The motives for all crimes
in detective stories should be personal.
It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences,
and give him a certain outlet for his own
repressed desires and emotions.
S.S. Van Dine
20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories, ca. 1928
-x-
10.
Gus stayed until seven o' clock, at times fumbling through Shawn's notebook of wild speculations and inconclusive details. Since he read neither of the Three S's, best at the Spanish though that wasn't saying a whole lot, Gus sated himself on the intermittent, brief English marks Shawn had printed in the notebook's margins. Gus had no clue how Shawn drew anything from the nonsense, but must've seen a pattern usually visible only to the honey bees, butterflies and Shawn Spencers of the world. At a message from Juliet, Gus patted Shawn's messy hair, passed along his farewell to Hank, and headed for the back door. In the still evening, Gus heard the crunch of another set of feet over dry grass. He practically ran into Lassiter.
"I called Shawn like a million times today," Lassiter said, clearly exaggerating to dramatize his point. "Why didn't he answer?"
"His phone's still missing. He thinks it might be at the hotel."
Oh. Well. That made sense, if anything of the day could make sense. "Why didn't he go to the hotel for it?"
"I'm guessing he didn't want to, and I wouldn't take him." Gus was stating the obvious, but sometimes the obvious, especially when it came in Shawn's general direction, swooped right by an oblivious Lassiter. It happened with people who knew one another well. "And I didn't pick it up for him, because I thought it'd behoove him to live without it for a little while. I hope you didn't want anything important."
"No," Carlton answered dejectedly, "nothing that couldn't wait until I got home. Gus, am I," he paused, an affliction when he asked his friends for advice, "doing the right thing, forgiving him?"
"Yeah, I think you are." Gus said his response promptly, proudly.
"The whole thing's cyclical anyway. If I hadn't set Shawn up on the wild goose chase, he wouldn't have found out that I was behind it much sooner than I expected him to, and he wouldn't have felt like the Hayworths were stalking him from beyond the grave; and if he hadn't been feeling so awful about it, he wouldn't have had one too many drinks—"
"More like bottles," Gus said. "Multiple bottles."
"—multiple bottles of wine that then caused him to retaliate with boyish and immature semi-manic behavior."
"I think it's a fair assumption that the whole thing is very cyclical. You and Shawn have different sort of arguments than me and Juliet. You and Shawn, I don't know what it is, but it's almost—"
"Magical," Carlton supplied, hoping he was kidding, knowing he wasn't.
Gus agreed. "Magical. Because everything always seems to be even, and both of you carry the blame. Well," he smacked Carlton on the shoulder, "I'm going home. Try to have a good night."
Once inside the mudroom, Carlton's nerves took over. Queasy and trembly, he found Shawn and Hank in the living room. Shawn smiled as Hank mirrored the dance in the Glee episode with stunning accuracy, but seeing Carlton watching from the shadows of the dining room, Shawn hit Pause on the remote, and signaled to Hank that Carlton was back. To Carlton's astonishment, Hank ran up and hugged him, signed a thanks—presumably for letting him stay there. Shawn sent his communiqués to Carlton without words. But Carlton turned down the hallway without an acknowledgement. A minute later, he vanished behind the bathroom door, the shower beginning to perform its light whistle.
Shawn thought about preparing dinner. He wasn't the least bit hungry, of course. When he started to smell food, maybe that would enable his forlorn appetite. Unsure if Hank had any food allergies, and aware that a child of eleven would likely know what he was allergic to, Shawn put the question to him. No, no allergies. Thank goodness. He did sign that he didn't really like fish. Shawn hadn't liked fish much when he was that age, either, unless his dad grilled it.
Shawn had a decent assistant in the kitchen. He tried to tell Hank he didn't have to help, but that was useless. In fact, Hank looked forward to setting the bistro table with plates and forks, glasses of tea and napkins. Again, Shawn wondered what kind of home life Hank had had.
Whatever the remains of their tiff, Carlton set it aside long enough to dine with Shawn. He was really there for Hank—and the food. Shawn's vegetarian chili-mac was worth the tension that clogged his heart, though. Hank liked it, too, having two servings before declaring himself stuffed. Now that he was away from the prying eyes of many uniformed officers, streams of Hank's personality were shining through. His oeuvre of practiced expressions certainly rivaled Shawn's. They were alike in ways Carlton couldn't always put his finger on, and the effect was alluring, even funny.
Hank's help with dinner didn't end with the preparation, but with the wiping off of the table, the closing of the tiny dishwasher door, the cleaning of the counter. After this bout of industriousness, Hank asked if he could go in the backyard. Shawn took his tea, his library book, and sat on the patio while Hank did whatever it was boys do in the evening. Shawn lost track of Lassie. He didn't loose track of Hank, who was content checking out the trees, digging in the dirt with random sticks, peeking at the neighbors and the dogs that walked by in front of the house. He enjoyed looking at Shawn's Norton and asked if he could have a ride sometime. "When you're older," Shawn signed, forgetting that Hank was going to be there until Nina Grayson was found. He took the chance to ask if Hank knew his grandmother very well.
"Grandma Nina," Hank called her, and exhibited neither disdain nor affection for her.
"I knew her when I was about your age. She used to be a cop here."
"Yes, she's told me that. She's a big fan of yours."
"Me? Really? Wonder why?"
"I don't know. She thinks you're great." Hank, probably not used to talking about himself, or avoiding talking about his mother and father, turned the questions around to Shawn. "Is your mom a cop, too, like your dad?"
"Mom's a therapist. And Dad's not a cop, he's like me: a consultant."
"You're not a cop?"
"No. I used to be a freelance psychic detective."
Hank's odd-colored eyes popped, then his face fell. "That makes sense. Grandma Nina never said you were a cop, just that you worked for the police. Is that how you met Carlton?"
"Years ago, yes. I don't do much work for the police anymore. I write more. Articles for internet sites. And I dabble in astrology."
"Astrology? You mean, 'I'm a Leo' and all of that?"
"That's right. When is your birthday? Are you a Leo?"
Hank gave him a deadpan look. "Of course! Can't you tell? I'm bossy, I have good hair, and I love everything."
Shawn threw back his head and laughed. "Sounds like I should've been a Leo. I'm an Aquarius. Carlton's an Aries."
Hank studied this information quietly for a moment. Shawn had a chance to ask him how he'd come to be so knowledgeable about astrology.
"Books," Hank said. "Grandma Nina used to take me to the library a lot, and I'd read non-fiction and fiction. I like both. I read a few books on astrology. One on psychics. Not one on psychic detectives."
"I don't think there are too many you could read."
"Then you should write one. I'd read it. So would Grandma Nina."
"I'll think about it."
The only conversation Shawn had with Carlton, of any length, came when they were trying to get Hank settled in the Nautical Room. Shawn was pretty sure that if they just told him to go to bed and that his light had to be out by ten o' clock—Lassiter winning out of Shawn's time of ten-thirty—Hank would go to sleep on his own. Carlton and Shawn were in the kitchen, voices harsh and lowered, while Hank was in the bathroom changing into the pajamas Shawn had bought for him before they came home.
"I paid for it with my own money," Shawn said, first so used to signing that he started to, then quit mid-sentence. "Sorry," he signed it, not speaking it, trying to jest with Lassie, "habit."
"Your own money doesn't matter. You could've used the credit card," Carlton replied, contrite. "He's under my supervision, too, not just yours."
"Yeah, about that. What made you do it?"
Carlton refused to answer. The possible responses overwhelmed him. For one thing, he didn't want to be the one to tell Hank he had to go to some family that wouldn't be able to talk to him as well, or as enthusiastically as Shawn—and, at times, himself, since Carlton had learned a little from Shawn—and it really was a fascinating language. If not, as he'd once joked, very useful in the dark.
Carlton wondered if Kat wasn't right, that having Hank around would be a big enough distraction that their fight would become trivial. Finding Shawn naked with another man, who'd also been pretty naked, well—what could trivialize that if the wine and Shawn's apologies hadn't? Carlton was angry at himself for not being angrier about the whole situation, too. He'd always been extremely possessive of his significant others. Perhaps Shawn's flamboyance, his social exuberance, was enough to keep Carlton from finding fault in Shawn's behavior. It annoyed him that the thought of Shawn with someone else—including a good actor with a very fine body—kind of turned him on. It'd pissed the hell out of him, of course, but it'd kinda turned him on. Now that was extremely rankling, but not exactly surprising. He'd always enjoyed Shawn doing all sorts of things in the bedroom (sometimes not the bedroom), and being an observer could be half the fun. It was difficult for Carlton to maintain his level of humiliation and hurt, and not just fling Shawn against the counter and make out with him.
So far, Carlton hadn't solved any issues, and more than anything he just wanted to forget what'd happened. The Anabel Grayson case was a way to do that. He still couldn't believe she was Grayson's daughter…
What a mess everything seemed. How out of whack it all was.
As Shawn had predicted, Hank had no trouble going into his room and reading James and the Giant Peach before the light would go out at ten. Later on, Shawn was sitting in the living room with Lassie, the two of them engrossed in their own activities—Carlton with his Lincoln book and Shawn with his ephemeris—the two of them leaping to attention at a knock on the back door. The cop in Carlton refused to let Shawn answer it alone.
With the sconce light flung into action, Shawn and Carlton recognized the faces on the stoop: Jason and Sean Laramie. They were tired but well, pleased to see that Carlton hadn't thrown Shawn out of the house. Pressed for time, they refused the invitation to step inside.
"We're on our way back to the hotel for the night," Jason said, not sure how rueful he looked, but feeling that it sprung out of him from every pore. "We just wanted to stop by for a second."
"To give you this." Sean held out Shawn's phone. "We meant to drop it off earlier today, but we were running late and had to get to L.A.; we didn't have the chance."
"Sorry," Jason said, throwing a lot into two syllables.
"You might want to look at your phone's recorded movies, though," Sean said, suggestively smiling.
"There's some revealing information."
"I found something like it on my phone," Sean continued, rubbing the back of his neck as it grew hot. "And thought to check yours when we were driving back up here. It'll explain things. We thought we'd better mention it in person. In case."
Too hopeful for words, Shawn was speechless.
"Thanks," Carlton uttered.
"We'll see you tomorrow," said Jason. "I'll call you in the morning, and we'll figure out how to have lunch." He was glaringly confident that what was on Shawn's phone would mend the fracture, strengthening it until it was stronger than before. "Goodnight."
A series of muttered goodnights passed, and Shawn found himself at a standstill in the dining room. He plowed through his phone, looking for the video file. Finding it, he and Lassie watched together. What occurred was rather what Shawn had thought must've happened, that he and Sean hadn't done anything at all, hadn't even gotten into bed at the same time. The nudity? Drunken chat about Merchant/Ivory films! Sean and Shawn had reenacted the "Come and have a bathe!" scene from A Room with a View. The "You be Julian Sands and I'll be Rupert Graves" line from Shawn and its ensuing dialogue confirmed it. Instead of running into the pond (or, in this case, the bed) and springing off it immediately, Laramie had jumped onto the bed and promptly into alcoholic coma. Shawn's watery, drunken voice said to the camera, "Oh, that looks like more fun! Night, night!" He'd kissed the camera—and the recording ended.
Shawn was more embarrassed than he'd ever been in his life. "I never knew James Ivory could get me into so much trouble! The very tediousness and Britishness of his films alone should've saved me from turmoil! But Rupert Graves' hotness, yeah, I can see how that would get me in trouble. I'm so—so sorry, Carlton."
"It's not like you and Sean decided to reenact a missing sex scene from Maurice." Carlton shot Shawn a mocking look. "In which, incidentally, you still could've been Rupert Graves—with a better body." He left the rest of his insinuation alone, smacking his lips against Shawn's forehead. "I'm going to bed. We can talk more about it tomorrow."
Shawn let him go, knowing full well that by the time he was ready for bed, Lassie would be sound asleep. Still feeling surreal, and that he hadn't quite repented for the seemingly innocent reenactment, Shawn zipped through his photographs. He and Sean had taken a lot of photos of one another, thankfully none of body parts that carried pet names. Visible in the last photograph he'd snapped, three bottles of wine on the kitchen counter behind Sean, and another one, a fourth, on the table. That was an insane amount of wine for two men to drink. Shawn was beginning to feel fortunate that they hadn't done anything worse, and that no one else had seen it. That'd be all he'd need, going on a bender in a hotel room with the hunk from Gotham Splendor.
Shawn set the phone to recharge, pleased to have it back, happy that it'd exonerated him. Not sure that he'd completely cleared the air between him and Carlton, Shawn created a bed on the sofa. It'd been a long time since he'd slept on Carlton's couch. With the television quietly spewing forth a late-night talk show, Shawn fell asleep.
Dawn cast a ghostly gray glow in the living room when he woke. The television, not surprisingly, was off, and everything in the house was quiet and still. Waking on the sofa changed his perspective of a place he'd taken for granted the last few months. But when released from the hospital, after what'd seemed like years, there'd been nowhere sweeter to Shawn than the tiny house on Sunberry, nothing kinder to him than Carlton.
In the big red chair in front of the window, Shawn caught sight of a blanketed figure, Hank buried in there somewhere. For all Shawn knew, maybe Hank wasn't used to sleeping in a full-sized bed and didn't like it. First night in a strange house, Shawn wasn't surprised.
The kitchen carried faint noises, patterings and taps and running water. Carlton rinsed the coffee pot as he noticed Shawn yawning.
"Good morning." Out of conscious practice, aware of a little person sleeping nearby, Carlton kept his voice low. Shawn poked him in the ribs as he walked by.
"You don't have to whisper." He upped his volume: "OUTDOOR VOICES ARE FINE."
"I forgot. I mean—I didn't forget but it's just kind of—never mind. How'd you sleep?"
"All right. You?"
Carlton had been disappointed that Shawn hadn't crawled into bed with him last night. He'd waited, only as long as he could keep his eyes open, though, and that wasn't more than ten minutes. "I'm not sure how he ended up out there."
Shawn gave his theory about a new house, a big bed, and again mentioning that they knew nothing about Hank's life in Missouri. "He did say that he and Grandma Nina—Grayson—spend a lot of time together. Did you ever hear what they were doing in Santa Barbara?"
"Zack Ingelow said he didn't know why Anabel came out here with Hank. Ingelow doesn't call him Hank, did you know that? He calls him Sheridan."
"Hank is how he introduced himself to me. Neither of us has a problem with that name. It's a diminutive of my father's name, and it is the name of your patronly mentor. Did Zack think Anabel had kidnapped Hank?"
"He hinted at it, yeah. Said he was on the verge of calling the cops when he just happened to figure out that she was coming to Santa Barbara."
"You think he's lying."
"Close. I think he's stretching the truth. He probably heard it from a neighbor—or his mistress, for all I know. You're not on the case, though." He pinned Shawn to the spot, clutching Shawn's waist with one hand, removing the mug from Shawn's grip with the other. "You're not supposed to be interested in the details."
"It's Hank I want to know about. Where are his things? Where are his papers? What's his home life like, and why did his mom really bring him here? Mom's usually have a reason for dragging their children halfway across the country a couple of weeks before school starts."
"Doesn't your brain ever stop thinking?" Carlton held Shawn's face, leaving short and wet kisses wherever his mouth happened to land.
"No," Shawn answered truthfully, hiking his chin for Lassie to kiss his neck. "Apparently, even when I've downed loads of really high-quality vino, my brain just soars to the zenith of cinematic masterpieces. Honestly, this feels weird. Not that I'm not enjoying it," he loved it when Carton breathed on his ear and scraped it with his teeth, "but there's another person in the house, and unless he's part dormouse, he could wake up any second. Though if my calculations are correct, he wouldn't be grossed out or anything."
This anchored Carlton's attention on something other than kissing his boyfriend. "Why do you say that?"
Shawn returned to making his tea. "I think he's—of the Oscar Wilde sort, if we're still running with the Merchant-Ivory theme."
"He's eleven years old!" Lassie screeched, running a palm along his hair. "How can he be gay when he's eleven years old! Maybe he's just—" He failed to bring up a suitable analogy.
"Maybe he's just gay. And yes, at eleven years old. It happens. I was eleven when I started checking out guys' butts, granted that was mostly on accident."
"Why do you think this? Psychic vibration or something? Jeez, Shawn, you've hardly spent twenty-four hours with him. We spent six years together before you got anywhere with me."
Shawn ignored the taunt. "Well, he watched a whole lot of Glee."
"Gimme a break. McNab watches Glee. Everyone watches it. It's the vaudevillian plague that Fox let loose upon us, curing us of our unhappiness and any ailment that's of the socioeconomic or inherently neurological variety."
"I have no idea what you just said, but it was totally sexy. Hank kept telling me how much he loves," he signed this, "Chris Colfer."
"Everyone loves Kurt. He's pretty, talented, non-threatening, has just enough self-confidence to get things done but maintains an acceptable level of modesty. Not to mention that he has a big heart—even in the first season when he was portrayed as slightly more selfish. He's perfect. He reminds me of you."
"I should be writing these Glee insights down to save for later. Just in case I ever decide to write that Ryan Murphy biography. Not winning you over on my spiel about Hank, am I?
"So far, honey, I'm kind of unimpressed with your theory."
Shawn got frustrated. "I can't explain it, all right! Just call it a psychic connection or what have you! And, anyway, it's not a big deal if he is or isn't."
"Not to us. My mom's a late-in-life lesbian, for crying out loud. As am I—obviously without the lesbian part. We're not Hank's parents, though. Some parents are unkind about things like that."
Shawn tapped his nose, then stole a kiss from Lassie for the astute observation. "That's why I'm so curious about Hank's home life and why he was brought here."
"You think Anabel Ingelow's death has something to do with an eleven-year-old's sexuality—i.e. her son's?"
"I grant you, it's not the usual cause of murder. At least," Shawn slowed the dunking of his teabag in the sorry dip his thoughts took, "not killing a parent—sometimes it's that a parent kills the kid. I didn't say it was a great theory, all right? Fine, yeah, it's not up there with—with Relativity—and Evolution—and Structural Sociology! But it's a theory!"
"I can't even figure out how your theory would work. And it doesn't explain what Anabel Ingelow was doing here in Santa Barbara. Zack Ingelow has a pack of good lawyers, real lupine ambulance chasers, too, so he's not saying much." Carlton wished to drop the subject, but a peek at the big red chair said Hank was still asleep. "What are you and Hank going to do all day? Watch a Cher concert or a WE Network Will & Grace marathon?"
"Stop it," Shawn said, chuckling, lightly smacking Carlton on the chest. "I have to go to work at three. Will you be home by three?"
"I can't promise anything, but I can try."
"I bet we can leave him home by himself. He's pretty responsible. I've sensed that he's their only child."
"That's one of your theories that I can prove, anyway." He was far more used to mornings like this with Shawn, sitting at the bistro table, Shawn browsing news on his phone, Carlton enjoying his toast and coffee. He ran a bare foot up the curve of Shawn's shin.
"Gosh, Lass, make me feel bad that I never got into bed last night."
"That's the point. Isn't there some modern-day theory that make-up sex is awesome? Since we're still talking theories."
Shawn liked Lassie's antiquated, almost Victorian-era way of seeing Twenty-first Century Coupling. "Yeah, that's what I hear. We've had it a few of times. If you're sure everything between us is okay now."
"For the most part, yeah. I still think we should have another therapy session. Just to make sure everything's cleared up. A mature and professional environment where we can safely analyze our feelings for one another."
Shawn had enough shame about the whole event to fill up an hour of therapy himself. One of the things his mother had told him, "If you need help, by God, Shawn, get it. You can't expect to have all the answers yourself." Another point for Mom! He nodded his acceptance of Lassie's plan. "I'll make the appointment Monday. Well, I'll have the calendar on my phone remind me on Monday to make the appointment. What should we do about Hank while I'm at work, if you're not home yet?"
Carlton tried to be sensible. As per the code he'd always imagined he'd live by if he ever had a child, he was overprotective but wanting the kid to have more freedom and more love than he'd experienced. "We'll ask him what he wants to do. If he wants to stay here, leave him your phone and tell him to keep the screen up so the light on it will attract his attention."
"The phone has a blinkie-blinkie light that I can turn on, too."
"Well, either way, as long as he knows when we message him. And not to reply to anything that's not from me. Fair?"
"Yeah," Shawn was impressed, warmed by it. "See, we would've been great parents to some fortunate kitty cat."
Any reaction he had to this, Carlton kept to himself. "A different sort of 'Kat' will probably call one of us today and ask to see us. She was supposed to stop by last night, wasn't she?"
"Yeah, but it didn't worry me that she didn't."
It hadn't worried Carlton. "She'll be in touch today." He swung his suit coat over his arm, bent over at the waist to kiss Shawn goodbye. As he'd anticipated, Shawn gripped his shirt—he hardly wore ties on Saturdays—and kept their mouths together a little longer, open a little wider than what a goodbye smooch was normally. "I like not fighting with you."
"Shockingly, I share your beautiful opinion. Can you get away for lunch? Jason and Sean said—"
"That's right." He'd forgotten that portion of their friends' late-evening visit. "Let me know what you plan, and I'll see if I can meet you somewhere. It's up to Hank if he wants to go with you or stay here." He looked at the blankets again, seeing that they rose and fell with the child's normal breathing. Again, he kissed Shawn and said goodbye. But, again, he paused before leaving Shawn's side. "You know, Shawn—everyone goes crazy every once in a while."
"I know."
"It happens."
"Yeah, it does."
"I went crazy when I found Anabel's body in the fountain yesterday."
Shawn hadn't considered Carlton's take on the whole thing, what it must've been like for him to go back to that house and see an unidentifiable corpse in the water.
"I thought I'd failed to protect you. Like before—only worse this time because I didn't know what'd happened right away. I'm sorry about that. Letting you go there without me—"
"It was all right."
"—and not knowing that the sea chest would lead you back there."
Unsure what to do or say, Shawn contemplated the origins of this confession. It had more to do with Waylon Scobie shooting Shawn Spencer at the Hayworth place than it did with Detective Lassiter finding the body of Anabel Ingelow at the Hayworth place. The presence of stale regrets obtruded into his thoughts, too. Shawn inhaled, holding his gaze against Carlton's.
"I wish I'd said yes, you know. When you asked me. But I just couldn't wrap my head around why you were asking. Because I'd just been shot three times and was still in the hospital and you felt sorry for me—or because the whole thing had surprised you and scared you? If I'd died, it wouldn't have been any easier losing a husband than a boyfriend."
Carlton blinked, eager to kick the impression of redness and tears out of his eyes. "Being practical, I asked because it was a little bit of everything you just said. But also about my rights and your rights, and getting those people in the hospital to respect me while I was waiting for you to decide I was worth coming back to life for. I had every right to be there, but not every legal right. It was annoying. Maybe those aren't the most romantic reasons in the world, but—it's just the way I felt." He patted Shawn's cheek, held their mouths together again, and headed for the back door. "I'll call you later."
He hadn't expected Shawn to follow him to the car. Already seated in it, with the window down and fiddling with the radio stations, he found Shawn grabbing him and kissing him hard.
Shawn looked at him keenly. "When do I get to say yes?"
Carlton's eyes actually twinkled. "When I ask you again."