"Good morning, good morning, we talked the whole night through, good morning, good morning to you," Shawn sang under his breath. He sauntered up the main walk to the Psych office, still singing. "Good morning, good morning to you." At the door, Shawn stopped and pulled out a jingling ring of keys. "Good morning, good morning, it's great to stay up late, good morning, good morning—"
"Good morning, Shawn," Gus said, blocking the doorway and giving his friend one of his best no-nonsense looks. "You're late."
"Good morning to you too, Cosmo," Shawn smiled. "Nice to see you up so early."
"It's almost ten o'clock. Exactly what did you think I meant when I said 'meet me here first thing in the morning?'"
Shawn frowned a little, squinting one eye as if thinking.
"Uh, 'meet me here first thing in the morning, after you stop by Coffee 2 Go for a deliciously moist chocolate cake ball and a peppermint mocha?'"
Gus blinked angrily.
"Peppermint mocha? Why didn't you bring me a peppermint mocha?" he said.
"I-I'm sorry, I really would have," said Shawn, slouching into the desk chair, "I was just in a huge rush to get over here. So! What's the big announcement, Guster?"
"The big announcement is, we need to have a talk," said Gus. He crossed the room, folded his arms across his chest, and looked Shawn in the eyes. "This is the ninth time in two months you've pulled me out of my job, out of my office, to do something—random."
"Oh yeah? Like walk down a beach? And who did we find on the beach, huh, Gus?" Shawn asked. He grabbed a sheet of paper from the desk and crumpled it into a ball.
"We found a whole lot of trouble, and that's part of why I called you here, Shawn," Gus said grimly. "This just isn't working, you showing up at my office or calling me in the middle of the day. Not just because it's annoying—" a paper ball bounced off his shoulder—"it's dangerous. You get in trouble, you call my phone, I think it's just another 'oh, Gus, let's go play Karate Kid in the junkyard' call, and then what happens? It's like the boy who cried wolf."
"You know," said Shawn, sitting up slightly, "I think you have an excellent point."
"What!"
"Yeah," Shawn said. "So you just need to make sure you answer all the time, and come down as fast as you can every single—"
Shawn was cut off by the electronic dingle of his cell phone. He raised one finger, pulled out his phone, and answered it.
"Yello. Oh, hi Jules. What? Oh my God." Shawn swung his legs off the desk and sat up quickly. "Where are you? Okay, yeah, we'll be right down." He flipped the phone shut and turned to Gus. "She's at the Happy Seagull. They just found a body."
Police cameras flashed on every side as Detective Juliet O'Hara led Shawn and Gus through the Happy Seagull crime scene and souvenir shop. Just as Shawn had predicted, the tiny shop was crammed with overpriced, cheaply made souvenirs. A net of pseudo-Japanese glass floats hung from a metal bookshelf, which was filled with shoeboxes of various seashells and small stuffed sea creatures. Three unsteady racks of paper-thin, shoddily-hemmed T-shirts leaned precariously against the bookshelf, disturbingly happy seagulls grinning off every airbrushed shirt.
"We don't think the killer touched anything," Jules said, squeezing past a glass display of painted conch shells and wave-polished glass. "We already had the shop owner in here and he's fairly certain that nothing's been taken."
"Who's the victim?" Gus asked. "The other cashier?"
"No, actually," said Jules. "Max Lynn, a homeless drifter. He'd been run in a few times for trespassing, loitering with intent, and minor drug infractions. No ties to anyone or anything... until he ended up here." She motioned to the white police tape outline. "We took the body out already- he'd been stabbed twice. The owner found him in front of the register. At first, he thought it was a robbery gone wrong."
"But then we found this in the victim's shirt," said Lassiter, turning to meet the group. He held out a plastic evidence bag with a small, cheap pin. "The yin-yang symbol. The owner, a Mr. Juan Alvarez, says he keeps them in stock to go with the Japanese balls."
Shawn stifled a snicker.
"And just in case we didn't get the clue, the killer left us a Sharpie drawing on the front counter," Jules said. "Look."
Setting down a hand-painted, Taiwan-imported conch necklace, Shawn crowded around Gus and stared at the front counter. Multiple strips of peeling masking tape held various handwritten signs in place: HABLAMOS ESPANOL, NO SHOE NO SHIRT NO SERVICE, WE DO NOT ACCEPT RETURNS NO EXCEPTION. In the center of the counter, someone had drawn a large, permanent yin-yang symbol in purple ink, with a green and blue gumball for the dots. Shawn quickly scanned the counter with his eyes. There were several credit card receipts stuck under a wire cup of pens, most of them white or blue with local business logos on the side. Just under the register drawer, however, someone had jammed a violet pen cap.
Shawn froze, one hand going to his head.
"Okay, wait, I'm getting something," he announced. "The killer did take something with her. I'm—I'm getting a pen, a purple pen. Yes, I see it clearly. There was a purple pen here, a cheap BIC-type purple pen. She broke it, drizzled the ink on the counter like very thin frosting on a large and inedible cookie, and took it away with her."
"Oh, wow," Lassiter snapped. "That is incredibly useful. You didn't happen to see where she dumped this broken pen, did you?"
Jules gave her partner a look.
"Thank you, Shawn," she said quietly. "So you're sure the killer is a she?"
Shawn pursed his lips, glanced back at the symbol once more, and nodded his head.
"Pretty darned," he said.
McNabb stepped into the tiny shop through the back door. He would have come all the way in, but due to the cramped interior and the number of people already inside the Happy Seagull, he found himself stuck at the threshold.
"We found footsteps back here," he reported. "Looks like women's boots."
"Stilettos?" Shawn asked. "Because that would be totally awesome if she ran off in stilettos. Those things are crazy hard to walk in, and we'd probably find her with three or four blisters on her pinky toes. Trust me, I know."
Lassiter gave Shawn an odd look and turned to McNabb.
"So you think she came in from the back?" he asked.
"No, stop," Shawn burst out, before McNabb could get a word out. "She came in the front. Probably stopped to grab some gumballs from the Dubble Bubble machine outside."
Jules frowned, blinking a little confusedly.
"What Dubble Bubble machine?"
"It was right here," Shawn insisted, looking to his left and his right. "I swear. I left it right where it was—look, you can even see the sand imprint where it…" he stopped and leaned over. "Well, there it is. Dopey me! She just tipped it over off the seawall."
Four feet away and six feet down, the ill-fated gumball dispenser lay facedown in the white sand.
"Good luck getting any gumballs from that," Shawn said. "They installed the 2008-issue safety catch."
Detective Lassiter gave a snort of disgust and hurried down the concrete steps to the beach. Shawn, meanwhile, jumped over the railing and landed just in front of him with a half-smile.
"Out of the way, Spencer," snapped Lassiter. "We need to check that for fingerprints."
"Not before I check it for psychic vibes," Shawn said. He knelt on the sand next to the machine and spread out his hands, holding them inches about the glass globe. "Don't worry, Lassie, I won't touch. Just… feel. Hmmmmmmm…"
"What are you doing, Shawn?" Gus asked, landing suddenly next to his friend. "Don't you want to come see the body?"
"As tempting as that sounds, no, I'd prefer to look for clues," replied Shawn, with his eyes closed. "Or in this case feel for clues. Hmmmmm… nope, sorry, I'm not getting anything." He jumped up, dusting off his jeans, as Lassiter pushed by him with a withering glance. "But, come on, it's pretty obvious who did this. You don't have to be psychic to realize that somebody's been a naughty, naughty girl. And by someone, I mean Mr. Yang, and by naughty I mean murderous and not- the other kind of naughty."
"The dead guy," said Gus, "is that homeless guy you gave the phrenology reading on the beach."
Shawn looked up sharply.
"Maxie? My man Maxie?" he said.
"Yes, Shawn. I checked his pocket; he still has the Big Billie's Burger BBQ half-off coupon you gave him."
"Oh," said Shawn. He got up, his face carefully expressionless. "I see. So we're back to the murdering-everyone-I-talk-to stage."
"Shawn..." Gus put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"This is terrible!" Shawn said, shrugging Gus' hand off quickly. "We're not going to be able to go out to eat for weeks, Gus, don't you understand that? Or maybe Lassie can fetch us some Chinese take-out. Just don't look at the girl behind the counter and don't order any meat you can't identify. Wait, Gus, what about that place on Fourteenth- is it safe?"
Gus shrugged.
"Use your best judgment on the meat, then. Don't forget the fortune cookies!"
Ignoring a glare from Lassiter, Shawn stepped around the gumball machine and headed down the beach.