Chapter Text
Carlton Lassiter didn’t believe in fate. He stuck to the facts. Sure, he’d read the horoscope in the newspaper once in a while, out of curiosity. Or he’d humor one of Shawn’s eccentric theories (only for most of them, to Lassiter’s dismay, to wind up correct in some roundabout way.)
When Shawn Spencer walked into the department wearing an Apple Jacks t-shirt, Lassiter had scrambled back to his desk, fumbling around for the neatly-folded set of papers he knew had been left just next to an old stack of cold case files. “Libra: Your one true love will be wearing sneakers and an Apple Jacks tee shirt.” The words seemed to stare at Lassiter, taunting him.
Over the years, Shawn had claimed to have occasional “visions” that Lassiter would some day— god forbid— marry the psychic. “Never gonna happen, Spencer,” was the usual response. Lassiter didn’t even believe in psychics, and such a prediction made the plausibility of Spencer’s credibility seem even more insane. But now, the walls of logic seemed to be crumbling to pieces while Lassiter could only watch, helpless, as everything he thought he knew fell apart. Lassiter didn’t even like Shawn. Well, at first, anyway; Shawn had begun to grow on him like mold on bread which had been forgotten in the back of the pantry.
“Hey Jules,” Shawn said. Gus was half a step behind; “Hey, Juliet.”
“Shawn,” Juliet acknowledged, eyeing his shirt. “Gus,” she added distractedly, nodding in his general direction.
“Lassie!” Shawn turned to him with his arms spread wide. “Give me a hug.”
“Why?”
“The spirits say so.”
“I’m not giving you a hug.”
“Come on.”
“If I give you a hug, will you stop bothering me and let me do my job?”
“I would never do such a thing.”
“Bother me, or let me do my job?”
“Both, Lassie, both.”
Lassiter rolled his eyes, opening his arms to receive Shawn’s overenthusiastic embrace. He pretended not to notice Shawn rifling through the stack of papers on the desk behind him— files for their current case.
“See, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?” Shawn said one he’d, evidently, found whatever piece of information he was looking for. Lassiter might not believe in Shawn’s abilities, but the supposed psychic was certainly one hell of a detective, despite his unorthodox methods and tendency of taking advantage of classified police resources.
Juliet interrupted the marginally awkward moment. “So, Shawn, what’s with the shirt?”
“Oh, this old thing?” Shawn glanced down, tugging at the bottom of the shirt. “I’ve had it forever. I wear it all the time, right, Gus?”
“I’m taking no part in your nonsense, Shawn,” Gus’s gaze was fixed on a pile of donuts sitting on a nearby table.
“Dude, you just had, like, five snow cones,” Shawn said.
“It’s almost lunchtime.”
“Normally I’d agree with you, but it’s nearly 5 p.m.”
“Every time is lunchtime.”
“How about linner? Would you sign off on a lunch/dinner combo in this situation?”
“Fine. It’s linner time.”
Shawn nodded in approval. Juliet merely rolled her eyes; Lassiter had stopped listening somewhere around “snow cones.”
“Shawn, Gus.” They all turned to the chief’s office, where Vick was standing in the doorway. “Any progress on your end of the case?”
Gus opened his mouth to speak, but Shawn placed a fingertip to his head, closing his eyes. Lassiter was actually intrigued by Shawn’s “visions,” even more than if he believed them to be legitimate— they gave Lassiter an insight into the working process of somebody who was, admittedly, quite incredible at detective work.
For the past week, the group had been working on a kidnapping case: as usual, with Juliet and Lassiter working from the by-the-books perspective of events, and the Psych agency doing— well, Lassiter wasn’t entirely sure what, but it evidently involved a lot of trips to the snow cone vendor. There were few leads, and the victim was, as far as anybody could tell, a completely average person with no reason to have been kidnapped. They’d talked to the wife on two separate occasions, to no avail, save for one of Shawn’s episodes where he accused the woman in a manner not unlike his other outrageous theories.
“I’m sensing that there’s more to Mr. Hagen’s wife than we initially thought,” Shawn said. Sure enough.
Chief Vick pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’ve been over this, Mr. Spencer. There’s no reason to suspect Mrs. Hagen. She’s been cleared from the suspect list.”
“Indeed she has, Chief. But I’m sensing—” he paused for dramatic affect— “an affair.”
“Mrs. Hagen was involved in an affair?” Jules asked.
“Not quite,” Shawn said, pointing to Juliet, “but close. It was Mr. Hagen having the affair. A business affair.” Shawn glanced at Gus, who was shaking his head. “No? Not dramatic enough? That did sound better in my head.”
“Focus, please,” the Chief said, crossing her arms.
Shawn pointed in her direction. “Right. The Hagen couple are business partners— a piece of information that I’d hope, by now, you’ve figured out for yourselves.”
“The car dealership,” Lassiter confirmed.
“Precisely. Now, Mr. Hagen was tired of being the lesser entity in their business relationship, so he started seeing another dealership with the promise that he’d be half-owner.” Shawn gestured as he spoke, walking back and forth and picking up various objects to represent what he was referring to. Mr. Hagen, apparently, was a stapler.
The wheels were churning in Lassiter’s head. “And Mrs. Hagen found out.”
“Precisely. So in a fit of rage, she killed him.” Shawn, ever the over-dramatic performer, dragged his finger over his throat with a screeching sound that sounded not unlike a pterodactyl.
“This is a kidnapping, Mr. Spencer, not a murder,” Chief Vick pointed out.
Gus cut in. “Technically, we have no way to know whether he’s alive or dead. He’s kind of like Schrödinger's cat.”
Shawn turned to him. “Whodinger's what?”
“Schrödinger,” Gus said again, emphasizing the name.
“Gus, stop making up words.”
“I’m not making stuff up, Shawn.”
“Anyway,” Shawn continued, “I think we should check out the wife. I’m sensing we’re missing something that’s going to blow this case wide open.”
As they walked outside, Shawn fell into step with Lassiter. “So, I had a vision that we’d be going to dinner later today. Specifically at—” Shawn checked his wrist, which contained no watch, as it was a key tanning month— “six o’clock.”
“Sorry, Spencer, but the spirits, or whatever, seem to be lying to you,” Lassiter responded.
“The spirits never lie.” Shawn waved and jogged to catch up with Gus, who was already at the Blueberry.
“I’m guessing the ‘spirits told me’ bit didn’t work,” Gus said.
“Not in the slightest.”
“Are you finally going to give up?”
“Nope.” Shawn sat in the passenger seat as he spoke. “Recently, Lassiter’s been giving off all the telltale signs.”
“Lassie’s a vampire?”
“Not those signs. The human, non-supernatural ones. Dilated pupils, sweaty palms, a slight shift in posture whenever I walk into the room.”
“So?”
“So, Lassie and I are going on a date later.”
“Really?”
“I’d give it a forty-seven percent chance.”
“That’s less than half, Shawn.”
“Well,” Shawn said, “we’d have to close this case first in order for either Lassie or I to be available, and I doubt that’s going to happen.”
Gus started the car, shaking his head. “I thought you already solved it.”
“Nope,” Shawn replied. “I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”