"I don't believe a word of it!" Brandon Walsh exclaimed in disgust as he pushed the offending piece of paper away from him, as though doing so would distance him from its contents.
Andrea Zuckerman sighed in exasperation, this was turning out to be more difficult than she had anticipated. They were comfortably ensconced in their favourite corner booth, but the atmosphere was anything but comfortable. Right now the peach pit was fairly empty, too early for the evening rush, and too late for lunch. They pretty much had the place to themselves, and that was exactly how Andrea wanted it, she didn't want anyone listening in on this particular conversation. Later they were meeting up with the rest of the gang to celebrate the finals results, but right now celebrating was the last thing on Andrea's mind.
"Look Brandon" she said evenly. "I don't like it anymore than you do, but you've gotta admit it makes sense."
Brandon shook his head in disbelief. "No it doesn't make sense Andrea, it doesn't make any sense at all". He couldn't believe this. "How could you even think that David would do something like that? It's insane."
Andrea shook her head "I know it doesn't sound like the sort of thing that David would do, but when you look at the evidence…. Well you said it yourself, he did have a really strong motive for stealing a finals paper."
"Yeah sure" Brandon acknowledged reluctantly. "But so did a lot of other people. Like me for instance, you know I was having a hard time juggling study and work, then there's Brenda, all that stuff with Dylan and Kelly hit her real hard, must have been tough to concentrate."
Andrea opened her mouth to protest but Brandon was warming to his theme "And Steve, his Dad's put him under a lot of pressure to get in to a good school, and what about you, you needed good grades to secure a scholarship." He looked at her triumphantly "and that's just the people that we know, there must be plenty of others."
"I agree." Andrea said carefully, leaning forward and lowering her voice "But David had something that none of the rest of us had.
"What's that?" Brandon asked, also leaning forward.
"The means to do it" she announced emphatically, sitting back in her seat and folding her arms resolutely.
Brandon still wasn't convinced, this felt like a witch-hunt, and he was appalled that Andrea was even pursuing it, especially at the expense of one of their friends. He shook his head in disbelief "Means, what means?"
"He was the only one who had access to Mrs Teasely's photocopy code, and the school security code" Andrea replied primly. For a moment she forgot that it was one of her friends that they were discussing, and instead marvelled again at her own clever piece of deduction. "We know that Donna was helping out in the office that week, and that meant she had access to the photocopy code, and she could easily have gotten hold of the security code." She paused, giving Brandon a meaningful look "It doesn't take a genius to make the connection."
"So now you're saying that Donna is a cheat too." Brandon felt as though he were in some alternate reality. He knew how Andrea got when she was chasing a story, but she had always managed to keep her integrity and sense of perspective before, now here she was accusing two of their closest friends of cheating.
Andrea looked around nervously in case Brandon's raised voice had attracted any unwanted attention. Luckily Nat was out the back, and the only other customer, a college guy, was busy reading a newspaper and didn't even bother to look up.
"We know how much Donna loves David" she began carefully. "And we know how much she wanted him to do well. Love is a very powerful emotion Brandon; it can make people do crazy things, things that they wouldn't normally do."
Brandon nodded slowly "Yeah, but come on, this is Donna we're talking about. I just don't buy it; I mean think about what you're saying here. You're suggesting that two of our closest friends would knowingly cheat, and then lie about it to all of us."
Andrea smiled ruefully "Well Kelly and Dylan did exactly that didn't they. If they can do something like that." She shrugged. "It's not too big a leap to think that Donna and David might be capable of doing it too, especially when we know for a fact that Donna has lied to us before."
She was right of course. Kelly and Dylan had lied to everyone about their relationship, and Donna had lied to Brenda when she found out about it. Had she lied about this too? He rubbed his eyes, as though doing so might enable him to see things more clearly. He realised that he couldn't be sure of anything anymore. The idea that someone as sweet and innocent as Donna might be mixed up in something like this made him feel physically sick. The fact that he could even entertain that possibility horrified him, yet he couldn't shake the doubts that had begun to surface.
Seeing the dismay flicker across his face Andrea reached out and squeezed his arm. "Hey I'm not saying that any of this is true, I'm just trying to look at the evidence objectively."
"How can you be objective when you're accusing two of your closest friends of doing something like this?" Brandon asked morosely.
"Because that's what journalists have to do Brandon, you know that. Come on admit it, if this were someone else you'd be as convinced as I am by the evidence and you know it." Her eyes challenged him to deny it.
He nodded reluctantly, knowing that she was right. Slowly, little by little he allowed his journalistic skills to take hold. Carefully he began to go over the evidence again, turning it over and over in his mind, looking at it from every angle. "Brandon?" Andrea asked softly. "Did you hear me? I said what are we going to do?"
Not answering her, Brandon reached for the piece of paper, and read it again more carefully. He sighed heavily. What he saw confirmed what he had been thinking. Reluctantly he looked at Andrea "I hate to admit it Chief, but I think you might be right".
"You do?" Andrea was astonished at the complete turn around. "What made you change your mind?"
He looked sheepish. "You were right, I was letting my emotions get in the way of my judgement. Once I started looking at the evidence objectively, well it's pretty damning. I mean we know from when we first did the interviews on this story that David doesn't have an alibi for that night. Then there's the fact that it was the history paper that was copied". He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and ran a hand through his hair as he spoke, as though subconsciously trying to distract himself from his words. "Did you take a look at David's grades this morning?"
Andrea nodded a little unsure where he was going with this. "Sure, he did great."
"You're right, he did. Except for history, he barely scraped a pass in that." He shrugged. "My guess, he was banking on getting the paper because he knew it was the one final that might let him down. He counted off on his fingers "So we got means, we got motive, we got opportunity, and we know that Donna is capable of lying to protect someone. Whichever way you look at it, it don't look good".
Andrea felt suddenly dejected. The excitement of solving the mystery had drained away, to be replaced by an uneasy mix of disappointment and apprehension. What were they going to do now? She could have dropped the story, just let it go, but oh no not the mighty Andrea Zuckerman, she had to catch the thief, had to prove her investigative skills, now she wished fervently that she hadn't bothered. She buried her face in her hands and groaned. "What are we going to do Brandon?"
Brandon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well I guess there's only one thing we can do."