A/N: It's been a few days...this is probably more of the norm for how often I'll be updating. My new year's resolution is to get a new job and since I'm nearing the end of my belated holiday vacation (I worked Christmas & New Year's Eve...hence the whole 'needing a new job' thing), I'm gonna be hardcore job hunting when I get home. So enjoy this bit, folks! And, as always, leave some love. Or criticism, I appreciate that too!
"Carlton, what's up?" came O'Hara's concerned voice upon her partner's arrival at the station.
Lassiter shrugged off his blazer as he slid into his chair, looking at the mound of paperwork on his desk. This was the less glorified part of his job and definitely not part of the dream kids have about being cops. Even Lassiter, who had always thought of himself as having been a sensible kid, had never fantasized about pulling all-nighters to catch up on a backlog of paperwork. But he supposed having the chance to shoot a gun at bad guys was still gratifying enough to put up with the drudgery.
"You've been down all week," Juliet said, looking concerned. Lassiter wasn't sure why she always cared so much, but every so often he would begrudgingly admit that he was glad to have a partner that did. He had never had a partner who had been so concerned with his generally well-being. Not many people would offer to give him a hug on the rare occasions that he did actually need one either.
He'd take that secret to his grave, though. It was easier to be this way.
"Just swamped, O'Hara," came his curt reply. He looked up and saw that she wasn't going to accept that as a good answer to her question. He sighed and looked down at the stack of folders on his desk. It was looking like he'd be there all night and he was definitely not looking forward to it. "Fine. I'm having doubts about Mark Field's motive."
Juliet's eyes went big suddenly before she quickly regained her composure. "Really?"
Lassiter nodded. "His prints are all over the place. But I talked with a few of the gallery contacts he said Roma gave him and all of them said the same thing: she was really trying to help him out."
"Well, we're waiting for an autopsy report on Roma's body from the coroner, but I don't think the palette knife is actually the murder weapon."
Lassiter looked up.
"The impact points on her body weren't deep enough," Juliet replied, shrugging.
"Spencer seems to think the guard is innocent too," Lassiter remarked casually.
Juliet smirked as she raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, but you never listen to what Shawn says."
"I don't buy into the theatrics, O'Hara," Lassiter replied quickly, glaring at her. "But as of the moment, we don't have a better option. And we've got other cases."
Juliet nodded, realizing that Lassiter was effectively shutting down the possibility of further discussion on the matter. Lassiter handed her half of his stack and got to work on the absurd amount of paperwork that had accrued in his absence from his desk. Sleep was looking unlikely at this point.
----
Shawn tossed a tennis ball against the wall, barely noticing Gus's irritated glare as he concentrated on all of the evidence he'd seen so far in the Roma case.
"Shawn, you're going to leave dents in the wall," Gus admonished, folding his arms in annoyance.
Shawn caught the ball. "Gus, it's not like this is made of stone. The walls will be fine."
"Fine, but if we don't get the deposit back on this place, that's coming out of your pocket."
Shawn tossed the ball over to Gus, who wasn't prepared for it as it hit him in the head. "Oh, catch!"
Gus threw the ball back at him hard, pelting him in the chest.
"Dude! You threw that way harder than I did!" Shawn yelped, rubbing his chest where the ball had impacted him.
"You know how I feel about balls hitting me in the head," Gus replied, instantly regretting his choice of words.
Shawn's face lit up. "No, I don't actually. Care to enlighten me?"
Gus shook his head. "That's it. I'm going home."
"Gus, c'mon. You set yourself up for that one, man." Shawn stood up and stretched, yawning hugely. Sleep sounded nice, but he knew his mind was reeling too much to even think about heading for bed yet.
"They've got the murderer, Shawn. They did it without us, so we're not getting our consultant fee. Which means I'm working for free right now. And my time is too valuable to just give it away."
"What, are you missing Extreme Home Makeover or something?" Shawn asked glancing at the clock on the wall.
"You know that's not on tonight," Gus replied, again regretting admitting that he actually watched the show.
"Plus, I know you DVR them anyway."
"I'm leaving." Gus turned and headed towards the door.
"Don't be such a Sour Patch Kid. We've got to go back to Roma's studio," Shawn said, hoping to calm down his best friend enough to get him to drive him over to the studio.
His hand on the doorknob, Gus stopped and looked back. "I don't want to go down there, Shawn. It's late. And I've got a meeting with two new potential clients tomorrow."
"Oh…well, if you're too busy to go down there, you're probably too busy to catch up on last night's episode of The Biggest Loser," Shawn said, a slightly menacing tone to his voice.
Gus raised an eyebrow. "So? I'll watch it tomorrow. Which you should've guessed I'd do since you know I DVR my favorite shows."
Shawn pulled his iphone from his back pocket and poked at the screen. "I also know how to link your DVR to my phone…so I can control whether or not you get to keep your precious feel-good reality shows or whether they're good to be trashed."
Gus's hand left the doorknob. "You're bluffing."
Looking at his phone, Shawn scrolled through several screens. "Do you really DVR America's Next Top Model? What is it with you and reality shows?"
Gus quickly ran over to Shawn's chair and attempted to grab the phone out of Shawn's hands. Shawn powered it down and licked the screen. Recoiling, Gus took a step back. "Why do you always lick things when I try to grab them from you?"
"Because I know you're too anal-retentive to take anything from me that my tongue has touched," Shawn quipped, grinning widely. "Except Becky Lawson in 10th grade." Gus frowned, not wanting to reminisce about that particular high school memory. "Fine, you can have it your way."
"You're either offering to make me a burger or you've finally decided to join me on a trip down to the studio?"
Folding his arms, Gus stood there, looking indignant. "I'll go with you to the studio, but I expect to be in bed by a reasonable time tonight."
"Don't worry, Gus. I'll have you home before you turn back into a pumpkin." Shawn grabbed his jacket and the two headed out.
----
"What exactly are we looking for, Shawn?" Gus asked as he watched his friend poke around Roma's computer desk, reading the various bits of paper she'd stored away in the drawers.
"Sidney Roma was killed by someone she knew. This same person is the one who took that Jasper Johns painting," Shawn replied. He pulled out a folder and started combing over the contents. "Lassie said her work reminded him of some guy named Rauschenberg?"
Shawn saw that his friend was considering this information. "That's interesting," Gus said finally.
"That's all? You're the one who knows about all of this art stuff." Unsatisfied with that folder, he kept digging through the drawers.
"No, I mean, he's right. The collage work especially. I think she also did a piece that was an homage to his Bed."
"To his bed?"
Gus shook his head, realizing Shawn had misunderstood him. "No, Bed was a mixed media piece Rauschenberg made by painting on bed linens."
Just as Shawn had been sure there was some connection between Dante and Roma, he was certain that whatever the connection was between Johns and Rauschenberg would be vital to understanding the motive behind whoever killed Sidney Roma. As he looked through the drawer, he pulled out all of the files until he was at the very bottom. Mostly the files had been full of business receipts, tax documents, all very uninteresting things. Shawn rummaged through the files one more time, hoping to come upon some interesting scrap that he hadn't seen before.
"Seems to me like you're chasing windmills here, Shawn," Gus said as he inspected a larger painting that was sitting in a corner.
Shawn looked over, amused by Gus's choice of words. "Sounds like someone's been re-reading the classics." He picked up another file as a pen rolled off the side of the desk fell into the open drawer. It made a hollow thud as it hit the bottom.
Shawn tapped the bottom again, hearing the hollow thud again. He smiled, knowing this was exactly what he'd been looking for. He pulled the drawer completely free of the desk and set it on top, pulling up the fake bottom.
"What did you find?" Gus asked, coming over to see what was at the bottom of the drawer.
Shawn saw that the bottom held only a few papers, business cards, and a single red folder. The folder's tab was marked with a pitchfork symbol and inside was a list of cities with either asterisks, lines crossing them out, or no marks whatsoever. Next to Santa Barbara, however, was a phone number and a question mark that had been drawn over several times.
"Gus, do you know what museums Dante had hit?" Shawn asked, looking over the sheet. There were only twenty cities on the list, with the majority of them being in California.
Gus looked up, trying to remember. "Besides Santa Barbara, the only places where Dante's work has been found was…Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle…Portland--"
Shawn consulted the sheet, "San Diego, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and Vancouver?"
Gus nodded. "Yeah, I think so."
Handing the sheet over to Gus, Shawn pointed at the cities that had been crossed off. "She was keeping track. Santa Barbara hadn't been crossed off yet. Those cities with asterisks must either mean that she had already put a painting there or she was about to."
"But there's also a number and a question mark next to Santa Barbara," Gus said as he looked at the sheet again while Shawn looked at the other bits from the drawer.
"That number…is it 805.555.7608?" Shawn said, holding up a business card.
"Yeah…whose number is it?" Gus asked, noticing that Shawn was holding onto a white business card with simple black lettering.
"It's Frederick Hofstein's, Gus. It's the museum director's number." Shawn frowned, looking at the card in his hand. He wasn't sure how he was going to get in to see this guy, but he knew that he absolutely needed to now. Especially if he wanted to clear Mark Field.
tbc