Gus arrived at the Psych office to find Shawn sitting on a bench by the front door, pretending to admire the view of the harbour.
"Thank God you're here, Gus. I need your help." Shawn leaped to his feet and led the way inside. "Something has come up that requires your special skills."
"Lockpicking?" Gus asked as he followed him through the foyer of the Psych office. Then, more hopefully, "The Super Smeller?"
"Nope." Shawn walked further into the office to reveal Jeffrey Robarts, sitting on the sofa playing Resident Evil: Rejuvenation on their Wii. He looked up briefly, greeted Gus, then turned back to the game.
"We've got to hide Jeffrey somewhere Lassie can't find him," Shawn said. "And since my Romulan cloaking device isn't working we'll have to go old school. And to be fair, you were always better at hide and go seek."
"Hide him where, Shawn? He's wanted for a felony." Gus walked briskly around the office closing the blinds and peering out to see if the office was about to be swarmed by police officers.
"Just a few days," Shawn assured him. "Until I've cleared up all these false charges."
"If they are false charges." Gus lowered his voice and looked suspiciously at Jeffrey. "Lassiter seems pretty sure that Jeffrey did it."
"Yes, but like his decision to wear sock garters, it's all kinds of wrong," Shawn said. "Jeffrey's innocent. This is like the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where Riker thinks he's in a mental hospital."
You're thinking Frame of Mind," Gus said. "And this is nothing like that. If anything, it's more like episode 91 of Deep Space Nine, where Chief O'Brien is falsely accused of spying and given the traumatic memory of a twenty year jail sentence." Gus lowered his voice. "And we haven't actually established that Jeffrey isn't guilty."
Shawn rolled his eyes. "Jeffrey's the fall guy. And not in a cool, stunt-man-moonlighting-as-a-bounty-hunter kind of way. I mean he's being set up."
"They found his sister's bloody clothes and the murder weapon in his closet," Gus countered.
"Okay, but the real killer could have used Marla's keys and planted the evidence there. Jeffrey was close to his sister and had no motive to kill her. Right, Jeffrey?"
"I wouldn't hurt anybody, least of all Marla." Jeffrey cut the head off a zombie with a machete, jumped onto a burned out car and then began scaling a fire escape, as hoards of the undead closed in on his avatar.
"Or," Gus countered, lowering his voice and watching Jeffrey carefully, "He's like Tom Hank's character in Mazes and Monsters. Obsessed with bringing the game to life. Or in this case, the movie based on the game."
"Lassie's way off base with Jeffrey," Shawn said. "We'll need to gently steer him toward a better suspect. Like that assistant director. I kind of want it to be him on general principles. And there's still Marla's partner, Patricia Kayne. The file on Lassie's desk says Kayne inherits Marla's half of their business. That's worth killing for. And she could have put the evidence in Jeffrey's closet while she was holding Lassie off with her lawyers. I'm sure if I nudge him a little Lassie will see the light."
"I've seen how you interact with Lassiter," Gus said. "You do more than nudge."
"I just need to keep Jeffrey out of jail long enough to ID the real killer."
Gus crossed his arms and tried to look immovable. "I will not break the law for you, Shawn. We should just call Lassiter and hand him over."
"Oh please!" Shawn scoffed. "You've broken the law with me plenty of times."
"In the past," Gus admitted, "sometimes laws were bent in the interests of justice. But this is a new day and a new Burton Guster. And my new rule is that I don't hide fugitives from the law."
"Come on," Shawn cajoled. "Be bad. Break some rules. Grow a goatee and become evil Gus."
"You wouldn't like me evil, Shawn." Gus looked meaningfully at his friend.
"Gus, all I'm saying is that what if Jeffrey is innocent? And what if he's being framed?" Shawn knew that Gus had always had a soft spot for the wrongly accused. Although most people assumed that it stemmed from having his parents suspected of murdering their neighbour, Shawn knew that it had originated much earlier, when a young Gus had watched the Court Martial episode of Star Trek.
"What do you need me to do?" Gus was hesitant.
"Just be yourself."
"Hello," Shawn greeted the woman behind the plexiglass window in the pale green waiting room of a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city. "My name is Shawn Spencer and this is my associate, Dr. Melvin Potts." He motioned to Gus. "We'd like to speak to you about Mr. Nicholson here. No relation to Jack."
The nurse looked at Jeffrey and then at Shawn, displaying no indication as to whether she was buying their story or not.
"Mr. Nicholson is a method actor," Shawn explained. He once spent a week living in a cornfield when he did Wizard of Oz off-Broadway. He's got a part in an upcoming film where he plays a patient with schizophrenia, and he'd like to be admitted for a few days to get a feel for the experience."
"I'd have to run that by Doctor Sampson." She handed Shawn a form. "Fill this out."
"Gladly," Shawn picked up a pen, discovered it was attached to the counter by a short chain, tugged ineffectually at it for a few moments, and then moved the clipboard close enough to write in a crabby scrawl. He passed the nurse the forms, a driving license, and an insurance card.
The nurse went into a back office and a few moments later returned with Dr. Sampson, who looked like a well-fed Bob Newhart in a sweater vest.
"Allow me," Gus said to Shawn and Jeffrey. He ran his thumb down his nose, and smiling, sauntered over to the doctor. They chatted in hushed tones, the doctor nodding his head at Gus's words. Shawn had total confidence that Gus would be successful. Was selling pharmaceuticals so different from committing a wanted man under an assumed name? He hoped not.
Finally Gus and Dr. Sampson approached them.
"Okay Mr. Nicholson," Gus said to Jeffrey. "You'll stay here under Dr. Sampson's care and we'll be back for you in a few days."
"I'm sure you'll find our facility the perfect venue for exploring how it feels to access mental health treatment," Dr. Sampson said. "I've done some acting myself, you know." He smiled humbly. "Just community theatre, but we did get a lovely write-up in The Courier. They said my MacBeth was refreshingly amusing."
"Are you really going to find out who killed Marla?" Jeffrey asked, ignoring Dr. Sampson.
"You bet." Shawn turned to the doctor. "There are still some issues to be worked out in the script. It's a whole who-shot-JR, who-killed-Laura-Palmer thing. We promised to let him know as soon as they sorted it." Shawn and Gus shook hands with the doctor and left.
Back in the little blue Echo, headed toward the police department, Gus sighed.
"I hope you have a plan for how you'll keep Lassiter from finding Jeffrey as soon as he routinely checks all the mental hospitals in the area."
Shawn leaned back in his seat, pleased with himself. "Of course I do. I checked him in under the name Creighton Morris."
The Echo swerved slightly as Gus turned to look at Shawn. "The director?"
"Assistant director," Shawn corrected. "He was the only person whose driver's license and insurance card I happened to have on me at the time."
"How did you just happen to have those?" Gus asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
Shawn pulled a black wallet from his pants pocket. "I found his wallet."
"Where did you find it?"
"In his trailer. I keep meaning to return it to him, but I'm so rarely in that part of town."
Lassiter poured himself a coffee and glared at it. The search for Jeffrey Robarts was turning up nothing. How difficult could it be for an entire police department to trace one man? It wasn't as if he was some criminal genius with a score of associates willing to hide him. He was a mentally ill guy who, until recently, lived with his sister. He hadn't even had a job in four years.
Lassiter looked up to see Shawn Spencer chatting flirtatiously with O'Hara and McNab. Not that he was jealous, he assured himself. Spencer could flirt with half the station for all he cared. If Guster was right, and Spencer had some sort of crush on him, it was probably just one of many. For all he knew he could be at the bottom of Spencer's dance card. Still, it would be better to set some boundaries now, before things got out of hand. Like Guster had suggested, he ought to let Spencer down gently.
The psychic strolled into the break room and helped himself to a cherry danish from a box on the counter.
"Why the long face, Lassie? Lose a game of three dimensional chess?"
"No." Normally Lassiter would have been flattered by being compared to a Vulcan, but at the moment he didn't feel very logical. "I'm combing the city for a suspect, as if you didn't know."
"I thought you loved a good manhunt. You've got your whole Tommy Lee Jones thing going on." He noticed that Lassiter had removed his suit jacket and actually rolled up the sleeves on his dress shirt, a sign that he'd been working hard for at least six hours. Lassiter rarely uncuffed unless she was really concentrating.
"Thanks, Spencer." Lassiter smiled wryly. He did love a manhunt. He just loved it more when they were successful. "But the trail's pretty cold," he admitted. "Robarts disappeared at the hospital and hasn't been seen since. We've had our guys go over his usual haunts with a fine tooth comb, but he's dropped off the face of the earth."
"Maybe an alien being has drained him of his water and he's being used as a paperweight."
"Well he certainly isn't at his apartment or the hospital or any of the dozen other places we've looked." Lassiter sighed.
"Don't beat yourself up about it," Shawn said, patting Lassiter energetically on the back, feeling the holster straps against his crisp white shirt. "I'm sure he'll turn up when you least expect it." The patting turned to rubbing, and Lassiter steeled himself for that talk.
"Listen, Spencer," he looked around to make sure no one was within hearing range. "We need to talk." His ex wife used to say that all the time. It was like telling someone there'd been an accident. It prepared them for bad news.
"Okay." Shawn looked apprehensively up at him. "Talk. I'm all yours."
"Not here. Somewhere private." Lassiter strode across to the file room, checked that it was deserted and then motioned Shawn over.
"In here." Once inside he locked the door and turned to face Shawn, hoping he didn't look as anxious as he felt.
Shawn raised his hands, defensively. "Look, if this is about the melted cheese in your toaster, I swear, that was an accident. Blame Jamie Kennedy—the chef, not the comedian-slash-actor. It was his grilled cheese recipe. I was just following instructions."
"My toaster?" Lassiter's brow wrinkled. "This isn't about my toaster."
"Is it about those pictures of you from highschool? I didn't think you'd even miss them. They were doubles. And you looked adorable in that basketball uniform."
"Listen, Spencer—Shawn." Lassiter put a hand on Shawn's shoulder in what he hoped was a fatherly way, then thought better of the gesture and removed it. "It's natural to be curious. But sometimes curiosity leads you astray," he said. "Maybe you develop a schoolboy crush on Harry Callahan or Frank Serpico. You engage in some innocent experimentation with a willing college roommate, maybe you even date for a new weeks until his sister finds out and threatens to tell your mother. Long story short, eventually those things have to be set aside in favour of more mature relationships and responsibilities."
"Did my dad ask you to do this?" Shawn asked, puzzled. "I'm surprised he's started outsourcing these little grow-the-hell-up talks."
"Henry? God no." Lassiter looked panicked for a moment. As far as he was concerned, this was an issue that Henry must never catch wind of. He could think of few situations more awkward. And would Henry believe that he hadn't done anything to lead Shawn on? He didn't want to take that chance. "Let's leave Henry out of this," he suggested.
"Fine by me." Shawn crossed his legs and leaned casually against a filing cabinet.
Lassiter took a deep breath. "Guster told me," he felt the words catching in his throat, "that you uh, liked me." God! This feels like junior high, he thought painfully, which had not been one of the more self-confident periods of his development. He wondered if having this conversation was really as necessary as it had seemed last night, when he'd formulated the plan.
"Gus is over-protective." Shawn waved a hand. "He gets all wired if he eats more than a few Coffee Crisps. Ignore him."
"Coffee Crisps?"
"What? They're a nice light snack."
"So he made it up?" Lassiter found himself both desperately hoping this was true yet feeling disappointed that it might be.
"Not exactly. Gus doesn't lie," Shawn said. "Well, not the way normal people do. Not like you and I do."
Lassiter questioned whether Shawn could really be considered 'normal people,' but let it pass. He laced his hands, in unconscious imitation of holding a Glock, and peered at Shawn over his raised index fingers. "I just wanted to make it clear that while I'm flattered, I'm not a…that is, I'm not like…."
"I get it," Shawn cut in, his face reddening. "I'm like a piece of furniture to you. It's fine."
"It's not personal." Lassiter felt he was doing exactly what Guster had asked him not to do. He tried to backtrack. "I mean, you're not hideous. You're actually quite attractive. If I were gay I'd be on you like oil on guns."
"You mean that?" Shawn looked at Lassiter and his eyes seemed to be searching his face for evidence of insincerity.
Lassiter smiled, glad their talk seemed to be coming to an amiable conclusion.
"Absolutely," he said, patting Shawn reassuringly on the shoulder.
Shawn slipped his hands up, placed them on either side of Lassiter's jaw and, pushing forward onto his toes, pressed his lips briefly against the detective's. As kisses go it was dry and quick, tasting vaguely of cherry danish. But from Lassiter's perspective it was one of the most obscenely sexual things that had ever happened to him in public—well, almost public. And while Shawn's lips had barely touched him before he pulled away again, Lassiter experienced it all in slow motion, like a car crash.
Shawn stepped back, just out of easy punching range, and stood there, his skin flushed, breathing short gulps of air and looking expectantly at Lassiter, whose eyes were still widened in surprise.
"Okaaay," Lassiter said warily. Shawn could almost see the gears turning behind his cold blue eyes as he tried to make some sense of what had just happened. "What was that?"
"That was about one second of paradise," Shawn joked. "If you're up for going the whole seven minutes, let me know."
Seven minutes of paradise? Lassiter vaguely remembered the term from some of his first mixed-sex birthday parties—some kind of a game where your friends stuffed you into a closet with your childhood crush.
"What are we, fourteen?" he asked.
Shawn turned and headed out the door. "That feels about right to me," he called over his shoulder.
Why did bad days always start so early? Lassiter wondered as he poured himself his first coffee of the day. Once again, he'd awoken at 4:00 a.m., his mind already racing.
He couldn't stop replaying the kiss in the file room. Shawn's lips had been surprisingly soft. And although Lassiter didn't have a photographic memory, when he recalled the incident what he remembered most, apart from the intensity of Spencer's gaze, was the charge between them that gave him a warm feeling below the belt.
He likes me.
The memory of that kiss was causing him to question things that he suspected were better left unexamined. Like wondering how far Shawn was willing to take this supposed crush. Shawn's remarks at the Rabbitson house would seem to suggest that he was willing to go, as the kids used to say, all the way. Not that I would ever go there with Spencer, he assured himself. It was just interesting to wonder about. Especially at 4 a.m., as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
And even if he could see himself succumbing, perhaps while drunk, to the allure of Shawn's body, where would such a thing be headed? Surely he couldn't see them dating. He couldn't even imagine how stressful bringing a boyfriend to a SBPD social would be. Did Shawn's interest in him have any future that didn't end with his career in tatters?
Nobody would need to know. The thought broke into his consciousness like a whispered secret. He spent ten minutes listing all the ways that such a deception would be doomed from the start. Not least among these was that both he and Shawn worked with some of the best detectives in California, who were trained to notice things. Discovery would be inevitable.
Despite this certainty he found himself wondering if such a scenario might not be impossible after all. With enough careful planning he might be able to keep it between the two of them, especially if you expanded that notion to include Guster, who he assumed Shawn would inevitably tell. People see what they expect to see, Lassiter reasoned. He had one of the most masculine jobs there was; nobody would think he was…anything other than 100% straight. And while he was touchy feely, Shawn wasn't exactly Paul Lynde. If they kept to the status quo, no one would even suspect.
He'd feel bad about keeping O'Hara in the dark, of course. Partners were supposed to share things. It was how they maintained the bond that their lives sometimes depended on. Still, what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. It wasn't as if any—entirely theoretical at this point—hook-up with Shawn changed anything about him. It's not like he was, God forbid, coming out.
Of course there was one other issue to consider. Guster had been worried about Shawn's feelings getting hurt. In Lassiter's experience, feelings were unpredictable and messy. And few things could blow a secret wide open like Shawn crying openly about some relationship issue on the SBPD steps. Whatever his decision, he'd have to be careful. Very careful.
Shawn collapsed onto his chair in the Psych office and spun in a circle, gloating.
"You're in a good mood," Gus observed. "Please tell me it's because you've broken the case wide open and we're no longer aiding and abetting a wanted felon."
"Afraid not. But I spoke with Dr. Sampson and Jeffrey's getting along well with the other patients. He's organized an improve class as part of his cover."
"Considering his cover is that he's an actor pretending not to be an actor, doesn't that actually blow his cover?"
"Only the first layer. Nobody suspects that he's in hiding. Our plan is still solid on that front."
"Then what's got you so happy?"
"I kissed Lassie." Shawn smiled and his eyes looked into the distance as he replayed the memory in his mind.
Gus looked up from his laptop, his expression grave. "Please tell me that's a joke. Or some kind of metaphor, in which 'Lassie' stands for some annoying but necessary task such as flossing your teeth and 'kiss' means came to embrace."
Shawn laughed. "I tell you I kissed Lassie and you want it to mean I've found joy in flossing?"
Gus shrugged. "Flossing is important. It removes bacteria that can cause tooth decay and bone degeneration."
Shawn rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll floss. But in this case kiss means kiss, and Lassie means a tall masculine detective whose aggression and control issues have an intriguing erotic potential. Would it help you if we came up with a code for describing future encounters? I could say, I've been sampling the Romulan ale, or making an entry in the Captain's log."
"I have to hand it to you," Gus said. "Of all the things I thought you might do to Lassiter that would ultimately end our business and cause me to have to move to another city, kissing didn't even make the list."
"I know. I didn't expect it either. But he was standing there telling me how attractive he'd find me if he was gay, and it just happened. Before I knew it I had penetrated his deflector shields and we were at red alert."
"Did he kiss you back?"
"No," Shawn admitted. But he didn't not kiss me back either, which for him is practically a flat-out pass."
"Two negatives don't make a positive, Shawn. In fact, they actually make a bigger negative."
Shawn shook his head. "The negatives cancel each other out, like matter and antimatter in Star Trek."
"That's not how they work, Shawn," Gus said sternly. "Matter and anti-matter meeting create an explosion of energy that has to be contained by a magnetic field. It's how they power the ship. Without the plasma coolant the heat they produce breaches the warp core. It destroyed the USS Enterprise D in Generations."
Shawn grinned and gave his chair another rotation. "Once I breach Lassie's warped core things will be just fine, I assure you. It's science. Sexy, sexy science."
Gus rolled his eyes. He was pretty certain that Shawn's interest in Lassiter would end in tears, charges of criminal conspiracy, or a bodycount. He feared that, in Star Trek terms, Shawn was the one wearing the red shirt.
Lassiter and O'Hara sat in the Crown Vic and waited for Patricia Kayne to leave her apartment. With Marla Roberts dead, Lassiter figured that Kayne was the most likely person to be hiding Jeffrey. She probably had him holed up somewhere and it was only a matter of time before she would lead them right to him. Or so he hoped. Thus far, she'd only gone to her office, to the film set and back to her apartment. There was a brief moment of hope when she'd bought some food at a Vons grocery, but she'd taken it directly home.
Maybe, Lassiter reflected bitterly, Jeffrey, wherever he was, was ordering takeout.
"So, O'Hara," he asked, resting an arm on the open car window, "what's going on with you lately? Seeing anyone?" Of all the people he worked with, O'Hara might possibly get the difficulties involved in trying to fit a love life in around their work hours. She was a detective. She was single. And her attempts at dating hadn't exactly been a rousing success. They just seemed more successful in comparison with his.
"No, why?" She paused for a moment. "You're not trying to set me up with someone, are you? Because I am not that desperate yet."
"I'm not your cruise director. I was just making conversation."
"Oh." She relaxed again. "Well, there is someone I'm kind of interested in. But I'm not sure if I should take it to the next level." She bit her lip. "I mean, I wouldn't want to interfere with our friendship, not to mention our working relationship."
Lassiter's face went paler than usual. "Please tell me it's not Spencer."
"It's not Shawn." She glared at him. Her job was tough enough. She didn't want her personal life to be as chaotic. "Things are going really smoothly now, and don't know if I want to risk that trying for something more." She sighed. "But is that the kind of hesitation that's going to hold me back from finding something really special? What do you think, Carlton?"
"Huh?" Lassiter, who had been lost in his own Spencer-related daydream again, realized she'd been talking, and that he was now expected to offer an opinion. He equivocated. "There's a lot to consider."
O'Hara nodded, chewing her lip again. "There sure is. How about you? Seeing anyone?"
"No." He paused then asked, "Do you think it's the job?"
"It's definitely the job." She agreed. "People think it's sexy, until they experience it firsthand. Sure, the gun and the handcuffs are hot, but running out to a crime scene in the middle of a date? Not so hot."
Lassiter nodded thoughtfully. "Missing birthdays and anniversaries." That had particularly bothered his wife—ex wife, now. But when you were tracking down a killer you sometimes forgot the little things like that. And a box of candy bought at Walgreens on the way home didn't seem to convey love as he had hoped it would.
Juliet bobbed her head in agreement. "Calling to say you'll be late. Again."
"Tacking crime scene photos up on the fridge."
Juliet looked at Lassiter, her face twisted in disgust. "Ew! Who does that?"
"Nobody," he said defensively.
"Still," she said, "some people manage it. Look at Vick. And Buzz. They both found love."
"Yeah," Lassiter agreed, "but it takes a special sort of person to date a cop and not mind the hassles."
O'Hara laughed a humourless chuckle. "Tell me about it. But if you think you've found the guy who could handle it," she said, thinking again of her own situation, "shouldn't you grab at that chance with both hands?"
Lassiter found himself wondering if Shawn would mind the hassles. His dad had been a cop, and he seemed to enjoy crime solving. Truth be told, Shawn was a great detective, once all the silly bells and whistles of his psychic act were stripped away. Maybe he wouldn't mind crime scene photos on the fridge.
Hell, Lassiter thought, he'd probably solve the damn crime while pouring milk on his Rice Krispies.