Note: This part is a little shorter than usual, but if all goes well, the next part should be longer than usual, so it should hopefully even out.


"Of course he's dead," Lassiter said, and Shawn recognized it as the tone of voice that Lassiter had used on him, right after he'd told him he was psychic. Lassiter turned, grabbing Shawn's arm to haul him up from the chair and drag him across the room. "Spencer, a word."

"Ow," Shawn said, twisting out of Lassiter's grip. "You know, you don't actually have to drag me everywhere, I'm not your own personal Raggedy Andy."

Lassiter crossed his arms, glancing back at Eveline with narrowed eyes. "This woman needs serious help."

"I agree completely," Shawn said.

"You agree?" Lassiter asked, looking bewildered. "You agree with me?"

"Absolutely," Shawn said. "And I think we should get started right away."

"Get started with what?" Lassiter asked.

"With helping her," Shawn clarified.

"What? No, I mean she needs psychiatric help, Spencer," Lassiter snapped. "She thinks a ghost is trying to kill her."

"Gus thinks ghosts are after him all the time, and also clowns. You don't see me having him committed," Shawn said, glancing over at where Gus was holding his salt can and looking twitchy. "Then again."

"You can't help this woman," Lassiter said. "She needs therapy. You have to know that."

Shawn looked back at Eveline, running his eyes over her again, seeing everything. "No, you're wrong," he said. "You're not looking hard enough."

"Okay, fine, then tell me what you see, or I'm going to go back in there and suggest she get some real help," Lassiter snapped.

"You go first," Shawn said, returning his attention back to Lassiter. "Tell me what you see first."

"A nutjob," Carlton said. "She needs to be in an institution. Your turn. What do you see?"

Shawn closed his eyes. "I see someone that's scared," he said. "She's wearing a three hundred dollar dress but she didn't bother to button it right, and she's got fingerprint bruises around her neck. She says a ghost is after her, but you have to look past that. Just because a ghost isn't after her doesn't mean that nobody is."

Lassiter frowned, and glanced back at her. "You think someone's really trying to kill her?"

"I don't know," Shawn said honestly. "But this is how I operate, and we're not at the station, Lassie."

"Fair enough," Lassiter said. "But I don't like the idea of you playing into this woman's delusions."

"It's safer than not playing into them," Shawn protested. "We could go out there and assure her there's nothing to be afraid of, and she could end up dead."

Lassiter frowned. Ever since the moment Shawn had admitted the truth, he had been arguing his point of view in a way that made too much sense. Before he could have written him off as a nuisance, but when he laid out in this way with logic, it was hard to argue against. "Fine," he snapped.

"Good," Shawn said. "Now, I need you to get me in to see the body. It should still be in the morgue."

"How do you know?" Lassiter asked.

"Harvey Graves?" Shawn repeated. "He was a millionaire. Drowned three days ago in his pool. You didn't read about it?"

Lassiter frowned. "We've spent most of the last three days in your apartment watching Hill Street Blues reruns. How did you even read about it?"

"Some guy on a park bench had a newspaper. I saw it when I walked by," Shawn said with a shrug.

Lassiter closed his eyes. "Of course you did," he said. "You know, sometimes I miss it when you just said you were psychic. It made me feel less incompetent."

"You're very competent," Shawn protested instantly. "Which is why you're going to get me in to see that body, with no trouble at all!" Shawn grinned and patted Lassiter on the shoulder, before heading back to Eveline.

He sat back down in the chair and smiled Eveline. "Sorry about that, Holland has fits sometimes," he explained. "We're lucky he didn't break out into song again. It isn't pretty."

Eveline nodded uncertainly. "Do you think you can help me?"

"I am very in tune with the spirit world," Shawn said, wiggling the fingers of one hand beside his temple, before shaking his head. "But in order to best connect with your husband and determine his purpose, I need to better understand how he died."

"He drowned," Eveline said, sniffing into a handkerchief. "It was really quite unlike him."

"He didn't usually go into the pool?" Shawn asked.

"Oh, of course, all the time," Eveline said. "But to do laps. He was religious about it, every single night. Only when they found him, there was a raft in the pool. They said he feel asleep and fell off it, maybe hit his head on the way down."

Shawn frowned. "And you weren't home at the time?" he asked. She leaned away from him, and as her purse tilted he caught sight of a prescription bottle beside a lipstick. He read the label and made a mental note to ask Gus later what it was.

"I was," she said. "I was asleep. We sleep in different rooms, you understand. Harvey, he snores. Did."

Gus had wandered over, half pretending like he wasn't listening, but unable to resist. "Who found him?" he asked.

"Our maid," Eveline said. "Sani. She was quite distraught. It was somewhat of an overreaction, honestly. She's only been with us a few months."

Shawn glanced towards the back of the office, making sure Lassiter's attention was elsewhere. He was still talking into his cellphone, so Shawn turned back to Eveline. "We would like to stay at your home tonight. Evil spirits have the most power at around midnight, and that is when I will be most able to detect—"

Gus grabbed Shawn's arm and hauled him up. "Excuse us for a moment," he said, giving Eveline a wide, frozen grin, as he backed himself and Shawn away.

"Okay, seriously, what's with all the manhandling today?" Shawn demanded. "You know I bruise easy." Shawn pulled up his sleeve and examined his arm carefully. "I can feel it bruising already."

"You're not going to bruise, I barely touched you. Can we please focus on the problem at hand?" he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. "I'm not going into some haunted mansion, Shawn."

"You went into Haversham's mansion," Shawn protested. "It was totally haunted!"

"You were the one haunting it!" Gus snapped.

"But you didn't know that! And you were so brave, Gus, I was really proud of you. You didn't cry once," Shawn said.

"My job was on the line then!" Gus said. "My bravery came entirely from not wanting to end up on the streets."

"If it'll make you feel better, you can bring as much salt as you want, pepper too, maybe some oregano," Shawn said.

"I'm serious, Shawn," Gus said.

"So am I. Look at her, she's scared," Shawn whispered. "Be a man!"

Gus steadied himself and turned to Eveline. She really did look desperate, and scared. He took a deep breath. "We would very much like to stay in your home tonight to protect you."

Eveline scribbled her address on a piece of paper and leaned over to hand it to Shawn. "I'll make arrangements with the concierge for your arrival. Please, come as soon as you can." She got to her feet, pulling her slipping dress back up over one shoulder. "I can't thank you enough for helping me. I didn't know where else to turn."

"We've got everything under control, I know exactly what I'm doing," Shawn said. She nodded and left the office, and Shawn turned to Gus with a frown. "What's a concierge? That's what, a kind of lounge chair?"

"Oh, yeah, you know exactly what you're doing," Gus said wryly. "It's a doorman, Shawn."

"That was going to be my second guess," Shawn told him.

Lassiter walked over to join them, snapping his cellphone shut. "I got us in to see the body," he said.

"Aren't you on leave?" Gus asked. "How did you manage that?"

Lassiter looked smug. "I pulled some strings with my connections in the department," he said.

"And how is Juliet doing?" Shawn asked.

Lassiter glared at him, but relented. "She says hi," he said reluctantly.

Shawn grinned. "When can we go?" he asked.

"Now," Lassiter said. "What happened to Mrs. Graves?"

Gus opened his mouth to answer, and Shawn quickly elbowed him to cut him off. "We sent her home. We told her we'd call her with any updates."

Lassiter nodded and started towards the door. "Good, then let's go."

Gus grabbed the sleeve of Shawn's shirt to hold him back. "Lying to the boyfriend already?" he asked.

"What Lassie doesn't know doesn't hurt him, and we need access to that house," Shawn said. "I don't think he'd approve of us staying overnight at La Casa de Graves."

"I wonder why," Gus said wryly. "Probably because it's a monumentally stupid idea, and one we're not prepared for at all? You don't know anything about fighting ghosts."

"I've seen the Ghostbusters like a million times," Shawn said, and then frowned. "Now you've got me doing it. Ghosts aren't real, we're looking for a flesh and blood murderer."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Gus demanded.

Shawn seemed uncertain. "Yes?"

"Sometime today would be good!" Lassiter yelled at them.

"We'll finish this discussion later," Gus said, starting for the door.

Shawn picked up the Morton Girl can. "You forgot your salt!" he called after him.

x x x x x x

"Yep," Shawn said. "He's definitely dead."

Harvey Graves was not a pretty corpse. Not that corpses were generally pretty, but Harvey hadn't started out all that attractive to begin with, and a three night stay at the morgue hadn't helped him any. Gus looked physically ill, and Shawn had to grab his wrist to keep him from fleeing the room.

"What killed him?" Lassiter demanded.

Juliet looked anxious, probably because technically she wasn't supposed to let semi-official consultants and off-duty detectives in to view high-profile corpses, even ugly ones. "He drowned," she said.

The coroner was new, younger than the last, and he looked bored. He was eating peanut butter out of the jar and reading a Sports Illustrated. Shawn cleared his throat to try and get everyone's attention on him, but apparently he couldn't compete with the swimsuit edition. "I'm sensing some bad juju here," he said.

Juliet looked interested, and her curiosity was winning out over her anxiousness. "What is it, Shawn?"

Shawn brought his hands to his head and squinted, running his eyes over the body. The body was translucent white, the lips tinted blue. He saw a bruise around the upper arm, and it looked like how he imagined his arm was going to look at the end of the day, from all of Lassiter and Gus's dragging him around. Shawn focused in on an open manila folder that was laid out beside the coroner. He ran his eyes over it quickly and latched onto one word.

Shawn spun so his back was to them, and pulled Gus with him. "What is Zolpiden?" he whispered.

"It's Ambien," Gus said.

Shawn nodded, then leaned close again. "What's Ambien?" he asked.

"It's to help people sleep, Shawn," Gus whispered in irritation.

Shawn stepped back up to the body, framing his hands around the man's head without touching him. "I'm sensing something, he had Ambien in his system," Shawn said, pulling away with a gasp. "But he didn't have prescription for it. His wife did."

Juliet frowned, grabbing the report to glance through it. "Why weren't we informed of this?" she asked.

"It was going to be in my report," the coroner said uninterestedly.

Shawn read his nametag. His name was Dave, but he was not Super at all.

"The dose was negligible, it wouldn't have killed him," Dave finished. "Thus, cause of death: drowning."

"It wouldn't have killed him alone, no," Shawn said, backing away from the body. "But it may have been just enough to keep him from waking up when he went under water." Shawn pressed his eyes shut. "I can see it. Someone was dragging him outside, then helped him down on the raft, he was drowsy, they pushed him out into the middle of the pool, waited for him to slip off and under, maybe even held him down, it isn't clear, it's like I'm seeing it through his eyes, everything's blurred, like I'm under water, Lassie!" Shawn grabbed onto Lassiter, clutching the sides of his suit jacket and hiding his face in his neck. "Harvey Graves was murdered!"

Juliet frowned. "Are you sure?"

Shawn swayed against Lassiter in exhaustion, and nodded tiredly. "Harvey Graves swam laps every night, it was the only reason he ever got in the pool. Who would take a sleeping pill before going out to swim laps?"

Lassiter nodded, turning to Dave, who was licking peanut butter off his spoon. "I need you to run a full toxicology—"

"Carlton," Juliet interrupted. "You're not here officially." She turned to he coroner. "I need you to run a full toxicology report. I want to know exactly how much Ambien he had in his system, not this cursory overview you've done."

Dave sighed, and screwed the top back on his peanut butter. "Yeah, fine," he said.

Gus was the first to leave, disappearing from the room like a Jackal. Juliet followed him out, and Lassiter went after her, with Shawn still hanging onto him. Juliet watched them with a frown.

"You two have been acting very strangely," she said. "Is there something I should know?"

"Yes, actually," Shawn said, straightening up. "Lassiter and I are a couple now. We're shackin' up. Making the beast with two backs. Doin' that crazy little thing called love. We're going to send our Christmas cards together and everything."

"Right," Juliet said disbelievingly, before turning on her heel and leaving.

Shawn turned to Lassiter. "Why is that before we were dating everyone thought we were sleeping together, and now that we're sleeping together no one will believe we're dating?"

"Who believes anything you say either way?" Lassiter asked.

"Most people, actually," Shawn said. "You'd be surprised the crazy things I can get people to believe."

Lassiter sighed. "Sadly that's probably true," he said. "But are you sure about Graves? I thought he was our suspect, and now you're saying he's the victim?"

"He's dead, he was never a suspect, don't be Gus," Shawn said. "But yes. Harvey Graves is one of those Fortune Five Hundred types, he wouldn't take Ambien, wouldn't want to be out of control. Those pills belonged to Eveline. I saw the bottle in her purse."

"You think she killed him?" Lassiter asked. "And the guilt's getting to her?"

Shawn shook his head. "No," he said. "She's the one that helped me realize something was off about Graves' death. She wouldn't have provided evidence to incriminate herself, even if she was going crazy with guilt, she would have kept that part out of it."

"Okay, but we still need to talk with her," Lassiter said. "If it wasn't her, it was probably someone that had access to her pills. We need to see if she noticed any missing."

"Woah, there, Lassie, slow down," Shawn said. "You work for me now. I've got this. What I need you to do is to go find out everything you can about Harvey Graves, and then report back."

Lassiter frowned. "Wait, is this what you've been doing all this time? Sending Guster off to research and then having a miraculous 'psychic' vision?" he demanded.

"Yes," Shawn said. "I know. It's an honor to be a part of my process. Try not to be so awed that your work ethic suffers."

Lassiter sighed. "And what are you going to be doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to question Eveline some more," Shawn said. "Maybe sneak around her house a little. Check the underwear drawers. The bathroom cabinets. Under the sink. The usual."

Lassiter rolled his eyes, and caught Shawn's wrist as he stepped away to tug him back, discreetly brushing his lips across his forehead in a chaste kiss. "Be careful," he said gruffly.

"I'm always careful," Shawn said.

"You're never careful," Lassiter said. "Last time I took my eyes off you for two seconds you went to meet a murderer with Buzz for backup."

"Buzz is awesome back up," Shawn said defensively. "Did you know he's the five-time runner up at Qsar?"

"What the heck is that?" Lassiter asked.

"Laser tag!" Shawn said excitedly. "Seriously, you've never played? Gus will never play paint ball with me because he doesn't like getting dirty, so we compromised on laser tag, and it is awesome."

"You're talking about a game? How exactly does that qualify anyone for anything?" Lassiter demanded.

"Laser tag, gun fights, it's all the same," Shawn said.

"It's nothing like the same," Lassiter snapped.

Shawn frowned. "How did we get on the subject of laser tag?"

"You were using that to try and convince me that Buzz was good back up," Lassiter said. "But you said he was runner-up, he didn't even win the damn thing. Who was the champion? Some twelve-year-old nerd?"

"Actually, it's me," Shawn said, and grinned. "So you should really worry less! I can take care of myself."

"Spencer," Lassiter said, caught a little by surprise, but Shawn was already out the door, chasing after Gus and Juliet.