August 3, 2012 - National Kazoo Day

Summary: **Part of the 2012 LiveJournal's Twisted Shorts August Fic-A-Day** series, better known as the 'Wacky Holiday Series'. Warren should have known better than to try and frame a relative of Jessica Fletcher for murder.

Challenge: for the livejournal 2012 August Fic-a-Day Challenge.

Warning: the explanation at the end makes this a crackfic (in my opinion).

Timeline: almost totally AU season 6 for BtVS; vague for M,SW, but change the dates so they line up. Also change the air date for 'Dead Things' to match up with the holiday.

A/N: Remember, the dates in the title won't match the dates of the holidays; those are mentioned in the story.

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy. Murder, She Wrote characters belong to Peter S. Fischer, Richard Levinson, William Link, Universal Television, Columbia Pictures Television, and Corymore Productions. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

Los Angeles/Sunnydale

January 29th…

As she finished the countless hours of book signings, Jessica stood up and stretched her muscles with a slight groan. This was a nice boring trip for once. No dead bodies showed up in her room; no friends from foreign intelligence communities popped up to cause her grief; best of all, no calls from relatives saying they had been arrested for murder.

Yes, Jessica was very pleased with this trip overall. That's why she decided to taunt Murphy by taking a bus out to Sunnydale to visit her niece, Buffy. Sometimes she couldn't figure out just how she was related to all these nieces and nephews, but had long since given up worrying about it. Family was family, even if it didn't make sense how.

It was when she spoke to Buffy's housemate, Willow Rosenburg, that Jessica realized she made a mistake in getting too cocky that it was a quiet trip.

"I don't understand why Buffy turned herself in!" Willow exclaimed excitedly. "She could never kill a regular person! Without Dawn here to care for, she doesn't feel like she has anything to live for anymore!"

'Dawn? Who was Dawn?' Jessica wondered to herself. Out loud, she asked for directions to the police department so she could see her niece. She found it a touch amusing that despite Buffy's 'job', she was in far less trouble than some of the other nieces and nephews…particularly Grady. That boy tended to get into trouble with the law on a semi-annual basis. This was actually the first time that Jessica had the opportunity to help Buffy this way; usually the problem was cleared up by the time she even heard about it.

Police Station

"I'd like to talk to my niece, Buffy Summers," she informed the desk sergeant at the station a short time later.

Nearby, Detective Stein let out a groan. The most troublesome citizen of Sunnydale just had to be related to the most troublesome author of mystery novels in the country. They might as well just release Summers right now and be done with it. Fletcher's legendary reputation for finding the real killer was known even in this hellhole.

A quick word with the captain and it was agreed; Buffy Summers would be release and they'd wait until Jessica Fletcher called them to say she had the real killer for Katrina Silber.

A few days later…

Once Jessica convinced Buffy that she believed in her innocence even if Buffy didn't, they started looking into who might have had motive for killing the poor girl. Willow used her semi-dormant hacking skills to get Katrina's autopsy for them to read.

Then they found out that Katrina went to the tech school in nearby Dutton. Another quick hacking excursion revealed the list of Sunnydale graduates who attended with her. At the top of the list was a familiar name: Warren Mears. He was the creep who made the Aprilbot and Buffybot.

When Buffy saw the name, she remembered seeing Katrina at Warren's house during the Aprilbot fiasco.

Buffy literally dragged him down the police station after he confessed to her and her aunt that he accidentally killed Katrina. He was just tried to knock her out in order to stop her from leaving him.

Detective Stein listened to the confession, then asked, "Why did you frame Miss Summers?"

"She ruined my life two years ago!" Warren snarled.

"I didn't even know you two years ago," Buffy protested.

Warren just glared at her. "Like that's supposed to make it better?"

"How did she ruin your life?" Stein prompted, desperately wanting this to be over so Jessica Fletcher would leave town and hopefully never come back; their mortality rate couldn't take her visits.

"It's kind of interesting that Katrina died on the anniversary of that dark day," Warren mused, almost to himself. "See, January 28th is National Kazoo Day and two years ago, they were having tryouts in LA for a traveling kazoo band. The day before, Buffy went and broke my lucky kazoo when she was on her way to the motel on the outskirts of town with a bunch of soldier types. I tried to play with one of my other kazoos, but the sound just 'wasn't right'. When Katrina died and I realized what day it was, it felt like poetic justice to make Buffy think she did it since she killed my dreams of being a musician."

This time, Stein wasn't alone when he groaned.

BtVS canon changes: Dawn disappeared with the portal and nobody who hadn't met her remembered her; there was no evil Trio trying to rule Sunnydale. They were just being geeks until Katrina died. Spike didn't catch Buffy at the station.

A/N: Sorry I didn't go into great detail on how Jessica figured it out; didn't really have the time today to write a lot.