WHEN: Wednesday, May 24th WHO: Noah Puckerman + Officer Evans NOTES: Puck is brought out of his 3rd period English class for an ‘interview’ (an interrogation, he argues), and it’s safe to say he’s a suspect.
His interview goes as well as Puck expected it would.
His first instinct upon initially pulling up to school on Wednesday morning is that he’s glad he’s an experienced dealer at Pierview, and as the cops circle around in the high school parking lot, Puck is thankful that he does not keep his stash inside of his locker, but instead, inside of a duffel bag with all of his football equipment, the smell of sweat and dirt easily covering the scent of weed and uppers from a dog’s sniffer.
While he says he’s unaffected by the presence of an entire police force to his friends on the team, arguably, he holds his bag a little tighter as he steps up to the front doors to be checked like all of the other students. He’s got his switch blade in the inside pocket of his leather jacket -- which he wears even in the blazing heat of the beginnings of an Ohioan summer -- so he’s not worried about them finding weapons in any of the pockets of his bag.
When they let him through, Puck lets out a breath despite knowing he has nothing on him to get him pulled aside. A man from the station still guns him down with a stare that says I know you’re a piece of garbage, Puckerman, and he recognizes him as the man to retained him after his run in with his neighbor’s mailbox and a baseball bat. He only stayed overnight for destruction of property, which seemed like overkill to Puck anyway, and for drinking underage and in public. The defense team seems to have it out for him because they seem happy to pin anything they can on him despite Puck having a favorable reputation with most parental figures in the Pierview neighborhoods.
Beating on the door to his locker, it pops open with a loud bang that no one seems to even notice within the bustling hallways. There’s whispers and pointing toward the doors where police officers are removing things from a girls’ purse, and Puck’s glad that nobody is stupid enough to talk shit about him while he’s standing in proximity of them.
He shoves what he can inside and only takes one notebook out of the confines of his shitty, broken down locker, which he doesn’t even bother to lock anymore because no one is insane enough to go through Noah Puckerman’s locker without wanting to lose their teeth, and he uses the same worn pages for every class he has. Nearing the end of the school year, mostly everything is studying for the finals that Puck knows he won’t pass, so he doesn’t bother trying to put the effort in when he shows up to homeroom in the first place. Announcements are late due to all of the bag checks at the door, and when the first period bell rings, Puck has to stifle a yawn already.
Surprisingly, no one calls for him until 3rd period. He’s in English, half-listening to the rest of the class learn about the proper use of a semi-colon, something Puck couldn’t give less of a shit about seeing as he hardly ever types in full sentences, and he sure is hell is never gonna write anything important enough to use a semi-colon, when someone comes knocking with a little white piece of paper in their hand that everybody knows as a summon to the office. Puck recognizes the girl from his Spanish class Freshman year, and he’s happy to note that she’s filled out a little bit in the chest area. A solid C cup, if he’s not mistaken.
Sliding out of his seat, he gathers his only notebook under his arm and meets the eyes of Dave Karofsky from the other side of the room. He tips his head and snatches the white paper from the girls’ fingers with a wink. He leaves the room as quickly as possible, just in case his teacher tries to call him back in for papers he should take home to review with, and makes his way to the conference room that he knows he’ll have to step foot in and play a role he was born to play.
He’s a little surprised to see Sam Evans’ dad waiting for him on the other side of the table, where the principal usually sits during these meetings. There’s two German Shepherds in the corner of the room as well, so they must have read Puck’s file. They assume his aggressive nature will be paralyzed by the avoidance of two canines, but they thought wrong. Puck has a quick temper and quicker reflexes, years of fighting and making his way out on the streets shadowing the corners of his mind like the dogs shadow the corners of the conference room.
“Noah. Good to see you, son.” Sheriff Evans gives him a reassuring smile, and Puck really feels that the man trusts him despite of his record, as according to his friendship with his son. He and Sam don’t actively hang out often, but they are part of the same social circles, so he’s met Sheriff Evans out of uniform many times in the past.
Puck plops down in the plastic chair provided, a matching grin forming to meet the officer’s, “Hey, sir. A mess out there, huh? What happened?”
Evans quirks an eyebrow at him and folds his hands around the pad of notebook paper he’s got laying on the table. “Haven’t watched the news this morning?”
Shrugging, Puck leans back, hearing the worn plastic squeak under his weight and improper posture, “Don’t got any cable right now.” He leaves it at that, not giving any information away about his personal life or what else he does in the morning before he arrives at school.
The officer nods and pulls out a pen, “Sebastian Smythe’s body was identified last night, the person found at the lake.” Puck nods along, keeping a blank face. He didn’t know Smythe well. Just of what the school has seen as they crossed paths throughout the day. “How well did you know him?”
Puck mentally pats himself on the back -- he can answer that. “Didn’t really know him at all. We saw each other at school, and that’s that.”
Evans gives him a second to elaborate, but when Puck doesn’t, he continues with his questions, “Do you know if Sebastian had any enemies? Anyone who would want to harm him or his family?”
The urge to say Sebastian Smythe was a bully and an asshole -- it’d be easier to tell you who did like him instead was strong, but Puck holds it in at the last second because he’s trying to not look like the guy who killed Sebastian. “Like I said, didn’t know much about him. He is -- er... was, a pretty popular dude who knew lots of people. Not sure he was popular for the right reasons, but everybody’s gotta know of ‘em. It’s a big school.” Puck picks at his nails as he keeps his cool in front of Sam’s dad. He’s had plenty of practice at playing innocent.
Sheriff Evans doesn’t look impressed, and Puck can’t blame him considering he’s given the man absolutely nothing to go on so far. He’s writing down on his pad the answers Puck has given him, repeating them back under his breath. “So you hardly know him, don’t know any of his friends, and he was popular.” The room is oddly quiet, the only noises are the panting of the two dogs and the ringing of phones and talking officers in the next room over. “Noah,” he starts and Puck tries to quell the grinding of his teeth in irritation of being spoken to by his first name by someone trying to power trip him, “As far as you know,” he continues, “is there a drug problem here at Pierview?”
Puck desperately wants to roll his eyes at the question because its so cliche. There’s drug problems everywhere. On every corner of every city, in every high school, and in every prison where people ultimately end up when they’ve got an addiction. Or at the bottom of a lake, he adds to himself. “Not that I know of, sir.” He ends his sentence as politely as he can. It sounds flat and bland to his own ears, and Officer Evans lets out a sigh of irritation, clearly getting nowhere with a delinquent who was schooled at this.
What Puck doesn’t expect, is for Evans to pull out a zip-locked bag of ballots that look like they’ve been through the ringer. When they’re slid across to him, Puck can see more clearly that they have the name Blaine Anderson written neatly among them, and his stomach drops out.
“The fuck are those?”
The words slip out before he can stop them and finally Evans looks a little more satisfied that he’s managed to get some emotion from Puck. He smiles reassuringly and Puck can feels the anxiety and nervous aggression bubbling inside of his gut at the words to come.
“These were found in a grill in the park in Sebastian’s neighborhood. Do they look familiar to you?”
Puck frowns. “I just asked what they were -- of course they don’t look familiar.”
He watches as the officer writes his words down on his pad, clearly seeing something worth remembering in their interaction. It spikes Puck’s nervous anger further and he wants to leave the room before he makes a mistake.
Evans continues, “As the sheriff of this town, Noah, it is my duty to find out who did this to your classmate.” Sheriff Evans leans forward on the table, getting too close to Puck for his own comfort and says, “We will do everything we can to find out what happened to him. You’re safe in this room so if there’s anything you wish to tell me, you can. Anything you need to get off your chest?” He smiles, “Anything at all?”
Puck can’t stop the grinding of his back teeth, and when she shakes out a “No,” he quickly stands from his seat and notes the amount of time that’s gone by. “I gotta get out of here. It’s almost P.E. and today’s pull up day. I’m the reigning champ, so I gotta make sure I’m there to beat everybody’s high score.”
He salutes Officer Evans and slips his notebook back into his arms. “Good to see you, sir. Good luck.”
Puck walks out before another word can be spoken to him, and he tries not to outwardly appear as angry and as shaken as he feels inside. He pulls out his phone and his fingers ghost over the ‘Anderson’ contact in his phone. The hall is empty, as the bell had rang again only a few minutes ago. “What the fuck, Anderson?” He whispers quietly into the ghostly halls, feeling the creeping sensation of Sebastian Smythe crawling out of his grave and staring down his back to make all of their lives hell, even as a dead man.
