Disclaimer: The television show 'Psych' and the characters of 'Psych' are not mine. I intend no copyright infringement through writing this story.

Chapter One: The Question

Child molestors always make the news.

It's worth more than gold to a reporter, the discovery of a pedophile; guaranteed moral outrage and outcry. Henry Spencer remembers a few of his buddy officers from the Special Victims Unit pale with anger after having been barraged by too-detailed questions all for the sake of the public's morbid, voracious curiousity. "Why the hell does it matter how far the bastard got?" one police said. Father of two, gentle-hearted with heavy fists, couldn't stomach the thought of children as victims. He didn't last long in the Unit; requested a transfer to Homicide, which was how Henry met him. "It doesn't fucking matter how far he got. It's enough that he did it. Those kids will never be the same."

It's years later, and that conversation has mostly faded from Henry's mind when he turns on the afternoon news. He's just come in from fishing and his head is still warm from the sun. He mops idly at the sweat on his forehead.

 The newsreader's voice reads the report: "Elementary School Softball Coach discovered today to have been abusing children in his care. More to follow in the evening news." The photograph that flashes out at Henry is of a bald, heavy-set man, past middle-age, friendly eyes crinkled with laughter. A familiar face. Henry frowns. He isn't sure why the face is familiar. He isn't sure that he wants to know.

He heads to the kitchen. Opens a beer. Thinks about starting dinner - maybe hamburgers, or sandwiches - looks out the window. It's a beautiful day, and Henry is mildly angry that the bright sunshine and the boundless blue skies are somehow marred for him now that the idea of a child molestor has been brought into the equation. He ignores the sense of dread that builds in his gut (cop's instinct, his subconscious whispers to him insistently).

 *

His cop's instinct is proven right as he watches the evening news, burgers on a plate by his feet.

"Goddamn," he says. "I used to work with that fucking bastard."

*

 They didn't work closely together. They were in the same department, knew each other by sight and name, enough for friendly "Good mornings", "See you tomorrows". They were never put on any of the same cases. They never went out for drinks at the same bar, or bonded over sports/wives/children. They were work acquaintances, and even that little degree of connection between them is enough to make Henry nauseous.

This world, Henry thinks, is messed up.

David Cabin retired off the force a handful of years before Henry did, volunteered as a softball coach when there was a dearth of willing adults to supervise rambunctious pre-adolescent boys; was, by all accounts, an upstanding member of society, a decent sort, well liked and well respected. Until the first boy came forward with the accusation - and then the second - and then a search turned up incriminating photographs on Cabin's property - and then Cabin himself, confessing, breaking down on camera, shielding his face with his hands, looking old and pathetic and ashamed. Saying, plaintive, as if to ask for pardon, "I don't know what came over me. The devil. I swear it was the devil. Oh Christ. Jesus Christ. I never meant to hurt those boys."

And Henry is disgusted, both with Cabin and with the public's need to put Cabin's depravity on display, and with himself, too, at not somehow sensing that Cabin was a perverted child molesting bastard, at not knowing. But then he turns off the television and picks up a book, goes up to bed, reads a few chapters, puts the entire incident out of his mind.

The dread that was building up inside of him still hasn't gone away. Henry slips into sleep, trepidation a heavy stone in his gut.

*

In the morning he remembers Shawn, when Shawn was the same age as those molested boys. Happy smiling Shawn. Innocent Shawn, young and tanned brown, goofy, extroverted, making friends with everyone around him.

Shawn at the police station. Playing poker with the guys during break time. Bothering the on-duty cops busy putting together their cases. Sitting at random cops' desks, assured of everyone being friendly, of everyone being kind and good and decent.

Sitting at Cabin's desk, Cabin's jocular face smiling down at him, oh god.

Henry doesn't make it to the bathroom. He pukes all over his carpet; dry heaves, loses himself in cold shakes. Just the thought of it, just the notion that Cabin could have - to Shawn - could have - his son.

*

When he gets to the Psych office early that afternoon, he sees Gus first - typing on his laptop, intent and focused, his eyes narrowed in thought. Probably playing those games of his again. Henry doesn't know why he's come here. He cranes his head and looks for Shawn.

For whatever insane reason, Shawn is standing on his head, his back braced against the wall for balance, his arms spread out along the floor. Henry almost smiles at the sight; almost, but can't help wondering, can't stop wondering. He has to know. He doesn't want to know. But he has to.

Shawn sees Henry standing in the doorway, and his face transforms into a smile. "Dad!" Shawn yells out. "You're just in time to settle the debate." He topples over from his headstand, buckling his body and rolling forward to stand on his feet, face flushed. "Does my hair still look the same as it normally does?" Shawn points at his wild brown locks, crazily messed.

Henry says, "Yes. Yes it does. Do you even have a comb?"

"Hey, at least I still have hair."

 Henry doesn't even have it in him to glare at his son, who is grinning at him, eyes lit up with an insolent glow. Always happiest when mocking authority, Henry knows, always most content when departing from the norm. The beat of his own drummer.

Henry says, "Shawn, we need to talk." He looks at Gus sideways, his eyes a barely perceptible flicker of movement. "I'll take you to lunch."

"No can do, Pops," Shawn says, shaking his head emphatically. "We have been called into the station. Our day is booked. Try again, oh, in two days - we should have the case wrapped up by then."

"This isn't a joke, Shawn," Henry growls, voice lowered by irritation and some other, unnamed emotion.

"And I'm not joking, Dad," Shawn says. The grin never falls from his face. "Seriously, we're going to be completely swamped for the next couple of days. If we don't get going in the next few seconds, we'll be late, and you know how much Lassie-face enjoys having to wait for us." He looks over at Gus, makes a whistling noise; Gus looks up from the computer screen, expression harried.

"Shawn," Henry says.

Shawn ignores him. He beckons to Gus, who snaps closed his laptop and gives Shawn a bitchy look.

"Shawn," Henry says. "This is important."

Shawn doesn't even look at him. He just says, "Is it more important than a murder?"

Henry is silent. But he thinks, Yes. Yes, it is.

Shawn motions Henry out the door. "We've gotta lock up, Dad," he says. Henry lets himself be shepherded, feeling oddly useless, helpless, wondering (not for the first time, but never quite so desolately as now) just who his son is, what kind of person. Shawn says, "I'll call you as soon as we're done. We can 'talk' or whatever then." He looks inquisitively at Henry. "Unless it's something you can say in the next ten seconds."

He's obviously expect Henry to yell at him for something, to say that Shawn hasn't fulfilled some promise, that Shawn has some responsibility he has been derelict in seeing to.

Henry can't make himself say anything. Instead he shakes his head. Shawn gives him a quizzical look; locks the door of the office building; follows Gus to Gus' car.

Gus says, "See you, Mr. Spencer," and Shawn says, for the first time seriously, "I'll call you as soon as I can," and then they're driving off.

Henry stares after them, frustrated and hollow and filled with questions he doesn't want to know the answers to.