The Ryan Report -- Episode 302 "He's Dead, She's Dead"

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Back when I was but a wee lad, I used to have a mentalist act. And by “have a mentalist act,” I mean that I tried to stitch together an act from five or six tricks I skimmed over in a library book in a single afternoon. My first, and last, performance was at one of my sister’s birthday parties.For my finale, I practiced and practiced a trick wherein I’d use my “psychic powers” to say what card a volunteer was holding. Except there wasn’t any trickery to it… I just practiced concentrating really, really hard to try and “see” what the card was.I thought with enough practice I could develop “psychic powers.” It might shock you, but neither that trick nor the rest of the show went as well as I’d hoped.

Why am I talking about this terrible memory, other than to offer myself up for gigs at birthday parties? Well, because even though it’s not on the NYPD Detectives test, but I think every detective needs to have some “psychic powers” of their own. Beckett and Espo say that I’m a crazy, but I believe that you need to have some mindreading in you to get by at this job.‘Cause if you don’t, you’ll end up back on patrol, writing jaywalking tickets and giving tourists direction to wherever the nearest bathroom is.

In my opinion, you either have it or you don’t… And I’ve seen too many cops who don’t.It’s knowing what witness isn’t telling you everything; knowing that somebody’s alibi seems too perfect; knowing that there’s something off about the crime scene and you need to figure out what it is. And I may not have enough psychic power for that card trick, but I have enough to know those things.

The funny thing is, even though Beckett and Espo (along with most everyone else on the job) will swear up and down there’s no such thing as psychic powers, they’re always calling upon them . They just call it “listening to your gut.” I’ve seen Beckett stare at the murder board in the precinct bullpen for hours, seemingly not even blinking – willing her psychic powers to make the evidence call out to her and explain what really happened. Espo will close his eyes and randomly pick out a place for us to start doing our door to door canvassing. He claims it’s just a decision making method, but I can tell he’s trying to make the universe guide him towards a witness.

Hell, Captain Montgomery does it the most. That man is not shy about his ability to read your mind and then put you in check about whatever it is you’re thinking. Don’t even try thinking anything devious around him…

Truth is, when you’re trying to make sense of the senseless, you have to be guided by something. George Lucas would call it the Force, Esposito & Beckett would call it their gut, I’m calling it psychic powers. Because sometimes you have to make a leap when you don’t know where you’re going to land, and nine times out of ten, there’s a reason you jumped.

And you know what? I finally nailed that card trick – managed to pick Esposito’s card ten times out of times. Although I have to confess it wasn’t through psychic powers. I did it the old-fashioned way… I marked the cards.But, hey, if that’s what it takes to make Espo believe in psychic powers, it’s all worth it.