Part 2:
The Interrogation Of Buffy Anne Summers
After the departure of the young Miss Summers, it wasn't long before her sister knocked on my door.
Her name, Buffy Anne Summers. Small, blond, green sad eyes. She looked like someone who'd been through a lot in her life. Blue blouse, fashionable yet inexpensive black boots. She had that confident look that some people have, a look that simply says; 'there's nothing you could say that would surprise me'. For a short person she filled the air with an almost threatening self-assurance, like she was in possession of some kind of unknown power. I wondered if I could shake that confidence. She smelled like fries and half-burnt burgers. I was hungry.
"Miss Summers."
Politely, I saluted her.
"Officer."
She responded to my salute, although her reply seemed a little stale and empty.
"Detective," I corrected her, not minding her indifference. "Detective Thrump. Ronald Thrump."
"Thrump?" she asked, and a smile played in the corner of her mouth.
I don't like my name being mocked.
"Yes, Thrump." I said, trying not to comment on anything. Her name was Buffy after all. "I believe you know why you're here."
"Yeah. I have to answer a bunch of stupid questions about the dead clown."
Funny how she immediately assumed they were stupid. How would she know?
"Something like that," I said, and cleared my throat.
My stomach was churning and I hoped she wouldn't hear it.
"So tell me Miss Summers, why did you invite Skittles to your sister's birthday party? She is a teenager after all."
She shrugged,
"I didn't know it was gonna be a party. She didn't say a thing about having her friends over. She said we'd celebrate, that's all,"
She leaned forward in the chair.
"And celebration doesn't include having friends coming over?"
"When she said we'd celebrate, I just assumed it was gonna be just me, her, and a couple of close friends of ours. That's why I called the clown. She used to love them when she was little. It was just going to be a little joke, between us...I didn't know."
It was obvious she still felt sorry for what she had done. But the question was...had she been sorry enough to help her sister kill Skittles?
"Are you sure you didn't want to embarrass her? Make her feel the pain maybe you did once?"
She rolled her eyes. She and her sister were very much alike. Maybe even murderously alike.
"Are you a detective or a psychologist? I mean...just so as I know who I'm confessing my murderous ways to."
I never really appreciated sarcasm.
"Miss Summers, this is a serious matter." She looked away from me, probably to hide an exasperated look. I continued, "So how did your sister react when she saw the clown?"
"She didn't really see him. It was more like he came in singing a birthday song, and looking for Dawn...with lots of balloons."
"Did she scream? Did she threaten to kill you? To kill Skittles maybe?"
I stood up, looking down at her, but she just shrugged again.
"She was mad. People say things they don't mean when they're mad."
"True."
Yes, people often say things they don't mean. But it was my job to know which ones they did mean. Dawn Summers had threatened to kill her sister. She hadn't meant that. She had also threatened to kill Skittles. That she had meant. There was no use trying to analyze it any longer, I wanted answers.
"Was she mad with you when she went to the Bronze with her friends?"
I saw her hesitation, before she eventually answered.
"Yes."
"And what did you do after she left?" I asked her, knowing that she probably knew what her sister had told me already. If they had planned the murder together it would be hard for me to find out the truth.
"I went...took a walk. With a friend. He told me I should go to the Bronze and sort things out with her, not leave her mad on her birthday."
A friend. So there was a third party in this conspiracy.
"And who might this friend be?" I asked, curiously.
"Alexander Harris." she told me.
I remembered that name from somewhere.
"He was at the party, right?"
I remembered a list of the people who had been present at the Summers' house, at the time Skittles had appeared. I also remembered that a number of people had said that Harris had had a strange reaction to the appearance of the clown, but I didn't mention it. Had this Alexander Harris known Skittles, and had an unsettled score with him? Perhaps. I had to investigate further. I wrote down the name on my notepad and underlined it. Twice.
"That's right. He's one of those close friends I told you about."
"And you went straight to the Bronze after talking to this friend?"
I was trying to add Alexander Harris to my theory, but I couldn't seem to place him. He had to fit somewhere. He was, after all, the one who sent Buffy Anne Summers to the Bronze after her sister.
"Yeah."
There was more behind this answer. I knew it, I could read it in her eyes. She hadn't gone straight to the Bronze. Had she gone somewhere else? Had Dawn made the phone call to Skittles, and had the clown meet her sister in the park? Had Buffy hit him with the shovel and later returned with Dawn to bury him?
"So you met your sister at the Bronze, a little after midnight, and you walked around, talking. You walked to the park, didn't see a thing, and then she went back to her friends and you went home. Is that right?"
Those were her sister's words.
"Pretty much."
She wasn't a cooperative witness. I had to change that. There had to be a weak link in their story.
"How about the graveyard? Why did you go there?"
A-ha! I'd surprised her!
"I wasn't in the graveyard."
She tried to deny it, but it was obvious she had been there. I had no evidence, but I heard it in her voice.
"Your sister was in the graveyard. She said she went to your mother's grave." I told her, trying to lead her into confessing something more.
"She probably went alone. When we use to fight, she'd always go to my Mom. I guess now that she's no longer alive, visiting her grave maybe brings her the same comfort."
Her words touched me, and I probably would've burst into tears if my position as Detective in charge of a murder investigation hadn't prevented it. Why wasn't my Mom so good to me?
"Are you sure you weren't in the cemetery that night?"
I insisted, squinting at her.
"Yes, I'm sure."
She refused to confess, but perhaps there was another way around it.
"So you walked around with this friend. Where did you go? You just walked around without any purpose?"
"I walked him home," she said, casually .
"Why would he need someone to walk him home? Was he in any danger? And...no offense, but you don't really look like you could help if there was!"
She glared at me, but now my mind was working. What if Harris had been in trouble? Maybe with Skittles? Maybe he had forgotten to pay the clown sometime, and he feared his revenge?
"I just felt like talking and...not staying at home, so I walked him home."
"Are you in an intimate relationship with this friend?" I asked her.
"NO!"
The suggestion seemed to revolt her.
"Just thought I should ask."
A relationship to her might have given this Alexander Harris motivation to be an accomplice. Was 'a close friendship' enough for someone to be a part of a brutal murder? Maybe.
"And how long were you out with this friend? An exact hour would be nice."
I tried to find some sort of mistake, but her story seemed flawless. I knew from a couple of colleagues that this girl Buffy Summers had had some run-ins with the police. And that, once, a close friend of hers had been charged and imprisoned for a murder that took place here in Sunnydale.
Few people knew that, on the night of the murder, there had been two people sighted near the crime scene, not one. I wondered how she'd gotten away with it. She'd probably convinced her friend not to rat on her, yeah, that was it. Who knows, maybe there'd even been some emotional black-mail. Yeah. I looked at her again. She certainly had what it took to be a brutal criminal. She didn't seem to care much about anything. She knew there was no way I was going to catch her and so she didn't even hide it. The truth was right there on her face. It was so obvious, I wanted to point right at her, but I thought it would be impolite.
"Dawn left around nine, we cleaned...so around ten...eleven PM."
Had she just calculated the exact amount of time that would prove her innocence? Of course, this friend of hers would confirm the time if she was lying.
"And you talked...how long? An hour? Half an hour? Two hours? Fifteen minutes?"
I asked her as if the answer didn't matter to me, holding back a nervous twitch that would've betrayed my intense curiosity.
"Around a half an hour."
She'd let something slip at last.
"A-ha!"
I jumped up, startling her.
"Half an hour means you had around an hour, or a half an hour to get to the Bronze. And you picked up your sister a little after midnight. Where were you between eleven-thirty and midnight? Well?"
I slammed my hands on the desk, and she stood up with an angry glare. Never good to yell at a woman, my Mom always told me that. Especially if it's possible that they're a psychotic criminal.
"It does take time to get to the Bronze you know! And calm down!"
I sat back down,
"I'm sorry I shouldn't have lost my temper like that," .
"No, you shouldn't." she said, but her look of anger melted as she took her seat again.
"So, you're sticking to that story?" I cleared my throat, a little nervous now.
"If it is one." she said, rolling her eyes again.
It was obvious all the hours I'd already spent on this investigation, meant nothing to her. I was wasting her time. Time she could've spent somewhere else, doing something else. Planning another murder maybe?
"You can go, but I still may need you for further questioning. So don't leave town or anything."
She got up,
"Yeah, I'll take the first plane to Tahiti." she said, shaking her head as she headed for the door. "Like I could afford it."
As she disappeared out the door, I was lost in my thoughts. If her sister Dawn had been suspicious, Buffy Summers was even more so. She had free time, and although she had an alibi, she had had an hour before midnight. To do what? Go to the graveyard? Skittles had come to the park after midnight, so she couldn't have killed him then. So then, what had she done? Provided the shovel? Decided to reconcile with her sister by killing the one person that had ruined her birthday party?
And what about the graveyard? I still didn't know how that fitted in? Why had Dawn Summers really been in the cemetery? It was one of the questions I just couldn't seem to answer. I now added to my theory - Buffy Summers, the obvious provider of the shovel. And of course - Alexander Harris, his strange reaction to Skittles and the fact that he had been walked home by Buffy Summers. Could he have been a third conspirator? The one who was suppose to bury the body, but was too late? What if the burning of the shovel was an accident? What if something else had happened to it? There was no way of knowing that, on the wooden handle, there would have been fingerprints. So then who, or what, had set off the torching of the shovel?
I didn't like it. There were too many stable alibis. There had to be more people mixed up in the whole business. The question was who? I needed to know, but it was late...and I was hungry.
End Part 2
The Interrogation Of Buffy Anne Summers
After the departure of the young Miss Summers, it wasn't long before her sister knocked on my door.
Her name, Buffy Anne Summers. Small, blond, green sad eyes. She looked like someone who'd been through a lot in her life. Blue blouse, fashionable yet inexpensive black boots. She had that confident look that some people have, a look that simply says; 'there's nothing you could say that would surprise me'. For a short person she filled the air with an almost threatening self-assurance, like she was in possession of some kind of unknown power. I wondered if I could shake that confidence. She smelled like fries and half-burnt burgers. I was hungry.
"Miss Summers."
Politely, I saluted her.
"Officer."
She responded to my salute, although her reply seemed a little stale and empty.
"Detective," I corrected her, not minding her indifference. "Detective Thrump. Ronald Thrump."
"Thrump?" she asked, and a smile played in the corner of her mouth.
I don't like my name being mocked.
"Yes, Thrump." I said, trying not to comment on anything. Her name was Buffy after all. "I believe you know why you're here."
"Yeah. I have to answer a bunch of stupid questions about the dead clown."
Funny how she immediately assumed they were stupid. How would she know?
"Something like that," I said, and cleared my throat.
My stomach was churning and I hoped she wouldn't hear it.
"So tell me Miss Summers, why did you invite Skittles to your sister's birthday party? She is a teenager after all."
She shrugged,
"I didn't know it was gonna be a party. She didn't say a thing about having her friends over. She said we'd celebrate, that's all,"
She leaned forward in the chair.
"And celebration doesn't include having friends coming over?"
"When she said we'd celebrate, I just assumed it was gonna be just me, her, and a couple of close friends of ours. That's why I called the clown. She used to love them when she was little. It was just going to be a little joke, between us...I didn't know."
It was obvious she still felt sorry for what she had done. But the question was...had she been sorry enough to help her sister kill Skittles?
"Are you sure you didn't want to embarrass her? Make her feel the pain maybe you did once?"
She rolled her eyes. She and her sister were very much alike. Maybe even murderously alike.
"Are you a detective or a psychologist? I mean...just so as I know who I'm confessing my murderous ways to."
I never really appreciated sarcasm.
"Miss Summers, this is a serious matter." She looked away from me, probably to hide an exasperated look. I continued, "So how did your sister react when she saw the clown?"
"She didn't really see him. It was more like he came in singing a birthday song, and looking for Dawn...with lots of balloons."
"Did she scream? Did she threaten to kill you? To kill Skittles maybe?"
I stood up, looking down at her, but she just shrugged again.
"She was mad. People say things they don't mean when they're mad."
"True."
Yes, people often say things they don't mean. But it was my job to know which ones they did mean. Dawn Summers had threatened to kill her sister. She hadn't meant that. She had also threatened to kill Skittles. That she had meant. There was no use trying to analyze it any longer, I wanted answers.
"Was she mad with you when she went to the Bronze with her friends?"
I saw her hesitation, before she eventually answered.
"Yes."
"And what did you do after she left?" I asked her, knowing that she probably knew what her sister had told me already. If they had planned the murder together it would be hard for me to find out the truth.
"I went...took a walk. With a friend. He told me I should go to the Bronze and sort things out with her, not leave her mad on her birthday."
A friend. So there was a third party in this conspiracy.
"And who might this friend be?" I asked, curiously.
"Alexander Harris." she told me.
I remembered that name from somewhere.
"He was at the party, right?"
I remembered a list of the people who had been present at the Summers' house, at the time Skittles had appeared. I also remembered that a number of people had said that Harris had had a strange reaction to the appearance of the clown, but I didn't mention it. Had this Alexander Harris known Skittles, and had an unsettled score with him? Perhaps. I had to investigate further. I wrote down the name on my notepad and underlined it. Twice.
"That's right. He's one of those close friends I told you about."
"And you went straight to the Bronze after talking to this friend?"
I was trying to add Alexander Harris to my theory, but I couldn't seem to place him. He had to fit somewhere. He was, after all, the one who sent Buffy Anne Summers to the Bronze after her sister.
"Yeah."
There was more behind this answer. I knew it, I could read it in her eyes. She hadn't gone straight to the Bronze. Had she gone somewhere else? Had Dawn made the phone call to Skittles, and had the clown meet her sister in the park? Had Buffy hit him with the shovel and later returned with Dawn to bury him?
"So you met your sister at the Bronze, a little after midnight, and you walked around, talking. You walked to the park, didn't see a thing, and then she went back to her friends and you went home. Is that right?"
Those were her sister's words.
"Pretty much."
She wasn't a cooperative witness. I had to change that. There had to be a weak link in their story.
"How about the graveyard? Why did you go there?"
A-ha! I'd surprised her!
"I wasn't in the graveyard."
She tried to deny it, but it was obvious she had been there. I had no evidence, but I heard it in her voice.
"Your sister was in the graveyard. She said she went to your mother's grave." I told her, trying to lead her into confessing something more.
"She probably went alone. When we use to fight, she'd always go to my Mom. I guess now that she's no longer alive, visiting her grave maybe brings her the same comfort."
Her words touched me, and I probably would've burst into tears if my position as Detective in charge of a murder investigation hadn't prevented it. Why wasn't my Mom so good to me?
"Are you sure you weren't in the cemetery that night?"
I insisted, squinting at her.
"Yes, I'm sure."
She refused to confess, but perhaps there was another way around it.
"So you walked around with this friend. Where did you go? You just walked around without any purpose?"
"I walked him home," she said, casually .
"Why would he need someone to walk him home? Was he in any danger? And...no offense, but you don't really look like you could help if there was!"
She glared at me, but now my mind was working. What if Harris had been in trouble? Maybe with Skittles? Maybe he had forgotten to pay the clown sometime, and he feared his revenge?
"I just felt like talking and...not staying at home, so I walked him home."
"Are you in an intimate relationship with this friend?" I asked her.
"NO!"
The suggestion seemed to revolt her.
"Just thought I should ask."
A relationship to her might have given this Alexander Harris motivation to be an accomplice. Was 'a close friendship' enough for someone to be a part of a brutal murder? Maybe.
"And how long were you out with this friend? An exact hour would be nice."
I tried to find some sort of mistake, but her story seemed flawless. I knew from a couple of colleagues that this girl Buffy Summers had had some run-ins with the police. And that, once, a close friend of hers had been charged and imprisoned for a murder that took place here in Sunnydale.
Few people knew that, on the night of the murder, there had been two people sighted near the crime scene, not one. I wondered how she'd gotten away with it. She'd probably convinced her friend not to rat on her, yeah, that was it. Who knows, maybe there'd even been some emotional black-mail. Yeah. I looked at her again. She certainly had what it took to be a brutal criminal. She didn't seem to care much about anything. She knew there was no way I was going to catch her and so she didn't even hide it. The truth was right there on her face. It was so obvious, I wanted to point right at her, but I thought it would be impolite.
"Dawn left around nine, we cleaned...so around ten...eleven PM."
Had she just calculated the exact amount of time that would prove her innocence? Of course, this friend of hers would confirm the time if she was lying.
"And you talked...how long? An hour? Half an hour? Two hours? Fifteen minutes?"
I asked her as if the answer didn't matter to me, holding back a nervous twitch that would've betrayed my intense curiosity.
"Around a half an hour."
She'd let something slip at last.
"A-ha!"
I jumped up, startling her.
"Half an hour means you had around an hour, or a half an hour to get to the Bronze. And you picked up your sister a little after midnight. Where were you between eleven-thirty and midnight? Well?"
I slammed my hands on the desk, and she stood up with an angry glare. Never good to yell at a woman, my Mom always told me that. Especially if it's possible that they're a psychotic criminal.
"It does take time to get to the Bronze you know! And calm down!"
I sat back down,
"I'm sorry I shouldn't have lost my temper like that," .
"No, you shouldn't." she said, but her look of anger melted as she took her seat again.
"So, you're sticking to that story?" I cleared my throat, a little nervous now.
"If it is one." she said, rolling her eyes again.
It was obvious all the hours I'd already spent on this investigation, meant nothing to her. I was wasting her time. Time she could've spent somewhere else, doing something else. Planning another murder maybe?
"You can go, but I still may need you for further questioning. So don't leave town or anything."
She got up,
"Yeah, I'll take the first plane to Tahiti." she said, shaking her head as she headed for the door. "Like I could afford it."
As she disappeared out the door, I was lost in my thoughts. If her sister Dawn had been suspicious, Buffy Summers was even more so. She had free time, and although she had an alibi, she had had an hour before midnight. To do what? Go to the graveyard? Skittles had come to the park after midnight, so she couldn't have killed him then. So then, what had she done? Provided the shovel? Decided to reconcile with her sister by killing the one person that had ruined her birthday party?
And what about the graveyard? I still didn't know how that fitted in? Why had Dawn Summers really been in the cemetery? It was one of the questions I just couldn't seem to answer. I now added to my theory - Buffy Summers, the obvious provider of the shovel. And of course - Alexander Harris, his strange reaction to Skittles and the fact that he had been walked home by Buffy Summers. Could he have been a third conspirator? The one who was suppose to bury the body, but was too late? What if the burning of the shovel was an accident? What if something else had happened to it? There was no way of knowing that, on the wooden handle, there would have been fingerprints. So then who, or what, had set off the torching of the shovel?
I didn't like it. There were too many stable alibis. There had to be more people mixed up in the whole business. The question was who? I needed to know, but it was late...and I was hungry.
End Part 2