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Shawn strolls into the SBPD, Gus at his side as usual, and Jules barely glances his way- until something catches her eye. She does a double-take, eyes widening further when she realizes that yes, she’s seeing what she thought.
“Shawn?” Jules passes the finished paperwork to the desk clerk and power-walks to catch up with the duo. “Is that a crystal necklace?”
“What, this old thing?” Shawn looks down and fiddles with it for a second. “I’m trying out some new methods of psychic enrichment, Jules,” he says, squinting and looking off to the side- why, Jules has no idea.
“Shawn received a vision from the spirit of another psychic,” Gus adds on. “They showed him some ways to, hone his abilities.”
“That’s amazing.” Jules grins. “How’s it working out so far?”
“Oh, I dunno, really.” Shawn shrugs casually, and then leans to the side and calls out, “Lassie! How’d that 2 AM fishing trip with your mom go?”
There’s the sound of a gun being dropped, and Shawn sucks in a disapproving breath as Gus whistles in shame just hearing the flurry of curses from Lassiter’s desk. The head detective storms over to them, and Shawn’s hand flies to his temple before Lassie can get a word out of his beet-red, steam-spewing face.
“Ooh, scratch that, you had to cancel because your mom…” Shawn screws his face up, tugging on his necklace. “... got the flu. Oh, that’s a shame, Lassie, that really is. Hey, orange juice and chicken soup, right?”
“Spencer, I swear to Sweet Lady Justice that if you’ve been trailing my mother-”
“Not me, Lassie,” Shawn swears, putting his hand over his chest. “The spirits! They told me you’re trying to repair the relationship between you two, it’s-it’s very touching.”
Lassiter is still so livid it’s almost comical when Chief Vick steps out of her office, one foot in and one foot out, and snaps to get their attention. All four quickly take their places in the office, Lassiter keeping a wider distance from Shawn than usual.
Chief Vick looks up and opens her mouth- but Shawn is already shutting the door and closing the shutters. She casts a somewhat surprised look at Jules, who mouths ‘Crystal’ and makes a gesture over her own chest where the necklace falls on Shawn’s. He turns around with a smug grin and slides into his usual seat.
“Good instinct, Mr. Spencer,” Chief Vick says, looking down at her desk and clearing away her visible surprise. “This information I’m about to share cannot leave this office, understood?”
“Of course, Chief. But if we were going to have a sleepover I wish you’d have said so before- we would’ve brought Dippin’ Dots.”
“Dippin’ Dots?”
“They make Ice Cream a novelty, Jules.”
“Mr. Spencer, if you had a vision knowing how important this case is and you are still holding this briefing up, I’m going to seriously reconsider hiring you on it.”
Shawn pretends to zip his mouth shut and toss away a key, which Gus catches and tucks into his pocket before smoothly transitioning the movement into a fistbump.
Chief Vick huffs, not without a slight smile, and looks back at her papers. “This case is coming to us directly from The Mayor’s wife, and unfortunately for the department it’s the kind of case that the press will be all, over.”
She begins to go over the specific details, and try as she might to pay attention Jules can’t help but be distracted by Shawn and Gus as Gus pulls out a notepad with a list of words and checks them off with an audible sccrtch! of the pen for each mark.
Gus looks over at Shawn as The Blueberry cruises back to the Psych office. “So? Was Lassie’s reaction everything you wanted?”
Shawn chuckles and nods. “He looked like a Looney Tunes character.”
“No kidding. Was all of that a vision?”
“Course not, Gus. I’m not that psychic. … Yet. The fishing trip has been in his planner since last week, which happened to fall into my hand when he stepped away for coffee. The canceling was the vision.”
“How vivid?”
“Just him holding his phone and the sound of sneezing over speakers. Not hard to piece together what it meant.”
“I still can’t believe you’re getting real visions now.”
“You can’t believe it? Dude, the other day I got one about my dad dropping by the office for a surprise visit and totally avoided it!”
“These visions sound way more specific than we thought they’d be.”
“Nah, not really. The visions are… broad, big, like that dog your elderly neighbor used to have.”
“She actually got him on a diet, he’s way healthier now.”
“Really? Well, good for him! I always liked that pup. Anyway, the visions are way too big to give me anything useful on their own. I had to run the one of my dad through my head like, a million times before I figured out the day, time, and reason. The clocks were all wrong in the office, but I caught sight of the popcorn guy with the caramel options outside the window, and he only passes by our office between 2 and 4 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then I noticed the milk in the trash, and it didn’t expire until Wednesday, and you have a weird thing about expiration dates.”
“It’s not weird to take my food safety seriously, Shawn.”
“Come on, dude, throwing it out one day after expiration? At least sniff it first.”
“Get your own milk if you don’t like how I handle mine.”
“Stop drinking milk while lactose intolerant and then blaming it on ‘it’s spoiled’ when you get the stomach flip-flops.”
“I take lactose processing pills, Shawn, fine milk doesn’t bother me!”
“Agree to disagree.”
“Tsk! Just finish up how you knew what your dad wanted!”
“Easy, he had the newspaper tucked up under his arm. He only comes by with that when we’ve done something that gets in the papers and he wants to yell at me for it. Recently? That’s gotta be the thing miller who used those novelty socks.”
“The one you decided to lure out by sending in a letter to the editor that spewed hate about the socks?”
“Bingo. It was going to be another ‘stop taunting killers’ lecture, I’m sure of it. Just sick of those.”
“Gee, I wonder why he keeps coming around to give them.”
“Because he hates dramatic, poetic justice?”
“Whoa, whoa.” Shawn raises his hand to his head as something flashes into his mind.
From an angle down by the floor, he’s looking up at his dad cleaning a fresh catch. Suddenly his dad pauses, and then smiles to himself and lets out his ‘now-isn’t-this-something’ chuckle. He pulls it out of the fish’s guts and sets it to the side.
Shawn blinks and lowers his hand. Gus looks at him expectantly, and then gestures for Shawn to hurry up and speak already.
“Gotta run that one again,” Shawn says. He puts both hands to his temples now and closes his eyes.
He focuses closer, but he’s just not at the right angle to see the object. His focus trails around, and then a reflection in the porch window lights up. The vision zooms in on it, and Shawn makes out one of his dad’s lucky fishing charms. His vision trails around a bit more, trying to pick out details on Time. His focus lands on the TV, playing a show that broadcasts at exactly the present.
He smirks and opens his eyes. “Gus, I totally know how to show it off to my dad now.”
“Shawn! Wasn’t expecting you by today.” Henry is only just pulling the fish off the grill. “But since you’re here, I think we need to have a chat about that-”
“Ah, not today, Pops.” Gus hands back, hiding behind a tree (poorly) as Shawn jogs into his dad’s yard. “I actually came by to congratulate you.”
“Congratulate me.” It’s not a question, and Henry hits him with the ‘What bullshit are you pulling now?’ look.
“On finding your lost lucky charm,” Shawn says, looking over the table. “Take it in to clean already?”
Henry crosses his arms. “Lost charm?”
Shawn looks at him, leaning forward a bit and mouth slightly parted in his most authentic gentle confusion. “Yeah. The one you found inside the fish?”
Henry’s frown gets deeper. “What, did you put cameras in my yard, kid?” He’s half-serious about the jab.
“No.” Shawn puts his hands in his pockets, leaving his thumbs out, and shrugs. “Just had a uh, hah! A feeling about it.”
Henry’s frown becomes an outright scowl. “A feeling.”
“Clear as day,” Shawn affirms, keeping a straight face. “Or, strong as… day? No, that doesn’t make any sense. Help me out here Pops, what’s a good metaphor for a strong feeling that’s so right it’s scary?”
“... Lucky guesses, Shawn.” Henry points his tongs at his son. “Trying to get me to believe your charade is a new low.”
“No-one’s trying to get you to believe anything.” Shawn shrugs again. “By the way… what were you doing watching reality dating shows after getting back from a fishing trip? Your tradition is fishing competition after a fishing day, everyone knows that.”
“How did you-” Henry quickly looks through his window, but the TV is off at this point. “Alright Shawn, did you come here just to piss me off today or do you have something you need?”
“A man can’t just visit his father?”
“You can’t just visit your father.”
“Alright, you got me. Listen, Gus and I have a new case that’s… pretty high profile, and I remembered one of your poker buddies just moved into the mayor’s neighborhood. I was hoping you’d help me get him to let us do a stakeout from his house.”
Henry purses his lips and nods a bit. “Stakeout in the mayor’s neighborhood. Sure, Shawn, that’s an easy ask. Let me just call him up and explain why you can’t just-” Henry makes some mocking gestures with his hands. “-conjure up what you need.”
“Well, I could,” Shawn says confidently. “But then I wouldn’t get to eat stakeout snacks.”
“You’re not getting into his house, Shawn.”
“Fine. … I’ll do it my way.” Shawn turns on his heel and begins to walk away, but pauses at the gate and turns. “Oh, and Pops? You used salt instead of sugar in your sauce there.”
He turns again and leaves fully, Gus coming out from behind the tree and giving Shawn a fistbump as they both walk away.
Henry scoffs, knowing Shawn didn’t taste the sauce. He waits until he can’t hear footsteps anymore, and then dips his pinkie into the bowl and tastes it. For his own satisfaction.
Instead he splutters and spits it out into the grass, his sweet-and-sour sauce more like salt and sour.
The mayor’s wife’s case would be easy even without psychic visions. After one look around the house and one round of chatting with each member of the household, he knows it’s the son. He’s been brought up with the expectation of becoming the next mayor, and was obviously cracking under the pressure. The stolen documents would cast such a pall on the family name that it’d guarantee the death of his political career before it ever started, and the guy clearly had little to no concern about how that would impact his parents. The mayor didn’t even know the documents were missing until his wife had reported it, because his ‘very responsible’ son was in charge of them. Shawn even found the corner of a page with the office symbol visible caught under the son’s dresser- and he got a small vision confirming his suspicion that the son hid the documents under there before moving them before Maid Day.
“OH! I smell the priceless, important mayoral ink!” Shawn has his hand by his head the moment Lassie and Jules step into the foyer to update the family. Shawn holds the imaginary papers up to his nose and takes a deep inhale. “No, wait, there’s-there’s more. Something… musty? No, not musty, zes-zesty? No, no… DUSTY!”
Shawn pulls the pretend papers away from his nose. “The papers were kept somewhere dusty! And- OW!” He snaps his hand away from his temple and over to his ear. He keeps up a silent expression of sheer pain for a moment before sucking in a breath, so dramatic and raw that it makes Jules step forward in concern.
Shawn yanks his hand away from his ear to point at the son. “You.”
“Him?” Lassiter’s open disbelief just encourages Shawn more. “It’d ruin his career, what are you talking about?”
“Yes. Yes, exactly. Guh!” Shawn brings his hand back to his temple and closes his eyes. “You… you want to lose your career path. The politics, the parties, the pressure… yes, I see it now. You hid the documents and staged the theft because you want out!”
The son steps back. “I- what are you talking about? This is my whole life.”
“Exactly.” Shawn opens his eyes. “Ex- actly! Your whole life is nothing but this! Paperwork and flattering and perfection! I can see your drained, tired aura all around you!”
He hopes that never becomes true. Auras sound like a very annoying thing to have to deal with seeing. He’s fairly certain that his dad’s would look like those awful racetrack shirts from the Jimmy Nickles case, all smashed together and awful enough to blind his first, second, and third eyes.
The son looks at his parents. “Come on, this guys has been here for like, three hours, he-he barely even looked around!”
“With my physical eyes, maybe.” Shawn nods. “But with my spiritual eyes I saw everything. And, OH!” He gestures at his ear again. “Oh, I feel everything! Lassie, I think if you check under his dresser in his bedroom, you’ll find a piece of one of the stolen documents under the left back leg.
The son pales. He looks at his parents, backing away from them. “It-it was just budget documents. Nothing harmful.”
His mother covers her mouth. The mayor stares in disbelief.
“Is that a confession?” Lassiter pulls out his cuffs.
“It wouldn’t have hurt anyone!” the son insists again. “Just-just pushed a few deadlines back!”
“Yeah, like food assistance program funding and money for road repair.” Gus looks at the son with confusion and judgment. “Which a lot of people rely on for quality of life.”
“I didn’t destroy them!”
“Yeah, that’s a confession.” Lassiter cuffs the man. “Next time try having a normal scandal to ruin your career.”
“One that doesn’t hurt poor people!” Gus watches the son be led away. “Man, how selfish can you get? Imagine if he had gotten into office.”
“... I actually don’t think much would change, Gus.” Shawn looks past Gus at the mayor. “No offense. There’s just-just a lot of potholes on my street.”
Gus leans back in his chair, grinning at the check. “You know what this calls for.”
“Way ahead of you, Gus.” Shawn turns around his laptop to show a page for a pineapple-shaped couch.
Gus tsks and yanks the check out of sight. “No way. I meant, this is our first time making an actual profit instead of just operating at a loss or barely breaking even.”
“Dude! The Sweetness just got sweeter! … Man, I hope this doesn’t actually come from spirits. It’d-it’d be a little weird to be calling a bunch of dead strangers Sweetness.”
“Well, have you talked to any dead people?”
“Nah, man. Just visions and gut feelings. Oh, and I totally read Buzz’s mind earlier.”
“For real?”
“For real!”
“What was he thinking?”
“... That part’s a little fuzzier.”
“So you didn’t read his mind.”
“I did! Just… not very clearly. It was something about bagels. Maybe.”
Gus shakes his head and opens his own laptop. “I’m booking you another meditation class.”
“Oh, throw in a massage at the place next door.”
“How is a massage supposed to help you grow and hone your psychic powers?”
“It’s not. But we’ve got money to burn now, man!”
“We made a little profit.”
“That’s the most profit we’ve ever made!”
“That you didn’t immediately gamble away.”
“... That’s low, Gus, that’s a low blow.”