It's almost an Easter murder, Shawn Spencer. - For justprompts
Picture prompt: Candy store
"The murder was comitted by a nerd!"
Every pair of eyes in the room immideately fell on the young, hidden behind a considerable amount of acne redhead kid.
"The store attendant?" Juliet asked incredulous, slightly lowering the gun she couldn't believe she was now pointing at the scared teenager.
"No, not a real human nerd. I mean the candy." Shawn corrected, shaking his head in frustration. Not caring to take his eyes off his audience, he raised a hand and pointed it at the store manager. "And it was helped by this man."
A collective sigh was heard in the little candy store as everybody waited for Shawn to explain why the spirits believed Mr. Mc Avoy, the gentle old man well known by the Santa Barbara community for always giving the kids some free candies when they visited his store (but mostly known by his remarkable resemblance to the Marshmallow Man) was capable of murdering one of his ex attendants.
But Shawn simply stood there, pointing at Mc Avoy.
"Gus?" Shawn called in a pretty audible whisper.
"I'm not letting you do that Shawn." His best friend answered in the same vocal range.
"Gus, I need you here, buddy."
"I said no and that's my final answer."
"Your final answer is being a little selfish. You sure you don't wanna use the fifty-fifty? Maybe call a friend? Since I'm your best friend, I'm claiming my right to call myself on your good name to say you should come here and give me a hand."
"I said I'm not doing it, Shawn!"
"And I say you better stop your little kindergarten theatrics or I'm locking you both up for wasting the time of officers of the law." Lassiter growled, interrupting the whispering rant between the two friends.
"Gus?" Shawn tried again. He wasn't dissapointed when his best friend, sporting the same glowering look every single person in the room had, joined him while muttering something Shawn couldn't quite catch.
It was either "I'm going to kill you, Shawn" or "I want my eyes to be fluorecent, Pawn".
At least Gus would never be in need of a night lamp ever again, the fake psychic thought.
Making a circling gesture with his index finger Shawn awaited for his best friend to turn around. Carefully placing his hand on top of Gus's head, he closed his eyes and lowered his head.
More waiting. Every single person in the room was able to listen to Gus swallow angrily.
Because yes, Burton Guster had managed to make swallowing sound as an angry body function.
"The Easter spirits are now clearly talking to me!" Shawn cried, suddenly bolting upright and stealling again everybody's attention.
"Is this a bad joke?" Mc Avoy asked, shooting desperate looks at the rookies and detectives in his store. "Could you please take away this lunatic?"
"Trust me, I'd love to."
"The Easter spirits? Really?" Juliet asked while eyerolling at her partner's comment.
"Well, they could have talked to me earlier but Gus refused to let me paint a little pink bunny and light blue dots on the back of his head. It's a shame, it would have matched with his purple shirt beautifully."
"Do you mind if I go next door to get a coffee? This is going to take us all day, O'hara."
"Shawn, just get on with it..."
"No, this is not a bad joke. Do you wanna know what a bad joke sounds like? I guess you could open that cabinet you've got under double lock inside your office and show our dear detective friends that silly little millionare security policy you got only a couple of days before the Michael's kid death?"
Mc Avoy's turned to address Lassiter and Juliet, his face red with anger. "Officers. I mean, Detectives," he corrected himself, "I want you to take this man out of my store. There's-"
"Oh! But we haven't even reached the creamy core yet!" Shawn cut him off. He looked deeply concentrated with his eyes closed, holding two long multicolored candy sticks and pressing their tips against his temple.
"Artie," he said opening his eyes and pointing at the teenager attendant with the candy. "The spirits are whispering things about a complot. They say Kevin-"
"Clark." Gus corrected.
"They say Clark tried to talk to you. Did he mentioned some weird stuff about making some easy money a couple of days before he died?"
"Ah... H-He su-su-su-su-se-sent me a t-t-t-text s-saying..."
"This is going to take longer than usual..." Lassiter sighed as he gave a look to the glock he was half heartedly pointing at the suspect. If only there was a real threat to point at...
"Yes, Artie, the spirits tell me something about a text, yes! Clark sent you a text, saying he wanted to have a word, possibly several words, because we all know conversations involve many of those. He wanted to share something he discovered, something that involved extra cash, right?"
Artie simply nodded, everyone else was thankfull of that.
Except Mc Avoy, of course, whose face looked anything but gentle.
"And suddenly Clark went poof!" Shawn said while Gus performed with his hands what he thought looked like a miniature version of Pompey and it's volcano. "Anyone knows why?"
Again, all eyes were set on Artie, who simply shrugged out of pressure.
"Fine, if you guys insist I'll tell you why." Shawn mentioned while finishing unwrapping one of the candy sticks and taking a couple of licks. "Around a month ago Clark started noticing things. Like the fact that our friend Mc Marshmallow was buying and hiding on the back of the store great amounts of gasoline. Now, that wouldn't be weird for someone who has a magic fire show in Vegas or maybe to Michael Jackson' s hair, but kids? They usually don't mix well with gasoline."
"This is ridiculous and proves nothing!" Mc Avoy gave a 360 degrees turn and pointed at Lassiter. "if you don't stop this nonesense I'm calling your superiors. This will end up in your records-"
He was cut off again this time by a very irritated Head Detective. "And if you don't shut your trap and let him finish I'm personally making sure you share a cell with someone we like to call Mr Fairy The Backwrecker down at the Station." He tilted his head towards Shawn. "Hurry up, Spencer."
Stumbling backwards, Shawn twisted around several times before grabbing himself on to the store's counter.
"Clark started playing Hardy Boys and found out about the security policy. And since everybody knows that mysterious security policies plus mysterious gasoline only equals bad cliche pyromaniacs, Clark thought he could get away with blackmailing you." Giving another lick to his candy, the psychic turned his head heavenwards and continued with his story. "He says he was foolish enough to fall for your marshmallowy charms, thinking you were nothing else but a harmless man with a psycho fantasy and in need of money. But it turned out you were purely psychotic... And in need of money, just like Clark himself."
He raised the lollipop stick and grabbing it with both hands started an imaginary struggle with an invisible killer who threatened Shawn's jugular with a deadly candy.
"He cornered you and tried to blackmail you, but he never thought you'd fight back! He never thought you'd show you had a pair of jawbreakers after al! And he had no idea you'd beat him to death and leave his body to rot in the trash!" Stumbling backwards, Shawn blinked, apparently confused as the spirit of Clark left his body.
"You have no proof but this fraud's word!"
"I bet you were one of those kids who never shared their Trix with the poor bunny." Shawn told him with a dissapointed look on his face. "That's so mean..."
Both Juliet and Lassiter put a hand on Mc Avoy's shoulders. "A simple DNA test is not going to hurt anyone." She said showing the man a dubious reassuring smile.
"Come on, Candy Man." Lassiter pushed an outraged Mc Avoy towards the door.
In the mean time, his partner approached Shawn and Gus, who were now both fistbumping and enjoying their candy sticks. Shawn was wondering where they were going to find this delicious treats now that Mc Avoy's shop was out of the market.
"So, the Easter Spirits, huh?" She asked with a much more genuine smile as she slid a lock of hair behind her ear. "Aren't they a little late this year?"
"A little late? I don't think so. I mean, they could have wrapped this up 20 minutes ago, but traffic was a bitch today."
"She means that Easter was a week ago, Shawn."
Juliet frowned and gave Gus a quizical look. "He doesn't really know Easter's date?"
"It changes every year!"
"He starts buying chocolate eggs as soon as he sees them in the stores."
Shawn crossed his arms over his chest assuming a defensive pose. "That's because it's a shame that we only get to eat them once a year. It's like eggnog. I'm just trying to extend the Easter experience."
"No, that's exactly like opening Christmas presents at midnight, Shawn! It ruins the beauty of the tradition!"
Juliet shook her head, failing at keeping her lips from twisting up into an amused grin. She took a step back and raised a hand, vaguely gesturing towards the lost teenager in the room. "I should take Artie to the station now to take his statement. I guess I'll catch you guys later."
Shawn and Gus interrupted their bantering for a second to wave goodbye to the blonde detective.
"So... Easter was...?"
"A week ago."
"Yeah, I knew that."
(ooc: Thank you so much lipstickcat for the beta! :D)