Inside the interrogation room, two people sat; looking slightly nervous as Shawn entered.
“Hello. My name is Shawn Spencer, Psychic Detective for the SBPD,” he said cordially.
The couple gave him the strangest looks then glanced at each other before the woman spoke.
“A psychic? I’m sorry, but there are no such thing as psychics. The ones who claim to have abilities are in need of serious help.”
Shawn took a slight step back upon hearing those words. In all the years he’d been doing the psychic shtick, he’d heard the line a few times, but the way the woman clipped her words.
Shawn put his finger to his head, “You are a psychiatrist, are you not?” he pointed toward the woman.
“Yes, but you could’ve gotten that from your girlfriend out there or the tall, lanky detective that set us down in here,” she replied with a huff.
“No, Detective Lassiter and Detective O’Hara do not share info with me. The spirit world does,” Shawn said as he studied the man, “And you sir, are an engineer.”
The man looked up with a disbelieving glance. Right then Shawn knew the psychic angle wouldn’t hold water with these two. He’d have to step carefully. That’s when he looked up, glancing behind the couple and saw the image of a what looked like a snake crawling through the upper window.
Shawn jumped back with a small yell. Juliet, who’d been watching from the outside, ran in to find her boyfriend against the wall, looking at the opposite wall with a frightened look.
“Shawn? What is it?” she asked.
“There is a huge snake crawling through the window! Don’t you see it?”
Juliet looked over to the window and saw a stick that must’ve pushed through it the night before. She walked over and grabbed it.
“Shawn, it’s just a stick. There is no snake,” she said, showing him.
Shawn peeled himself off the wall and carefully moved in for closer inspection. Juliet was right; it was just a stick. Why would he, of all people, see a snake where there was none?
“Are either one of you afraid of snakes?” he asked the couple.
“I am. That still doesn’t prove you’re any type of psychic. A great many people are afraid of snakes,” said the husband.
‘This guy sounds like Trout,’ Shawn thought, thinking of the ornery man that once had a hold of the SBPD.
It was at that point Lassiter walked in with a small smirk on his face. It was directed, of course, to Shawn, who was now slinking out of the room without so much as a glance in the Head Detective’s direction.
As soon as he got to the main lobby of the station, he sat down at Juliet’s desk and ran a hand through his hair. He was trying to figure out what had happened back there.
‘Why would I have seen a snake? I’m hyper observant, I would’ve, no, I should’ve seen it was a stick. I must be tired,’ he thought.
Juliet appeared beside him, the stick in the trash by the cells. She was already worried about Shawn not sleeping, and now he was seeing things.
“Shawn, honey, are you all right?” she asked gently.
“Yeah, Jules. I’m fine, just a little spooked is all. You know I have an overactive imagination,” he replied, looking up at her.
“Well, you don’t have to be on this case. I’ll just tell the Chief and…”
“No!” Shawn jumped up and intercepted Juliet before she went down the hall, “I’ll be fine. I’ll take this case and solve it like I always do. After that, we’ll go home, draw a hot bath and you can massage my shoulders.”
Juliet’s eyes softened, “Don’t you mean my shoulders?”
“Well, if you want to massage your own, I suppose I can’t stop you,” Shawn started, but Juliet swatted him playfully.
“I’ll take the case. Let me have a look see at those files, okay?” He asked.
Jules handed him the grey folder, “Here, this is everything we have on the parents. Maybe you can glean something off that.”
“You’re starting to sound like my dad,” Shawn stated, opening the folder and glancing over the report the parents had given earlier.
To his disappointment, there was nothing to go on. The parents seemed pretty clean cut; even though they acted as if they had something up their butts. Shawn sighed as he put the folder down.
“What?” Juliet asked.
“The parents aren’t hiding anything. They’re innocent,” Shawn said.
“Well, we should tell Lassiter that. He’s been grilling them for about twenty minutes,” Juliet said.
“Let Lassie have a little fun before we break the news to him. Do you guys have the security video from the mall?”
“Yeah, Lassiter and I watched it before you came. Come on, it’s still in the conference room,” Juliet said, walking toward the doors.
Shawn followed right behind, hoping that this would at least yield a better clue. He just had to focus.
Jules played back the video from ten minutes before the kidnapping. Shawn watched carefully as the people moved about.
That’s when he spotted a suspicious man standing almost out of frame. He was wearing a white baseball cap and a black jacket. The hat was pulled down to the point the camera wouldn’t pick up any features. He pulled his hand out of his pocket to check the time. Shawn immediately paused it.
“Jules, look closely at that man’s hand. What do you see?” He asked.
Juliet practically touched her nose to the screen, but saw nothing, “Shawn, it’s too small. I can’t see anything,” she said, turning to face him.
“I do. It looks like he has a tattoo on his left hand. It could be a dragon or a lion,” Shawn said.
Juliet looked again, “A snake, maybe?”
Shawn blinked, “A snake?”
“Well, I mean, it could be anything. I’ll have the IT guys blow it up and see if we can get a clearer image,” she said, taking out the DVD and walking out toward the IT techs. Shawn watched her go, then put his fingers to his temples.
Closing his eyes, he replayed the scene in his head, trying to specifically focus on the guy’s hand. He ran through any design he could think of that matched what he could see. When he tried the snake image, it fit, but something else was added. Some kind of symbol. A Chinese symbol.
Shawn’s eyes flew open and he ran toward Juliet, who had dropped off the video to the IT tech.
“Jules! Pull up everything you can on the Chinese Mafia,” he said.
“Chinese Mafia? You think they’re involved?” Juliet said as she sat down and woke up her computer.
“The parents of the little girl had ties to them, according to their records. Maybe they tried to cut ties with the Mafia and fled?” Shawn asked.
Lassiter came down the hall, hearing the last part, “They finally spilled that tidbit to me about five minutes ago. We’re keeping them here for protection.”
“Protection?” Karen said, coming out of her office.
“Yeah, Chief, the Chinese Mafia is after them and has their daughter,” Juliet said.
Lassiter grimaced, “I was hoping we would never have to deal with the Triads again.”
“I don’t think it’s the Triads, Lassieface. I think it’s a different group this time,” Shawn said, looking over the computer screen, trying to find the symbol he saw.
“This coming from the guy who had a fit over a stick in the interrogation room,” Lassie said snidely.
“I wasn’t having a fit! It was a vision of what I needed to focus on,” he said, giving a sideways glance to Juliet, “I was supposed to find the Snakes.”
“The Snakes? There aren’t that many of those members left. They’ve either gone to the Triads, the Dragons or they’re dead,” Karen said.
“The guy who took the girl had on a white hat, black jacket and a tattoo on his left hand. It was a Snake with a Chinese symbol. There!” Shawn said, pointing to the screen. In front was the Chinese symbol for the word Spirit.
“Spirit of the Snake. The Snakes believe that they are reincarnated from snakes, and they train themselves how to act and think like a snake,” Juliet read.
Lassie scoffed, “That’s a load of bull!”
“What matters, Detective, is that we now have a lead. Mr. Spencer, go with O’Hara and Lassiter back to the mall to see if you can get anything else. The girl’s parents will remain here under heavy guard until we get this solved,” Karen ordered.