Shawn had always hated funerals.
He rarely had to go to one. Not one for somebody he actually cared about, not since he was twelve and his grandpa Spencer passed away. The social obligation to be there for your best friend, when he's morning the loss of a sea lion he never met or an old college friend he hadn't seen in years, Shawn was okay with that. More or less. In both of those instances, he had gotten to solve a murder in the end so they weren't a complete waste of time. But unless they involved Meryl Streep or cats getting a bath, Shawn generally avoided sad things. Funerals rarely included either one.
But the funeral of Mary Lightly... That was an entirely different matter.
The criminal psychologist and resident expert on all things Yin/Yang Killer-related was definitely not a loved one. Shawn hadn't really even considered him a friend, not until the very end. But as Mary's life ended, Shawn's perspective changed.
Mary had always thought of him and Gus as friends, probably the only friends he'd ever had, judging by the lack of attendance at his funeral. He remembered the look on the profiler's face when he invited him along to see Yang in prison after the waitress's murder. Mary showed his emotions about as well as a block of ice, but that weird little smile… He should have seen it. Of course he had 'seen' Mary smile, but he hadn't given it much thought at the time. He should have realized sooner that Mary could never be a killer.
All the clues pointed to him. And that dream, when he finally remembered the ankle weights. Then while Shawn was busy convincing everyone that Mary was Mr. Yin and looking for the evidence to prove it, Mary had taken on the real Yin all alone, trying to be the hero. Trying to be like Shawn.
He admired Shawn, maybe idolized him a little bit. As obsessed as he had been with the Yin/Yang case for all these years, to have played just a small part in helping Shawn finally get the better of Yang had obviously meant a lot to him, based on that disturbing shrine he had made about the case in his house. Mary thought he could take on Yin just like Shawn had done with Yang.
Shawn knew he didn't deserve a friend like Mary Lightly, someone so loyal and ernest and genuinely nice, if a bit creepy at times. Or all the time, really. But in death, he promised to be a better friend to Mary than he had been in life. So he picked up Ben early in the morning after Mary's murder and brought him home, placing his cage in a good spot along the mirror wall of his new apartment/former Tae-Bo studio. Then today, a day after Yin's game had run its course with no more deaths but no real resolution either, he and Gus attended Mary's funeral, symbolically gifting him with the equipment he would need for his new heavenly hobby of racquetball. And now after the funeral, he went with Mrs. Lightly back to her son's house to help her dispose of his things. It was the least he could do.
A police van, three squad cars and a familiar dark blue sedan sat outside the dilapidated structure. But he couldn't turn back now. He had to face the detective sometime. Today might as well be the day.
Still wearing his racquetball outfit, Shawn felt suddenly conspicuous as he opened the car door for the grieving mother and helped her up onto the sidewalk. She hadn't said a word about his and Gus's attire at the funeral, and neither had the priest. Both seemed to understand that they meant no disrespect by it, and since they were the only other people there, they could hardly complain. Funeral etiquette did not allow for white gym shorts, but Shawn rarely cared what anybody else thought of him. Mrs. Lightly obviously didn't mind. But the cops that Mary had worked with might consider it disrespectful. Then again, if they had cared about their criminal profiler at all, they would have been at the cemetery this morning, not here cleaning out his house.
Shawn offered his arm to Mrs. Lightly and she took it gratefully as they walked down the short, overgrown walkway and up the rickety stairs to the front porch. An officer burst through the front door just as they reached it, laden down with several clear plastic storage tubs full of paper. Mary's research. Much of it involved Yin and Yang, Shawn knew from his previous visit with Gus. But as part of the Serial Homicide and Abduction Task Force for the whole Central Coast, he had considerable documentation on other killers as well. He guided the older woman aside as two more uniforms followed behind, hauling a huge black cabinet between them. Shawn recognized it at once. The 'shrine.' He wondered what Lassiter must have thought of it. But he would find out soon enough.
Once they had cleared out, carrying their burdens down the stairs and out to the van, Shawn led Mrs. Lightly into the big front living room where two more cops worked in one corner, trying to manhandle one of Mary's filing cabinets onto a hand cart. But no sign of Lassie.
"Mrs. Lightly, why don't you wait here and I'll get the box from upstairs," he offered as he led her to the battered plaid couch beside the front window. She had already been through the place, tackling the difficult task of picking and choosing the few things of her sons that she wanted to keep or donate. Everything else that the police department didn't want would be sold with the house.
"Thank you, Shawn," she said gratefully as she sat down, perching like a delicate bird on the edge of the cushion, ankles crossed primly as she pulled a tissue from the sleeve of her black dress and tore at it restlessly. "It's on Mair's... on his bed. There's also a small trophy on a shelf above his night table, if you could bring that, too, dear. I remember now, he won it for playing pinball."
"Back in high school?"
"No, I believe it was last April," she said as she gazed around the room, a lost look in her eyes. "My Mair Bear loved pinball, played it all the time. When he had the time, that is." She got up quickly and started across the room, agitated now. "My poor boy," she sighed.
"I didn't know that, about your son," Shawn said softly, watching her dart around the room touching random objects as she went. He never knew that Mary had a nickname either. Mair. More items to add to the list of things he didn't know, and had never bothered to find out, about Mary Lightly. His heart sunk a little at the thought that he would never get the chance now. "I'll be right back, Mrs. Lightly." She nodded absently as she picked up a book from a side table and started to page through it, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
He backed away quietly and headed for the stairs, stumbling up the uneven steps and banging his knee before he caught himself against the creaky rail. Shawn cursed softly as he rubbed his knee. Then taking the rest of the steps more slowly, he pushed open the door at the top to find a broad T-shaped hallway with several doors leading off of it. By the worn path across the faded floral carpeting, Shawn found Mary's bedroom right away. But he did not expect to find the head detective inside.
"Lassie," he said, stopping short in the doorway with his hand still clutching the glass knob. His eyes swept the room, avoiding the detective's gaze and instead taking in the chair in the corner beside the cut-glass windows, arcane objects on the stand beside his bed, and a stuffed monkey clinging to the corner of the bedpost by long skinny arms. Near the door, imprints on the carpeting told him a tripod once occupied this space, and maybe a box or two. "I see you've been busy in here."
"Spencer," the detective answered curtly, looking up from his task of rummaging through the box of personal items that Mrs. Lightly had collected. Mementos lay scattered across the patchwork bedspread, including a framed picture of a sheep. "Actually, we haven't touched this room. Nothing worth touching," he said in disgust as he pulled a faded yellow shirt from the box, dangling it in the air between blue-glove-covered thumb and finger like it was a dead squirrel or something. He tossed it onto the bed and kept rummaging. "You look ridiculous, by the way."
"I…" 'know you are but what am I?' That's what he planned on saying, but his snappy comeback died in his brain before it ever reached his mouth. Lassiter looked pissed. Even more so than usual. "I'm here with Mrs. Lightly," Shawn explained. "We just came from the funeral."
"Figures you'd wear that to a man's funeral. No respect for the dead."
Shawn bristled at the accusation. "You didn't even bother to come, how is that respectful?"
Lassiter took a menacing step toward him, eyes burning with a fury that told Shawn his anger stemmed from something else altogether. "Don't you lecture me about respect, Psychic. Tell me something, does she know that it's because of you that she had to bury her son today?"
It stung. More than that, it stabbed to the heart. But he tried to defend himself. "That's not…"
"Not what? Not fair?"
He didn't want to fight. "Look, just let me take the box and I'll get out of your hair."
Lassiter blew out a scoffing breath as he stepped back and started tossing items haphazardly back into the box. Shawn spotted the shelf with the trophy and stepped forward to retrieve it.
"Freeze!"
Shawn froze in place, right hand outstretched toward the small golden cup. "It's just some trophy. She asked for it," he tried to explain, dropping his arm to grab the box that Lassie dumped on him as he shoved passed.
"Not before I take a look at it." He picked up the small trophy cup, turning it this way and that, and trying to pry off the top for a few painful moments. He finally gave up and tossed it atop the box. "Clear."
"Great, glad to hear it," Shawn said as he moved toward the door. "See you later, Lassie."
"Don't count on it." The finality of that statement made him hesitate. He turned back, trying to find the right words to smooth things over between them.
"Yin had us all fooled," he began, parroting the argument Gus had tried on him last night. But the words sounded even more hollow coming from his own lips. And Lassiter knew it was all a load of crap.
"Bullshit. You're the psychic. You told us Mary Lightly was Yin. And if we weren't so damned busy watching him, waiting for him to 'slip up', maybe we could've used that time to catch the real Yin and save his life." Shawn didn't bother trying to defend himself. He knew it was true. "Then my partner and a civilian would never have been put at risk," Lassiter finished with an almost feral growl.
Shawn swallowed hard at the mention of Juliet and Abigail. His girlfriend - make that ex-girlfriend - had already gone back to Uganda. And Juliet, he hadn't seen her since the morning after her rescue, and then only briefly. Just long enough to see eyes red from crying as she collected a few things from her desk at work and said goodbye to everyone. Not to him directly though. She had looked at him for a moment, brushing back strands of disheveled hair from her face, almost like a farewell wave. Her expression grim, lips pressed tight. She directed the slightest of nods at him from across the room before Lassiter blocked his view and escorted her outside once again.
"How is she? Juliet?"
"She's a wreck, that's how she is. She's on extended leave, back in Miami with her folks. And God knows if she's planning to come back again after what Yin did to her. What you did to her." He took several menacing steps toward Shawn that backed him up, right out of the room and against the opposite wall of the hallway. Anger radiated off of the detective like nuclear fall-out.
"I know the Chief gave both of you the same amount of leave, three weeks. But Spencer," he practically growled Shawn's name, "your irresponsible, childish, and erratic behavior got a good man killed. If I never see your face again, it'll be too damned soon. I hate the very sight of you. Now get the hell out of here, before I charge you as an accessory to murder."
Shawn flew down the stairs, nearly crashing at the bottom when his injured knee gave way. But Buzz McNab appeared out of nowhere to catch his fall.
"Hey, Shawn, are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost." He joked as he took over possession of the box while Shawn tried to regain his composure. Suddenly, the officer paled. "Wait. You didn't, did you? I mean, Mary..."
"No, Buzz, I'm fine," Shawn tried to reassure him.
"You're bleeding." Buzz pointed downward and only then did Shawn notice the trickle of blood oozing from his left knee and staining the pristine white of his tube sock.
"It's nothing," he said, swallowing passed the tremor in his voice. "Just a little bump, nothing to worry about."
"If you're looking for Mrs. Lightly, she grabbed a few books and a box of sardine cans and headed back out to the car. I was just coming to tell you."
"Okay, thanks buddy. Could you take this box out for me? I'll just take one last look around, make sure she didn't forget anything."
"Sure thing." Buzz grabbed the box and headed out, while Shawn moved back into the living room, nearly empty now that everything related to his passion of studying serial killers had been removed. He took a steadying breath, trying to shake off what just happened upstairs and concentrate. There was still one more thing he needed.
He spotted what he was looking for right away. A long narrow cage rested beside the desk, previously obscured by stacks of file folders and books. Ben would be more comfortable in the larger cage then the modified plastic tub he had now, Shawn thought. He carelessly snatched it up by the thin metal handle, which suddenly came loose on one side and tipped awkwardly, knocking the wire framework right into his injured knee. Biting back a curse, he popped the handle back into position and readjusted his grip.
With one last look around at the endless string of numbers that circled the room, as mysterious as the man himself, Shawn said goodbye to Mary Lightly and headed outside, knowing that he would never look at a slice of pie the same way again.
The Ticket by Kirei
Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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