by Ray Garton
“Giles? Buffy?” Her raised voice intruded on the book-padded silence.
It was empty. Apparently, Giles hadn’t even arrived yet. Probably stayed up most of the night with his books.
Willow didn’t turn off the lights. The library was such a sad place when it was dark; she didn’t want to leave it that way.
“Hey!” Xander called as Willow walked away from the library. “What’re you sneaking around for?” He was walking close to Cordelia, playing one of their games of slap and tickle. He put his arm around her waist and dropped his hand to her behind, and she knocked his arm away with a sharp elbow and an insult.
“I’m not sneaking around,” Willow said, following down the hallway.
“You look like you’re sneaking. Like some secret agent. Y’know, like La Femme Nikita. So, what’re you doing today? Foiling terrorists? Infiltrating a dictatorship? Making sure people with ten items or more stay the heck outta the nine-items-or-less lane?”
“Just looking for Giles. He’s not here yet,” Willow responded as she leaned against a locker.
“I wonder if he’s heard the news,” Cordelia said.
“What news?” Willow asked.
Xander seemed surprised. “You haven’t heard yet? A murder sometime late last night . . . and the suspected killer was found, uh . . . y’know, like the guy with the lawnmower.”
Willow’s chest tightened, as if she were pinned against a wall and someone were pressing with great strength on her chest, crushing her lungs. Was it her botched spell again? Maybe that was why Giles hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe he was working on something, on the verge of finding a way to reverse the spell.
Or maybe, as so often seemed to be the case, something bad had happened.
“Willow!”
Surprised that someone was calling her, Willow looked around until she saw Mila coming out of the teachers’ lounge with Miss Gasteyer and Mrs. Truman. They were Sunnydale High School’s art teachers. New students often thought they were sisters because they were almost always together and even shared an office upstairs, but they weren’t related at all. Both were in their mid-forties. Mrs. Truman — short, plump, and rosy-cheeked, with short light-brown hair — had been widowed years ago when a car fell off a jack onto her mechanic husband. Mrs. Truman wore a sailor-style outfit with navy blue skirt and blue and white top; her clothes were typically on the silly side. Miss Gasteyer, on the other hand, had never married; she was four or five inches taller, not really fat but very sturdy, with slightly buck teeth, large round glasses, and long strawberry-blond hair that she kept in a braid or bun. Today, Miss Gasteyer’s hair was in a braid, and she wore her usual, a plain blouse and a pair of baggy chinos; as always, a large bag hung from her left shoulder by a strap and her hands were stained with paint.
Xander pointed at Mrs. Truman and whispered, “Oh, look! The fleet’s in!”
Willow smiled, happy to see Mila.
“Come to my office sometime today,” Mila said. “I have something for you.”
“Really? Okay!” She grinned.
“Have a good day, Willow!”
“Thank you, you too!”
Xander and Cordelia turned and looked at Willow curiously.
“I saw you with her yesterday, too,” Xander said. “Are you becoming friendly with the most beautiful woman in the world?”
Cordelia rolled her eyes up into her forehead. “Oh, Xander, she is not the most beautiful woman in the world. That is such a . . . boy thing to say.”
“Boy thing? What the hell does that mean? I am a boy, that’s what I’m supposed to say. What’d you expect me to do, admire her shoes? That’s your job. You notice what she’s wearing, and I’ll notice what’s in it.”
“The real tear-jerker,” Cordelia said, “is that she doesn’t even dress that well.”
Xander started to say something very emphatically, but stopped himself. “Okay, look, I’m not even gonna argue with you about this. I’m not.”
“Well, good. It’s ridiculous. Just because she’s from India and has a little accent, every guy on campus thinks she’s beautiful and exotic. It’s just sillier than putty and I’m sick of hearing about it.”
“See? That’s what I mean. I can’t argue this with you, because there is no argument. It’s like arguing about gravity. I know she’s beautiful, everybody I know says she’s beautiful, and if you push this anymore, you’re gonna turn a bright shade of green.”
“Green is a good color for me.”
“Not for your skin, it isn’t. I meant you’ll be green with envy. You’re just jealous, that’s all.”
Cordelia made a breathy sound of shock, but Willow spoke up before she could say anything.
“Well, whatever else she is,” Willow said, “she’s very nice.”
Xander and Cordelia said nothing more as they headed for their first class.
“I can’t believe it,” Buffy said with genuine shock. “You overslept?”
Giles stood in the half-open door of his apartment wearing a gray and black terrycloth bathrobe. Somehow, he managed to look groggy and frantic at the same time.
“Well, it appears that my alarm no longer functions,” he said, pausing to yawn. “And I fell into such a deep sleep . . . I only got two hours as it is.”
Buffy pushed her way past him into the apartment. “Time to rise and shine, Giles. I’ll make the coffee while you dress.”
“Why don’t I meet you at school, Buffy? I’m going to —”
She turned to him and interrupted. “What I saw last night? Well, it’s on the radio now. And television, probably.”
“That’s hardly surprising.”
“Yeah, but it’s the second one, and now that it’s out, people are going to start worrying, and they’re going to keep an eye out for something, anything. And that’s going to make my job difficult. There’s nothing more dangerous than amateurs crashing a Slaying.”
He nodded, tugging thoughtfully at his chin. “I see what you mean, Buffy.”
“You said you might need to talk to the wife of that guy who got killed by the mower? I think we should do it right now.”
“What, you mean this morning?”
“As soon as you slip into something probably even more ancient than that robe.”
He rubbed his forehead as he tried to come up with some argument. Instead, he said, “Buffy, I’ll have you know, this is a brand-new robe.”
“Really?” She crossed her chest with her left forearm, rested her right elbow on her wrist and walked around Giles slowly, tugging on her lips thoughtfully, narrowing her eyes as she inspected the robe. “Did they have a clearance sale at Fifties-R-Us? You look like Ward Cleaver. Did it come with a pipe?”
“Ward . . . who?” he asked.
“Never mind. Too early for pop culture references.”
“Buffy, should you be missing any school so close to exams?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve been studying.” Buffy wondered if she managed to keep her doubt from her voice.
“That was a rhetorical question,” Giles said. “Go to school, Buffy, I insist.”
“If we go now, I’ll miss maybe fifteen minutes of my first class. We could —”
“We have no idea how long this will take. Besides, the woman probably has a houseful of relatives. It’s too early for a stranger to pop in and start asking questions. I’ll go later in the morning.”
“Okay. I’ll go with you then, but I still think we should go right now.”
Giles frowned. “Buffy, it’s not necessary for you to accompany me.”
“It’s not necessary, but I want to, Giles. And I want to do it as soon as possible.” She talked gradually faster as she continued. “Whatever this thing is, it seems to be getting worse. I have this feeling of . . . urgency about it. The less time we waste, the less chance another person shows up looking like yesterday’s buffet.”
He nibbled at his lower lip as he stared at her a moment. “Very well, then, Buffy. I’ll be
as quick as I can.”
“And I’ll make coffee,” Buffy said as Giles disappeared down the hall. She went into the kitchen, talking to no one in particular. “Everybody would save a whooole lotta time if they’d just agree with me in the first place.”
* * *
Madge Kepley came to the door alone, and from the looks of it, she was alone in the house, too. There were no cars parked bumper to bumper at the curb, no people dressed in black carrying casserole dishes and foil-covered baking pans to the door.
“I realize this is going to seem quite irregular,” Giles said, “but I am here to ask you a few questions about your husband.”
Her eyes looked exhausted and physically worn from having tears wiped from them. But they brightened a little at the mention of her husband, for just a moment, and she even tried to smile.
“Did you know him?” she asked.
“I regret to say I did not.”
“Hello, young lady,” she said, her smile growing a little for Buffy. She looked at Giles again. “Oh, you must be from the church, then.” She stepped back and pulled her front door all the way open. “Please come in.”
Buffy felt bad for the woman. There were still a few bits of yellow crime scene tape stuck to the outside of the fence. In her state of mind, Mrs. Kepley probably hadn’t noticed the tape . . . but hadn’t anyone been by lately, anyone who cared enough to snatch those remaining pieces of tape from the fence? She smiled at the old woman as she entered. Giles followed her uncertainly.
“I have a pot of hot coffee in the kitchen,” Mrs. Kepley said, heading out of the living room through an archway. “Why don’t you come in and have a seat?”
They followed her into a small but very well-appointed kitchen with yellow-and-white-checkerboard curtains and a sunflower clock on the wall. The smell of coffee hung in the air, and a weary, old-looking black-and-white cat was draped bonelessly over the edge of the windowsill over the sink. They took a seat at a small oval table with a blue Formica top and chrome legs, and exchanged a glance of surprise. They had both expected the whole thing to be much more difficult.
Mrs. Kepley went about getting coffee at the counter.
“We used to eat most meals at that table,” she said. “It was meant for breakfast, but that’s not what happened. Funny, really. We have a lovely old oak dining set in the living room. It was left to us by Del’s mom. But we’ve only used it for holidays.” She turned to them with a small tray with three cups of coffee on it. There were already a cream pitcher and a little bowl of sugar cubes in the middle of the table, flanking a small arrangement of silk flowers in a narrow vase. She smiled and said quietly, as she seated herself, “Funny how things turn out like that.”
“It’s terribly generous of you to do this, Mrs. Kepley,” Giles said. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions. It wasn’t necessary —”
Mrs. Kepley absently waved a hand at him. “Oh, please. It’s little things like making a cup of coffee or baking muffins or even washing dishes that are keeping me alive right now.” She poured some cream in her coffee and stirred. “Now, you say you didn’t know Del?”
“No, I-I-I didn’t, I’m afraid. I’m a librarian at —”
Mrs. Kepley frowned and stiffened her neck. “Was Del checking books out of the library?” she asked, surprised at the thought. “I hope none of them are overdue!”
“Oh, no,” Giles said. “Nothing like that.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. Del and I are both avid readers. He doesn’t like my spooky books by Stephen King and Dean Koontz. But he’ll go through several detective novels a week.” She stared between Buffy and Giles silently, long enough for them to look at one another cautiously. “I’m sorry,” she said, smiling then. Unspilled tears were starting to glimmer in her eyes. “It’s just that . . . well, it’s only been a day, and —”
“No need to apologize, Mrs. Kepley,” Giles said. “We understand that this is a very difficult time for you.”
“You’re very nice,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with wadded tissue she’d taken from the pocket of her housecoat.
“If you could just answer a few questions,” he went on, “we’ll be out of your way in no time.”
She was staring between them again. She shook her head very slowly and clicked her tongue once. “To lose both of them at once like this . . . that makes it so much harder.”
Buffy and Giles frowned at each other.
“Both of who, Mrs. Kepley?” Buffy asked quietly.
“Del and Tom.”
Giles asked, “You mean . . . your neighbor?”
“Hardly. He was over here most of the time. We might as well have joined the houses. I’ve never seen two men as close to one another as Del and Tom.”
“They were good friends, then?” Giles asked.
“We both moved into these houses at the same time, right after the war, Del and me, and Tom and Fran. From then on, we were inseperable. Fran was the best friend I’ve ever had, Tom was the best friend Del ever had. It was perfect. It changed, though, after Fran found that lump in her breast. That was the biggest loss in my life since my mother died.”
Giles leaned forward. “Can you tell me, Mrs. Kepley, why that man might have . . . done what he did to your husband?”
“There it is,” Mrs. Kepley said, as if Giles had suddenly discovered a misplaced earring. “That is the thing that disturbs my sleep the most. Why?”
“Were they having a fight, or something?” Buffy asked.
“A fight? For over fifty years! They fought all the time. Over everything. The radio, the television, sports, food, movies, politics. They were constantly fighting, like two six-year-olds over a box of toys. But all the while, each one would’ve laid down and died for the other.” She fingered a strand of her gray hair as she frowned at the tabletop. “The only thing I can think of . . . maybe they were talking over the fence — I’d heard Del shouting just before it happened — and then maybe something happened to Tom. I don’t know, a stroke? An embolism? Something to make him lose control of himself, and of the mower. Maybe Del thought Tom was joking and would turn away at the last minute, so he didn’t run. Afterward, Tom was somehow able to get into his house, and die there.”
Buffy cleared her throat. Her quiet voice trembled slightly as she asked, “What about . . . what happened to him in his house?”
Mrs. Kepley put a hand over her mouth and sighed through her nose. She took her hand away as tears began to drop onto her cheeks and make their way down. “That was . . . so horrible. I saw his daughter just last night. They said there wasn’t enough left to do an autopsy. Mostly bones and some blood. Such a horrible thing. People in the neighborhood are scared. They think it might be some kind of wild animal or something. I have no idea how that could have happened.” Her entire face clenched and she began to sob.
Giles went to her side and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked tremendously uncomfortable, but his voice was comforting. “My apologies, Mrs. Kepley. We’ve bothered you too long, I’m afraid. We’ll be going.” He nodded at Buffy and she stood after one last sip of her coffee.
Mrs. Kepley put one of her hands on one of his. “Oh, but it was so nice of you to drop by. I hope you’ll come back sometime. Maybe I’ll be more cheerful. I usually am, you know.” She laughed as she stood. “All the children in the neighborhood call me Grandma.”
“Thank you so much for the coffee,” Giles said.
“But weren’t you going to ask some questions?” she asked Giles.
“You’ve answered our questions. Perhaps you should get some rest.”
“Why, that’s so sweet of you to think of me like that,” Mrs. Kepley said, as she led them to the door.
They drove a few blocks in silence after leaving Mrs. Kepley. Then Buffy said, “Well, it’s a shame . . . but it doesn’t help us.”
“We don’t know yet. It might.”
“So, what do we do next, Holmes?”
“Keep an eye on the news and see
what details are available about the remains you saw last night.”
“There was a meat cleaver beside the remains. And the blade was stained.”
“Are you quite serious, Buffy?” Giles took his eyes off the road long enough to look at her.
“It was on the floor, near the . . . the . . .” She waggled her hand indecisively. “Leftovers.”
“If you don’t mind, Buffy,” Giles said, “I would prefer to use the word ‘remains.’”
After Giles parked the car at the school, they agreed to meet at lunch and went their separate ways.
“And go straight to class!” Giles shouted over his shoulder.
She did.
Chapter 10
EVER SINCE WILLOW HAD STARTED DATING OZ, cafeteria food always reminded her of horror movies. Not that the food was horrible; it wasn’t great, of course, but it wasn’t horrible. Willow and Oz sometimes watched horror movies together, and every time a slimy, disgusting monster appeared, or someone’s face got ripped off, or someone’s head exploded, they would point to the screen and scream, “Cafeteria food! ”Now, every time she saw cafeteria food, she was tempted to point at it and scream, “Cafeteria food!” Or would it make more sense to point at the cafeteria food and scream, “Horror movie!”? She couldn’t decide.
Willow left the line, carrying her tray of food, and joined Oz, Xander, and Cordelia at a table. Oz gave her a kiss on the cheek and it made her smile.
“You are so wrong,” Xander said, pointing a finger at Oz. “You are the essence of wrong.”
Oz said, “I’m going with the strength, rage, and desperation to kick some serious ass. She wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Who wouldn’t stand a chance?” Willow asked. “Doing what?”
Cordelia explained. “They’re arguing over who would win in a fight, Alanis Morissette or Jewel. Can you believe it?” She sighed. “I’ve known rabid Xena fans who were less annoying.”
“Alanis,” Oz said.
“Just because Jewel is so delicate-looking,” Xander said with a scoffing chuckle. “Beneath that waiflike exterior is a woman of tremendous strength.”
