A/N: Thanks you guys for the lovely reviews/favs/alerts! This chapter is a little short, but mostly because I cut it in half. Which is evil, I know. But if you're holding out for some awesome Shawn/Lassiter times...whoo boy. That's coming next chapter. Enjoy!

Within twenty minutes, the cops and CSU had arrived. It took awhile for Lassiter and Juliet to show up to the studio, which Shawn figured probably had something to do with the fact that a good deal of the department's resources were still being poured into the museum theft.

"Why would someone want Sidney Roma dead?" Shawn asked, looking over at Gus.

Gus looked like he was fighting to keep down the churro from earlier. "I don't know. Maybe they figured out she was Dante?"

"We don't even know that for sure yet," Shawn replied. They had been kicked out of the studio since it was a crime scene. And since Shawn had known it was a crime scene almost as soon as they'd arrived, he hadn't done any poking around to check out Roma's work. "The best we've got right now is someone really hating Sidney Roma."

"But she hasn't even had an exhibit in three years. Why kill her all of a sudden?"

Shawn thought about it. "They wouldn't. Unless she was actually Dante. And who would want to kill Dante?"

"Probably a lot of people. Mostly artists, though. Maybe museum curators?" Gus supplied.

"Museum curators. Gus, what if the theft was an inside job?"

"You're saying you don't think Dante did it?"

Shawn shook his head. "No. If stealing had never been part of the act to begin with, why start now?"

Gus considered the question. "Honing her craft?"

Shawn thought about the Dante painting that he'd seen in the gallery. Nothing about an Astro-Pop seemed particularly mean-spirited. Dante was a trickster persona that played with the conventions of the art world, but it wasn't a malevolent one. "I don't think so, Gus. Someone else's hands are in this cake."

"Cake?"

Shawn reconsidered. "Someone else's hands are on this paint brush?"

Gus nodded, satisfied with the revised metaphor. "And it has to be someone from the museum?"

"It has to be an inside job or else it would've been spotted earlier."

"Then it could be a guard," Gus replied.

Shawn pointed at his friend. "Maybe the guard for that exhibition room happened to know Sidney Roma?"

As the two of them started to leave, they noticed Buzz McNab walking towards them briskly with a file in hand.

"Buzz, what's up?" Shawn asked, greeting the officer.

Buzz smiled broadly. "Oh, hey guys! I didn't realize the Chief had put you on this case?"

Shawn shook his head and laughed. "No, she hasn't. Something drew me down to this studio earlier."

"You got a vibe about the artist?" Buzz asked, the look on his face somewhere halfway between being serious and in awe.

"The spirit world just wouldn't leave me alone after we found out that painting had been stolen," Shawn replied.

Buzz's face fell. "That's strange. It actually turns out that the Roma painting was in another exhibit hall."

Shawn looked over at Gus. This threw their theory right out the window. "Was it misplaced?"

"Well, someone must've moved it. But the weird thing is that there's another more valuable painting by the same title that's missing." Buzz held up the folder. "That's actually why I'm here."

Shawn took in the recent development. A security guard seemed like an even more likely suspect now. "Gus and I are going to go in with you, I think I'm starting to get something."

The promise of a psychic vision seemed to excite the young officer and he happily allowed them to accompany him back into the studio.

As they entered, Lassiter immediately noticed. "Spencer, I thought we told you earlier that we don't want you on this case."

Shawn held up a hand to stop him. "Lassie, it's not a matter of being wanted. I mean, of course it's nice and all, but it comes down to being needed."

Lassiter merely rolled his eyes. "We don't need--"

Shawn's arm shot out and he grabbed on to Gus's shoulder. "I'm getting something," he yelled. "Gouda? No…gourd! Follow the drinking gourd?" Shawn looked over at Gus and then back at Lassiter. "Wait, it's not a food. A guard?"

"A security guard?" Gus finished.

"Shawn, what are you trying to say?" Juliet asked, looking nearly as exasperated as Lassiter.

It was at this moment that Buzz brought the folder over to the two lead detectives. "It looks like the Roma painting was misplaced. But there's a different painting with the same title that is missing."

Lassiter looked over at Juliet and then back at Buzz. "The only other Three Flags is a Jasper Johns painting the museum has on loan from a museum in New York."

Juliet looked at her partner, clearly impressed. "How'd you know about that one?"

Shawn watched as Lassiter fought to cover up this random bit of knowledge he had provided. "I must've…read it on the inventory list or something."

Shawn filed away this answer for later. He didn't buy it.

Lassiter rifled through the folder McNab had given him as a crime scene technician walked over to Juliet with a clear plastic bag containing some sort of blood-stained metal object.

"Looks like the murder weapon, detective," the tech said, handing over the bag.

"Gus, what is that?" Shawn whispered.

"It looks like a palette knife. You use it while painting."

"It doesn't look very sharp," Shawn said, looking at the knife.

"They aren't used for cutting, so they aren't sharp," Gus replied.

Shawn frowned. "We need to go talk to the guard that works that room before Jules and Lassiter do."

----

Shawn always found that if he walked confidently and with purpose, he could walk into pretty much anywhere. He usually preferred to sneak in places, but sometimes the sneakiest thing he could do was pretend like he belonged somewhere he didn't.

The police presence had dissipated by the following morning and Shawn and Gus were able to walk past the guard at the front who was collecting tickets. While the museum may have been "suggested donation" only, they still required you to go to the front desk to get a ticket to see the galleries. Perhaps in an effort to guilt people (like Gus) into paying the full price of the suggested donation cost. Gus, to his credit, didn't even flinch as they walked past the main guard and of course, no one stopped them as they did so.

In the contemporary gallery where the Dante piece had been found, the Roma painting was again hanging on the wall. Shawn wondered what had happened to the Astro-Pop painting and if the museum would keep it or get rid of it.

Noticing the guard standing in the corner, a gangly twenty-something guy, Shawn walked up to him. The guard looked as if he was uncomfortable with the interaction.

"Can I help you with something?" the kid asked (and he did in fact look like a kid).

"Do you usually work in this room?" Shawn asked, noticing how the guy was already starting to fidget.

"We rotate, but I usually work on this floor." The guard looked at the two of them warily.

"You're familiar with this Dante guy and what he does, right?"

There was a quick flash of something akin to awe in the guy's eyes. "Of course I am. The dude's like an American Banksy."

Shawn looked over to Gus for a translation. "Banksy's a British graffiti artist. He put his own work up in the Louvre a few years ago."

The guard nodded. "He's more known for the graffiti stuff, like Dante. Are you guys cops?"

Shawn and Gus looked over at each other and laughed. "Us, cops? No way," Shawn replied. "Just…interested in the arts, man."

"The director thinks we're going to get a lot of buzz because of the Dante painting. I don't think he gets the point though."

"What's the point?" At this the guard became very serious. "None of this stuff means anything. And here I am, guarding it like it's gold. Paintings are of theoretical and aesthetic importance, not monetary. Capitalism and the art world should have never met, but I guess that's the downfall of the society we live in. "

"You sound like you really know what's up?" Shawn asked, almost impressed by the kid's stance on art.

"This just pays the bills. But I went to school for painting."

"Are you familiar with Sidney Roma at all?"

The kid looked away. "Yeah, she worked the local scene a bit. She hasn't done anything in a few years."

Shawn looked at him, sure there was more to it. "What did you think of her work?"

He cleared his throat and looked around. "It was good. But she hasn't distilled it down to its essential purpose yet. Maybe that's why she's on hiatus?"

Gus patted Shawn on the shoulder to get his attention. He heard the footsteps before he saw who they belonged to. Whoever was coming was coming with a purpose.

Rounding the corner, Lassiter and Juliet walked into the room swiftly. Shawn noticed Lassiter already had cuffs in hand and cursed softly to himself. In this brief time, he'd already figured out that this kid had nothing to do with the murder, even though he did have some sort of connection to Roma. The fact that he'd spoken of Roma in the present tense was perhaps the biggest giveaway.

"Mark Field?" Lassiter asked, walking up to the guard.

The kid nodded, looking at Shawn and Gus as if he'd been betrayed by them. "I thought you guys said you weren't cops."

Before Shawn could respond, Lassiter looked over at the fake psychic and his friend and then back at the kid with a scowl. "They're not. You're under arrest for the murder of Sidney Roma."

At this, the kid's face fell. "Sidney…Sidney's dead?" He looked back at Shawn for help as Lassiter cuffed him. "Why didn't you tell me Sidney was dead?"

"Maybe they figured you already knew about it," Lassiter replied, pushing the kid towards a uniformed officer. "Your prints were all over the murder weapon."

Lassiter left with the officer and the kid as Juliet stayed behind.

"His prints were on that knife?"

Juliet nodded. "Weren't you the one that told us it was the guard? His prints were all over the studio, Shawn. It doesn't look good."

"Jules, there's no way he did it. That kid didn't look strong enough to open a bottle of jelly let alone kill someone with a blunt object."

"I'm sorry, Shawn," she replied, giving him a frustrated frown. "But we've got to go with what the evidence tells us, not whatever circumstantial vibes you're getting."

Shawn nodded. Juliet took off after her partner as Shawn looked over at the Roma piece. "There's got to be some reason why his prints were there, Gus. There's no way that kid killed Roma."

tbc