshackle place. MeeMee's Fluff n Fold was having its ceiling repaired, and could he please stay there for the night. MeeMee's, Henry argued, was always getting worked on, or flea-bombed, or bed-bug-bombed. You name it, the owners did it. Shawn spent more time away from his apartment than he did in it. Henry made the facetious suggestion that Shawn should start paying for the place by the day, not by the month. Shawn sneered, letting himself in the back door by the garage. Into that room, the kitchen.
Shawn yawned, rubbed his unstylish hair. He was off the couch. For now, that was good enough. He leaned against the counter, looked around. The same house—but different. Same Shawn—but different. Something was missing. Didn't the kitchen have stools once?
"Where are the stools?"
"The what?"
"Stools. Wasn't there a lunch counter, breakfast bar kind of thing back in the day?"
"I took it out. The stools are in the attic." Henry glanced at Shawn. He leaned against the counter, a wee wilted plant. Holding back a sigh, Henry continued lining up thick-cut slices of bacon in the cast iron skillet. This was not the way he imagined Shawn's life going. And not the way he imagined Shawn would look after a friendship breakup. He'd talked to Maddie about it yesterday, Shawn and Adrian's split. She'd advised him to be compassionate and cautious, to keep an eye on him. Shawn could get a bit ADD and manic when things got twisted. Shawn got that way when things were good, too. And breakups, regardless of what kind of intimacy the relationship had, were the hardest things for anyone to endure. Henry remembered when Maddie had left, what he went through. Yesterday on the phone they'd even reminisced about it, in a way, to help him understand what emotions Shawn might encounter. The phrase that kept bothering Henry was the one about the intimacy. What sort of intimacy? He'd almost asked Maddie, then couldn't bear to. She would've told him the truth, and he didn't want the truth. He just wanted to make Shawn feel better. It didn't matter, anyway, since Adrian wasn't coming back. Every time he thought of that phrase, though, a JJ Cale song sped through his head.
What Shawn needed was a good breakfast and a case. It wasn't that Henry Spencer wished one of Santa Barbara's denizens to die under mysterious circumstances. A burglary—a jewelry heist—a missing dog—something to bring Shawn around. Zombie Shawn was heading into his third day of unquestioned existence. Maddie had hinted that it might take a lot of time for Shawn to get his bearings. Henry mentioned the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. As far as Henry cared, Shawn could stay in the stage of anger all he wanted. "You do realize, Henry," Maddie had said, "that the Kubler-Ross model is for patients going through a diagnosis of terminal illness, right? It wasn't designed for this sort of situation. He's a human who just lost someone. He's our human that just lost someone, our boy. It's not going to be denial, anger, and so forth. It'll be a roller coaster. His roller coaster."
With bacon.
Henry put eggs, over-easy, on a plate along with strips of bacon and buttered toast. He handed it to Shawn, who stared at it as if he didn't know what it was. "You have to eat, Shawn. Your boxers are practically falling to your knees, you've gotten so skinny. And no one needs to see that or the rest of you."
Shawn held the plate, still staring at it. Conversations he'd had with Adrian waved in and out of his conscious. About anything. The day they first had breakfast together. With bacon. Shawn could feel his insides crumbling. He didn't want to eat. He made jokes instead. "Actually, I'm pretty sure these are Lassie's boxers." He was pretty sure they were, too. They weren't Adrian's. He didn't wear boxers.
That made Henry snicker. "Do I even want to ask how you ended up with them?"
"I sneak into his house to use the laundry sometimes. His fabric softener is the good, expensive kind that smells nice. I like smelling like an open meadow after the rain. Wait. No. That's his body wash. The fabric softener is peach-like. Is there a word for that, peach-like?"
"Sounds peachy to me."
"Anyway, it's the only part of Lassie that I can really stand."
"The smell? Yeah, I've heard that a lot before."
"Well, you got to hand it to the guy, he dresses nicely and he smells nicely."
Henry reflected on what he and Shawn had just talked about. Something didn't sit right. "Wait a second! Sneak in? Shawn—!"
"Relax, Dad. I have a key."
"Willingly bestowed on you by Carlton Lassiter? I doubt it."
Shawn maneuvered away from answering that question. "I go in and water his plants. Make sure the toilet paper roll isn't empty. Things like that."
"You trying to tell me that you're his maid?"
"More like his Girl Friday, just the ghostly edition. Where did you get these eggs?" He wanted to drag them away from talk about Lassie's place. Shawn loved that house. Lassiter hadn't lived there very long, boxes were still everywhere, and nothing hung on the pale white and gray walls, the bookcases were mostly empty of Civil War tomes, the Shaaras, and Murakami. It was a place Shawn felt at home. More than this home, with missing bar stools and the missing spirit of nine-year-old Gus running up the driveway to the back door, missing Mom's perfume leaving its lily fragrance behind. "Clark's farm?"
"Good guess," Henry said. "You're right. You know your eggs." A brief pause, Henry considering options. Only one was louder than the others. "Hey, at least sit at the table, would you?" He was surprised that Shawn did so without a protest or quip. Once he was in the opposite chair, and had peppered his eggs, he took a chance. "How'd you sleep?"
"Fine," Shawn grumbled, poking tines against eggs. Hungry—not hungry—he didn't know. It was like he was out of touch with his humanness. He hadn't slept fine, that much he knew. Waking a lot, dozing, dreaming, nightmares, awake—cycle, cycle, cycle. The moon, the sea, Adrian in the water and lost in the Triangle but right there, so close, a miasma between them and unbroken by countless apologies and murmured spells.
"I told you not to sleep on the couch. I told you to sleep in your old room. You could've—"
"Do you know how old that mattress is? Has more lumps than homemade mashed potatoes. I was also lazy and didn't feel like putting sheets on it."
"Well, there's really only the one set, and they've been in the laundry room for I don't know how long."
"There you go. Not only would I have needed to put sheets on the bed, I would've needed to do, like, a whole load of laundry. Ain't nobody got time for that. So, see, Pops, the couch is better. I've gotten used to couches."
Henry didn't doubt it. Shawn had once lived a very nomadic life. It was a worry that those days might come again. Shawn had established himself well in Santa Barbara. Carte blanche and all with the police department. The whole psychic thing was a bit weird, but Henry had developed an understanding, not with Shawn, but with himself, regarding Shawn's exclusive abilities. But Shawn was friends with Gus, and Gus was glued to Santa Barbara. Shawn had a few other friends, too. Henry couldn't name them. See their faces as vague, fuzzy things from twenty years ago. He'd never been great naming Shawn's friends. That'd really been Maddie's thing. As to how Shawn got along with the detectives, Lassiter and O'Hara, Henry wasn't entirely sure. Better with Lassiter than it appeared, if it was true that Shawn spent time at Lassiter's place. Shawn, Henry recalled, had helped find that house for Carlton, too. Before it was officially on the market, Shawn was telling Lassiter about it.
"What?" Shawn sensed tension buckling the air.
"Nothing," Henry said, a false start. "Just, I don't know, I don't want you to get used to sleeping on couches, that's all. Don't you have a place?"
"I have a place." He just didn't want to tell the truth about that place right now. And he didn't want to eat. Maybe—maybe he didn't want to eat. The bacon could stand up on his own. Dad knew he liked it that way, almost overdone. He took a testing bit from the strip tip. Everything was flavorless, sand against his tongue. He struggled to swallow. How long would it take Dad to figure out that no one was actually working on the cracked ceiling at MeeMee's? A day or two, maybe. He couldn't sleep on that couch forever. But, how to phrase it? It hurt, these deep and agonizing vulnerabilities. He needed something to do. Dad was always giving him chores.
"Hey."
Henry raised his gaze. Shawn was about to say an important thing, he could tell by the hesitancy, the way Shawn moved his lips over his teeth before he formed words. The struggle to find those words made him twitch.
Shawn couldn't do it. He settled. He hated settling. "Did you clean out the gutters yet?"
Damn, Henry thought, Shawn really needed a case. Anything—anything at all was better than this weird, helpful Shawn who slept on the couch, obeyed his father's commands, and offered—offered—to do chores. This required desperate measures. Henry knew he would have to do the unthinkable and call Lassiter.
-x-
"This is Detective Lassiter."
"Hey. It's Henry. Henry Spencer."
Lassiter was thrown. Sitting at his desk at 12:15 PM on a quiet Wednesday, the last thing he expected was a call from Henry Spencer. Well, that could only mean one thing. "What's he done now?"
"Nothing, actually, and that's why I'm calling. I guess."
Since his early retirement, Henry wasn't known for spilling his commands with the same viciousness that he used to. Carlton remembered that aggression well, as a rookie cop who'd come to that precinct, not fitting in and nominally frightened half the time. Now he'd known Henry Spencer a lot longer than most of the cops in the station. Carlton was aware of Shawn's absence, and Shawn's last text haunted his waking thoughts. "I haven't seen Shawn prowling around here in a few days. Another one of his famous sinus infections?"
"No."
"Injured?"
"I don't know."
"At death's door?"
"I hope not."
"Then I don't know what I can do to help." Yet, part of Lassiter did want to help. And why? Why did he want to help? Because the last text message he'd received from Shawn, on May 5th, was one word, and one word only, and had no emojis or funny cat gifs accompanying it. All he said was "yeah." Lower-case, too. "yeah." Yeah.
"That's why I'm calling. For help. Do you have a case?"
"A case?"
"Anything. Anything at all. Shawn needs a distraction right now."
"Why does he need a distraction?" Carlton asked. "Frankly, if a bird flies overhead, he's distracted. It's true, Henry, I've seen it. And I don't even want to know what happens when he sees a butterfly."
Henry snickered. "I think it's going to take more than birds and butterflies this time, Lassiter."
"I didn't even know butterflies would work. That was just a guess. Good to know for the future. What'd you have in mind? There's not much going on. No homicides, and the whole town seems to have fallen into an insipidness. Neighbors helping neighbors. Kids helping old people cross the street. You get the idea."
"Cats and dogs living together? Yeah, I get it."
"I do have a thrilling report about a stolen bicycle."
That wouldn't really do. Henry, outside on his cell, kept checking over his shoulder to be sure Shawn wasn't approaching. Shawn was on the opposite side of the yard, throwing leaves and natural debris from the gutters, now on the grass, into a big brown bag. Cleaning gutters could only take so much time, and the task neared its completion. Shawn had gone around and tossed into the bag any lawn detritus he could find. He really was being uncommonly helpful. "Well, listen, can I send him over? Just tell him that you called while he was on the roof?"
"On the roof?" Lassiter realized he was repeating a lot of what Henry said. "I have to say, this is one of the weirdest conversations I've ever had with you, Henry. Either of you. You Spencers. Why is Shawn on the roof?"
"Cleaning the gutters."
"He can come over to my house and clean mine. I won't pay him."
"You can tell him that. I heard you gave him a key. That was big of you."
Lassiter's jaw tightened. His hand wrapped around the phone cord until his fingers whitened, turned red with the stoppage of blood flow. He couldn't bring himself to lose his cool. Of course Shawn would have a key. Of all the senseless things in the world, that Shawn should have a key to Carlton Lassiter's house, yeah, that made sense. Yeah. Yeah. Ugh, the last text message gnawed at his brain. He hadn't seen Shawn since it was sent. He glanced at O'Hara, at her desk, and wondered if she and Gus had seen him. No? Maybe? Likely? No. Yeah. Shawn had a key to his house. Yeah. "Thanks," he pushed out in a hiss between teeth. "Um, what's going on with him, anyway? Not that it's my business, or that I care entirely. He sent me a very succinct and uncharacteristically bland text message."
Henry wasn't aware that the two of them texted. It brought new and interesting light to all the times Henry had seen Shawn's thumbs at work on his phone. Less, though, over the last few days, although they hadn't spent a whole lot of time together. More than they had in the last nine months. For once, Henry was relieved that he knew what was going on with his son. "He lost a friend."
"Ah," Lassiter said. "A falling out with Gus?" But, no, that couldn't be it. Gus had come in that morning, bringing O'Hara her cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich from Platypus Park. Lassiter had been surprised that Gus brought him a cup of coffee and a donut. Nothing had been said about Spencer the Younger. Gus would've said. O'Hara would've. Someone would've. They were all so wrapped up in the Life and Times of Shawn Spencer, that everyone at the station was bound to know Shawn's business. "No, not Gus. Who?"
Henry didn't want to tell him that, unsure what Lassiter knew and what he didn't. The text messages, though, prompted him to speak. Carlton and Shawn texted, so there had to be some sort of understanding or kinship or devil's advocate between them. "His friend Adrian."
"Does Adrian have a last name?"
"I'm sure he does, but I don't know it."
"Why not?"
"I stopped having to know the last names of Shawn's friends when Shawn became an adult."
"So, since yesterday?"
Henry cracked into a bitter laugh. "Okay, I walked into that one. I don't know his last name. He lives in Ventura. He's a lawyer. Property, real estate, I think Shawn said once. Or maybe his mom said it. She knows more than me. Look, Lassiter," this was getting uncomfortable, "can I send him to you or not?"
Carlton paused his typing into a search engine: Adrian, Ventura California, lawyer, property. The syntax revealed a lot of results. Tantalizing, this chance to snoop into Shawn Spencer's private world. It was payback time. "Yeah," Carlton said cheerily, "send him in. I'm sure we can find something for him to do. Tyas always needs help filing videos. Shawn's good at menial tasks."
For an unknown reason, Shawn could do mindless work without becoming too bored too quickly. No one was sure why this should be. Everything about Shawn screamed that only the opposite was possible. It was part of the contradictory package that was Shawn Spencer. Lassiter had a theory that the repetitive movement allowed Shawn's imagination to meander as it chose. And where it chose to meander, nobody but Shawn really knew. Carlton was glad that Shawn hadn't divulged where those meanderings went. Thinking about it made him gulp.
"Adrian Harris-Collins," Lassiter said into the phone. "That's him. I found his firm's website."
Henry held the name, etched it into a sort of visual representation in his brain, stored it for later, forever. "And that's why they pay you the big bucks."
"Right. So big that it looks like clown currency. He's been at the firm for five years. Went to school out east, nowhere significant, worked in a county prosecutor's office in Pennsylvania. Moved here to the firm of Robards and Tanner. Property lawyer, yep. Objectively good looking. Says he rock climbs and likes hockey. Or does that say honey? No, hockey."
Upon this rundown of Adrian's professional life, and a bit of his personal interests, Henry was unimpressed. He never found out how Shawn had met Adrian. It wasn't far-fetched that someone who worked for a police department would meet a lawyer a couple cities away. It happened. But Shawn didn't really make new friends. Those that he had now had been there for years. Henry guessed that Shawn dated, but no one hung around long enough or was special enough to meet the old man. Except Adrian. They'd gone fishing once, Shawn's idea, and Adrian had brought one of his cousins along. So many cousins, Henry remembered Shawn saying.
"Has no warrants or outstanding vehicle violations," Lassiter continued. "Drives a Mercedes, E-class. I can ask a friend at the department in Ventura if he'd check that Harris-Collins isn't, you know, illegally parked. Least I could do."
"That won't be necessary."
"Let me know when you change your mind."
Henry caught the word there, when. Not if. "Well, Shawn's almost done with the gutters. I'll tell him you called."
"You called me, Henry. Oh, wait, I get it. Yeah, send him in when you get the chance." Lassiter heard the voice on the end say bye, and hung up. He stared at the screen another moment, wincing, arranging details and information until he could find a thread to pull. But all he could really think about was that text message from Shawn, and then all he could think about was how many times Shawn had zipped in and out of his house without his knowledge.
A uniformed officer passed his desk.
"Hey, Dobson."
Dobson angled back, his dark hair crispy with product, his eyes soft and pleasant. Automatically, Lassiter examined the belt. An extra notch out today. Dobson's fluctuating weight was a source of amusement to many in the precinct. "What can I do for you?" Dobson glanced at the computer screen, not meaning to, but unable to stop the reflex. Lassiter X'd out the browser window. Heat hit Dobson's cheeks. He shifted on his tired feet, nervous about a forthcoming reprimand.
"If I gave you an assignment, would you do it for me? Without telling anyone. Sorta—unofficially."
"Sure." It was a relief to know he wasn't going to be reprimanded for glancing at the computer screen. He hadn't even gotten a good look at it.
"Would you, maybe tomorrow afternoon," Lassiter pored through case files on his desk as if it was an important part of what he was about to say, "go over to my place and just, you know, look around a little?"
"Sure. What would I be looking for? Signs of a break in?"
"No, he has a key."
"Oh. Wait. He?"
"Spencer. He has a key."
"Oh," Dobson repeated, smiling kindly now, as if he understood. Lassiter had given Shawn Spencer a key to his new house? Uncanny. Unexpected. But then the detective had become less predictable since Shawn Spencer started his psychic consulting with the department. Dobson wasn't the only one that noticed how much time Lassiter and Spencer spent together, especially since O'Hara had gotten engaged. And engaged to Gus, Shawn's best friend.
"It's not—not like that," but Lassiter's conviction deflated as he spoke. Did he really have to defend himself? No, he didn't. yeah. Lassiter rubbed his brow with roughness. Think, be sensible, be brave. "Could you just look for him? I mean when you're out on patrol. See if he's there?"
Dobson was getting more and more confused. "I don't get it. Should he be there, or shouldn't he be there?"
Lassiter peeled his eyes into the middle distance, thinking about that. The more he thought about it, the more he didn't know. Maybe he'd know when he saw Shawn again. His gaze landed back on Dobson. "Use your own judgment. Sound okay?"
"Yes. Yes, sir." Dobson gave a nod of his head before resuming his task.
Lassiter tapped the bottoms of a bunch of case files on his desk to make them into a nice, even pile. But his mind just flew back to the sorrowful response to his text. yeah.
Hey, grilling out this weekend with some friends. Want to come?
It'd taken hours for Shawn to get back to him. Lassiter had almost texted again to ask if he was still alive. After Henry's phone call, he probably should've.
yeah
But Shawn had never shown up. The weakness in the response was enough to make Lassiter cringe. Not with embarrassment that he'd actually asked Spencer to an event at his home, but with a sensation that had the flavor of mercy, of compassion. Maybe he'd known long before Henry's phone call that something was just a bit off about Shawn. It might take a whole lot to knock him down. Lassiter had a feeling that Shawn's buoyancy was being tested.
Lassiter found his phone in the slim drawer in front of him. As usual, no personal notifications on the lock screen. Only one, letting him know that the stargazing conditions that night would be good. He opened the little text box, and Shawn's tiny 'yeah' was still there. Like a mew from a kitten. Well, Carlton wasn't going to wait for Henry to deliver the message.
"There might be a case," he typed with adequate but slow thumbs. It was a lie, but desperate times— "You should come in."