"So what do you think?"
The evening after I met with Hank Summers, Susan and I were eating dinner in her home in Cambridge. I'd made a stir fry with shrimp in a light ginger sauce and a salad with a lemon and mayo dressing. Susan was scarfing it down, which in her case meant taking the equivalent of a full bite per minute.
"This sounds like it has the potential to be a fucking mess," Susan said between bites.
"Is that shrink terminology?" I said.
"It is."
I waited. Susan was concentrating, and I loved to watch her when she concentrated. In fact, I pretty much loved to watch her no matter what she was doing.
"After the Hemery High tragedy, several of the survivors were reported to display the symptoms of intense Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This girl Betty…"
"Buffy."
"Buffy Summers? Good lord!"
I waited for Susan to recover.
"Buffy Summers appears to have suffered from these symptoms as well. And when Buffy's parents learned that she wrote about 'fighting monsters' in her diary, they placed her into an acute care psychiatric treatment facility, which probably only served to aggravate the existing trauma."
Susan took another bite, almost quarter sized.
"And when Buffy gets out, she finds her parents divorced and her mother alone," I said.
"You don't approve," Susan said.
"No, I don't. Divorcing your wife is one thing. Leaving your kids after one of them has suffered severe trauma is quite another. Hank left his first wife holding the bag. Besides, you didn't meet the new Mrs Summers."
Susan smiled. "I take it you don't like her."
"She's a midlife crisis trophy wife with the maturity of a two year old and maybe half the IQ of Pearl."
"It's not an uncommon pattern," Susan said. "And you haven't met the old Mrs. Summers yet. She might be worse."
"Horrible to contemplate," I said. "And what do you think of Buffy bringing a sword to school?"
"That, on the other hand, is an uncommon pattern."
"Summers says that Buffy was cleared of the arson charges from Hemery. But then, a year and half later at Sunnydale High, a girl is found in the school library with her throat slashed, and Buffy Summers is standing over her. Later, the principal says he saw Buffy in the library carrying a sword."
"Trouble does seem to follow this girl around," Susan said. "But the Sunnydale Police Department cleared her of involvement in the girl's death, correct?"
"Yeah, three witnesses told the police that Buffy wasn't in the library when the girl was killed, even though police found her standing next to the body."
"Did they identify who the killer or killers were?"
"Sort of, they said they were attacked by a gang of some sort. But a gang that apparently uses medieval weaponry instead of guns. And this gang has yet to be apprehended."
"Similar to the story witnesses told about the dance at Hemery a year and a half earlier."
"Yep."
"This suggests a pattern that is disturbing."
"Yep."
"And you've agreed to look into it."
"Yep."
Susan picked up the pace of her eating, taking another quarter bite.
"Be careful. Sounds like a fucking mess to me," she said after she swallowed.
"Yep," I said.