【✂Regarding the Disappearence of Amy✉】
"What do you think of Amy?"
Sheila let out a sigh and paused for a minute before answering. “She’s a friend. No, that’s wrong, she’s my best friend. Sorry I’m just- can I have a minute?” She took a deep breath and held it for a second before exhaling loudly. She dropped her hands into her lap and continued. “Amy is a truly incredible person. She’s kind, talented, smart, really everything someone could ask for in a friend. I don’t deserve her friendship. No one does. She’s the perfect person. I just…I can’t imagine this would happen to her. It’s not like her to run away, and I can’t see why anyone would wish her harm either.” She had started fidgeting with her hands now; she turned her gaze down. “I hope Amy comes home soon. It’s been really tough without her. She’s like, literally my best friend; she helps me with my homework and gives me advice when I’m having boy troubles. She lent me her favourite nail varnish when I had a really important date. She was just so…nice. It feels kinda, like, empty without her.”
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“Amy?” Selena shifts in her chair and crosses one leg over the other. “What do you want me to say about her? She was weird. I mean, she wasn’t a bad person, she was just a total nut job. I'm, like, not that close with her or anything, so it’s not like I knew her super well, but she was always trying to get close to me, you know? She’d always wave at me in the halls, or say ‘hi’ to me in class, or, like, even in the bathroom once, she recognized my shoes in the stall and said ‘good morning’. It was so freaking creepy. That girl was, like, lowkey a stalker, and nobody really talked about it. I hate to say it, but I don’t really care all that much. It’s not like I wanted her to like disappear or anything, but I’m not sad about it either. I didn’t know her that well. Plus, at least now I don’t have to deal with her awkward bathroom small talk.”
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“Hot.” Simon pulled a cigarette out of his back pocket and held it in his fingers. He went on to light it before placing it in his mouth and staring forward again. “What? You want a 5 paragraph essay on her or something?” He blew a cloud of smoke and replaced the cigarette. “She just came to me for sex. Her boyfriend was one of those stuck up preppy boys. I’m thinking he didn’t really do it for her, y’know, so she came to me.” He paused to look at the clock. “She wasn’t a very nice person. With friends like Amy, you wouldn’t need enemies. Or that’s how the saying goes at least. Kinda badass about it, though. I respect her. Personally, we got along well enough.” Simon entertained himself by puffing rings of smoke into each other for a little while. “Truth is, I think she was hurt, like inside y’know. Don’t know what her damage is, she just wasn’t all there like mentally and stuff. Like, I would have liked to be there for her, but that’s not really in my wheelhouse. From what she told me, though, her friends seemed worse than her.” He paused. “Eh, then again, what do I know?”
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“What do I think of her?” Spencer repeated the question to himself and thought about it for a little while. “Well, she was my girlfriend, what didn’t I think of her? She was so sweet and pretty; she always paid attention to the little things. Once, I mentioned I liked the LA Angels, and next thing I know, she got me this really rare Shohei Otani baseball card for my birthday. It was so thoughtful, and it wasn’t a one-time thing. She somehow memorised all my favourite foods and every time we went out, she’d order them for me. Or whenever we went to theme parks or arcades she’d always play the little claw machines to get me keychains for my collection.” He sat with that thought for a moment, before quickly snapping back to reality “I’m really worried…I can’t say this is out of character for her; she’d been really stressed with school and stuff lately. She wasn’t like super smart or anything, but I don’t judge. She was super good at loads of other stuff so…Still, I can see why maybe she’d want to get away for a while. I just hope she’s alright.”
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“Would it be alright if I mentioned something um…personal?” Sheila’s fidgeting had turned into shaking at this point. She clasped her hands together in an attempt to stop the shaking. “I just feel like it’s relevant, and if it helps to find her quicker, then I don’t want to keep it from you guys or anything.”
“Go ahead.”
“Amy had been…seeing someone. Well- I uh, I mean, she already had a boyfriend, she was seeing someone else. He’s not a bad guy, well, he’s kind of scary but- um I just worry he’s not a very good influence on her. She like totally changed after meeting him. She seemed so much more…angry. At the, like, world and stuff. I know it probably means nothing, but, still… I thought I should say something, just in case.”
She tapped her foot impatiently and looked at the clock on the wall. She started fidgeting again, with her shirt collar this time.
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“Did you know Amy was cheating on you?”
Spencer looked distraught by the question. “It wasn’t…She wasn’t…I don’t…” He took a minute to gather his thoughts before speaking again. “It wasn’t cheating, it was just an accident. We talked about it, and she came to her senses. That guy, he…he was just using her. It was a one time thing. Just an accident.” Spencer maintained his composure, but something felt off.
“One of Amy’s close friends was under the impression that it was an ongoing thing.”
Spencer faltered again. He pushed his hair out of his face with one hand and used the other to lean back in the chair, letting a small chuckle escape. “That's just a rumour, dude. Amy and I are like the ‘It’ couple at school so you know, it makes sense people would be jealous. I trust Amy and she said it was a one time thing so…” He shrugged.
“She had no reason to lie to me, right?”
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“Did you know Simon?”
Selena seemed to perk up at this question. “Oh, so we’re talking about that now? Well…” Once again, she shuffled in her seat and flattened out her skirt. “If we’re talking about that, then I’ve got news for you. Like I said, I didn’t know Amy all that well, but the one thing I know is she was a fake. A disgusting fraud. See she put up this “nice” front, but you’ll never guess what I saw her doing.” She leaned forward and hushed her voice. “I saw Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes and that freak going at it in the stairwell after school one day. Well, they were just kissing and stuff, but still. It was like, a full on make out session, so like ew. The worst thing of all is she had a boyfriend. I, like, pity the poor guy. Well, like, Both guys, actually. It’s so obvious she was just in it for the nasty stuff, and those boys probably think she actually liked them. So, yeah, I think if people knew who she really was she wouldn’t be that popular. She just a stupid manipulative b-”
“That’s more than enough. Thank you.”
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“Did you ever meet Amy’s boyfriend, Spencer?”
Simon starred forward with a blank expression. He finally took the cigarette out of his mouth, abruptly bursting into boisterous laughter. As the laughing died out, he crushed it against the edge of the chair and flicked it towards the wall. “Oh, wow, you’re serious, huh? Man, and you call yourselves cops. Hasn’t Amy’s little fan told you yet?”
“Amy’s little fan? Do you mean to imply Sheila knows something?”
Simon stood up and brushed the ashes off his pants. “Yes, I’ve talked to Spencer, the day of Amy’s disappearance. I was supposed to meet Amy at her apartment, but when I got there that asshole was there instead. I waited for her for a while, but she never showed up. Eventually the prick got mad at me for literally nothing and kicked me out.”
“What does Sheila have to do with that?”
He wandered around the room casually. “I mean nothing really. Spencer must have finally figured out Amy liked me more than him cause the next day he was shouting at me in school. Poor Sheila was just sitting in a corner trembling. Kinda pissed me off that he’d do something like that in public, like if you wanna fight man do it in private, but whatever.”
He stuck his hands in his jean pockets and sauntered over to the door. “Amy isn’t…”He stopped to think. It seemed like he was struggling to figure out how to phrase his next sentence.
“Amy’s not missing. She’s dead. I mean I think that’s pretty obvious so…”
He let the sentence trail off before turning the knob and throwing the door wide open. As he walked out he let these words linger with the smoke from his cigarette. “Amy was not a nice girl, but neither were the people she surrounded herself with. My theory is she hung out with crappy people because crappy people is all she knows. She wasn’t beyond saving or anything, actually she kinda wanted to change. I…
I think the bastard that killed her should get what they deserve.”
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“Before you go, is there anything you can tell me about her boyfriend, Spencer?”
It seemed like all of Sheila’s anxiety left her body at that moment. “Spencer? He was a total sweetheart!! I mean, really, she won the lottery when it came to love. She’s so damn lucky I just- I- I don’t understand why she’d cheat on him. He’s like a teddy bear, hehe. He’s comforting and caring and really cute and- Well, either way, Simon wasn’t fond of him at all. The day after Amy disappeared…er well…I don’t know if I should be saying this.”
“Withholding information is illegal.”
She stiffened again. “H-he came into our chemistry class and Spencer started shouting at him so uh, he uh…he dragged Spencer out of class by the collar of his shirt. It was so scary. I wanted to help, but I was scared out of my mind. I was shaking really hard and I couldn’t feel my fingers and-” Her anxious tics were back. She took a strand of her hair and started twisting it with her fingers as she talked. “Spencer is perfect, just like Amy; they’re a match made in heaven. It makes me kinda jealous to see just how absolutely perfect they are for each other, to be honest.”
Her gaze shifted downward.
“I love Amy more than anything in the whole world, but isn’t it kind of unfair? I’m just as nice as her, just as smart as her, just as pretty even, and still she gets all the attention. Wouldn’t it cool to have two boys fighting over me? Just once, or something…”
Two tears fell onto her lap. Her hair covered her face completely now.
“I…I wish I could be like her…Amy…she’s so perfect and I’m so…”
“Thank you for your time. That’ll be all.”
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“Simon said he’s only talked to you once, the day of Amy’s disappearance. Is that true?”
“Yes.” Spencer answered confidently.
“That was the only time I’d ever actually met Simon.”
“But earlier, you said the relationship between him and Amy was a one time thing and that they’d broken it off?”
“Well, uh, no, I guess I wasn’t very clear about that, sorry.”
He seemed a bit less confident now. “Amy was the one who talked to him. I never actually met him until the day Amy disappeared.
Of course, at the time, I didn’t know Amy had disappeared.”
“So, what did you talk about, then?”
“He showed up at Amy’s apartment. It kinda sucks to say this, but it makes me think they hadn’t broken it off at all.
I …well, I didn’t really know how to feel. Um, but anyway, I invited him in, assuming he was a friend of Amy’s, and that’s when we started talking.
He was rude. I asked him to not smoke in the room, and he completely ignored me. He sat on her bed as if he owned the place. It really rubbed me the wrong way. The conversation was short; he asked if Amy was around, and I answered no. He asked if I knew when she’d be around, and, again, I answered no. We sat in silence for a couple minutes. I asked him if he was a friend of Amy’s and he just laughed at me and replied, ‘You wish”. That’s when I just kinda lost it. I didn’t say anything rude, I just told him to get out and he didn’t move, so I uh…I had to get a bit more physical. He left eventually but…”
“You’re sure you’ve only met that one time?”
“Yes.”
“A classmate of yours says she saw Simon being physically aggressive towards you in chemistry class the day after Amy’s disappearance.
Care to explain?”
Spencer said nothing. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. Finally, he spoke. “He’d gotten it into his head that I had something to do with Amy’s disappearance. It’s a stupid theory, but I mean, the guy was desperate. I think he wanted Amy to dump me for him, or something like that. He was really angry, though. He pulled me out of my seat and forced me outside. He started shouting and I was tempted to shout back but I didn’t talk to him. He kept trying to blame me for all this shit, but I just kinda ignored him. When he was done, I told him he was crazy and went back into class. I didn’t think to mention it, cause it’s not like anything actually happened and I didn’t wanna waste your time. My bad.”
“I said my bad, man.” He pushed his hair back again and his leg started bouncing up and down ever so slightly. “Look, whatever that idiot Simon told you about me isn’t true. He’s just jealous that Amy took advantage of him. I haven’t done anything wrong here. Ask anyone you want, I treated Amy better than anyone. No one would have tolerated her bullshit the way I did.”
“Why do you keep referring to her in past tense?”
“What…?”
His leg stopped bouncing. The smug grin on his face melted into a totally neutral expression. It was an almost eerily blank stare.
“You keep referring to Amy as “was”. Why is that?”
He didn’t answer.
"Spencer?"
He said nothing.
“Spencer…where were you the night of Amy’s disappearance?”
No response.
“Why was Simon so convinced you were involved in all of this?”
Silence.
“Spencer. Is Amy Fisher dead?”
…
“ANSWER ME-”
“Hey officer,” Spencer interrupted. He let his head drop so his hair was covering all of his face save his thin sliver of a smile. It stretched as he laughed. It was a quiet yet chilling laugh.
He stood and started gathering his things. “I have another appointment to get to, but, um…if you need anything else, let me know. I wish I could have helped out more, man.”
He lifted his head ever so slightly as he made his way to the door and his eyes looked entirely dull. He didn't look human.
“It’s been fun, Officer.”
With that, he left.
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