"This ain't gonna be an easy one," I sighed into my coffee. Wright and I were comparing notes at a favourite cop hangout, the Greasy Spoon diner, across from the precinct. She bit into her BLT with a weird sort of delicate gusto and grinned. "I love a juicy murder."

"You're kinda freaky, you know that, right?"

She shrugged. "You are what you are. So, any of the Giles' on your short list?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if they all planned it and paid the gardener to do the dirty work."

She raised a brow and gestured me to continue. "Let me put it this way," I said. "I kept waiting for the cheesy soap opera suspense music to kick in when I interviewed them. This Donovan guy, whose nickname is Spike by the way, was into everybody's business, including the family one."

"No shit," she said dryly. To live in Sunnydale and not know that William Donovan was the President and right-hand man at Rupert Giles' conglomerate was to live under a very large rock with your fingers in your ears. Personally I didn't think there was anything special about that particular family, but then, I wasn't from Sunnydale. "Anyway, everyone I talked to seemed to have some reason to go on the list. There's the ex-wife, Buffy-"

Wright snickered. "Buffy?"

"You wouldn't believe the list of names I've got," I said, still not over the more ludicrous monikers. "There's the ex's sister, Willow-"

"She's one of the big-shots at the company," Wright said consideringly. "Thinking a power/jealousy angle?" There was a reason I liked my partner -- it was exactly what I'd been thinking. "Yeah. Then there's their brother, Xander." I explained to her what he'd said and how he'd acted and she agreed that he was worth looking into. Wright finished her sandwich and flagged the waitress down for coffee. "What about Giles senior?"

"No reason I could find to put him on the list from the brief conversation we had, but there's something off about him. Something about the bumbling old British man act that I just don't buy." Rupert Giles had had a sharp, calculating gleam of intelligence in his eyes that didn't match the quaint older gentleman façade, and I intended to keep an eye on the old man during the investigation.

"I can't figure out the D'Angelo guy. His wife is Giles' niece but he seemed much more comfortable in that house than an in-law should. He discovered the body and I got the feeling there was some sort of history between him and the victim, but nobody said more than they had to. In fact, D'Angelo was the mouthpiece of the group for the most part."

Wright looked intrigued as she often did on any murder case we got thrown our way. "What's his story?"

"Says his wife had some strange pregnancy craving and he was at some all-night convenience store trying to find it." It was the only alibi that was solid and could be easily verified, so the guy wasn't high up on my list. But it was still too early to make assumptions. "There were two hundred people at that party," I said, handing Wright the list. Her mouth tightened and some of the interest in her eyes faded, and I smirked. Having to interview that many people was any cop's nightmare. It usually proved a fruitless waste of valuable time.

"Fuck," she swore. I couldn't have agreed more but reminded her that because it was such a high profile case, the Mayor (via the Chief) had the entire department at our disposal so we could pawn off much of the list, saving only the family for ourselves.

"You never said why the ex-wife was on your short list," Wright said out of the blue as we headed back to the car.

"Yes I did. She's the ex-wife."

"She's a suspect just because she's divorced from the victim? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." It made sense to me – in my experience, nine out of ten divorced women wished their ex-husbands dead, mine included.

"Still worth looking into." I fully intended to learn more about the Giles family than they knew existed on record. "Who's first on the list?"

"A guy named…."

"Wesley Wyndham-Price?"

The man at the door of the modest house was a clean cut with cool blue eyes, probably in his late thirties and looked less than pleased to see us standing on his porch. "Yes?" He said warily, his accent crisp and upper-crust. I flashed my badge. "Detectives Gunn and Wright. Do you have a few minutes?"

"I'm sorry, Detectives, we're just on our way out."

I exchanged a look with Darla. "Sir, this will only take a minute."

Wyndham-Price looked ready to protest once more, but a voice spoke up behind him. "Wesley, who is it?" A willowy woman with a slight southern twang in her voice came to the door. Her eyes were puffy and nose red. She'd obviously been crying. The Brit's irritation with us fought with apparent concern for his wife. "The detectives handling Spike's case, Darling," he said, a great deal softer with her then he'd been with us.

"We just have a few questions, Ma'am."

There was a brief pause, then, "Please come in."

I ignored Wyndham-Price as I passed him, sort of an unnerving tactic of mine, and Wright flashed him a cool smile – an unnerving tactic of hers. My partner had this way with men that I'd never understood. She was hot, true, but she was damn scary if you knew her.

"Can I get you something?" The wife offered. "Coffee?" I accepted. It looked like the woman needed to do something to keep her mind busy. She hurried off to the kitchen while her husband glowered at us from the doorway. Wright subtly followed the wife to 'lend a hand' with the coffee and I started in on Wyndham-Price. "Are you and Rupert Giles related?" I asked causally, perusing the room. So far there were three British men involved in this case, one of them being the victim. It was probable that they were connected through family.

"He's my half-brother," Wyndham-Price all but snapped. "How is that relevant?"

"Oh, I was just curious. So you were at the party last night at your brother's house? Where were you between ten and eleven p.m.?"

"With my wife."

"I'm gonna need a little more information than that," I say dryly. This guy was being especially obtuse for no reason I could understand. Unless he was hiding something…

To my surprise, the prickly Brit blushed. "We, ah, we were making use of one of the guest rooms." I got the drift and didn't bother keeping my amusement to myself. "For the whole hour?"

"Yes."

"Uh huh," I made a show of jotting the info down in my trusty notepad. "And before you and your wife went upstairs, did you notice anything unusual?"

"Not particularly," he said after a moment of thought. "When we went up, about quarter to ten, the party was really just getting started. If I remember, Spike was…" Wyndham-Price stopped and frowned. "Actually, Spike was arguing with Buffy."

That was the best piece of news I'd heard all day. Suddenly much more interested, I encouraged him to continue.

"That in itself wasn't unusual; they often argued, even while married. But I remember noticing that Buffy seemed to be drunk. She's not a huge drinker," he explained. "But lately she's been drinking quite often." My mind flashed back to that morning and my meeting with the family. She'd been drinking then, too. I asked him a few more questions before collecting Wright.

In the car we compared notes. "The woman wouldn't shut up," Wright said, pleased. "I offered my condolences and she burst into tears and told me the whole damn story – how Spike was such a good friend to her, how he'd been crushed when Buffy left him, how he and Angel never got along because of this Buffy chick." I waited, knowing that look on her face. "And," She said smugly. "How jealous her husband always was of Spike because of his position in the company and Giles senior's life."

"No shit?" This investigation was starting to look like an episode of Dallas. "I want to talk to Buffy Giles." I pointed the car in the direction of the Giles property. "Maybe she can tell us who shot J.R."