Chapter 4 – A question of trust

Shawn didn't know for how long he kept staring at the monitor, but then suddenly Vick turned off the TV and Shawn tore himself out of his stupor.

"Mr. Spencer, is there anything you can tell us?"

Shawn drew a deep breath, but no words came out. Juliet started to watch him with a worried frown on her face.

"Are you all right, Shawn?"

"Mr. Spencer?", Vick asked. "You look as if you had just seen a ghost."

Shawn shook his head. "That's…that's definitely what I was getting a feeling about yesterday. It's just…it's a strong feeling I'm getting right now, but it's too unspecific. I need a moment."

And without offering another explanation, Shawn stormed out of the Chief's office. Gus looked at the startled faces of the three police officers in front of him for a moment, then he shrugged and hurried after his friend. "We'll be back in just a moment."

He found Shawn in the restroom, supporting himself with both hands on the sink, water running noisily down the drain. Shawn wasn't looking up as Gus entered, and slowly Gus was getting worried. He locked the door behind himself and stepped up to Shawn.

"Are you all right?"

Shawn wordlessly shook his head.

"What's wrong? The way you were staring at that video was scary."

Shawn drew a deep breath, then held his hands into the sink and started splashing his face with cold water. Only when he had dried his face off with a paper towel did he turn around to face Gus.

"The kid."

Gus frowned. "Yeah, that's pretty hard. I mean, the thought that a kid could do something like that is bad, but those things really happen."

Shawn shook his head. "No, you don't understand. That kid on the tape, that was Eric."

Gus' eyes widened. "Eric? The kid who broke into our office?"

"He didn't break in, I left the door unlocked. But yes, that was him."

"Well, then you need to tell the Chief about it. Shawn, this is no longer about finding a runaway's father. If he really shot that guy Griggs, the police need to find him."

Shawn started pacing up and down the restroom. "But I can't believe that he did something like that."

Gus didn't like where this conversation was going. "Shawn, you've only known the kid for two days. I agree that a kid of that age, telling the sad story of being a runaway, that's a story that goes to heart. But fact is you don't really know the kid's background, and neither what he's capable of."

Shawn shook his head. "No, that's not it. I mean, what reason should he have to just shoot a guy? Gus, the two times I saw Eric, he was scared of shadows. He wouldn't be capable of something like that. And he was just searching for his father, for crying out loud!"

Gus sighed deeply. "Even eleven year old kids can pull a trigger, Shawn."

"But he didn't have a reason to do so!"

"You can't know that!"

Shawn growled angrily and kicked at the trash bin under the sink. "I just can't imagine it. It doesn't make any sense, Gus."

"So what are you planning to do now?"

"I don't know." Shawn resumed his pacing again. "I just don't know."

"Shawn, I hope you know that the only thing you can do is tell them all you know, and to alert the police should he try to contact you again."

Shawn ran his hand through his hair, his thoughts racing. "I can't do that, Gus. Not before I talk to him."

"Shawn…"

Shawn shook his head. "Please Gus. Trust me, just this once. I promise that I'll tell Vick everything I know should anything about Eric's story not add up. But I just can't believe that he'd shoot somebody. I know there is more to the story, I only need to figure out what it is."

"I don't like this, Shawn."

Shawn looked Gus straight in the eye.

"Do you trust me?"

Gus rolled his eyes. "Of course."

"Good. Then trust me on this. I promise that I'll go to Vick if there is no doubt that Eric had something to do with the shooting. But I need to talk to him first."

Gus nodded, albeit slowly. "All right. And if you don't do it, I will. But what are you going to tell them now?"

Shawn shook his head. "Not much. I need to get a look into Eric's file, and maybe that way I can even find out more about his father. I just hope that he'll try to contact me tonight, despite of what happened."
"You better hope he does, otherwise I'll drag you to Vick's office first thing tomorrow morning."

Shawn sighed. "All right, then let's get back. I need to explain how the spirits overwhelmed me."

He unlocked the bathroom door and together the two made their way back to Chief Vick's office.

"Do you have your sensitive spiritual antenna back under control?", Lassiter asked acidly as Shawn and Gus came back into the office.

"I'm sorry Chief, it was a little overwhelming just now."

Lassiter snorted, but upon Chief Vick's glare he masked it off as a cough.

"Believe it or not, Lassie, sometimes visions tend to do that. Just imagine standing in front of a radio playing three stations at once plus white noise in the background, with the volume turned on high."

"You were standing in front of a TV, Spencer", Lassiter sneered. "Probably all you heard was white noise."

Shawn drew breath to answer, but Vick silenced both him and Lassiter with a glare. Then she nodded at Juliet. "Detective O'Hara."

Juliet nodded. "All right, we identified the boy as Erik Robertson. Born October 24th 1995, his mother Holly Robertson reported him missing three weeks ago. He's from L.A., so far we have no idea how he got here, but most probably he hitched a ride. He's never shown up on file before, so we don't know what his motivation could be. We couldn't match his prints since they're not on file, but forensics agreed that the only prints found on the gun are too small to belong to an adult. We have a BOLO out for him and currently officers are handing out flyers with his picture to all shelters and institutions for street kids. That's about it, with no address or school it can become hard to find him."

"What do you figure happened? I mean, why would a kid of that age just shoot a guy?", Gus threw in from the side.

Lassiter shrugged. "It's not the first time something like that happened. Gangs use kids that age more and more often for serious offences, because mostly the judges go easy on the younger children. Now Robertson is not a street kid or a gang member that we know of, but nowadays it's not difficult to get your hands on a gun somewhere. Even for a child. It could be anything, really. Maybe Griggs surprised the kid while doing something illegal, maybe there is a back story we don't know of. Griggs had nothing on his file that would mark him as a child molester, but it might be something like that. Or something as simple as a robbery gone bad. We'll know more once we find the kid and hear what he has to say."

Shawn sighed deeply and put a hand to his temple to try and rub away the building headache. Juliet, however, misinterpreted the movement.

"Are you getting anything, Shawn?"

Shawn closed his eyes. "I'm getting…KitKat, Kitty litter, Cat litter…no, not litter…Stevens. Cat Stevens."

"Cat Stevens", Lassiter repeated, his voice filled with scepticism. "What do you want us to do, build a campfire and break out the guitars, hoping that the kid might show up if we only sing loud enough?"

"Music!" Shawn exclaimed and with his eyes still closed started humming the first bars of "Father and Son".

Juliet frowned. "Morning has broken?"

Shawn resisted the urge to open his eyes and roll them. "Father…and son. Something about his father, his father is important. You need to find his father."

Juliet started scanning Eric's file. "No father on the birth certificate. His mother Holly Robertson, née Wilkes, married Stan Robertson in December 1996. Before that, Eric's name was also Wilkes. But it doesn't say here whether Robertson is the biological father or not." She closed the file. "We should ask the mother about that."

Vick nodded. "Yes, but first we need to inform her that her son has been sighted in Santa Barbara. O'Hara, go and e-mail an image of the boy on the surveillance tape over to the precinct in which the Robertsons live. They shall go to the mother for an ID. Face only, no need for the mother to see the gun."

Juliet nodded and headed out of the office.

"There's another father", Shawn said, hands on his temple again. "The mother might lie at first, but there's another father."

"All right, Mr. Spencer, is there anything else you can give us?"

Shawn breathed deeply a couple of times. "No. Not right now. It's all so confusing, Chief. The images I get are…distorted. They don't immediately make sense. But I'll let you know as soon as I can make sense of something else."

Lassiter chuckled. "You making sense of something would be a first."

Shawn turned towards the head detective. "Somebody drank far too much of their usual cranky-juice this morning."

"That happens when you're investigating murder scenes at six in the morning, Spencer!", Lassiter spat.

"Gentlemen", Vick interrupted them. "I'm sure you both have work to do."

"Of course, Chief", Lassiter said and vanished out of Vick's office.

"Mr. Spencer?"

"With your permission, Chief, I'd like to stay until detective O'Hara has the results of her call. Maybe I'll get something more when I know the father's name."

"All right, Mr. Spencer, but stay out of Detective Lassiter's way. I need him focussed on his work right now, this is all bad enough."

"Sure thing, Chief." Shawn turned towards Gus. "Come on, let's get a coffee while we wait."

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But Juliet's inquiry didn't come back with any name for Eric's father. The police in Los Angeles received the picture still of Eric from the surveillance tape, and Eric's mother positively identified the boy on the picture as her son, but that was about it. Shawn listened to Juliet's phone call with the police officer in L.A., and he saw how her face was contorting more and more into a frustrated frown. Finally, she thanked the officer and hung up.

"Any results?", Shawn asked.

Juliet shook her head. "Positive ID, I'm sure you heard that part. But nothing on the father angle. Mrs. Robertson admitted openly that her husband isn't the biological father, but she claims that she has no name or address for the real one." Juliet shrugged. "It seems like a dead end."

"But it is important, I know it", Shawn insisted.

"Well, the good news is that the Robertsons are both coming over to Santa Barbara now. Then we can question her ourselves, maybe we'll get a little farther that way."

For a moment, Shawn contemplated to have another vision, one that would reveal what little information Eric had given him about his father, but he decided to let that wait for the moment. For now, it was important that he found Eric and that the boy told him what had happened last night.

Shawn didn't believe that the scared kid he had met had murdered somebody, but what little evidence the police had pointed towards Eric. There would be no dragging off in cuffs, and no immediate prison lock-up for an eleven year old, but a murder charge was serious. And seeing how scared Eric had been of the police simply for being a runaway, Shawn imagined the boy was absolutely terrified now.

Shawn cursed himself for not insisting on taking Eric with him the previous evening. Then all that crap would not have happened to the boy. And he would know where to find Eric now. But he had let the kid go, and now he could only wait for the boy to contact him again. And after all that had transpired, Shawn wasn't so sure anymore that Eric would do that.

"So what are you going to do now?", he asked Juliet.

She shrugged. "We'll wait for forensics to come back with everything they found on the crime scene. We'll look more closely into the victim, try to figure out a motive for the murder. And if the officers canvassing the homeless shelters don't find Eric there, we'll probably give his picture to the press, to have it released in the papers. Finding a child in Santa Barbara is like the proverbial needle in the haystack. We'll need public help or a big, fat coincidence to find him. We'll tell the press that we're searching for him as a crucial witness in that murder case, and we'll give them his picture. That's about all we can do."

Shawn didn't like the idea of Eric's face on the front page of every paper. If anything, it would scare the boy away from contacting Shawn again for fear of being recognised by somebody. But he knew that no protest from his side would stop what was usual police procedure in that kind of situation.

Shawn doubted that Eric would hide out in one of the public shelters after what had happened during the past night, so if the police didn't find him by accident, by tomorrow morning his face would be all over the papers. Which left Shawn exactly until then to find him.

He'd better get started.

"Please let me know if you find anything, Jules. Any new information will help me channel the spirits better."

Juliet nodded absent-mindedly and Shawn led Gus out of the police station.

Once they sat in the car, Gus put the key into the ignition and looked at his friend. "So, what now?"

Shawn shook his head. "I need to find Eric."

"You and half the city, yes."

"Problem is, if the police truly publish his picture in the paper tomorrow, I'm sure he's not going to show up again. I need to find him before that happens."

Gus pulled a face. "Do you really think it's going to be easy to find him? I mean, you said he was scared when he heard that you were working for the police. After what happened last night, that probably only got worse. It's one thing if he comes to you to ask for help in looking for his father. But what happened last night is far more serious than that. Do you really think he trusts you enough to come to you after that?"

Shawn shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know. But he came to me for help once, I can only hope that he'll come to me for help again. You have rounds to do this afternoon, don't you?"

Gus nodded. "I have to start in about an hour. Do you want me to drop by at the office after that?"

Shawn bit his lip. "Yesterday, Eric waited until you were gone before he showed up. I told him that you were okay, I just don't know if he bought it. So it might be better if I was alone at the office. But there's another thing."
"What?"

"If he shows up, I might have to get him somewhere else. The police station, or my apartment, whatever. Depending on what he tells me. But whatever, I can hardly drive him around on my bike."

Gus gave an exasperated eye-roll. "I'm sure that if you call the police as soon as he shows up, they'll gladly come and fetch him."

"Gus, the kid is fast. Really fast. Like lightning. Maybe he's The Flash. If he so much as guesses that I'm calling the police, he'll be halfway to Tijuana before I even hang up."

Gus sighed. Deeply. "All right. I'll drop off the car after my rounds. But you're going to pay for the cab."

"Deal. Thanks Gus."

"Don't mention it. And just for the record, I'm only doing this for you. Personally, I think the police are more than capable of clearing this issue up, without traumatising the kid."

"I know. But trust me on this one, there's more to this story than what was on that surveillance tape."

"If you say so", Gus said, then he started the car and started the drive towards the office.

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If there was one thing Shawn hated, it was waiting. But there was hardly anything else he could do. After Gus dropped him off at the office, he kept the door slightly ajar as an invitation should Eric come by, then he fixed himself a coffee, booted up the computer and started the wait.

Space Invaders lost its appeal after Shawn beat his personal high score. Besides, he was afraid that if he played only one more level, he'd start looking up into the sky for cube-like space ships jerking down towards earth in orderly lines. He surfed the net for some time, set some bids on e-bay, ordered a couple of DVDs and drank some more coffee. In between, he always snuck glances out the corner of his eyes towards the windows, hoping to catch Eric standing in front of the office looking in. But he was always disappointed.

Gus dropped off the car and keys at five.

At five-thirty, it started to rain, heavily.

At six, Shawn ordered Chinese takeout.

At six-thirty, the food arrived.

Shawn ate, surfed the net some more, read a couple of magazines, listened to a CD, then he started playing Pac Man online.

At quarter past eleven, Shawn gave up. It had been dark for over two hours now. The street outside and the beach promenade had been empty ever since it started raining, and Shawn figured that if Eric hadn't seized that opportunity until now, he probably wouldn't come.

As he grabbed his jacket and keys, Shawn contemplated for a moment to leave the office door unlocked for the night, just in case Eric would show up later. But merely the thought about Gus' reaction to finding out about that made him forget the idea again. Eric would have to find a way to leave a message if h came here, Shawn couldn't stay here for the entire night.

He locked up and got into Gus' car. On his way home, Shawn caught himself staring at every dark corner, at every of the few people on the sidewalks, hoping to catch a glimpse of Eric. But there was no trace of him.

Finally, Shawn pulled the car into a spot in front of his apartment building and got out. He got his backpack and locked up the car, then went towards the door, still struggling with his disappointment. He had really thought that Eric would come back to him for help. But obviously, he had been wrong.

With a sigh, Shawn let himself into the house and climbed the two flights of stairs towards his apartment. He was just about to unlock the door to his apartment when a shadow detached itself from a dark corner towards his left and moved towards him.

Shawn caught the movement from the corner of his eyes and spun around.

As he saw who was standing there, pale, shaking and thoroughly wet, he sighed.

"I've been waiting for you at the office for hours. How did you find out where I live?"

"Phone book", Eric stammered, not meeting Shawn's eyes. There were obvious tear-tracks on his face, his hands were nervously clenching and unclenching at his side, and it was obvious that his shaking didn't come merely from the wet state of his clothes. "I…I didn't know where to go, I…I don't know…it's all…I didn't want to…something happened. I…think I'm in trouble."

New tears were running down Eric's face, and Shawn quickly unlocked his apartment door.

"I know. Come on in."

Hesitantly, Eric went into the apartment, but as soon as Shawn closed the door, the boy fell apart. He just sank down right where he stood, back against the wall, arms wrapped around his head, sobbing his heart out while he rocked back and forth.

Shawn didn't quite know what to do. He wasn't all that experienced in dealing with kids, let alone kids who were obviously just having a breakdown, but he figured that doing nothing was the worst decision right now. So he crouched down in front of the sobbing boy and gently tried to pry his arms away from his head.

"Eric, listen to me. I need you to tell me what happened last night."

Eric shook his head, struggling against Shawn's attempts to pull his arms away from his head. Shawn let go.

"I can't. I just can't. Please don't call the police. Don't call the police, it's all going to worse if you call the police. Please don't call the police."

"Eric, look at me."

"Don't call the police", Eric iterated, completely oblivious to Shawn's words.

"Eric, please look at me", Shawn insisted.

"Not the police, please. Not the police."

"Eric", Shawn said, a little sharper this time, though he took great care not to raise his voice. Eric stopped talking, though he still didn't look up.

"Please look at me, Eric."

Slowly, Eric raised his head and a pair of red-rimmed blue eyes looked at Shawn insecurely from beneath his bangs of hair.

"I won't call the police, all right? You're safe here. I won't harm you. But I need you to tell me what happened. Do you understand?"

Eric nodded, still crying. Gently, Shawn put a hand on his shoulder.

"Good. But first, we need to take care of you. When was the last time you ate?"

Eric shrugged.

"Did you sleep last night?"

A wordless shake of the head.

Shawn got up from his crouch and stretched out a hand to help Eric up. The boy scrambled to his feet, but didn't take the offered hand.

"All right, first things first. Bathroom is down here, the door on the left. I want you to go and take a hot shower. We need to get you warmed up before you catch something. I'm afraid my stock on clothes your size is nonexistent, but I'll find something to wear for you. Then I'm going to make you something to eat, and then you'll tell me what happened, all right? And once you've done that, we'll figure out a way to deal with it. That okay?"

Eric nodded, hesitantly. But he nodded, that was all Shawn wanted.

"Good, then come on."

Shawn went down the hall and into the bathroom. He put out a towel for Eric, then went into his bedroom and started browsing the closet. Small clothes really were a rarity in there, but he finally found a shirt he no longer fit in after a little accident with the dryer, and a pair of shorts which would probably serve as full-length trousers for Eric. He'd put Eric's clothes in the washer and dryer in the basement later, then the kid would have to wear something tomorrow.

In the bathroom the shower was running, so Shawn knocked shortly, then opened the door just far enough to deposit the clothes on the rim of the sink. While Eric got finished, he'd need to fix up something to eat.

Which was yet another problem. Much unlike his Dad, Shawn wasn't exactly a five-star cook. Between mooching dinners with his father, Shawn mostly survived on takeout. But fortunately, he had stacked on frozen dinners at the beginning of the week, so by the time Eric came out of the bathroom, his dinner was already spinning rounds in the microwave.

Eric entered the living room shyly, Shawn's clothes hanging loosely off his scrawny frame. Shawn was glad that the shorts had a drawstring, otherwise they'd probably fall off with the first step.

"Go ahead and sit down, dinner is finished in a minute."

As the microwave beeped, Shawn took out the lasagne, poured some milk into a glass and put it on the living room table. Like on the two previous evenings, Eric devoured his dinner with the intensity of a starving wolf. Shawn guessed that getting as much nutrition as possible was an ingrained habit of children, despite their mental state. He watched wordlessly as Eric ate and finished off his glass of milk.

"Better?", Shawn asked after Eric had finished.

"Yes", came the soft reply.

"Good. If you need anything else, just let me know."

"Okay."

Shawn drew a deep breath. "All right. We need to talk about what happened during the past days. I know that it's probably not easy, but I promise that I'm going to listen to what you have to say. And I'm not going to call the police. You came to me for help, you can trust me, okay?"

A wordless nod was all the answer he received.

"Good. Here's what I know. At some point after you ran away from the office yesterday, you ended up in a warehouse on Wilson Boulevard. A security camera caught a man called Franklin Griggs come into the warehouse, and then it recorded how he started arguing with somebody who wasn't visible on the screen. The camera pans away, and as it pans back after a little more than a minute, Griggs is lying on the floor, shot, and you are standing there with a gun in your hand. Now, I don't believe you'd be able to shoot somebody, but I need to know what happened. The police are looking for you."

Something haunted crossed Eric's eyes as Shawn mentioned the police, and he seemed to shrink in on himself.

Shawn tried to make his presence as little threatening as possible. "Why don't you tell me what happened, in your own time. How about you start by telling me where you've been staying these past nights?"

Eric drew a deep breath. "Here and there. I met a couple of kids who told me about a place downtown where kids like me could stay."

"A shelter", Shawn supplied.

Eric nodded. "Yes. St. Agnes'. Run by some church or other. They give you a place to stay, and a sandwich, and they ask no questions if you come just once. But I stayed there two nights in a row, and if you come that often, they try to start talking to you. I…I didn't want that. And then one of those kids at the shelter told me about those warehouses. They said that sometimes they're kept unlocked if they weren't in use, and that I only needed to watch out for the cameras. So I tried it there, and there was this one warehouse where the door opened." Eric shrugged. "So I got in. There were some crates in there, which I thought odd, because the door was open, but I just stayed out of sight of the camera and hid away behind the crates. A few minutes later, the door opened. I…well, I got scared that somebody would find me, so I hid away and stayed silent. Somebody came in, but they didn't look around, so I thought I could just wait it out. But then this other guy came in, and the two started yelling at each other."

Shawn's heart started beating faster. "There were two men in that warehouse?"

Eric nodded.

"What were they fighting about?"

"I don't know. Really. Something about money, and that the guy who came in first could make some serious trouble for the other one if he didn't pay. They yelled at each other. I only wanted to take a peek and see if there was any way that I could sneak out. They…they were scaring me. But just as I looked out, the guy who came in first pulled out a gun and…and…" Eric's voice caught in his throat and new tears started running down his face.

Shawn pulled his chair closer to Eric and gently put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's all right."

"He shot him!", Eric sobbed and buried his face in his hands. "He shot him. One moment, that guy is standing there, and then…there was all that blood…"

"Hey, it's okay", Shawn said and pulled Eric against his side. "You're safe now, nobody is going to hurt you."
"He just shot him", Eric repeated, totally oblivious to what Shawn was saying.

"And then he left?"

Eric nodded.

"Why did you pick up the gun?"

Eric shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "I don't know", he said, voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know what I did. After…after the other guy left it was lying there, on the floor. And the other guy still wasn't moving. I…I thought that if I only looked at it, I'd see that it was a toy, and that it all wasn't true. But it wasn't. And…the next thing I know is that I was running down the street. I didn't think about the camera anymore. Only later. The police had to be searching for me. So I hid away. I…I thought about going back to your office, but I didn't dare to go downtown. So I looked you up in the phonebook and made my way here. It took long to get here because I was looking out for the police." Suddenly, Eric looked up into Shawn's eyes. "I didn't do it, you have to believe me. I only wanted a place to stay for the night, that's all. Please, you have to believe me!"

Shawn gently squeezed Eric's shoulder.

"I believe you, Eric. I know it's hard, but you need to calm down now. You need to get rest now, some real sleep. And tomorrow morning, we're going to figure out what to do about it, all right?"

Eric nodded. "Okay."

"Good. Go and take my bed. I'll sleep on the sofa."

"I can take the sofa, that's okay."

Shawn shook his head. "How long since you've slept in a real, comfortable bed?" Eric shrugged, which caused Shawn to smile. "So that's decided. Go to bed. I'll be out here if you need anything."

Eric got up from his chair and walked over towards the door. He was nearly out of the room when he turned around again. "Shawn?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

Shawn smiled. "You're welcome. Now go and sleep."

"Good night."
"'Night."

Eric vanished into the bedroom and Shawn started to clear away the dishes. There was another reason why he preferred to sleep on the sofa tonight. That way, he could make sure that Eric didn't sneak out while he was asleep.

Though Shawn doubted that he'd get any real rest tonight. Something Eric had said actually had him pretty worried. There had been a second man in that warehouse. The good news was that this meant Eric wasn't the shooter. Not that Shawn had believed that for just one moment. But the bad news was that there was a murderer out on the loose in Santa Barbara.

And by tomorrow morning, every newspaper in the city would tell that murderer that there had been a witness in the warehouse that night, and it would give him Eric's name and picture to work with.