Chapter Four:

The quick look of shock in the blonde's eyes almost brought a smile to Buffy's lips. She managed to hide it as she waited for an answer.

"M-my fingerprints?"

"Yes, your fingerprints, Darla. In William Pratt's apartment. In his bedroom, on his nightstand. And I'm betting that your sister didn't know you were there either."

Darla stared back and forth wildly between the two detectives. Buffy wished she could hear what the woman was thinking. She had an idea it wouldn't be pleasant.

"I think I want a lawyer now," Darla said, her voice shrill.

"Fine, we'll have you transported downtown. Do you have your own lawyer or would you..." Buffy began.

"I'll get my own, thank you."

Buffy took her arm and escorted her out of the study. She allowed her to go upstairs to get dressed, accompanied by a female officer.

While they waited there was a knock on the door, another officer arrived with the warrant for the DNA samples needed from the mother along with another warrant for the clothing the family was wearing that evening.

Amidst much protesting, the warrants was served, the samples taken and the clothing gathered. Fred wrapped everything up and with a smile over at Buffy and Angel, left for the lab. They waited until Darla came back down, and, despite the fit thrown by the mayor, they put her in the back of a patrol car. Buffy and Angel followed, listening to Mayor Strauss screaming that he would have their badges, as they backed out of his driveway.

"Why are the rich so..." Angel couldn't think of the word he wanted to use.

"Spoiled," she supplied, following behind the patrol car that carried their suspect downtown. She parked in the garage under the headquarters building and followed Darla into the elevator that would take her to the interrogation rooms.

She took her into one of the rooms herself, a plain dingy rectangle of a room, a table bolted to the middle, four chairs pushed underneath it. The prerequisite two way mirror was across from where she sat Darla, but besides that, and the window in the door, the room was bare.

"Can I get you some coffee while we wait for your lawyer to show up?"

Darla stared with a hostile expression. "No," she said briefly and then stared out the small window in the door behind Buffy.

"Okay, then this officer will keep you company while you wait. As soon as your counsel arrives, I'll bring him right in." Buffy left, heading for the bull pen in homicide where her desk awaited her. Forms needed filling out, files updated and paperwork done so that when the lawyer did show up, everything would be dotted and crossed.

She never made it to her desk though.

"Summers!"

Buffy closed her eyes, wincing at the sound of her last name. She plastered on a smile as she turned to greet the man who was looking at her with murder in his eyes. "Hi Cap. You're in early." She looked behind him and saw Angel hurrying down the hall from the other direction.

"Fuck that. What is this I hear, you have the Mayor's daughter in interrogation? Are you nuts?" Captain had his arms waving in the air, pacing the floor in front of her. "I just walked in, went to my desk and the Mayor was on the phone. He wants your badges," he turned and saw Angel. "Both of your badges. So tell me why I shouldn't give them to him." He turned, his hair standing up on his head as if he'd been tugging at it. His tie was already crooked, the top button of his shirt undone.

"Cap, if we could go into your office..." she started to say.

"Damn straight. In my office, both of you, now!" He stormed away in front of them, muttering invectives.

Buffy glanced at Angel and caught his look of warning. He waved her into the office in front of him and followed her, shutting the door behind them.

The captain didn't offer them a seat and they didn't take one, standing in front of him like two school children in front of a principal. Buffy resented the feeling but she sucked it up and prepared to make her statement. "Cap, I haven't had time to get back to you or to write up my reports yet tonight."

"Just tell me what we got. Angel are you're running point on this?" The captain stared hard at him.

"Uh, no, Cap. It's her show. She was first on scene and she's been running point."

"So this is your fuck up then?" The captain asked her.

Buffy sent Angel a look of gratitude. She'd expected him to stand in front of her, to not let her take her knocks, but this was her show, and he'd backed off. "Yes, sir, if you want to call it a fuck up. Darla's fingerprints were found in the victim's apartment, sir, a place she swore to me, under oath, that she hadn't been." Buffy stressed the fact that they had mirandized the suspect. "That raises questions in my mind, sir. She also fought against having DNA taken. We found a vaginal contribution in the victim's underwear and also semen in the victim's sheets."

"Has any of this been run through the lab yet?" Cap asked, settling down behind his desk. He nodded both of them into the chairs in front of it.

"No sir, Winifred Burkle, from the crime lab had just finished taken samples right before we transported her out." Buffy settled down a little now that the Captain was listening instead of ranting about. "The victim was poisoned first, using an insecticide that wouldn't be used in everyday gardening. Then he was shot, point blank range. The pistol used hasn't been recovered as of yet but I still have people hunting the grounds and checking the house."

"You brought her in on the strength of a fingerprint only?"

"Fingerprints, sir. Throughout the apartment, the bedroom, the bedside table. She's been in that apartment more than once."

The captain sat and thought. He knew where she was leading but they needed the evidence, and to get it, she needed what they had in the lab. "Okay," he said slowly, nodding his head. "I'll let you run with this. Angel, you're there also. I want you to stall, keep her busy until you can prove she was having sexual relations with the victim. You might be able to use that to pull more out of her."

Buffy nodded, glanced over at Angel. He cocked his head to the side and gave her that lopsided smile that tore chunks out of her heart. "Let's go get em," he said.

They went down to the bullpen, sitting at her desk and writing up reports. She called the lab, trying to hurry her tests through DNA. They got word about an hour later that the attorney had arrived.

"I'm surprised he gave us this long," Buffy said as she pulled her file together and got ready for the interview.

"Yeah, I thought for sure the Mayor would have been pounding down doors getting someone here. I'm betting he thought he could brow beat the Captain into dismissing what we have." Angel picked up some paperwork of his own and grabbed the manila envelope that contained their crime scene photos.

Buffy grabbed her cup of the noxious brew the coffee pot in the bullpen put out and headed down to interrogation, feeling the hint of adrenaline that the chase of the subject always brought out in her. She was revved for this interview.

Buffy opened the door, noting that Darla's counsel was one of the most highest paid attorneys in town. Of course, she hadn't expected any less, and she had been up against him before. The last time, in court when he was trying to get his scum bag client off on murdering his girlfriend with a piano wire. The man had the matching length of piano wire in his pocket at the time of the arrest.

Lindsey McDonald was a good attorney, sharp, smooth and quick. He checked all angles before making a move, knew his way around the court house and the who's who of judges. He kept up on all the latest gossip as well as all the latest developments in the law. And he worked his tail off when it came to making money.

"Lindsey McDonald," Buffy said in greeting when she walked into the interrogation room. She looked Darla over, noting that the wait hadn't been a good one for her. Her hair was mussed and one of the buttons on her blouse looked as if she'd been pulling at it, the material bunched and stretched around it. She was nervous, though she was trying to hide it.

Buffy sat her file and her coffee mug down on the table, pulling a chair out for herself. Angel sat next to her, handing her the manila envelope full of photos. None of what they had were they planning on using right now. It was just smoke, to make it look as if they had more.

"Did you change you mind on the coffee, Darla?" Buffy asked solicitously. "Water? Anything?"

"Just for you to stop your nonsense and let me out of here," the blonde said viciously. "I haven't done anything that warrant..."

"Darla," the slick attorney butted in. "Remember what I told you."

She crossed her arms in front of her and under her breasts and stared mutinously at Buffy, who smiled back at her.

"You have nothing on my client to call for this trip, Detectives. And unless you can provide any evidence to the contrary, I'm going to advise my client to get up and leave."

"Your client is being held under suspicion of murder, counselor. She has been read her rights and that is why you were brought in to begin with. She lied under oath, disclaiming any knowledge of the victim's apartment when her fingerprints were found throughout the place."

Lindsey leaned over and whispered into his client's ear, the one sided conversation taking no more than thirty seconds. Darla shrugged and shifted her gaze towards Angel, her eyes raking over him before settling just over his shoulder.

"My client wishes to revise her statement. She was having an affair with one William Pratt, an affair that she carried on behind her sister's back. That is why her fingerprints were found in the victim's home."

"Would you client also like to explain to us this?" Buffy pulled out a sheet of paper that held some script writing on it. "This is a copy of a journal entry that we found in the victim's bedroom, his journal. The journal he used to keep track of his women and his schemes. And I quote: She'll be over in a little while, that bitch. She thought she could stiff me. I'll show her. She doesn't want me going to her big time daddy, she'd better bring me the money and be ready to fuck me. Once you get her clothes off of her, she's one sweet little slut in the sack. Course she don't got the curves of her sister, Harmony. Or her momma, but she can really move those skinny little hips."

"Do you have any other sisters, Darla?"

"All that proves is that Mr. Pratt was blackmailing my client, for both sex and money. It proves that she is nothing but a victim in all of this too." Lindsey leaned back in his chair, his hand going to his client's shoulder, sympathy oozing from him like slime.

"What it does is show motive. Doesn't it Darla? Did it piss you off, to have to sleep with a man you thought so far beneath you? To sleep with your sister's boyfriend, a man you considered scum? What was he holding over you? If there was blackmail involved, what was he going to tell your father about? I've got the crime lab over at his apartment right now, tearing that place apart. They'll find it. You know they will. Wouldn't it just be smarter for you to tell us now?"

"It wasn't like that..." Darla blurted out, sitting up a tad bit straighter. "That bastard, he deserved..."

Lindsey's hand clamped down hard on her shoulder.

"What did he deserve? Did he deserve to die, to suffer for what he put you through?"

"I want a moment to confer with my client," Lindsey spoke up, staring Darla in the eyes to keep her from speaking. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear waiting for her nod. When she did, he looked to Buffy. "Is this all you have, some fingerprints that my client has explained and the ramblings of a man who's addictions were well known?"

"Is that what your client is saying this is? A series of ramblings, something that William Pratt just made up? You think he just made all of this up, Darla? And you expect me to believe that?" Buffy put all the disbelief she could muster into her voice. "You have to be kidding me. Do you think I'm stupid?" She pulled out the pictures of the crime scene, pictures of the body, close ups of his face. "Next you're going to tell me he's sleeping here."

"You're badgering my client, this interview is at an end." Lindsey stood and grabbed Darla's arm to help her up.

"Your client shot a man at point blank range in cold blood," Buffy said, standing now also.

"Are you charging her with murder?"

Buffy slammed down the file folder on the table, making her empty coffee mug jump. "No, not yet," she said in disgust. She stared into Darla's eyes as the woman rose. "But I know that the evidence I need is there. And you had better believe that when I find it, you'll be back here and I hope you'll be ready to talk."

Neither Darla or Lindsey spoke another word, simply rising and leaving the room. Buffy waited until the door was closed before she whirled and kicked one of the chairs, sending it flying. "Dammit!"

Angel sat back, calmly studying his nails. "You didn't really expect her to jump up and admit to it, did you?"

Buffy grabbed the chair she kicked, spinning it around and straddling it, letting her forehead drop to rest against the back. "No," she grumped. "But it would have been nice."

He chuckled. "Yeah, it would have. So, what do you want to do next?"

Buffy banged her forehead lightly against the metal back of the chair a couple of times and then looked up at him. "I want to hit the lab, see if they've gotten anything new they can give me. And then I want to go back out to the mayor's house. I want to look for that gun myself."

"You know the mayor's going to go sky high when he sees you again. He might even have a stroke."

"Yeah, well every dark cloud has a silver lining, right?" She grinned.

They struck out at the lab, the DNA lab was backed up, ballistics was tied up with another shooting across town. Discouraged, Buffy grabbed a couple of flashlights and they headed back to the mayor's house.

The deputy at the door greeted them with a smile. "He's not going to be happy to see you," he said as she signed herself in.

"Yeah, now tell me something that I don't know." Buffy knocked on the door, then rang the bell, waiting until it was finally answered.

The mayor, dressed in a finely tailored, expensively cut suit opened the door. When he saw her, he started to close the door, swore and then swung the door opened wide. "This is close to harassment, you do know that right?" He growled.

"No sir. We're here to do another search of a crime scene, not to bother you or your family." Buffy stepped past him, ignoring the scowl as she clicked on her flashlight.

She started by the dark red stain that marked where the body had lain. Using the flashlight, she peered inside of every space she could think of that would be big enough to hide a gun. Soon she was on the ground, checking under furniture, looking inside of fireplaces, going through trash cans already gone through by the crime scene techs.

Angel joined her, taking half of every room and going through it as thoroughly as Buffy was herself. They worked in silence, punctuated occasionally by a slamming of a cupboard door or a quietly hissed curse. They were almost finished with the ground floor when one of the uniforms came up. "You've got a CSI person here looking for you," he said quietly, sending a glance to where the mayor and his family sat gathered together.

"Send them in," Buffy said, wiping her forehead with the back of a latex covered hand.

Fred came in smiling. "It sure does my heart good to see Detectives in gloves with flashlights. Gives you a taste of my life," she said, laughing as Buffy narrowed her eyes at her. "I figured good news is always happy news and you'd love to see this immediately. These are copies of the ones I sent to your desk." She held out a manila folder and Buffy took it, eagerly opening it and scanning the contents.

"Fred, I think I might love you," she said, smiling and waving Angel over. She handed him the file and leaned close to CSI girl. "You want to stay for the fireworks?"

"Want me to call in your back up?" Fred asked her back.

She walked to the door while Angel and Buffy peeled off their latex gloves. Angel held the file in his hands, reading as he walked. As they approached, the mayor stood, taking a step towards Buffy. "Are you satisfied yet?" he asked, his voice hostile. "You come into our house, question our children and interrupt our privacy. And you still have no idea who killed Pratt."

"Actually, sir," Buffy said. "That isn't quite true. William Pratt was poisoned using a chemical insecticide that was found out in your garden shed. We recovered fingerprints off of that bottle and also off a glass that contained the poison and Mr. Pratt's DNA. There were two sets of prints on the glass and one set on the bottle, besides those of the gardener."

Buffy turned to the mayor's wife. "Your prints. I'm putting you under arrest for the murder of William Pratt."

The mayor stared at his wife in confusion.

"Not quite, mayor." Buffy took the file from Angel as an officer went to handcuff the mayor's wife. "Her prints were a bit of a mystery. They came back as belonging to a Gwendolyn Post from Little Rock, Arkansas. She's wanted for fraud, grand theft auto and a number of other pesky little crimes. I guess we can add identity theft as well because the woman that she claimed to be before you married her, mayor, is a 98 year old grandmother in Witchita Falls, Texas."

The mayor, his legs giving out from under him, plopped down on the couch next to Harmony. His mouth was opened but no sound came out. He could only stare at the woman whom he had married five years earlier, who had been a step mother to his daughters.

"Our lab did a test on the clothing that you were wearing at your party last night. It checks for the presence of GSR on hands or materials. We found gun shot residue on Darla's clothing."

Darla just stared at her for a moment, her eyes inscrutable. Before Buffy could move, she jumped up and knocked over a potted palm tree that was sitting in the corner. Reaching into the broken planter, she pulled out a 9mm and pointed it at Buffy. "You bitch!" she screamed, pulling the trigger.

Buffy reached for her gun and felt the impact almost at the same time. She felt herself falling and wondered why there wasn't the pain she had always thought she would feel when she was shot. She wanted to look at Angel, to see him one last time if this was going to be the end. She hit the ground with a thud and laid there, hearing a groan and then hearing more shots above her.

There was a scream, loud, blood curdling and then the sound of running feet. Buffy rolled, her hands feeling for the wound, confused when she couldn't find it.

Then she looked and felt her blood turn cold.

"A-Angel?"

He was laying on his side, facing away from her. He was so still.

Buffy felt a scream lodge in her throat. She crawled toward him, her hands touching him gently, carefully. "Angel? Please, God. Angel?" She rolled him toward her and saw the blood on his jacket, his eyes closed in a pale face. Her hand went to his throat, feeling for a pulse. "Oh, thank you, God," she hissed as she felt it there, beating strongly under her fingers. She pulled his coat free, then his shirt, searching for his wound. High in his shoulder, a nasty ragged hole bled thickly. She pulled off her jacket and reached for the quilt that lay on the back of the couch just above them. Pulling it down, she laid it against the wound and pushed down hard, trying to control the flow of blood.