WHO: Topher Brink & Mark Sheffield WHAT: Topher's interrogation for Adelle's murder. It does not go well.
Mark was just glad he'd drawn the long straw and hadn't gotten Alpha. He'd gotten the lesser of two evils, here. Topher was completely out of his mind, and questioning him wasn't going to be fun ... but seriously? Mark didn't actually believe he did it. He was low on the suspect list, but he was there, so Mark did what he had to do.
Getting Topher to go into the nice room alone was the hard part. He was so twitchy that Mark was more worried about him having a panic attack than anything else. Mark settled down across the table from him, leaning in.
"Why'd you do it, Topher?"
Topher hadn't eaten since Adelle was killed. He hadn't really uttered much of a coherent sentence, either. She'd meant so much to him. She'd been his employer, his boss, his mother, his friend, his enemy----she pushed him, she insulted him, but in the end she supported him. She gave him a place to work, she trusted in his own special brand of genius, and he had loved her. But he'd cracked back at the Dollhouse. He'd only just started to really recover from Alpha's torture when this happened, and it sent him into a whole new state of mental hell.
"What?" Topher looked up sharply from where he'd been staring at his hands. He didn't want to be in this room. Alone. Trapped.
"Why'd you kill her?" Mark asked softly. "Were you mad at her? Did she say something to you that bothered you, Topher?"
"No... no." Topher touched his fingers to his lips. He had his feet pulled up onto the seat of the chair he was in. "I didn't... kill her, I didn't do that. I don't do that, I don't kill people." Even as he said it, he seemed to have a realization to the contrary.
"Tell me where you were the night Adelle died, Topher. Just talk me through it."
"That----that night? That night was every other night, just like every other night after night after night," Topher muttered. "They think we're safe. We're not safe. None of us are safe, don't you get it? You can take us out of the house but now we're in a new house. He's still here, he put us here."
"Then tell me about every other night. Topher, look at me. Tell me what you do at night."
"This..." Topher spread his hands helplessly. They were shaking. When he looked up at Mark, his eyes were bloodshot and glassy. "I don't do anything. I don't do anything anymore, I stopped."
"How did you feel about Adelle? Were you two getting along?" Mark reached for him, taking Topher's hand.
Topher jerked his hand back with a startled gasp. His fingers curled, his wrist twisted, and he brought his hand back close to his body. He didn't answer him. He stared at the floor, mumbling something. "I need a juice box. Get me a juice box."
Mark watched Topher carefully. "I don't think you did it, to be honest. It was all too messy; you would never be able to cover it up yourself. ...Unless your staff helped you. Did the tech girls clean up after you, Topher? Maybe you killed Adelle by accident and they took care of you afterward, protected you."
Topher looked up slowly, all of the color draining from his face. It wasn't clear whether he was scared because Mark had hit the nail right on the head or because he was downright horrified.
Mark was quiet. Outwardly calm. "Is that what happened?" he said softly. "Did you kill her by accident, Topher?" Shit. What if he had?
"I... I----" Topher tugged his knees in close against his chest.
"Shhh. It's all right. We just want to know what happened, okay?" Either Topher was bringing the crazy or ... fuck, it really was him. "Where did you get the knife, Topher?"
"I didn't... the..." Topher looked toward the door. He gulped, touched his throat like he was desperate for something to drink. His fingers were twitching. Nervous. "I need to drink something." And he bolted, knocking the chair over on his way to the door.
"Owen!" Mark vaulted over the table after Topher, tackling him. Well, shit.
Topher wasn't exactly a fighter. He hit the ground hard, face slamming against the floor. "No!"
"What the fuck---?" Owen was finally eating a sandwich to keep himself from starving, waiting outside the door. He burst in, ducking to the floor. "Mark---what the hell?"
"He tried to take off! He went nuts and tried to take off." Mark looked up, holding Topher down onto the ground. "Owen ... I think it was Topher."
Owen leaned back. "Fucking kidding me."
"She----I didn't mean... but she knows me----"
Mark looked more sad than anything else. "I think it was just an accident. I'm willing to bet his staff helped him clean it up, too."
"Do we have to get them in here?"
"No!" cried Topher, struggling violently. He was stronger than he looked. Not as strong as he thought he was, but stronger than he looked.
Owen ran a hand over his face, looking... relieved, actually. "Restrain him. Get some answers out of him. Find out what happened, what he knows, what he remembers."
"Wouldn't bother---Topher, shhhh. Calm down and I'll let you up. Shhhhh."
Topher curled in on himself, like making himself smaller would get Mark's hands off of him. His arms in tight against his chest, his fingers were rubbing little circles against the back of his neck. "I made this, I did this, this is my fault, I made all of this. I made him."
Mark moved off of Topher, standing and rubbing his own arm. "That would explain why the cuts had no pattern. He's nuts. He probably killed her because he thought it was better than living with what he'd done, or whatever twisted reason he came up with."
Owen frowned. "The chandelier, Mark..."
"An attempt to throw us off the trail, get us to think it was Alpha---which is isn't."
"Crazy people don't think like that. Not... not this kind of crazy."
Topher curled up more tightly. "I made him. I made him. I'm him, he's me," he breathed.
"Not him, them. Tech crew is smart, they'd do something over the top if it meant keeping Topher safe." Mark sighed.
"...And you don't want to book the tech crew."
"No. No, it was ... an accident. I think we should tell everyone we know what happened without making any accusations, that it was an accident, and to mourn Adelle quietly and leave it alone. The very last thing we need right now is to rile people up and let them tear each other apart over this." Mark shook his head.
Owen frowned, looking down at Topher. "What do we do with him."
"I'll get him back to Ivy. That's all we can do at this point."