musicalluna

Title: You Have the Right to Remain...Dead? Part 3
Fandom: Psych
Author: MusicalLuna
Rating: T
Characters/Pairings: All the regulars/None
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Suspense
Warnings: Little tiny bit of gore.
Complete: Yes
Summary: When an officer is murdered late one night while on duty, Karen forbids Shawn from getting involved, afraid he won't take the case as seriously as he should. But since when has a little thing like being banned from a case stopped Shawn Spencer?
A/N: I've been working on this story for over three months now. Up until three weeks ago, however, it was coming out really rather crappy. That was when I met my Psych fanfiction soul-mate centipede. She helped me work out all the kinks in my story and helped me realize the full-potential of this story. Thanks to her, this story is the best it can be. She was my encouragement, my grammar-nazi, and my holy-crap-I-have-to-do-that-because-that-idea-is-brilliant girl.

Thanks so much for rocking my Psych world!
Disclaimer: Psych and all related characters are unfortunately not even marginally owned by me. How tragic is that?

Trying to wear down Karen was an immensely entertaining task.

Over the next week Shawn did everything from posting over two pads worth of Post-It notes with, "Shawn needs a raise!" scribbled on them on the windows of her office, to sending a singing telegram of the song "Money" by The Knickerbockers. For the most part Karen ignored him, keeping her amusement to herself.

On his fourth try, Shawn was in the middle of hanging a banner that read, "Psychics need money too!" above Karen’s door when she came stalking down the hall, flanked by Lassiter and O’Hara, her face dark and her voice harsh. "…take every available man and get out there now. Our window of opportunity for gathering evidence is practically gone and I don’t want this monster getting away with this."

Lassiter nodded grimly. "Right away, Chief."

Shawn jumped down from the ladder, butting into the conversation. "Ooh! Do we have a new case?"

The three of them turned to him, Lassiter and Vick glaring and Juliet glancing away, like she wished he would just disappear. Shawn’s eyebrows shot up.

"Whoa, what’s with the third degree?"

Lassiter turned to Vick and growled, "I don’t want him involved."

She glared at him, but nodded curtly, looking to Shawn. "I want you to stay away from this one, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn frowned. "What? Why? Come on, you guys know you need my visions—"

"Mr. Spencer!" she said, her voice rising. "You are to stay away from this case, do I make myself clear?"

"But—"

"No buts! Mr. Spencer, I lost a very good man today and I don’t want you, or your smart mouth involved in his case! Now, please. Just get out." Shawn knew that tone. This was personal. Cops had to take care of their own; he had learned that much from his dad.

Shawn glanced at Lassiter, who was glaring intensely at him, and O’Hara, who was still avoiding his gaze, and he held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, fine. I’m gone." He walked between the three of them and they watched until he disappeared into the crowd near the entrance of the station.

Karen sighed, turned to the two detectives and said, "Now go. I want whoever did this in my office this time tomorrow."

Outside, Shawn rolled his eyes as he hopped down the stairs of the police station. He was actually a little affronted by Karen and Juliet’s lack of trust in his level of sensitivity, but he would never admit that to himself, or anyone else for that matter. Lassiter’s reaction, on the other hand, didn’t surprise him in the least. It mostly just bothered him that Juliet and Karen shared the detective’s assumption that he would treat this as flippantly as any other case. True, his track record wasn’t much in the way of substantiating the contrary, but it wasn’t like he was an ass just for the heck of it. It was just easier for him to keep his distance from the victims when he could joke about it. Was it his fault he found death funny?

He knew what a sensitive subject the death of an officer was, and he also knew how to exercise some restraint. He would have thought that at least the girls would have given him some credit. Well, it didn’t matter anyway.

He glanced back at the station and pulled the police scanner out of a pouch on his bike, flipping it on, just in time to catch the end of the dispatch he was hoping for. "…officer down on Sycamore Canyon Road, between Ashley and Cold Springs. All available cruisers please respond." A grin crawled onto Shawn’s face and he stuffed the scanner back in its pouch, shoving his helmet on. He would show them.

A little over fifteen minutes later, he was meeting Gus at the elementary school not far down the road from the crime scene. Gus met Shawn as he was getting off his bike and said, "So what’s going on?"

Shawn jerked his head in the direction of the crime scene. "An officer was killed up the road a little ways."

Gus’ eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? That’s awful." Then he paused. "Wait. Why are we down here, if he was killed up there?" he asked suspiciously.

Shawn’s head swayed back and forth, the way it usually did when he was avoiding an answer. "…Weeellll….I was kind of banned from the case."

Gus’ expression went stony. "Shawn..."

"No, come on, Gus! We have to make sure they find everything for this case—it’s a cop."

"Exactly," Gus replied, "It’s one of their own. You should just let them do this the way they want."

"I am going to let them do this the way they want," Shawn said, "I’m just going to…supervise."

"And exactly how do you plan on doing that if you’re banned from the case?" Gus asked dubiously.

Shawn grinned and pulled his binoculars from his pocket. "Recon."

~ * * * ~

"This is not ‘recon’ Shawn," Gus said darkly. He was wedged between two branches, a stick poking him in the ribs and a leaf tickling the top of his head a few feet above Shawn in a tree overlooking the crime scene. They had snuck around in the bushes far enough back so as not to be seen by any of the officers, and then climbed it when they were sure no one was looking. They had made so much noise he had been sure they would get caught, but in the end, the officers were all far too preoccupied. Now he was in an extremely uncomfortable position, farther above the ground then he usually preferred, and almost positive that sap from the tree was getting on his brand new slacks. He focused his glare on the back of Shawn’s head, briefly contemplating what might happen if he were to lean forward and just push right in the center of Shawn’s back.

"Dude. The back of my head is starting to burn. Could you turn down the laser vision, for like, five seconds?" Shawn said, peering intently through the binoculars from his position on one of the largest branches of the tree. He was, conveniently enough, wearing green today, which, along with a few clumps of foliage, helped hide him from view. A small gap in the leaves allowed him an almost perfect vantage point. The downside was that he was lying at a downward angle, clinging to the tree with one foot wedged between two branches, and one arm clutched around a smaller branch jutting from the one he lay on.

"Why am I even here, Shawn?" Gus demanded irritably. "I’m not doing anything, and I’m missing work! That’s not even considering the fact that I’m in the most uncomfortable position ever."

"No, dude, you’re wrong. I am in the most uncomfortable position ever. There’s a little twig thing digging in right next to my—"

"Okay! That’s enough information, thank you!" Gus said, cutting him off. "This is ridiculous, Shawn, can we just—"

"Shhh!" Shawn hissed, pressing the binoculars more tightly to his eyes, focusing a few feet forward to where Lassiter was talking to another officer near the civilian’s car that had been left at the scene. This was perfect; he couldn’t have planned it better! Gus couldn’t help it. He leaned forward, fascinated despite himself.

"…the car is stolen. A…Kelly Sharpe reported it missing yesterday afternoon. It’s been pretty thoroughly cleaned, but the CSI guys will do what they can."

"They had better," Lassiter muttered. He narrowed his eyes at the car as he thought, and then said after a few moments, "Run through this with me, Kinsley. I want to make sure I’ve got this straight."

"Yes, sir."

"All right, so Harding pulls this car over, presumably because of some traffic violation or another. Probably speeding." Lassiter gestured at the abandoned cruiser behind the car they stood near. "It’s early in his shift, still dark out, and he gets out of the car, walks up to the window, and bam. One shot directly to the face. He’s dead before he hits the ground. The perp has probably worn gloves and he gets out of the car, takes Harding’s badge, and then vanishes. We haven’t found anything to indicate how he could have gotten away from here?" Lassiter said, obviously frustrated.

"No, sir. There aren’t any footprints by the body or the car, and there are no tire tracks any where else. The only thing we can think is that maybe he had a partner, or I guess, he could have walked…he may have even hitchhiked. Nobody driving on this road that early would pay any attention to a pulled over car and a cruiser," Kinsley rationalized.

Shawn snorted. "Right. The guy is going to murder a cop and then just take a jaunty little stroll back to town."

Gus’ glared. "How do you know that’s not what he did? They said they haven’t found anything else!"

"Pssh," Shawn muttered. "That doesn’t mean it’s not there. That just means they’re missing it." He shifted, and cursed as he lost his grip, nearly slipping from the branch. There was a lot of loud rustling as he yanked himself back up and he clung frantically to the branch, trying not to breathe too loudly, making himself as small as possible. He heard Lassiter say, "What was that?" in an extremely suspicious tone and Gus whispered, "Oh crap."

Lassiter was peering suspiciously at the tree when Kinsley shrugged and said, "Probably a cat. Those things are constantly climbing stuff like that."

"Yeah…" Lassiter muttered and drew his gaze away from the tree. He couldn’t help being suspicious. Having Spencer around all the time had started making him jumpy. You never knew when he was going to pop out of nowhere, and attack you with some blasted "vision" or another. He shook his head to clear it and tried to focus on the task at hand again. There was a lot of work to be done.

Shawn and Gus remained still and silent for several minutes, afraid moving might get them caught. When Shawn finally heard Lassiter’s voice retreat back toward the cruiser, he relaxed.

"Jeez, Shawn! Are you trying to get us arrested?" Gus hissed.

Shawn suddenly looked over-the-top excited, and Gus knew he was about to be mocked. "Oh yeah, Gus. Didn’t I tell you? It’s my life’s dream to go to prison with you. Aren’t you excited? Let’s just jump out of the tree now, and tell them it was us!" he exclaimed enthusiastically.

Gus glared. "Shut up, Shawn." Shawn rolled his eyes again and put the binoculars back to his eyes, starting a methodical search of the scene, looking for any clues that the cops might have missed or anything else of interest. After nearly fifteen minutes of careful observation, punctuated by Gus’ pestering, Shawn pulled the binoculars away from his eyes and marveled, "You know, I think they got it all this time. I can’t find anything even remotely interesting."

Gus eyed the back of his head pointedly. "You see? They don’t always need you interfering, Shawn."

"Just most of the time." He paused and then sighed, letting his arm drop. "Dude. This case couldn’t get any more straightforward. Let’s get out of here."

"Finally," Gus said, "So no more interfering after this, no matter what, all right? You promise?"

Shawn waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, just one more thing, and then no more interfering."

Gus sighed. He didn’t even know why he bothered anymore.