A/N: Um, Hello there. Remember me? Yeah, I'm the one that makes those update promises and then doesn't follow through very well? Yep.
Well, here it is folks. I don't have any excuses for you. However, I do want to say that I appreciate and want to thank everyone that has reviewed, followed, favorited, and read this story. I am constantly astounded by the fact that people actually read this, especially the ones that have been following and such in recent months.
Thank you so much! It really means a lot :)
I have finished this story, and the next chapter will be posted on either late Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.
ENJOY!
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Lassiter felt sick to his stomach as he stared at the blood-spattered wall across from him. It painted the dull grey walls in grotesque arcs of red. Lassiter stared in a horrified kind of fascination as he thought of what had possibly occurred in this room; the victim had obviously had his throat slit from ear to ear, which would have severed the major artery in his neck. It was most likely a quick death since the victim's lifeblood would have spurted from what was surely a gaping wound quite rapidly.
The victim...
Lassiter shifted his focus to the source of all that blood. The victim sat tied to a cheap wooden chair in the middle of the small room, which was the only piece of furniture there. He faced away from Lassiter; so only the back of his head was visible to the two cops. Lassiter imagined that the sightless eyes of the victim were set permanently in death upon the view of his own blood all over the wall.
As he came to the end of this train of thought, Lassiter realized that he feared thinking anything beyond the impersonal facts of the newly discovered crime scene. He couldn't make himself check the victim's identity for fear of those facts being turned into startlingly personal revelations. He was afraid that not only would this victim be the SBPD's missing psychic, but that the look of judgment and blame he so expected to see would be permanently etched onto the man's face. One final message from the psychic, conveyed from another plane of existence that Lassiter didn't really believe in. Yet until he glimpsed the victim's face, whether it be Spencer's or someone else's, Lassiter didn't have to face that possibility, the guilt. He could still hold onto the last thin thread of hope he possessed.
"Oh, God," He heard Vick exhale in a shocked whisper. He could guess all too easily what she was thinking: What if it was Shawn? What would they tell Henry? Henry, Lassiter realized, who was still waiting in the car just outside. Hopefully still in the car, Lassiter amended silently.
As Lassiter had guessed Vick was contemplating the very same ideas from where she stood beside him. Thinking of Henry, as Lassiter had been, forced Vick to confront the fears they both harbored about the victim's identity. She, however, was the Chief of Police. Lassiter was not. It was her job to take charge and check the body, not his. With that, she took a hesitant step forward, gathering her courage and resolve. Then she approached the corpse.
When she saw the man's face she almost burst into tears, right there in that very spot. But she was a cop. Cops didn't cry at crime scenes. They especially didn't cry tears of joy over the bodies of men they barely knew.
Vick felt a relieved half smile find its way onto her face. It wasn't Shawn. The body in the strangely empty house was not Shawn Spencer. She couldn't repeat that fact enough. They'd just been granted a little more time, a second chance, and they wouldn't let it go to waste.
The thought of time sobered her; they had already spent far too long in this room. They needed to search the rest of the house and process the crime scene as soon as humanly possible. She needed to get this investigation under control. Now.
Vick took a deep, calming breath as Lassiter, having read the relieved look on her face rather easily, made the requested call to the station. They had to move fast if they were going to catch up to Carmichael and stop him once and for all. They were running out of time and options. She shut her eyes briefly as Lassiter ended the call, handing the cell phone he'd borrowed from her back, and readied herself for what she swore would be the last leg of this twisted race.
"I need you to run this crime scene, " Vick told Lassiter once he'd put away his phone. "Find the evidence we need to arrest Carmichael and his associates and put them all away for good."
"What about the Clarkes? O'Hara can't interview both of them. And what about Henry?" Lassiter questioned.
Vick sighed impatiently, "Henry will come back to the station with me to look over what little evidence we have."
Lassiter nodded in agreement, reading between the lines, "He doesn't need to see how close his son came to ending up like this." He gestured to the corpse and bloodied wall. In any case, whether or not Henry would be emotionally affected by that thought, Lassiter was all too happy to seem him depart with the Chief. Henry Spencer had been tough enough to work with before he retired and his son was kidnapped; Lassiter could hardly begin to imagine what he would be like now. It would be impossible for Lassiter to process this scene thoroughly with the elder Spencer breathing down his neck.
Lassiter's attention wandered back to the body in the center of the room. The sight caused him to press his lips in to a thin line of determination. Turning to face his boss, he said, "This needs to end."
"I know," Vick said as she turned to leave. Before she passed through the doorway, she glanced back at her detective as he began to reassess the scene. "And, Detective?" Lassiter looked up from whatever it was that he was inspecting. "No mistakes. We can't afford any setbacks." Lassiter nodded once, quickly.
"Yes, ma'am," he promptly replied. With that, the Chief left for her car and the man she'd left inside it. With any luck, he might actually still be there.
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Juliet wasn't usually an angry person, so the unadulterated rage she felt boiling in her veins was a constant shock to her. She was normally quite friendly and optimistic, but the last few hours and her partner's ridiculous orders to "escort" Trenton Clarke to the station had pushed her past her breaking point. On top of all that, the earlier conversation (if you could call it that) with Shawn and the proceeding dial tone had put her on edge. Her nerves were frayed beyond repair at this point, no matter what happened.
She had reached the station in record time, but couldn't recall much from the drive beyond her own seething loathing for the man in the back seat. It was all lost in a haze of adrenalin and fury. The only thing that clearly stood out from the rest in her mind was the memory of the bewildered look on Gus's face when she yanked the door open, shoved Trent Clarke inside, and jumped into the driver's seat. At some point during the drive, and after answering Gus's initial startled question of what the hell was going on, she'd managed to tune out every distraction. She even ignored Gus's panicked exclamations as they drove farther away from where they would supposedly find Shawn. It had all been drowned out by the static, white noise in her head. She'd just shut her mind and her conscience off somehow. All her thoughts, her feelings, everything, just poof and they were no more. That is, all her feelings except for the anger. That she held onto with a metaphorical white-knuckled grip, as if it were the only thing keeping her together.
Now that they'd reached and booked Trent though, she wasn't sure what to do with herself. Sure, she'd love nothing more than to get into one of those interrogation rooms and rip the Clarkes to shreds, but she knew that this case had to be handled delicately. She couldn't afford to tip her hand when she didn't really know what cards she was holding. She hadn't heard from either Lassiter, the Chief, or even Henry. She supposed she should try to call them herself, but something inside her was afraid of what she might hear. Right now, she was operating on the assumption that no news was good news.
In the end, Juliet's caution was all for naught, because Chief Vick called her not two minutes after she silently acknowledged her fears. Her desk phone began to ring as she stared off into space for the umpteenth time. She hesitated for only a second after recognizing the number Vick's before answering, "Hello?"
The Chief's disappointed tone came through clearly, "O'Hara, Henry and I are on our way back to the station. I need you to start interviewing Trenton Clarke. I'll interrogate his wife when I get there."
Vick and Henry were heading back to the station? Internal alarms went off at the sound of that, and Juliet swallowed heavily before asking, "And Shawn?"
She heard the Chief sigh and steeled herself for the worst. "He wasn't there," the Chief explained. "We got there only to find an as yet unidentified male victim in the house, but no sign of Mr. Spencer. Lassiter is processing the scene with CSU."
"Damn it!" Juliet swore; she couldn't help it. They had been so close, and now they were back to square one.
"Detective!" Vick reprimanded sharply, "You need to keep your emotions under control. Can you do that?"
Juliet's left hand clenched into a fist in frustration, then she slowly released her fingers. A futile attempt at relaxation, surely. "Yes," she said.
"Good. We need to stay levelheaded if we're going to find Shawn," Vick told her.
"I understand," Juliet replied. "I'll head to interrogation right away." The two then said a brief farewell, and then Juliet was off to the interview rooms. Somehow, Gus had overheard her end of the conversation without her noticing and proceeded to follow her there. He didn't follow her into the interrogation room, for which Juliet was relieved, but instead opted to remain in observation.
Going into the interrogation she was initially somewhat optimistic; maybe they would learn something valuable and pertinent to the case. By the end of it, she was feeling quite differently. Trent Clarke hadn't told her anything of any value. Instead, he'd kept his end of the conversation to trivial things such as his new designer shirt. As a defense attorney, his brother-in-law Alexander Carmichael's in fact, he made a good deal of money. He'd told her all about it during the interrogation, and it was all useless.
She did her best to keep from slamming the door to the interrogation room as she left, but the resounding thud still made Gus flinch. He'd been waiting for her, watching the whole thing from his side of the glass. He knew the disappointment she was feeling. He was determined to make the best of things though, and as soon as he saw her he was tossing out new ideas.
"Maybe we should look at the original Carmichael case?" He suggested to her as they walked back to the squad room to wait for the Chief to finish her interrogation. "You know, to give this case a different perspective?"
Juliet sighed tiredly and shrugged, "It couldn't hurt, I guess."
She and Gus changed direction to the file room and pulled up any hard copies of the original Carmichael case. They then took them back to Juliet's desk and pored over the files detailing the murders of Lisa Carmichael, Evan Carmichael, and little Katie Carmichael. Immersed in the past as she was, Juliet couldn't help remembering the moment when the truth about Officer Alexander Carmichael was revealed to the entire SBPD thanks to one Shawn Spencer...
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Flashback: The Carmichael Family Murder Investigation
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Juliet groaned and dropped her head into her hands. She had been sitting at her desk staring at the case file for what felt like hours. She and Lassiter had gone over every aspect of the three Carmichael murders more times than she could recall, and every time they hit a dead end. Every suspect with even the slightest hint of a motive for murdering the family had an airtight alibi.
Even when they tried to dig into the family's past and uncover possible secrets they couldn't come up with anything that might be cause for murder. Lisa, the wife, hadn't been having an affair. Evan, the thirteen-year-old son, hadn't gotten involved in any trouble at school, no underage drinking or anything of the sort. Certainly the family's seven-year-old daughter, Katie, hadn't prompted the murders in any way. The Carmichael family was spotless. Absolutely perfect.
Which meant that Juliet and Lassiter had an absolutely horrid time trying to find any leads. Especially with the family's only surviving member, a police officer by the name of Alexander Carmichael, breathing down their necks every step of the way. The pressure was mounting, and the Chief was threatening to hand the case over to Richards and Peterson if they couldn't solve it soon. It was either that, or give up and let the case go cold.
Juliet shook her head sadly; she couldn't imagine ever letting this case go. She couldn't call herself a detective if she didn't solve this case, because she wouldn't be able to do her job everyday if she knew that she had let down a fellow officer of the law. That kind of failure was almost too much for her to comprehend.
Turning back to the files open on her desk, Juliet prepared herself to reread the same information she'd already memorized after the last several reads. However, she never quite got there due to a sudden commotion near the stairwell.
"I need to speak with Detective Lassiter!" A deep male voice shouted. Other officers looked at each other curiously and got up to see who it was that disturbed the somber silence that had overtaken the squad room since the Carmichael investigation began. Soon enough, there was a wall of uniformed officers and detectives blocking Juliet's view of the entrance to the building.
"Where is he?!" There was an unmistakable note of anger in the man's voice, and the crowd murmured apprehensively in response. Juliet's eyebrows drew together in concentration; she knew that voice, vaguely recognizing it as someone she had spoken to before.
"Carlton Lassiter, you bastard!" The man had forgone any attempt at discretion as he called Lassiter out by name. "Get out here and show yourself!"
It was then, as the man began to shove through the crowd of policemen that Juliet finally placed where she knew the man from. He burst through the wall of people and Juliet stood up behind her desk.
There was no mistaking the tall, athletic, brown-haired Officer Carmichael, and he was tangibly irate for some unknown reason. Juliet made her way toward him, but he only had eyes for her partner. The officer's head whipped violently back and forth, searching the room for Lassiter.
"Excuse me, Officer Carmichael," Juliet tried to capture his attention as she approached him. "Is something wrong?" She asked worriedly. The man had already suffered so much tragedy. It wouldn't be fair if fate decided to suddenly thrust more troubles upon the bereaved man.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Carmichael ground out through gritted teeth. "'Is something wrong?' She asks. No shit! I wouldn't be here otherwise!"
Juliet was taken aback. She'd never seen Officer Carmichael behave like this. Not even when she and Lassiter had to inform him of his wife and children's deaths. He'd been polite even as tears had run down his cheeks. This man, this scarily angry man was not the one she knew.
His eyes bore holes into her head when he turned to glare at her. "Where's your partner, girl?"
Juliet's jaw almost hit the floor. Girl? Did he really just address her, a colleague, that way? She restrained herself from getting angry with him and instead rephrased her original question. "Sir, is something wrong?"
If anything, her professional demeanor only seemed to enrage him further. He was just about to start shouting at her when he caught sight of something behind her. Juliet noticed the way his gaze wandered over her shoulder and settled there. She turned around to look and found her partner standing there, a mug of fresh coffee in his hand.
She saw Lassiter frown as he took in the sight before him: Officer Carmichael towering over his partner, who had a cold, impersonal expression on her face, and then the crowd of co-workers that hovered just behind them. He couldn't fathom what would be the cause of such a situation, but his gut instinct said it wouldn't be anything good.
"You!" Carmichael marched over to where Lassiter stood at the other end of the room. "You think you have the right to say those things to me?"
Lassiter was obviously missing something, as was everyone else in the room based on the looks of utter confusion on their faces. "I didn't say anything to you. I haven't spoken to you since O'Hara and I met with you yesterday to ask you a few question."
"Stop trying to save your own ass," Carmichael said with disgust. "I got your letter. How dare you accuse me of murdering my own family!" The officer's eyes burned with pure hatred toward the Head Detective.
"What?!" Both Lassiter and O'Hara shouted at the same time, whilst, unbeknownst to them, another figure slipped into the room under cover of the multitude of whispering police officers lingering in the room.
"Um," a new voice interrupted. "If I may offer my expertise on this matter?"
All eyes turned to the smirking face of none other than Shawn Spencer, who had wormed his way into the room just in time to see Officer Carmichael confront Detective Lassiter. As soon as he had the attention of the entire room, which was exactly what he'd wanted, he spoke, "I have a confession to make."
"You're a fraud?" Lassiter remarked dryly. Juliet rolled her eyes, but Shawn just laughed it off.
"No, silly!" He waved a hand as if to wave away the too-accurate suggestion. "But I am the one who sent that letter to Officer Carmichael and signed Lassie's name."
"Shawn," Juliet admonished, thoroughly embarrassed on her friend's behalf for what she believed to be a huge mistake. "Why would you ever do that?"
"Because, dear Jules," Shawn began, "I needed to make sure everybody witnessed the killer's confession."
"You little shit!" Carmichael snarled and started toward the psychic. He would have gotten to him, and probably strangled him, if it weren't for Lassiter holding him back.
"Let's see what the idiot has to say for himself," Lassiter said. He didn't want to believe Spencer, but there was a niggling doubt at the back of his mind.
"Thank you," Shawn dipped his head exaggeratedly in mock gratitude.
Before he began, Shawn got a chair and stood on it. What could he do? He was a performer at heart. He cleared his throat to get the attention he knew he already had, "Now, I sent you that letter, Officer, because I know you killed your wife and kids. You see, I had this vision late last night and the spirits told about your penchant for violence. Then they told me all about how you used to beat up your wife." At this Shawn glared at the man. "Then they told me about how you used your police connections and intimidation techniques to keep her, and your kids, quiet. They couldn't come forward."
Shawn continued, "They couldn't, that is, until Evan recorded one of your arguments, in which you copped to all your dirty deeds. You found out he was going to come forward with it and decided that it was time to shut them all up. For good."
Shawn then told everyone present all about what "the spirits told him," such as the hidden tape of Carmichael's confession hidden under the living room floorboards, how Carmichael covered up his crime, and where the police could find corroborating evidence and his dirty accomplices.
That night, they were able to make multiple arrests on the counts of murder, accessory to murder, and obstruction of justice. It was a good night for justice, but a terrible event for the SBPD. It took weeks to fully vet everyone out again and for the department to begin to put the discovery of dirty cops behind them.
As they dragged a cuffed Alexander Carmichael down to the holding cells to book him, everyone in the vicinity could hear him as he swore to rip the psychic limb from limb and then feed his remains to the animals. The shouting didn't stop until Carmichael was left alone in a cell, and even then the officers and detectives in the building could hear the occasional rattle of cell bars as Carmichael shook them in frustration.
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As Juliet came back to the present and out of her memories, she wondered if perhaps Carmichael's threats that night hadn't just been insults hurled in a fit of rage. Maybe he actually intended to follow through with his terrible promises. She immediately stopped what she was doing and abruptly stood up from her seated position at her desk. It was just a theory, but it was more than they'd gotten from either of the Clarkes and surely more than Lassiter would find at the new crime scene.
"Chief!" She called as she hurried to find her superior, Gus at her heels. "Chief!"
Vick was just coming out of the interrogation room, looking angry and frustrated, when Juliet found her. Vick's eyes widened as she took in Juliet's excited and hopeful body language.
"I think I know where we can find Shawn."
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I really hope you guys liked this chapter. Remember: There is one more chapter left in this story, and it is currently complete.
I started to get really frustrated with this story, so I'm sorry if certain parts, or, Fanfiction gods forbid, the whole chapter wasn't to your liking. Still, it's the way I felt it had to go.
Also, I'm sorry for any typos. They are completely accidental and entirely my fault.
Please leave me some feedback by pressing that button at the bottom and reviewing!