“If you do, I’ll have you and the spirits arrested,” Lassiter said.

“That puts me in a terrible position,” Shawn said. “Because I don’t want to go to jail, but the spirits don’t care at all. So they’re going to speak through me, whatever happens to my earthly body.”

“Not if it gets Tased into unconsciousness,” Lassiter said.

Juliet O’Hara stepped between them. “Or if it comes with us to see the victim.”

Lassiter stared as if he’d been the one who’d been Tased and she was still pulling the trigger. “You want to invite him to a crime scene?”

“If this turns out to be as weird as we’ve been told, odds are the chief is going to ask him to help anyway,” O’Hara said. “This way he’s here at the beginning.”

Lassiter scowled. Shawn beamed back at him cheerfully.

“Fine,” Lassiter said in a tone that suggested he was anything but. “Maybe he’ll drop some DNA and we can arrest him for the murder.”

Lassiter spun and marched toward the museum entrance. Juliet O’Hara gave Shawn a warning look, then followed. Shawn ambled over to where Gus was standing with Professor Kitteredge. “Shall we?”

“One moment,” Kitteredge said. He went over to Ralston and threw his arms around him in a warm embrace. The thin man struggled for a moment, then succumbed like a drowning man to the ocean, finally putting his arms as far around Kitteredge as they would go, which was about the same degree of longitude as the professor’s coat pockets.

Just as Ralston’s face was turning red from oxygen starvation, Kitteredge released him and rejoined Shawn and Gus. Ralston took a couple of deep breaths, then stepped up to the front of the stairs and began speaking to the crowd in a soothing tone. “Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to apologize for this terrible inconvenience.”

Shawn held the door open and ushered Gus and Kitteredge into the museum lobby. Their steps echoed loudly on the marble floor as they walked into the empty room. “They didn’t wait for us,” Shawn said. “I hate when they do that. How are we supposed to know which way to go?”