The Return of Sherlock James
by Gary D. Snyder
Chapter 4:
After returning home Jimmy spent most of that evening pacing back and forth in his room, trying to sort things out. "I don't get it, Goddard," he told his mechanical canine. "I can't believe that Cindy would do anything illegal. What she was buying in that store was probably totally innocent. If it weren't it wouldn't make any sense for her to have Libby along as a witness. But where would she get the money? If she has the money, why wait until tomorrow? And if she doesn't, why would she be so sure she'll have it tomorrow? Unless…"
He stopped pacing and threw himself onto his bed to stare at the mobile of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. "As I see it, there are only four possibilities, Goddard. The first is that she actually has the money but didn't happen to have it with her. If that's true, it means she decided to go to the store at the last minute. That means that something unexpected must have come up, but a jewelry store seems an odd place to visit, if that's the case. Okay, let's shelve that idea for now and come back to it later.
"The second possibility is that she knows that she's going be coming into some money tomorrow…somehow." He frowned. "Tomorrow is Wednesday, so I doubt it would be from a part-time job. They usually pay on Friday. And it's not her birthday -" He stopped and looked over at Goddard. "It isn't, is it?" Goddard shook his head and Jimmy dropped back with a sigh of relief. "Okay, it's not her birthday so it can't be a gift…even assuming that she'd know ahead of time how much she'd get. She's too young for the lottery and she doesn't have anything to sell…"
His voice trailed off as he considered it before going on somewhat tentatively, "…that I know about. If she does, she must have gotten it pretty recently. Something…valuable." He shook his head, not quite able to accept the implication of his line of reasoning. "All right, that's far enough with that for now. Let's look at the other possibilities.
"The third possibility is that she wanted to have some excuse for going back to the store tomorrow. It sounded like Cindy was going back alone tomorrow. Maybe she just wants to see Rafael again." Jimmy said the name with undisguised disgust. "Or it's possible she didn't want Libby along for some other reason. What could that be? Libby was there and knows what Cindy is going to buy." Jimmy thought about it. "Or does she? Maybe whatever Libby saw isn't really what Cindy is really going to buy. That's definitely worth checking out. I think I'd better keep an eye on Miss Vortex tomorrow when she goes back to that store."
Goddard barked and Jimmy looked over at him. Goddard had opened his chest plate to reveal his video screen on which was displayed a large, lace-trimmed heart with an arrow through it. Jimmy scowled at this.
"Knock it off, Goddard," he scolded. "The only reason I'm even thinking about following her is to make sure she isn't planning to do anything romantic. I mean, 'wrong'. 'Wrong'," he corrected himself immediately. "Make sure she isn't planning to do anything wrong. Okay, on to the fourth possibility," he rushed on, anxious to change the subject.
"The fourth possibility," he said, "is that she never intended to buy anything in the first place and was just making it look as though she would be. But why would she do that? Why go into a jewelry store and say you'll buy something if you aren't going to do it? Especially with a potential witness, if you were up to something wrong? You'd only do that because you had to be there…or because you were after something else all along."
Goddard barked again and Jimmy glared at the video screen, which now displayed:
CINDY + RAFAEL
TRU LUV 4EVER
"Oh, clam up!" Jimmy snapped. "I'm trying to be serious here. I mean, Rafael is almost as old as Beautiful Gorgeous. Why would Cindy be interested in some old geezer like that?"
In response Goddard's screen showed the following:
"A crafty old geezer named Earl
Was the heartthrob of every young girl
'Cause his lighthearted squeezing
Was always quite pleasing
And put all their heads in a whirl."
Jimmy stared in shock and indignation. "Goddard! What king of trash have you been downloading into your cognitive storage lately?" He stared at the robotic dog and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Are you sure that your adult content firewalls are still in place?" There was no answer and Jimmy turned away muttering to himself in disgust, missing the word "PRUDE" that flashed on Goddard's screen as he did so. The chest plate closed over it just as Jimmy turned back again.
"Maybe I'm being paranoid, Goddard," he said, "but it seems that there's something potentially suspicious with every possibility. It's possible that none of them will lead to what I'm actually looking for, but since every postulate leads to a suspicious end I'm forced to conclude that all is not as it should be. Cindy is definitely up to something that doesn't seem quite right. But what? And how do I find out? Goddard! Options!"
Obediently Goddard revealed his video screen to display:
SODIUM PENTATHOL
Jimmy scoffed. "Truth serum? Doubt it. I got in enough trouble when I conditioned Mom and Dad not to lie to each other for a whole day. They didn't speak to each other for a whole week. Besides, I'm pretty sure that there are some things in Cindy's head that the world should never have to know." He shuddered at the thought. "Next."
Goddard's next screen read
HYPNO-BEAM
Jimmy shook his head. "Good idea, but it's not fully functioning right now. Next."
The next display showed
REMOTE POLYGRAPHIC ANALYSIS
Jimmy stroked his chin. "A telemetry-based lie detector?" he said. "That's a possibility. Your lie detector helped when I was trying to help Sheen find his Ultra Lord action figure." He winced and rubbed his cheek, vividly remembering Cindy's final reaction to his previous interrogation. "Maybe I shouldn't tell her what I'm doing, though. It would probably be safer all around."
Goddard whined unhappily.
"I know, I know," Jimmy replied. "It's not very ethical. But it's for a good reason. I'm trying to find out who took Mrs. Fowl's pen and my sample of quasi-gold. If I don't find out soon and stop them, then whoever did it might get into real trouble. They might be tempted to try stealing something really valuable, or they might even try something dangerous. I'm not happy about doing this, but if something bad happened to somebody I knew because I didn't do this, I'd never forgive myself."
Goddard still didn't seem convinced.
"Look, Goddard, we can argue about this all night and still not convince each other about whether I should do this or not. Philosophers have been doing this for centuries and still don't have a good answer about where the line should be drawn between right to privacy and right to know. Someone I know could be getting into real trouble. It might be someone I really care about. It might be Carl, or Sheen, or Libby." He paused. "It might even be Cindy. I can't just sit back and not know for sure." Goddard whimpered and looked up as Jimmy headed towards the door. Jimmy paused and looked back expectantly as he opened the door. "Coming?" he asked.
Slowly, as though he were a very old dog, Goddard shambled over to where Jimmy stood. From there they headed to Jimmy's lab, where Jimmy spent the next few hours scavenging parts from various earlier projects and putting them together into a new device. From time to time he surveyed his work in progress with a perfectionist's eye and finally was satisfied with the result. The contraption was not very imposing. To anyone but Jimmy it appeared to be nothing more than a portable audio player, albeit somewhat on the large size.
"Okay," Jimmy announced to no one in particular. "It's time to test it out." He activated the device, placed it on a worktable, and positioned himself several yards away from it. "Goddard! Give me some questions to answer, and let's see if it works."
Goddard shook his head.
"I know you don't think this is a good idea, boy, but I have to do it. Please?" Jimmy pleaded. "Just ask me some 'yes' and 'no' type of questions."
Goddard seemed to sigh and then obliged by opening his video screen again and displaying the question:
ARE YOU JEALOUS OF CINDY AND RAFAEL?
"Goddard!" Jimmy spluttered. "That's not a fair -" Before he could get any further Goddard displayed:
WERE YOU JEALOUS OF CINDY AND JACQUES?
"That's totally irrelevant!" Jimmy protested. "Jacques isn't even -" Once again Goddard interrupted before Jimmy could finish by displaying:
HAVE YOU STOPPED CRUSHING ON CINDY?
"Yes. I mean, no. That is…" Jimmy faltered and re-read the question several times before he finally decided that there was no good answer and shook his head in disgust. "All right, fine!" he hollered. "I'll use the telemetric polygraph tomorrow without testing it first!" He scooped up the device and shut it off, ignoring the mass of erratic lines running across the glowing reticuled display. "Man's best friend," he muttered as he left the lab with Goddard at his heels. "Sometimes I wish I'd never given you those autonomic logic synthesizers. If I wanted someone to sabotage my experiments I could invite Eustace Stritch over to do it." Goddard barked and Jimmy grunted. "No, I don't want you to invite him over. You're doing fine on your own."
End of Chapter 4
Author's Notes:
Probably the more boring parts of the stories I write are when I have Jimmy on his own, introspecting, but I think this is the only times I can let him be himself and show what sort of things go through his mind when no one else who can judge him is around. Jimmy takes the responsibilities of his intellect very seriously and tends to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders a bit too much, but if he didn't he'd probably be just another smart kid instead of Jimmy Neutron. I also don't have many opportunities to show Goddard's influence on Jimmy and how he tries (at times unsuccessfully) to keep Jimmy in line. In many ways he reminds me of a robotic Jiminy Cricket.