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last01standingTitle: Back to the Future Part... Murder (2/?)
Disclaimer: Psych is not mine. It should also be noted that this is loosely inspired by Life on Mars which is also not mine.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: While the SBPD tries to piece together a twenty year old cycle of murders, Shawn Spencer finds himself thrown back to 1989, as the killer surfaces for the first time.
Author's note: Probaly the most down to earth, reasonable, logically plotted story I have ever written.except for all the time travel
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BACK TO THE FUTURE PART... MURDER
TWO
He could hear beeping--which meant he probably wasn’t dead. Unless lying on his back in the dark listening to an oddly regular beeping was what happened in Hell. Actually, Shawn thought that sounded quite a bit like his idea of hell. Endless boredom. No movies. No cases. No Gus, Lassie or Juliet.
Beeps at regular intervals, separated by a little less then a second, slowly speeding up... Hospital. Which meant that the odd itching in his arm must be an IV and the thing in his mouth’s probably some sort of feeding tube.
He opened his eye, attempting to form words but the tube in his mouth prevents him from making anything but a choking sound. He panicked. He didn’t know who he was when he couldn’t talk. Outside Gus, the sound of his own voice had been his only constant companion.
Dimly, he took note of the nurse coming into the room. She was blond and round and his mind put together a billion little details about her person before he could stop it. Motheroftwodogpersonwearingherbackupuniform...
“Calm down, Mr. Savage,” she said, trying to be calming. “It’s safe. You’re going to be all right.”
Is it safe? Laurence Olivier asked Dustan Hoffman in the depths of his mind and he didn’t like at all that his brain jumped straight to Marathon Man. Where’s Gus? He tried to ask. Where’s Gus, where’s Psych?
“Detective Savage, you’re in the hospital. Calm down.”
What hospital? He tried to ask. Gus! GUS!
He moved his lips but no sound came out. Another person entered the room. A doctor this time, Is it safe? “Mr. Savage?” the doctor said. “Detective Savage? Can you hear me? I need you to calm down. You were involved in an incident.”
Stabbed. He was stabbed and he left a handprint of blood sliding down the window pane of the office that wasn’t Psych. He nodded. He understood. He felt foggy. They had him on painkillers but Shawn couldn’t ever keep the omnipresent voice of reason silent in his head. It cut through the fog, sobering in its force.
Detective Savage? it said.
***
Gus sat at Juliet’s bedside. She was awake, sitting upright with her shoulder bound in a sling so as not to disturb the stab wound.
Juliet had let him see the charts. He knew the prognosis wasn’t good. Best case scenario was sixty to seventy percent recovered mobility. Worst case scenario was a completely dead limb. Juliet didn’t seem to be letting it bother her as she pawed through the case file Gus had brought with him. “If Lassiter is right and this is the same guy, I think we’re in some major trouble.”
“And if Lassiter’s not right?”
She didn’t answer him, reaching over with her off hand to turn the page. There was an IV in her wrist. She was scheduled for a second surgery in two hours. Gus suspected work was a coping mechanism, suspected the injury would confine her to a desk for the duration of her career. “Check this out,” she said, handing Gus the file. “Detective Shawn Savage from Arizona. First guy to go missing. Never officially said he resurfaced but there’s also something about a Detective Savage in Santa Barbara.” She squinted at the page. “Looks like he disappeared as well.”
“You think they’re the same guy?”
“I think it’s worth a call to Lassiter.”
***
“Shawn?” the voice said.
“Dad?” Shawn whispered. His eyes were heavy, almost glued shut. His midsection ached and his throat felt scratchy but the foggy numbness of the painkillers had lifted somewhat. “Dad, what happened? Where’s---“
“I don’t know who you’re looking for, Detective Savage, but I am not your father.”
Impossible. He knew that voice. Would have known that voice even if it hadn’t haunted his childhood demanding, how many hats?
He cracked open his eye. Jesus, no hat, but that was a hell of a toupee. “Jesus, Dad, I thought we agreed hair plugs or nothing. You look like you have a rat on your scalp.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate the color commentary detective, I would like to remind you that you were the victim of a planned attack and I need to take a statement.”
His dad, and it was his dad, looked surprisingly young with hair that at a second glance was probably not a toupee wearing his police blues even though he retired years before this. “Seriously though,” Shawn asked. “What’s with the costume party?”
“Look, you’re obviously delirious. I’m going to go get the doctor and I’ll come back and take your statement later.”
“I got stabbed,” Shawn said. And his dad—no, Detective Henry Spencer of the SBPD—turned around.
“Yes,” Henry said. “Yes, you did. The knife punctured your lung. You were lucky to make it to the hospital let alone wake back up.”
“That explains why my insides are on fire.”
Henry let out a dry laugh and the feeling of doom solidified around Shawn’s stab wound. His dad never laughed at his jokes. It had to be at least 80% stab wound sympathy. Maybe 90%.
“I’m a little fuzzy on the details of how I got here,” Shawn hedged, hating every word of it. “Not to mention where here is or when it is...” or why you keep calling me detective Savage.
“You’re in Santa Barbara,” Henry answered. “You get some rest. You’re in no condition to be talking to anyone right now. Get some rest. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
He left the room but Shawn didn’t feel like resting. By his count it had been at least a day since he was on his feet and that was more then his rest quota for a usual week. He sat up, ignoring the protest from his stitches and the aching in his lungs. There was a bag of personal effects at his bedside. He expected the clothes would be impounded as evidence. But there had to be something, in his pockets that could have accounted for where he was and more importantly where Gus was.
The bag in fact only held three items. Two shoes and a small black wallet. He opened the wallet in slow confusion. He didn’t have a wallet and the only form of identification he carried was the laminated SBPD badge he’d been given as a joke.
But it wasn’t a wallet.
It was a badge.
The bottom fell out of his world.
A badge that had been issued to Detective Shawn Savage of the Phoenix Police Department in 1987. An ID card with his own face smiling up at him. He squeezed his eyes shut but when he opened them again the badge was still there.
***
“I’m sure Shawn’s fine,” Henry Spencer said gruffly. “He just got paid. He probably opted for a week in Malibu rather then Santa Barbara. Mark my words, Shawn’s going to be back.”
“We heard the same thing from Mr. Guster,” Chief Vick said amiably. “That’s actually not why I wanted to talk to you. Do you remember a case twenty years ago I think we called it the three strike case.”
“The one with the cop attacks.”
“You worked on it more then I did.”
“Henry, cut the modesty act. I was a working the streets at the time and you were one of the most respected officers on the force. Everyone knew you were the best damn detective in the place and the only reason you didn’t make it official was that you wanted to be around for your kid. You did a preliminary interview with a Detective Shawn Savage.”
“Yeah, I think I remember something like that.”
“Detective O’Hara was looking through some old cases and came up with the name. Savage was the only name ever connected to two different Three Strike cases.”
“I’m sure all my notes are complete.”
“I don’t want notes. I want your gut feeling about this guy.”
Henry leaned back, crossed his arms. “Honestly, he pissed me off.”
***
“I don’t remember much,” Shawn recited listlessly for what must have been the hundredth time. It never got easier to say. “Look I was one place and then I was here and whatever happened in between really kind of worked. Did you see the stab wound?”
“Detective Savage.”
“Shawn,” he corrected.
“Detective Savage,” repeated Henry Spencer. “From what I understand, you left the Phoenix police department on a transfer and disappeared somewhere in transit.”
“If that’s what your piece of paper says, I’m guessing that’s what happened.”
“That was a week ago.”
“Affirmative.”
“And you don’t remember anything.”
“If I did, don’t you think I would have said something? I get stabbed and when I wake up, suddenly I’m Sam Tyler.” He hesitated. “Sam Beckett? Sam Winchester? Wow what is it with that name?”
“Look, Detective Savage, I don’t have the slightest clue what you’re saying.”
“I want to see the case file,” Shawn demanded.
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me. I want to see what you’ve had written down in your little file regarding me and my transfer, officer Spencer. Maybe it might jog my memory.”
He could see his dad bristle and he drank in the sight with a sort of vindictive pleasure. “I think I have enough for the moment. They may send in Detective Sparks to follow up sometime later but he’s busy at the moment. Thank you for your time.”
Wow, a thank you for your time, that sounded an awful lot like shove it, asshole. He’d wondered where his dad perfected that particular skill, had always liked to think he’d had a hand in its development.
His dad left with the same bristled air of annoyance, leaving Shawn to the maddening noise of the heart monitor. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling where there were seventy-two tiles and prayed to God that this was Back to the Future and not Terminator.
***
The call came in while Juliet was under for surgery. Gus sat in the waiting room, half asleep after the frantic exhaustion from the case. He’d been banned from the police headquarters, Lassiter saying that his pacing made everyone more nervous then necessary.
When he fumbled his cell out of his pocket and down to the ground before managing to answer it, he can’t help but see Lassiter’s point. “Burton Guster,” he answered, trying to sound suave.
“Guster,” Lassiter barked. “We’re in the alley outside Psych. You need to get here as soon as you can.”
“What happen? Did you find Shawn?”
“Just get here, Guster.”
***
They let him out of the hospital after ten days. Shawn suspected they, medically speaking, would have preferred to have liked to keep him under observation for a few more but an inactive Shawn was a dangerous Shawn and the medical staff seemed to have noticed.
Santa Barbara in 1989 really wasn’t much different then it was in 2010. Except for being twenty years out of time, Shawn might have almost found it comforting. But the fact remained that he was twenty years out of time and his brain hadn’t stopped freaking out as it tried to find a logical reason as to why.
The best he can come up with was not a comforting notion in the slightest.
He must be dead. If this was a case for Psych, he would already be betting on that being his answer. He had examined all the evidence—the stab wound, the collapsed lung and reached the only logical conclusion.
He had died the front door of Psych, his bloodied handprint streaked against the window pane.
He took a deep breath, drinking in the pain in his lungs. He might have died twenty years in the future, but right here, right now, he was alive.
Which meant there was something he could do to fix this.
***
More next Tuesday
| 3 |
Disclaimer: Psych is not mine. It should also be noted that this is loosely inspired by Life on Mars which is also not mine.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: While the SBPD tries to piece together a twenty year old cycle of murders, Shawn Spencer finds himself thrown back to 1989, as the killer surfaces for the first time.
Author's note: Probaly the most down to earth, reasonable, logically plotted story I have ever written.
TWO
He could hear beeping--which meant he probably wasn’t dead. Unless lying on his back in the dark listening to an oddly regular beeping was what happened in Hell. Actually, Shawn thought that sounded quite a bit like his idea of hell. Endless boredom. No movies. No cases. No Gus, Lassie or Juliet.
Beeps at regular intervals, separated by a little less then a second, slowly speeding up... Hospital. Which meant that the odd itching in his arm must be an IV and the thing in his mouth’s probably some sort of feeding tube.
He opened his eye, attempting to form words but the tube in his mouth prevents him from making anything but a choking sound. He panicked. He didn’t know who he was when he couldn’t talk. Outside Gus, the sound of his own voice had been his only constant companion.
Dimly, he took note of the nurse coming into the room. She was blond and round and his mind put together a billion little details about her person before he could stop it. Motheroftwodogpersonwearingherbackupuniform...
“Calm down, Mr. Savage,” she said, trying to be calming. “It’s safe. You’re going to be all right.”
Is it safe? Laurence Olivier asked Dustan Hoffman in the depths of his mind and he didn’t like at all that his brain jumped straight to Marathon Man. Where’s Gus? He tried to ask. Where’s Gus, where’s Psych?
“Detective Savage, you’re in the hospital. Calm down.”
What hospital? He tried to ask. Gus! GUS!
He moved his lips but no sound came out. Another person entered the room. A doctor this time, Is it safe? “Mr. Savage?” the doctor said. “Detective Savage? Can you hear me? I need you to calm down. You were involved in an incident.”
Stabbed. He was stabbed and he left a handprint of blood sliding down the window pane of the office that wasn’t Psych. He nodded. He understood. He felt foggy. They had him on painkillers but Shawn couldn’t ever keep the omnipresent voice of reason silent in his head. It cut through the fog, sobering in its force.
Detective Savage? it said.
Gus sat at Juliet’s bedside. She was awake, sitting upright with her shoulder bound in a sling so as not to disturb the stab wound.
Juliet had let him see the charts. He knew the prognosis wasn’t good. Best case scenario was sixty to seventy percent recovered mobility. Worst case scenario was a completely dead limb. Juliet didn’t seem to be letting it bother her as she pawed through the case file Gus had brought with him. “If Lassiter is right and this is the same guy, I think we’re in some major trouble.”
“And if Lassiter’s not right?”
She didn’t answer him, reaching over with her off hand to turn the page. There was an IV in her wrist. She was scheduled for a second surgery in two hours. Gus suspected work was a coping mechanism, suspected the injury would confine her to a desk for the duration of her career. “Check this out,” she said, handing Gus the file. “Detective Shawn Savage from Arizona. First guy to go missing. Never officially said he resurfaced but there’s also something about a Detective Savage in Santa Barbara.” She squinted at the page. “Looks like he disappeared as well.”
“You think they’re the same guy?”
“I think it’s worth a call to Lassiter.”
“Shawn?” the voice said.
“Dad?” Shawn whispered. His eyes were heavy, almost glued shut. His midsection ached and his throat felt scratchy but the foggy numbness of the painkillers had lifted somewhat. “Dad, what happened? Where’s---“
“I don’t know who you’re looking for, Detective Savage, but I am not your father.”
Impossible. He knew that voice. Would have known that voice even if it hadn’t haunted his childhood demanding, how many hats?
He cracked open his eye. Jesus, no hat, but that was a hell of a toupee. “Jesus, Dad, I thought we agreed hair plugs or nothing. You look like you have a rat on your scalp.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate the color commentary detective, I would like to remind you that you were the victim of a planned attack and I need to take a statement.”
His dad, and it was his dad, looked surprisingly young with hair that at a second glance was probably not a toupee wearing his police blues even though he retired years before this. “Seriously though,” Shawn asked. “What’s with the costume party?”
“Look, you’re obviously delirious. I’m going to go get the doctor and I’ll come back and take your statement later.”
“I got stabbed,” Shawn said. And his dad—no, Detective Henry Spencer of the SBPD—turned around.
“Yes,” Henry said. “Yes, you did. The knife punctured your lung. You were lucky to make it to the hospital let alone wake back up.”
“That explains why my insides are on fire.”
Henry let out a dry laugh and the feeling of doom solidified around Shawn’s stab wound. His dad never laughed at his jokes. It had to be at least 80% stab wound sympathy. Maybe 90%.
“I’m a little fuzzy on the details of how I got here,” Shawn hedged, hating every word of it. “Not to mention where here is or when it is...” or why you keep calling me detective Savage.
“You’re in Santa Barbara,” Henry answered. “You get some rest. You’re in no condition to be talking to anyone right now. Get some rest. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
He left the room but Shawn didn’t feel like resting. By his count it had been at least a day since he was on his feet and that was more then his rest quota for a usual week. He sat up, ignoring the protest from his stitches and the aching in his lungs. There was a bag of personal effects at his bedside. He expected the clothes would be impounded as evidence. But there had to be something, in his pockets that could have accounted for where he was and more importantly where Gus was.
The bag in fact only held three items. Two shoes and a small black wallet. He opened the wallet in slow confusion. He didn’t have a wallet and the only form of identification he carried was the laminated SBPD badge he’d been given as a joke.
But it wasn’t a wallet.
It was a badge.
The bottom fell out of his world.
A badge that had been issued to Detective Shawn Savage of the Phoenix Police Department in 1987. An ID card with his own face smiling up at him. He squeezed his eyes shut but when he opened them again the badge was still there.
“I’m sure Shawn’s fine,” Henry Spencer said gruffly. “He just got paid. He probably opted for a week in Malibu rather then Santa Barbara. Mark my words, Shawn’s going to be back.”
“We heard the same thing from Mr. Guster,” Chief Vick said amiably. “That’s actually not why I wanted to talk to you. Do you remember a case twenty years ago I think we called it the three strike case.”
“The one with the cop attacks.”
“You worked on it more then I did.”
“Henry, cut the modesty act. I was a working the streets at the time and you were one of the most respected officers on the force. Everyone knew you were the best damn detective in the place and the only reason you didn’t make it official was that you wanted to be around for your kid. You did a preliminary interview with a Detective Shawn Savage.”
“Yeah, I think I remember something like that.”
“Detective O’Hara was looking through some old cases and came up with the name. Savage was the only name ever connected to two different Three Strike cases.”
“I’m sure all my notes are complete.”
“I don’t want notes. I want your gut feeling about this guy.”
Henry leaned back, crossed his arms. “Honestly, he pissed me off.”
“I don’t remember much,” Shawn recited listlessly for what must have been the hundredth time. It never got easier to say. “Look I was one place and then I was here and whatever happened in between really kind of worked. Did you see the stab wound?”
“Detective Savage.”
“Shawn,” he corrected.
“Detective Savage,” repeated Henry Spencer. “From what I understand, you left the Phoenix police department on a transfer and disappeared somewhere in transit.”
“If that’s what your piece of paper says, I’m guessing that’s what happened.”
“That was a week ago.”
“Affirmative.”
“And you don’t remember anything.”
“If I did, don’t you think I would have said something? I get stabbed and when I wake up, suddenly I’m Sam Tyler.” He hesitated. “Sam Beckett? Sam Winchester? Wow what is it with that name?”
“Look, Detective Savage, I don’t have the slightest clue what you’re saying.”
“I want to see the case file,” Shawn demanded.
“I’m sorry?”
“You heard me. I want to see what you’ve had written down in your little file regarding me and my transfer, officer Spencer. Maybe it might jog my memory.”
He could see his dad bristle and he drank in the sight with a sort of vindictive pleasure. “I think I have enough for the moment. They may send in Detective Sparks to follow up sometime later but he’s busy at the moment. Thank you for your time.”
Wow, a thank you for your time, that sounded an awful lot like shove it, asshole. He’d wondered where his dad perfected that particular skill, had always liked to think he’d had a hand in its development.
His dad left with the same bristled air of annoyance, leaving Shawn to the maddening noise of the heart monitor. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling where there were seventy-two tiles and prayed to God that this was Back to the Future and not Terminator.
The call came in while Juliet was under for surgery. Gus sat in the waiting room, half asleep after the frantic exhaustion from the case. He’d been banned from the police headquarters, Lassiter saying that his pacing made everyone more nervous then necessary.
When he fumbled his cell out of his pocket and down to the ground before managing to answer it, he can’t help but see Lassiter’s point. “Burton Guster,” he answered, trying to sound suave.
“Guster,” Lassiter barked. “We’re in the alley outside Psych. You need to get here as soon as you can.”
“What happen? Did you find Shawn?”
“Just get here, Guster.”
They let him out of the hospital after ten days. Shawn suspected they, medically speaking, would have preferred to have liked to keep him under observation for a few more but an inactive Shawn was a dangerous Shawn and the medical staff seemed to have noticed.
Santa Barbara in 1989 really wasn’t much different then it was in 2010. Except for being twenty years out of time, Shawn might have almost found it comforting. But the fact remained that he was twenty years out of time and his brain hadn’t stopped freaking out as it tried to find a logical reason as to why.
The best he can come up with was not a comforting notion in the slightest.
He must be dead. If this was a case for Psych, he would already be betting on that being his answer. He had examined all the evidence—the stab wound, the collapsed lung and reached the only logical conclusion.
He had died the front door of Psych, his bloodied handprint streaked against the window pane.
He took a deep breath, drinking in the pain in his lungs. He might have died twenty years in the future, but right here, right now, he was alive.
Which meant there was something he could do to fix this.
More next Tuesday
| 3 |