A reader has a chance when matching his wits with a rationalistic detective,
but if he must compete with the world of spirits
and go chasing about the fourth dimension of metaphysics,
he is defeated ab initio.

S.S. Van Dine
20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories, ca. 1928

-x-

8.

Gus arrived five minutes later. Since Juliet didn't have to be at work until eleven, the three of them went to Platypus Park. Gus was thick with the fumes of anger. Juliet was understanding but Shawn could tell she didn't know how to fix this for him, or how to make Gus's anger fade.

At the counter, a quiet Gus put in the order for the three of them. He took a ten dollar bill from his wallet, separate from the debit card he was using to foot the bill. He dropped the ten bucks in the tip jar and explained his action to Cheryl, the barista. "I ordered an iced latte, extra ice, with an extra shot of espresso," he held up the drink, "and I want you to forgive me for the mess I'm about to make you clean up. But, believe me, it's necessary."

Gus whipped around, dumping the entire contents of the extra-shot latte down Shawn's front, shirt to trousers, even some dribbles on the top of his head. It went everywhere. What didn't get soaked into Shawn's clothes puddled at his feet. Gus got splashed, but nothing he couldn't deal with. Juliet had been out of the way, getting napkins for their glazed donuts. She glared at Gus, more surprised by his action than the way Shawn looked—and smelled.

"BURTON GUSTER!"

Gus, quite sane and reasonable, put the emptied latte glass back on the counter. Cheryl was blank-faced as he spoke to her. "Thanks, and I'm sorry about the mess."

Shawn took the napkins from Juliet. He wiped off his face and part of his neck. When he could open his eyes, he almost wished they'd been frozen shut. Gus was smug and satisfied by his decision to seek revenge in a comical, very wet way. Juliet was too astonished to reprimand him. Shawn almost wondered if he'd deserved it.

Dismayed, Juliet took their plate of goods back to Cheryl. "Can you wrap these up for us? I think it's better if we just go."

Cheryl and her helper had the food and drinks transferred to takeaway in record time. Gus shoved Shawn toward the door, again apologizing to Cheryl as he went. Shawn wasn't entirely prepared to let Gus get away with it.

"I'm feeling kinda queasy," said Shawn as they neared the Strawberry, "and I think I'd better lie down in the back of your car, Gus—belly first."

"You try it, and I throw you back at Lassiter right now. Besides, you're five-ten and you can't possibly fold those long legs of yours up to even lie belly-first in the back seat."

"Want me to try? I'm willing to try. And I'm five-eleven, thank you."

Gus's eyelids narrowed, almost ready to give up the challenge. But he'd been through enough that morning—all of them had. "Just get in the car, Shawn."

Juliet was dropped at the station, Gus taking Shawn to their place. The mailbox out front still said "O'Hara & Guster," and after two years it was pretty obvious that Juliet was going to keep her last name. The house reeked of both their preferred design styles, though, very arid, very modern. Lots of stonework and glass tiles, lots of shiny floors and simple window treatments. It lacked the coziness of Shawn and Carlton's house—but there was nothing as sweet as home, anyway.

"You're an idiot," Gus said to Shawn as soon as they were in Gus and Juliet's bedroom. It was ice blue and white, with splashes of mauve and super-pale green. It was beautiful but kind of cold. The his and hers walk-in closets, though, now those were pretty priceless. Gus's was still fuller than Juliet's, and it stank of cedar and shoes. Gus fumbled through clothes, hoping to find the tackiest, ugliest shirt in his collection to make Shawn put on that day, and his tightest trousers. Clothes Shawn wouldn't be caught dead wearing, and that was the point. "You should've never gone to Sean's hotel room. What were you thinking?"

Shawn's chest swelled with pain, Gus's voice hitting the point where it broke with emotion. "I was thinking that I'd just had a fight with Carlton, and—I was angry. About everything."

"You know what this reminds me of, don't you?"

"Sure, I do, Gus: 1997."

"July of 1997, that is correct, when you went on a three-day bender with Dominic Hastings and Dennis, and the three of you nearly got arrested for urinating on a public bench."

"Public lewdness, Gus. I don't think there's anything in the criminal code that specifies peeing on a park bench. Look, Gus—"

"No, Shawn, you look!" Gus crammed clothes against Shawn, his eyes still smarting and burning. "You listen to me. You apologize to Lassiter, and you apologize good and you apologize sincerely. Whether you did anything with someone else's husband is not really what disappoints me. You—you disappoint me. You knew you weren't so angry at Carlton that you'd go out of your way to cause trouble, just like you did in 1997. And I am not going to be the mediator in this. I am not your middleman. You and Carlton have had your issues, most of them in the last eight months, since you came out of the hospital. If you love him, fix it. If you don't love him, then get the hell out of Santa Barbara until you figure out what you do want. Because you've got it all here. Don't ruin it if you still want it." Gus went as serene as he could, knowing he'd thrown into Shawn as much terror as he could. "Now, take a shower and put these clothes on. I'll make some real breakfast to go with our donuts."

Shawn couldn't find his voice to thank Gus for all he was doing and all he'd done.

In the big guest bathroom, Shawn searched his naked form for any sign that he'd engaged in something illicit the night before. Pleasantly, nothing caught his attention. Aside from the flagrant pains common with his hangovers, and his rapid mind that suggested he'd slept poorly, though couldn't recall nightmares or waking often, he was quite sure he and See-an had only removed one another's clothes and flung them to the far corners of the bedroom. He used to enjoy doing that with Lassie.

Out of the shower and in Gus's clothing of torture (knowing perfectly well what Gus was doing), Shawn realized he'd left the hotel room without his phone. He felt severely disconnected from everyone without it, and even thought of it as the modern day security blanket for grownups. What if he needed it?

Gus dismissed the suggestion that they swing by the hotel and pick it up. "It'd do you good to live without it for a few hours. I've got my phone, and I'm not leaving your sight until I figure out what to do with you."

"I should talk to Sean and Jason."

"And say what?"

"That we didn't do anything, obviously."

"I'm sure Sean's saying that enough for the both of you. Eat your food."

Gus had made the great comfort food anyone could ask for at breakfast: homemade waffles. Shawn ate his a half at a time, first with strawberry jam, then one with blueberry, and finally a whole one with syrup. He was so stuffed he didn't have room for his donut from Platypus Park.

With his hands at his belly and lounging in the big chair where Juliet usually browsed books and magazines, Shawn stared at the ceiling to better focus his thoughts.

"I still want to find Homer and talk to him about the trunk. And I still want to go back to the mansion. I can go by myself, though. You probably have actual work to do."

"I'm not letting you go to that mansion by yourself. What kind of friend do you think I am?"

"One that makes me wear trousers so tight I feel like Tanner Cohen in Were the World Mine. Without the magic pansy that makes everyone gay, more's the pity. That's the kind of friend you are."

"I don't see anything wrong with those trousers. They fit you perfectly fine," Gus said, clearly stretching the truth. They were very tight at the waist and crotch. "Shows off what got you in trouble," quipped Gus.

"Maybe if I'd had these pants on, I would've done what you and everyone else thinks I did. I mean, who could resist this?" Shawn ogled the area of his crotch, trying to imagine that it was something so fetching a man would commit adultery for it. But it really wasn't that worthwhile. It wasn't even worth a thought of maybe committing adultery. Again, he was sure that he and Sean had passed out before they'd done anything. It didn't make them any less blameworthy, though, not really. It was the thought that counted. Especially nasty drunk thoughts. Their consequences were far more devastating.

During the drive, Gus repented his decision to take Shawn back to the mansion. "What am I doing? I must be out of my mind, going back to that place. You should be out of your mind, too, Shawn, wanting to go back there."

"If I've gone out of my mind, it's because these pants have cut off circulation to every important part of my body. There's just something at that mansion that didn't add up."

"What could that be? The freaky pigeons and the caca all over the place?"

Shawn nearly snickered at Gus's use of the word 'caca.' "I'll tell you when we get there, in case I'm wrong."

"Yeah, and how often are you wrong?"

"You think I'm wrong about what See-an and I did last night."

Gus flung his eyes back to the road, stopped at a traffic light. He was willing to believe that Shawn and Sean hadn't engaged in sexual activity the night before, but he knew, and Shawn knew, that what'd happened was an obvious sign of intent. Again, he wasn't sure that Carlton would ever forgive Shawn. He wasn't even sure if Jason could forgive his Sean. He didn't know what he'd do if he'd found Juliet in such a compromising way, or if he'd found himself the way Shawn had that morning. They'd had enough trouble the last time they'd quaffed more than their fair share of liquor.

Shawn massaged his hands in front of him, still tense about what'd happened. His stomach still churned, though the churns had been softened by Gus's most excellent waffles. "I didn't imagine that I'd hurt so many people I cared about. It's worse than 1997, Gus. That'd happened because I'd been dumped by somebody, not because—"

"Wait, that happened because you were dumped? You weren't even going out with anybody. Oh, no, no-no-no-no, don't tell me that you were carrying on a secret love affair when you were twenty-one, Shawn, just don't! I can't handle any more betrayals this morning, I can't! I admit that I can't! You! Dating someone back then, puh! Who was this person? Do I know her—or him? Did Dennis? Did Dominic? I know I was away most of that year at school, but I that was the summer I came home, and if you'd been with someone I would've known!"

"Your light's green. Go, before the lady behind you slams her car horn up your—"

"I can't believe this is happening," Gus said, choked and gunning the Strawberry as fast as its engine would go.

"You're gonna blow your gasket."

"I am not!"

"Should I get out and push?" joked Shawn, hoping to insert staid humor into the catastrophic morning. "Might help."

Gus hardly paid attention. "You really had an affair that you didn't tell me about?"

"Given today's whole unsavory situation and everything, I'd appreciate it if you kindly stopped using the word 'affair' every five seconds!" Shawn's voice crescendoed at the end. This was really getting to him, and how much of it could he take? He'd been sorry since Lassie woke him up that morning.

"Affair! Affair! Affair! You had an affair!"

"I was twenty-one, and he wasn't married and neither was I. Oh, boy, was I so not married. Imagine being married at twenty-one."

"I think Lassiter got married when he was twenty-one."

"That was, like, a whole generation ago, though," Shawn said, again trying to bring them some levity.

"You just called your boyfriend, if he's still that, old."

Shawn wondered if he should just stop talking. Really. Just stop talking. He signed "FINE!" to Gus before staring out the window. At least it was a gorgeous day, and a man could have a broken heart on a day with warmth, a kind breeze and sunshine. He signed his thoughts, Gus glancing at him, trying to interpret with his rudimentary ASL skills. One of the doctor's on his route was deaf, and Shawn had known it most of his adult life. He'd never used it as much as he had since getting out of the hospital, a fellow patient there someone he could talk to easily in ASL.

"I need to talk to Carlton," Shawn signed. Sometimes signing caused his emotions to reach the surface more than the mask required to speak. "I broke his heart and I love him. I'm an idiot."

This wasn't a literal interpretation of Shawn's signs, only the modified English translation.

"No kidding," Gus said. "And quit signing. You can talk. I promise I won't yell at you anymore—or at least for the next hour or however long you want to wander around this glorified and spooky pit of doom."

The cops had gone, though the tape remained around the fountain area when Gus and Shawn snuck around the side of the house for a look. Well, more Shawn than Gus. He really wanted to have nothing to do with that house. Prior to Shawn's being shot there, and Anabel Ingelow's death, Gus fancied that many of the Hayworths must've died within those walls, too. If he got to thinking about it too much, the place was too eerie for any sane man to want to be there twice in as many days.

There was no sign of the volunteer groundskeeper. There was no sign of any living creature but the plume of pigeons that took flight at their entrance. Shawn left the front door open, trying to bring enough light into the place to get a look at the staircase. He'd already seen what he'd wanted out back. He took a couple of pictures with Gus's phone, failing to answer Gus's queries regarding what he was taking pictures of. It looked like a lot of dirt and cobwebs to Gus. Pigeons, too. Mustn't forget them.

Between the pigeons' trilled coos and their footsteps across creaking floorboards, Shawn and Gus heard what sounded very much like a squeaky door opening—and nearby, too. Automatically, Shawn pitched his hand over Gus's mouth to keep the scream from cutting the silence. Gus's scream muffled in his throat, ending when he ripped Shawn's hand from him. But Shawn lifted a finger, asking him to keep still and quiet. Shawn listened. Gus couldn't help but listen.

"It's a ghost of the Hayworths," whispered Gus, trying to tug Shawn toward the open door. "Let's get out of here before they—"

He froze. At the far end of the house, far across the foyer and down the wide hall, a door opened. Light was in the room it opened to. Standing against the light, a small, dark, solid figure. Gus was too scared to scream.

"Wait," Shawn hissed. "Just wait a second. It's not a ghost."

"How do you know? Looks like an elemental to me."

"Shh-shhht!"

Shawn took a careful step away from Gus and into the openness of the foyer, that much closer to the elemental-like figure eighty feet away. God, that house was ridiculously enormous. It made Shawn feel small, and small figures eighty feet away seemed gigantic when surrounded by a great black nothing, nothing to offer the comparisons of height or dimension.

"Hi—my name's Shawn Spencer." So far, so good. The thing didn't move. "This is my associate, Plumes Del Zotto. We're consultants for the Santa Barbara Police Department. Are you related to the Hayworths? Is that why you're here?"

Without much light, Shawn couldn't tell if his voice had any reaction on the being, be it terrestrial or paranormal. If the Hayworths were stalking Shawn Spencer, he had a feeling they wouldn't choose to appear to him in such a way.

The closer he got to the thing, the more it gained the shape of an ordinary human. It had narrow shoulders and long, thin arms, a short torso and long legs. It was like a mini-Shawn. The thought gave grownup Shawn significant pause before he continued to inch forward.

"Shawn," Gus hollered, "I really think this is a bad idea."

"Well, you know how I feel about bad ideas, Gus. Somehow I wind up doing them anyway."

Gus sighed, frustrated. He'd walked right into that one.

"I think it's a child," Shawn finally said. He was twenty-five feet from the silhouette. He had the bright idea to use Gus's phone to light up his face. And still the kid didn't move. "I'm Shawn Spencer," he repeated, in case the kid was too petrified to listen. "I work for the SBPD. Who are you? Are you lost? I can help."

Shawn flipped the phone around to glow on the kid—and had an image of him only for a millisecond. The kid took off through the lit room in the back of the house.

"Gus! Gus! He's going out back! Gus!"

Shawn yelled as he chased the kid. He didn't believe the kid had been up to something bad there at the mansion—he would've taken off if he had instead of spying on them. Shawn had a feeling the kid had heard them and had come to investigate, and maybe needed an adult's help getting back where he belonged. The mansion was used for friends, young and old, to play mean pranks on one another.

He chased the dark-haired mite through the hauntingly empty kitchen, down a hallway with peeling wallpaper, into a back room full of windows and walls shedding coats of paint. His boots crunched over everything on the floor that he couldn't leap over, and the kid did the same thing. But he was a smidgen more savvy and nimble than Shawn, dodging through rotting furniture and cramming himself through a narrow passage between broken window frames. Shawn winced in the anticipation that the kid's fragile skin would snag on a wicked glass edge, but it didn't. When the kid reached the back patio, Shawn tried to kick the french doors open—but by then his heart flew to his throat, hearing a cracked, mutated scream.

Shawn managed to shoulder the doors apart, decaying wood finally giving way. He stomped across the patio, coming to a halt at the sight of Gus winching the collar of a boy. Another man stood nearby, impressive and dark and frightening, with a grizzled beard, a beetling brow, and a hump on his back. The kid struggled, but Gus held him tight. But even Gus looked frightened of the hump-back.

"Shawn, this is Homer Bledsoe. And I don't know who this is. Who are you? Speak up, kid. We work for the police department. We can get you back where you're supposed to be."

The kid struggled, near to tears. Shawn hated to watch, wishing he could do something.

"He can't hear you," Bledsoe's booming bass, old and crackly, flared out against the kid's odd hollers and grunts. "Deaf as a fish, that one. Watch."

He grabbed a shovel out of his wheelbarrow and clanked it against the patio stones. The kid didn't react.

Shawn and Gus shared a meaningful and shocked look. Gus thought Shawn's expression of wonder would make him burst into tears. He said something cool to keep them from thinking too much all at once. After all, Shawn wasn't really psychic, but he did create coincidences. "You're always at the right place at the right time."

"Tell that to Sean and Jason," Shawn grumbled, kneeling in front of the boy who'd finally stopped struggling against the grip of Gus's cramped hand. For the first time in almost a year, Shawn was going to be absolutely useful—and proud of himself. He inhaled deeply, then started to sign. When he'd said his name, he raised his gaze to Gus. "Let him go. It's all right. He won't run off now."

"Who is he?" Gus asked, after releasing the kid. Shawn was right, he didn't run off. He watched Shawn ask the kid for a name, but couldn't follow the kid's rapid signing in return. But he sure heard Shawn's breath catch in the back of the throat. "What?"

"We need to get him to the SBPD. He's Anabel Ingelow's son."