Chapter 8
The knock at the door was so timid that Shaggy barely noticed, "Excuse me. Are you Mr. Rogers?"
Shaggy looked up from the ledger sheet he was studying and found himself thankful for the interruption. How could Fred keep his nose in these things all day without going bonkers? Shaggy had photographed several pages and texted them to Fred to get a second opinion. All of the numbers seemed to balance out but he also had a couple of questions. A teen-age girl was standing in the doorway.
He tried out a reassuring smile, "That's me. You must be Kathryn. Please, have a seat."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, "Thank you." She pulled the other chair a few inches farther away from Shaggy before she sat.
Tommy had twice referred to the young woman in front of him as 'ugly'. And that was not a fact. She fell more into the 'homely' category. Still nothing a reasonable human being would ever say to a person's face but 'homely' had a connotation of comfort and warmth. To use the modern vernacular, the girl was 'curvy' by about thirty pounds and her face was round and freckled. But her eyes, when she briefly looked up to cast him a furtive glance, were soft and very pretty. Shaggy saw before him a young woman who could just as easily be called attractive. Attractive would be the appropriate description. She sat with her knees pressed together, her hands wedged together between her thighs, and her feet slightly pigeon-toed on the floor. She looked down into her lap.
He started the interview using a soft voice, "Do you know what I'm going to be talking with you about?"
"Jerry." The name did not start a gushing of tears nor some speech oozing with teen-age drama. She didn't look up.
Shaggy stood and walked away from her around the corner of Kyle's desk, sitting on the back corner of the desk, which placed a protective barrier between the two for her comfort. "How long have you known Jerry?"
The added distance and barrier seemed to work as she looked up and held his gaze, "I knew Jerry since fourth grade. That was over seven years." She corrected his verb tense from present to past and again spoke without melodrama.
"And you were friends?"
"He was my…" The veneer cracked and her voice broke while she tried to get to the end of the sentence, "He was my best friend."
"Were you romantically involved? Was he your boyfriend?"
"No."
"Did he want to be?"
"I don't know."
"Did you want him to be?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Did you ever talk about it?"
The dam gave slightly and a few more words spilled out, "We should have talked about it. He was too shy and I was too afraid. Now, I'll never know." The last sentence came out with repressed anger in the tone.
"Did you love him?"
The anger ratcheted up a notch, "What would I know about love?" This could possibly have been an amazing self-awareness wherein she understood that in her youth she had much to learn - which would make her, as a teen-ager, as unique as Scooby Doo. More likely, she viewed herself as an ugly duckling who might never find love again. It's funny how the ugly ducklings of the world forget the ending to that story.
He dropped his voice even further, "You would know that it hurts to lose it."
The handful of tears which rolled down her cheeks demonstrated that Shaggy now understood the relationship. She wiped them away without speaking.
"Did you notice any change in Jerry recently? Was he acting differently?
"Yes. He wasn't acting like himself at all."
"How do you mean?"
"Jerry was the type of person who was all-in on whatever he did. When he got this job, it was the best job in the world. He memorized all of the brochures and tried to get Pastor Mike to set up a teen group trip to the park. All the other kids thought the place was lame and refused. But then, a few days before the accident, Jerry quit talking about the park. I figured that he had burned out on it, which was pretty normal, or was just realizing that the summer was almost over. Or maybe he was afraid of the ghost."
"The ghost?"
"Yeah, he seemed fine until the ghost came one night and chased us around and then Jerry started acting weird."
"The ghost chased you and Jerry? Who else?"
"It was just Jerry and me. People used to get together and hang out in the evenings at the first of the summer but now the stoners all meet up over at the storage building and everyone else just hangs out in their hooches. On nice nights, Jerry and I would sometimes just walk around the park. Maybe pet the animals in the petting zoo. We were walking back from the zoo area and were going past the other end of the storage building and the ghost was sort of looking into it. He saw us and pulled his gun. We ran."
"Always the best plan."
"While we were running, Jerry stopped and yelled at me to keep going and that he would catch up. When I looked back, I saw that he had waited for the ghost to nearly catch him and then ran in a different direction. The ghost followed him. I made it back to the hooches and sat in front of his until he got back. It was an hour later and seemed like forever. He said that he had hidden from the ghost until the coast was clear."
"I have some experience with that myself."
"I don't think he was the same after that."
"Getting chased by your first ghost changes you a little."
She looked up at him, "I suppose. You work for the insurance company, right?"
Shaggy nodded.
"Jerry's dad is a policeman and his mother is a nurse. Please make sure that they get their money. I overheard my parents talking and they said that the funeral expenses wiped out their savings."
There wasn't a good answer for that, "I'll do what I can. Unless there is anything else you want to say, that's all I need. You can go now, Thanks."
Shaggy watched her go and felt the inevitable sadness descend over him. A policeman and a nurse. How do you explain the realities of life to a seventeen-year-old? If Shaggy confirmed that it was an accident and the park was determined to be negligent, then the insurance claim would pay any damages. That was the deepest pockets and the most money for Jerry's family. But if it were determined to be a murder, then the insurance company was off the hook, and the park might be off the hook, and the parents would be left with a civil suit against someone who was on their way to prison.
So, if the truth were that Jerry was murdered and his murderer was brought to justice, then the family would probably get nothing. And there was a sick feeling in the pit of Shaggy's stomach which told him that was the direction in which this investigation was heading.
xXx
Velma's hair had grown back down to the middle of her back and it was hanging in wet strings onto her shoulders as she pondered whether to blow dry it and suffer the split ends which caused it to charge up with static electricity and become annoying or go ahead and put it into a pony tail wet which caused it to get all tangled and become annoying. Maybe she should just shave her head and be done with it. In her dream world of logic, this was a viable solution. In society, she had to worry about people's first impression. In the end, she decided to comb it out thoroughly and then let it dangle wet (also very annoying) right up until Daphne knocked on the door.
Her second major decision of the morning was deciding whether Daphne was enough of a 'visitor' to require her to put on her bra on a Saturday morning when she was at home. She ended up pulling a nickel out of the change jar next to the door and flipping it. The flip came up tails which meant she lost and went into the bedroom to climb into the modern version of an iron maiden. It was Daphne, not the Queen. But a coin flip is a coin flip.
The time that Daphne had said she would arrive came and went which was per norm. Then twenty minutes after that time came and went. This meant that Daphne had figured out that Velma was adding twenty minutes to her scheduled time and had adjusted the time in her head which meant that she would now be forty minutes late. The silver lining was that her hair was reasonably dry and she got to drag a comb through it one last time before putting it into a ponytail which had her and the apartment in reasonable shape when, at 31 minutes after the agreed time, there was a knock at the door. Daphne was nine minutes early.
Scooby had been sad before and even been depressed before for short spurts but the emotions he was feeling now were new. This depression was exhausting. It seemed to be sapping his strength. He couldn't concentrate and faded in and out of sleep and awoke each time feeling more tired than before. Velma's effort at cooking had been taken out to the dumpster but Scooby could still smell the last vestiges of it on the air and his stomach grumbled. Wait. What was that?
A new aroma coming closer. It was… It was… fast food breakfast! An internal war immediately broke out between the lethargy of the depression swamping his non-dog side and the euphoria that his dog half was experiencing at that glorious smell. This mental tog-of-war was nothing new and Scooby knew that his dog side would ultimately win out. His answer to this psychological dichotomy was that he basically turned his motor functions over to his dog half and his non-dog half came along for the ride. Maybe he was becoming schizophrenic. He would have to talk to the Government doctors about this one. But it got him out of bed.
Velma opened the door to see multiple large bags of food squeezed together with two legs sticking out from the bottom.
"Help." Daphne whimpered.
"Hold on." Velma pulled her front door stepping stool over to the quivering pile of bags, stepped up, and pulled three of the bags off the top. This revealed Daphne's face and allowed her to make her way into the apartment. She headed straight for the dining table and put all of the bags down. Velma climbed down and followed her over.
Daphne was leaning against the table and catching her breath as she reached in and pulled out two bags. Handing one to Velma, "This one is yours." Put the other one aside, "This one is mine." And then gestured at the remaining pile, "And these are for Scooby Doo."
On cue, they heard a door lock click and Scooby came padding softly out. He surveyed the pile of bags, gathered them up in one huge handful and walked back into his bedroom. He came back out and walked up to Daphne and spoke quietly, "Rhank roo, Raphne." He then pressed his nose lightly against Daphne's arm. A very unusual and dog-like gesture. After starting back toward his room, he stopped, turned around and repeated the gesture with Velma. He then returned to his room.
Daphne's mouth dropped open, "What on earth was that?"
Velma was still looking at Scooby's closed bedroom door, "That is this morning's version of Scooby Doo."
"I knew he was acting a little off, but I've never seen anything like that before."
"This is new. Something happened last night. I don't know what."
"Have you talked with Shaggy?"
"Yes, He says to wait for Scooby to want to talk about it."
"He's probably right."
There was another knock at the door. Daphne looked over at Velma, "Were you expecting someone else?"
"No." Velma stepped over to the door and opened it.
Amanda stood there, "I need to speak with Scooby."
xXx
Shaggy followed Kathryn to the door and was almost hit in the nose as it was suddenly shoved inward. A woman about ten years older than Shaggy wearing a skin-tight spandex exercise suit strode into the room. She hit her mark dead center in the middle of the office and whirled with a flourish, "You summoned me?"
He turned toward her with a forced a smile, "I presume that you are Mrs. Masterson?"
"Ms. Farrell. Husbands come and go but you're stuck with children forever. Might as well share a last name with the little bastard. Don't you think?"
Shaggy nodded, "Impressive entrance." He knew enough about deception to understand that the purpose of her overblown entrance was as a shock tactic to put him on the defensive. He fired back, "But you are professionally trained to make entrances. You were a stripper, right?"
She made her way behind the desk and sat in her husband's chair. Another power play, "A pole dancer. But granted, the men who threw dollars on the stage were not grading me on my athletic skills. You have questions for me?" Her tone was now dismissive. She was too busy to have her time wasted with small talk.
Shaggy could give her that one, "Were you at the park when Jerry Pollack died?"
"No, I was at home."
"Can anyone verify that?"
"Kyle, I suppose, and I was on-line with my exercise trainer."
"And he could see you and hear you?"
"Not unless I pressed a call button – which I never do. But he could see my statistics and I doubt anyone else in the group can match my stats. If you're going to be a trophy wife, might as well be a damn good one."
"How about Tommy?"
"Tommy? He wasn't there. He lives at the park with all of his pot-smoking friends."
"Friends? Or clients?"
"Who cares? Friends are friends whether made or bought. They pass the time."
The nonchalant act was wearing thin, "Like trophy wives."
Her smile briefly turned into a snarl before she brought it back, "Yes. Like trophy wives."
"How long have you and Kyle been married?"
"Four years."
That math didn't add up, "What year were you married?"
"2017. May. It was a Spring wedding. Which doesn't mean anything in Vegas. Instead of hotter than hell it's only hotter than purgatory."
"Tommy started working here in 2016, right?"
"Something like that."
"So, Kyle hired him when you two were engaged?"
"Oh, heaven's no. Kyle hates Tommy. He thinks that he's a worthless piece of shit. And I suppose he is, but he's my worthless piece of shit. Me and Kyle weren't even engaged, yet, when he hired Tommy. He, Ralph, Ron, and Billy came to the club nearly every night and watched my show. It was obvious where the money was, but it was Ralph that seemed most determined to get into my pants. So, he pushed Kyle to hire Tommy to try and impress me. But, too bad for him…" She held the tip of her forefinger up to her cheek and spoke in a little girl's voice, "I was saving myself for marriage. To Kyle. And his money,"
"And Kyle knows that you talk this way?"
"Sure. Don't worry about Kyle. He gets his money's worth out of the deal."
Shaggy considered that a good note on which to end the interview.
xXx
Velma looked up at Amanda who was neatly dressed and obviously had showered but had applied no make-up. She was very attractive without it, but Velma understood the importance of routine in the life of someone like Amanda or herself. For Amanda to skip a part of her morning preparation ritual indicated that she, too, was extremely upset.
Velma wasn't 100% sure about the proper way forward, "Well, Scooby isn't his usual self this morning."
Amanda had not been invited in and remained stationary at the threshold, "Last night was difficult and I need to speak with him. He's not answering my calls."
Now Velma was definitely out of her element. If Scooby was not answering her calls, then he apparently did not want to speak with her. However, she knew that people who were emotional, like Scooby, sometimes did not answer calls when they wanted to talk to someone very badly. It was confusing and emotional. She said, "I'm going to shut the door for just a moment while I figure this out."
Amanda nodded, "I understand."
With the door shut, Velma turned to Daphne who was already answering the unasked question.
"Let her in."
Since she had the answer, there was no reason to ask the question. Velma re-opened the door, "He's in his room." And she stepped out of the way.
Amanda made her way to Scooby's door and knocked, "Scooby, It's Amanda."
The door did not open, "Rhy are roo here?"
"We need to talk about last night."
"Its fine. Rye am rired and am raking a nap. Rye'll call roo rater."
Amanda stood motionless in front of the door for a few seconds and then sat down on the floor, "I'll wait for you here. Whenever you want to talk, I'll be waiting."
Daphne looked at Velma, "It's a beautiful day! I think we should go on a picnic!"
Velma tilted her head slightly, "The weather report was for rain and wind with the temperature dropping through the morning. I believe that they are predicting…"
Daphne's voice became adamant, "Then let's go to the office and catch up on some paperwork."
Velma understood now. She turned to Amanda, "Amanda, Daphne and I are leaving so that you and Scooby can have your argument alone."
Amanda's voice was soft, "Thank you."
Daphne was shaking her head, "How can I… do anything but love you Vel. Let's go."
Velma poured them both travel mugs of coffee and turned off the coffee maker and then Daphne, as always, microwaved hers to boiling hot and they left for the five-minute drive to the office. On arrival, Daphne transferred her coffee to a ceramic mug (the plastic travel mug gave the coffee a plasticky taste) and microwaved it again. They spread out the food and were in the microwaving process when Velma's phone rang.
It was Shaggy, "Velma, I need some help. Is Scooby with you?"
"No, he's at home arguing with Amanda. I'm at the office with Daphne."
"What are you doing there?"
"Having breakfast."
"What are you eating?" This was Shaggy's version of What're you wearing? If she answered in detail, then he would lose focus.
Velma put her phone on speaker, "That's not important. What help do you need?"
"A couple of things. I would like Fred or Scooby to go over some financial ledgers from the park."
Daphne broke in, "Fred is going to be at the hardware store for a few more hours but I'm sure he would love to look them over when he gets off."
"Okay, I already sent them to him. Ask him to check his e-mail. Now, I was wondering if I could go over what I know and get your opinions."
Velma took a sip of coffee, "Bring it."
Shaggy went through everything he knew in detail and ended with his interview with Rachel.
"Well, what do you think?"
During the recitation, Velma had finished her croissant-like bread thing which was her bread consumption for the day, "You're the person on the ground, what's more important is what you think."
He paused and then tried to put his thoughts into words, "The main question is whether the death was an accident or planned. If it was planned, then there is one person who has to be involved but I don't know about any others. But I don't have enough information to be sure that it wasn't an accident and that's the main thing I am being paid to figure out."
"What do you need to figure that out?"
He thought again, "For starters, I need a motive. I need to know why someone would want a teen-ager dead."
Velma continued along her Socratian tack, "Where do you think this answer lies?"
The pause was longer this time because Shaggy knew the answer and had known the answer all along, "The ghost."
Velma nodded at the phone, "That's the only reasonable way forward. You have to capture and talk to the ghost."
"Do you have any unreasonable options?"
"No. You, Shaggy, need to make a trap."
