Disclaimer: The plot and the expanded "Sheila Kelly" are mine; the Buffyverse is Joss's; the Veronica Mars characters are Rob Thomas'
Author's Note: This scene took longer than I thought; I should be approaching Lie to Me by the end of the next section.
X X X X X
Even though she knew we were coming, Willow still seemed a bit surprised that Xander and I showed up at her front door together. I suppose it would have been like seeing Bill Clinton and Rush Limbaugh -- or George W. Bush and Michael Moore.
That, by the way, was a field of thought I had to firmly clamp down on. The idea of tampering with the overall future was tempting as hell -- and that wasn't even considering the bets I could place. The Adversary hadn't placed any restrictions on changing other things -- but almost certainly did so on purpose. The more I concerned myself with the world at large, the less I'd be paying attention to the Buffyverse. So preventing Columbine or 9/11 was, for the moment at least, out.
My resolve might weaken the closer things got to September 11 -- if they ever did. My forced wager with The Adversary was open-ended, and I had no idea what would happen if I won. Would I stay here? Would I return to the summer before my freshman year at Hearst? Inquiring minds desperately wanted to know.
Back to the present. "I'm not sure why you want me to do this," Willow said.
I asked, "Can I try to answer?" Xander gave a go-ahead gesture. "It should have occurred to me before this. Partly, it's because you're smart and Xander and I both trust you."
"You trust me?"
"When it comes to intellectual matters, yes. You might be Xander's best friend, but you wouldn't cheat or lie about something like this if it meant the difference between a full scholarship and flipping burgers at the Doublemeat Palace." Willow's ethics might be shaky when it came to other things, but for the longest time her intellect was what separated her from the rest of humanity. She wouldn't compromise her principles there.
I don't put myself in her class. I'm bright, but I'm not at her level.
Looking at me with curiosity, Willow said, "You said partly."
"Sure. There's another reason Xander wouldn't want the police or anyone else to see the letter he has, or the one I have, for that matter: You're the only one he's told about it. So it wouldn't matter if the chief of police was Sherlock Holmes. You're the one he trusts, because you're the one who knows. Even as far outside the mainstream of Sunnydale High gossip as I am, I would have heard about Xander's secret relationship, if it was general knowledge."
There was mild admiration in Willow's tone when she said, "Well, yeah, I mean, I've never told anyone. Honestly, I'm still wondering how you found out."
"I investigated," I said. "That, and a knowledge of the way Lilly Kane operates."
"Okay," Willow said, all business again. "I just want to warn you -- I'm not a handwriting expert." She looked at the note Lilly had written while pretending to be me and said. "Still, I can probably give you a decent layman's opinion. I've done some reading on it."
"You have?" Xander asked. I had, but then, it had to do with my chosen procession. I couldn't pretend to be an expert, either, but I probably know more than anyone in town except for Dad.
Still, it didn't surprise me that Willow had. "Xander, what do I do when I'm not hanging out with you or Buffy or doing something on my computer?"
"Reading -- oh."
"Right. I read. I read things that are interesting and things that might be useful someday."
"You thought handwriting analysis might be useful?" I asked.
"This is Sunnydale," Willow said, as though it explained everything.
Actually, it more or less did.
"There's one thing I'm going to need before I examine this, though," she said. "Veronica, could you write this out? I mean, if it's not too much trouble --"
"It's not," I said, and within five minutes Willow was on her way upstairs with Lilly's forgery and my real thing.
That made for an awkward five minutes where Xander did his best to look everywhere but at me. For me, not quite so awkward; I pulled out the book I'd been reading when Xander sat down and kept reading.
No, I wasn't like Willow, to read at every spare moment, but I enjoy it on occasion. I wasn't working on any cases, for myself or dad, and none of my homework at the moment was the kind of thing I was going to need more than a brief refresher course in.
I didn't feel like I was cheating, by the way. The way I see it, I already went through this once and pulled off salutatorian.
Would've made valedictorian if I hadn't decided to head out for the honor of watching Aaron Echolls get declared not guilty of killing Lilly.
I don't know who killed Aaron back in Neptune. I do know that, short of it being Osama bin Laden, I was going to thank them for it. Assuming I ever got the chance, of course. For all I know I was going to be in the Buffyverse for the rest of my life.
Assuming I didn't get myself killed along the way. The Adversary didn't spell it out, but I'm fairly sure my untimely death would end the bet, with me losing.
Anyway. After those five minutes, I took out my cell phone and walked out to the front porch, calling home. No answer. Another weekend, another bail-jumper for Dad. Smart bail-jumpers tended to give Sunnydale a wide berth, which made Dad's job easier and harder. Those who did show up tended to be morons. They also tended not to last more than a couple of days. But it meant more than occasional trips to LA, Kern County, and environs. Right now, he was headed to LA.
"Hey, sweetie," he said. "How's it going?"
"Reasonably well," I said. "I think I've figured out another personal mystery. Any progress on the wider one?"
"Still tracking down Abel Koontz's daughter," he said. "I get the feeling she's the key to the whole thing."
"So do I," I said. "In the meantime, you gotta do what pays the bills."
"This personal mystery," he said. "Anything I should be concerned about?"
"Don't you think I'd let you know if there were?" I could feel his glare through the phone. "Okay. No. Nothing you need to be worried about. Happy?"
"Ecstatic, sweetheart. I'll call you tonight."
We said goodbye and hung up. When I went back inside, Xander and Willow were waiting. Xander had a vaguely sour look on his face. "And the verdict is?"
"Not guilty," Willow said matter-of-factly. "That is, you're not guilty of writing this note."
"So what am I guilty of?" I asked.
"What?"
"Well, the way you phrased that made it sound like another shoe was going to drop." I didn't know what she could have found out, but I was taking no chances.
"Oh! Nothing. Nothing I can tell, at any rate."
"So I didn't write the note."
Willow took a deep breath and said, "No. Not as far as I can tell. I can try to get technical if you want –"
"That's okay," Xander said. "Really. You've done enough for one day." I could hear his paradigm shifting. "Dammit, though. I thought she cared about me."
"Lilly? She probably did," I said. "This was always the way she operated. She had relationships with a lot of guys – but she loved and cared about each and every one of them."
"So go ahead and get it over with," Xander said after a second.
"Get what over with?" I asked.
"The gloating. The manhunter was right, the X-Man was wrong. Go ahead and crow." There was over a year's worth of loathing built up in there. That didn't dissipate in a day.
"I don't do that." Yes, I did; but I wouldn't be doing it in this case. This wasn't a case of Xander being stupid; he genuinely thought he had a reason to dislike me, and had what he thought was good evidence. This wouldn't be taking pride in someone else's stupidity; this would be clubbing a baby harp seal. "But you owe me two things."
"msry," he mumbled.
"What?"
"I said, I'm sorry," he said a bit louder, but without much of the accustomed heat.
I said, "Thanks, but I wasn't really angling to force an apology. Here are the two things. One, stop calling me manhunter. If you can't bring yourself to call me Veronica, call me Mars. Manhunter wasn't a bad joke, when you were the only one saying it. Do you realize that only four students at this school actually call me by name, when they talk to me at all? Buffy, Cordelia, Logan Echolls and Duncan Kane."
"I call you Veronica," Willow said.
"Sometimes you do. When Xander isn't around," I said.
"I didn't realize it bothered you so much," Xander said,
"It doesn't. You wanted it to, but it doesn't. I'm just tired of hearing it from you, that's all." I'd found it mildly annoying at first, but this was the time when everyone and their dog was treating me as though I were something to be scraped off the bottom of one's shoes. Getting a new nickname was adding insult to injury, but at the time I was paying more attention to the injuries than the insults.
Still.
"And the second?"
"The hand that cradled the rock."
"You think you know who killed Lilly." He didn't phrase it as a question.
"I do. I also know that you're not going to be over your anger at me until you have someone else to focus it on. Come on."
As Willow started to follow us out, I stopped her. "No," I said.
"No?"
"I'm going to tell her anyway," Xander said.
"No, you're not. You're not going to tell her, you're not going to tell Buffy, you're not going to a church and confessing it to a priest. I'd say not to tell your parents, but we both know that isn't happening anyway. You will agree to these terms or I won't tell you anything. Willow, I'm going to need you to agree as well."
"Why –" Willow began.
"Because we don't have evidence that's good enough for a court of law. Because we're looking for that evidence. And because someone who doesn't know what they're doing blundering through could only make things worse. I'm not saying this to be insulting, believe me. But you're not a detective."
"Neither are you," Xander said.
"Do I have the license? No. Do people ask me to investigate things for them and pay me money? Yes. So practically speaking? I have a lot more experience than you," I said.
As Xander opened his mouth, Willow said, "I agree." Xander looked at her, a mildly hurt expression on his face. "She's the expert," Willow said. "When it comes to – other stuff – Buffy or G, Mr. Giles might be the expert. But, when it comes to these things, Veronica is."
Looking at me, Xander said, "Okay. I promise. I won't tell anyone."
"Good. And remember, I'll know if you lie."
"Do you read minds?" Xander asked, semi-seriously – but if I hadn't already known about the reality of life in the Buffyverse, it would have come across as just another wacky thing said by the wacky Xander Harris.
Never mind that Xander, at the moment, was feeling about as wacky as a broken leg.
"No," I said. "I see all, but I don't necessarily know all. Willow, thanks."
"You're welcome," she said.
"Shall we?" I asked Xander.
"Why not. This madcap whirligig of fun that is my life needs to stop every once in a while."
X X X X X
I had relied on Dad not having had time to lock the evidence up in his safe. (I was also relying on the thorough going-over I'd given the apartment checking for bugs, and wasn't accepting any mysterious gifts through the mail and setting them up on my desk so my room could be conveniently bugged. Clarence Weidman was only going to fool me once, in that regard.
I made a quick phone call on the way to my apartment. When we got there, Sheila was waiting. "You want her to see it?"
"No," I said, "And hi, Sheila."
"Hey, manhunter," she said. "So what do you need?"
I stepped over to her and said, very quietly, "Stay by the door. No one gets in or out. And don't watch the TV. Please."
She nodded her head. "'scool. I got it."
As we stepped towards the TV, Xander said, "She gets to call you manhunter?"
"She likes me," I said. "And I like her. Now. Sit down."
Xander sat. I popped in the video and said. "This is what Lilly did after she broke up with you." And who she did, for that matter.
Xander was on his feet and headed for the door within ten seconds.
I hate it when I'm right.