Writer's Note: I am not changing this story to an 'M' rating but this chapter gets pretty intense. I am assuming that modern teen-agers can handle it.
Chapter 10
Marcie's house – or, rather, her father's house – was in an older upper middle-class neighborhood. Both the house and the yard were well maintained. The subdivision dated back to when single family homes were required to be on full acre lots if they were more than half a mile from the beach. The entire neighborhood was filled with old trees and lots of shade. The house itself was two-stories and white with a full-length full-height front porch in the southern plantation style. It was set about 200 feet from the road with a hand-laid stone retaining wall running the length of the road frontage. The yard maintained the trees in planting areas placed deliberately to screen the view of the house from the street. The neighbors were about 50 feet away from the house on either side. The driveway was narrow and ran up the left side to an outbuilding garage.
Velma parked the car next to Marcie's rental and then she and I walked around to the front door. Velma knocked. When Marcie answered, she looked at Velma with a perplexed expression, "I wasn't expecting you for another two hours." Her perplexed looked changed further to a frown of puzzlement as her eyes lowered to me, "Scooby Doo. I didn't expect you, at all."
Velma had the next line, "I apologize for coming early but you just seemed so down at the office today, I couldn't concentrate so I left work early."
That was my cue, "And Rye wanted to come. Rye got to know roo retter on the trip and rought raybe roo needed a dog around."
Marcie's head tilted, "But are you a dog? Really?"
"Rye can be one if rye reed to be. Or if roo reed me to be." I smiled. I'm a charming bastard.
Maybe she bought it and maybe she didn't. Her face lit up in a smile which was probably fake, "Well. You'll have to put up with garbage bags and clutter. I've been clearing out some old things. But come on in."
As we stepped inside, I noticed that, true to her word, there were black plastic garbage bags sitting on the floor of what was otherwise a nicely decorated living room with framed prints of her father's old amusement park hanging on the wall. The center of the room was filled with a large not-for-sitting style of sofa reminiscent of bygone days. We did not stop in this room.
Instead, we ended up in a wood paneled den where another garbage bag was on the floor in front of a large brick fireplace decorated with photographs of family and family vacations. I saw a picture of Marcie and Velma standing side-by-side in front of a statue. It was well before either Velma or Marcie had focused any efforts on their personal appearance and together they looked like Raggedy Ann and Raggedier Ann. No one would guess that the two beautiful women standing in front of me were the same people. And, in many ways, they weren't.
Some of the other pictures were of people I dimly remembered. One of the newer frames carried a picture of Marcie and Reggie. They were at the beach and, in her bathing suit, it was obvious just how underweight Marcie was.
Marcie looked around the room, "Welcome to the 1950's. My dad refuses to let me update this room. To him, wood paneling remains all the rage. Can I get you two something to eat or drink?
My cue again, "Res, please."
"What would you like?"
"It roesn't ratter. Rye'm going to eat it all at once, anyray."
The smile flattened slightly, "Of course you will. Velma, can I get you something?"
Velma looked up from the pictures, "Some green tea if you have it. Unsweetened." Blech. You might as well strain water through the grass clippings from the lawn mower. And Velma said that I ate strange food.
"Coming right up." Marcie left the room and turned out of site into the adjoining kitchen. The house was unrenovated and retained its closed floor plan. There was no counter where the kitchen opened up into the living area so that a host could converse with their guests while drinks and food were being prepared.
I followed Marcie to the door into the kitchen where I could see both her and Velma back in the den but they could not see each other, "Rye hate it rhen roo go to the ritchen to rake food for guests and get reft arone in here."
Marcie was pulling some things out of the refrigerator, "I've never minded being alone. It's almost invariably better than being with people."
"Rye can see rhy roo and Relma get arong."
"Really? I thought Velma was all touchy-feely now."
"Rot so much. She just recided rhat she needed to join the ruman race." No. I had not bonded with Marcie during our time in Europe and this was not a casual chat. Velma had laid out a plan in the car and this was my part – keep an eye on Marcie in order to give a warning to Velma when Marcie headed back into the den. Velma needed the warning because she was searching the house for clues and I glanced over to see that she was very focused on the garbage bag on the floor of the den.
When I turned my gaze back to Marcie, she was pointing a pistol at me. Was I surprised? Yes? No? I couldn't make up my mind. The answer was probably not. She brought her left forefinger up to her lips to keep me quiet and gestured with the gun for me to move out into the den. Velma was standing at the fireplace mantle and holding some ripped paper up next to the photograph of Marcie and Reggie. Velma turned when Marcie entered the room and also saw the gun.
Marcie spoke, "You know, you really shouldn't go snooping into other people's garbage, V."
Velma's voice was calm, "I was just curious about what Reggie really looked like."
Marcie shook her head, "Curiosity. Dead cat. You know."
In their verbal sparring, they seemed to be missing the salient point, "Rhat's next, Rarcie?"
"Well, we take a drive into the country and I show Velma a place where I used to go as a child. My hiding place where I went to get away from the bullies and my fighting parents and people like Velma that always wanted to show me up. I thought about showing the cabin to you many times back in high school, V. You were the only one I ever considered letting know about it. I don't own it or anything – no legal ties to it at all. But it's always been there. Deep in the woods. A place where I could get away from everything."
She continued as if she were lecturing a class, "We are all going to leave our phones here and we'll take my car so that old Freddy smarty pants can't track us. Oh, and just to dash that last hope, my car isn't a rental. My neighbor is out of town and he said I could use it. No tracker on it, either. V, why don't you drive and Muggsly here can sit up front with you."
Why do people always want to compare me to a cartoon?
Marcie kept going, "I'll sit in the back and shoot you both the first time you do anything other than what I say."
Rule One of being a hostage is stay alive. There is always hope until you are dead. Velma and I obeyed that rule and walked out to the car. Velma pulled out of the narrow driveway and turned right – away from town – out of it. I tried to get Marcie into some conversation but after the second attempt resulted in her hitting me on the back of the head with the grip of her pistol, I shut up. It hurt.
The cabin was one of those places where the directions included the phrase 'turn off the paved road' and we continued along gravel and then dirt roads lit only by the moon and our headlights. The road narrowed to a trail which was two parallel ruts which ran directly under the tires. If a vehicle had been coming the other way, one or the other would have to back up. But nothing came from the other direction or from our direction. We were completely alone.
Marcie directed Velma to turn off the rutted trail and we passed between two ancient wooden posts that still held vestiges of equally ancient barbed wire. I saw a metal gate off to the right, laying in the high grass. The trees parted and we entered a small opening which was filled with a badly overgrown farm pond and a cabin. Velma pulled up to the front of the cabin and parked. It was late in the season but there were still sounds and smells of frogs coming from the pond. A myriad of smells filled the place - most of them natural but two different human smells remained which were weeks old.
I knew where this was headed, "Rye smell roo and someone else."
Marcie laughed, "I don't think the old show ever really explained how much use you people got out of the dog's sense of smell. You are correct, Doggley Doo-Right. The second person you are smelling is my dearly departed ex-fiance."
And that was when I smelled my second scent of decay and dirt in the last few days. It was older and the body was buried deeper than in Poland, "And ree's buried here."
"Also, correct. And with the addition of the two of you, it's going to become quite the little cemetery. I imagine it will be overgrown with periwinkle in a few years and quite lovely. I doubt anyone will ever come and see it. I'm not particularly sentimental." She got out of the car and stood directly behind it, "Now, both of you get out slowly and walk to the front door and wait for me there."
It was possible that if we broke and ran in opposite directions, one of us would make it to the trees without getting shot. But not both of us. One would go down and neither Velma nor I was ready to take that trade, yet. We were breathing, so there was hope. The two steps up to the front porch gave a little under my weight but didn't break. I stepped carefully up onto the porch itself. The wood was soft and rotten but held. We waited as we were told.
Marcie came closer and gestured to the door with her pistol, "The door is unlocked. Open it and go in slowly." Another chance to break and run that would only work for one of us. We were running out of options but still waited. We went in and stopped just inside. Moonlight filtered in through the windows – many of which were broken. The floor was much firmer inside and the door seemed to be solid wood and still sturdy.
Also sturdy was the closet she locked me in. I balked at going in, "Ruh-uh. Rye'm not reaving Relma arone with roo."
Marcie's smile was nasty, "How gallant. I promise you that when you see Velma again, she will be alive."
She promises? Seriously?
Velma made the decision, "It's okay, Scooby."
I stepped in and was enclosed by darkness as Marcie shut and locked the door. The ceiling, walls, and floor were all thick, rough wood. No gypsum board. But I began to claw and even bite at the wood trying to get purchase to possibly pull one of the boards free. It wasn't going to happen in time. I braced myself for a gunshot but the next sound I heard was Marcie's returning footfalls followed by the lock to the closet being opened. As it opened, there stood Marcie, holding an electric lantern. "Now, let's get you two compadres together again. One of the things in the villains' handbook is that we need an audience for the final conquest of a lifelong enemy. You are that audience, dog. Turn right through that door and go down the stairs.
The light fell on stairs descending down into a musty, earthy-smelling room. I had to go on two legs since four legs didn't work going down in the narrow confines. We got to the bottom, and I could feel that the floor was dirt. Marcie marched me out into the center of the room while she hung the lantern on a hook. It was a root cellar of some kind which meant there might be an exterior door. I looked around but saw none. One way in. one way out. Velma was sitting in a chair that was tied to one of two posts in the room. She was, in turn, handcuffed to the chair by both wrists.
There was another chair next to the other pole in the room and Marcie pointed to it, "Sit down." The chair was metal and very uncomfortable for me to sit human-style but comfort was not the primary objective here. Marcie had fabricated a length of chain with two small loops. She slipped the loops over my two forepaws and then fastened the other end of the chain tightly around my back. She then wrapped it around the pole and fastened it again. I made a couple of exploratory tugs. I was going nowhere without help. Velma and I were facing each other and about six feet apart.
Marcie stepped in between us, "Whew! That was tense. There were at least six different points between the car and here where you two could have staged an escape attempt. None of them had a better than 40% chance of succeeding but your odds now are much lower than that. Yes, I know. You're thinking of my talking about the cemetery and the periwinkle and all that. Sorry, not gonna happen. No reason for me to give you any more chances. You two are going to die right here. I imagine that you'll probably attract rats after a while but that's really not my problem. I'm never coming to this cabin again."
She paused and looked from me to Velma, "But first, I get to have a long overdue heart-to-heart with my bestie, Velma Dinkley."
Marcie turned away from me and slinked (there was no better word for it) over to Velma where she straddled Velma's legs and sat in her lap face-to-face. She wrapped her arms around Velma's neck and their noses were almost touching.
"You see, V, it's this way. I may have left you with a bit of a misunderstanding when you asked me to have sex with you back in the day. It's not that I'm some raging heterosexual or anything. Quite far from it. I'm decidedly bi- and am comfortable getting my jollies from either persuasion. What pissed me off was that it was you. Super superior, always winning, always number one, Velma Dinkley. What would a relationship have been with you, V? It would have been another chance for you to make me your bitch. Robin to your Batman. Always number two and always in your shadow – even sexually. It wasn't that I didn't want sex with women. It was that I didn't want to have sex with you. Just you.
"But that was the all-powerful Velma Dinkley who turned my stomach. There's something about the tied-up, completely-in-my-power Velma Dinkley that seriously turns me on."
Marcie slid her hands slowly up Velma's neck and yanked the rubber band from around her ponytail – ripping strands of hair with it. Velma winced as Marcie tossed the rubber band aside. Velma's hair fell loosely to her shoulders and the streaks of grey became more prominent. Marcie's hands moved caressingly up onto Velma's head, letting the individual strands slide between her fingers. Suddenly, Velma's head jerked backward as Marcie grabbed two fistfuls of the hair and pulled down. And that was when Marcie kissed Velma… hard. And Velma… I looked closer. And then looked even closer because I was not believing what I was seeing. Velma kissed her back… passionately, open-mouthed, pressing into the kiss as much as the restraints on her hair would allow. This was unexpected.
Then Marcie pulled away from the kiss with a slight start and laughed, "Very inviting, V. Feeling your tongue inside my mouth. I did want to return the favor." She stood up from Velma's lap and slapped her viciously across the face. And then did it a second time. I could see Velma's eyes glaze over a little from the two blows. Marcie's eyes were on fire, "And what did you think you were going to do if you got my tongue in between your teeth?
Velma's voice was slightly slurred, "I was going to bite into it and rip it out of your face. Something to remember me by."
Marcie laughed again, "And that would have sucked. I would have been one of the richest women in the world but permanently disfigured and talking like your dog. I like your spunk, girl. But alas, best laid plans and all that. Now, I am not disfigured, still going to be one of the richest women in the world, and, most importantly, I finally outsmarted Velma Dinkley."
Velma's eyes had cleared and she smiled one of her fake smiles, "Did you, though?"
"Seriously V, a delaying tactic? Do we really have to go through that whole song and dance? We both know that the end result is going to be the same whether it happens now or ten minutes from now."
Velma threw down a gauntlet, "I tell you what, if I can tell you something that you don't know about your husband, then maybe you should take the time to hear me out. Right now, you're tied to three murders through largely circumstantial evidence. You're a couple of if-it-doesn't-fit-you-must-acquit's away from walking scot-free on the whole thing. If the police show up and you have two dead bodies with you, you're toast."
"Now that was just pathetic. We both know that if the authorities get even a hint that I am responsible, then they will ultimately find the connections between me and my patsy and then between me and the killers I hired."
"Your patsy had a name, it was Nathan Khang."
The look of shock on Marcie's face hung there for a second before she got herself back under control and resumed the mocking expression, "You have my attention. Tell me something that I don't know about my dear, departed husband."
Velma looked over at me and then back to Marcie, "Reggie used to lock himself in his office, watch porn, and masturbate into a sock."
The look on Marcie's face went from mocking to thinking.
Velma pressed her advantage, "Other than disgusting Scooby and sending him running to the bathroom in a marathon paw-washing session, this brought up a couple of questions. First, if he was getting as much as his little black book said he was getting, why would he be absolutely wearing that sock out night after night? And second, if his fiancé was rated a 5 out of 5 in bed as is stated in that book, why was he in there alone? Now, the answer to both of those could be simply that he was addicted to pornography but then throw in a very believable denial by one of the women listed in the book and the whole little black book comes into question. And with that goes Reggie's entire playboy persona.
"But the more important thing that the sock provided was an alternative DNA sample to the obvious toothbrush and hairbrush which were in the master bedroom. We had them all tested and, to my amazement, they didn't match. They were both Korean but not related to each other. The DNA we got at the Munich hotel matched the DNA found on the toothbrush and hairbrush but the sock remained an outlier. I hate outliers.
"And then Scooby brought me another outlier. A young woman contacted him in Germany and then followed us to Poland where Scooby was able to get a DNA sample of hers."
This is where I got to interject, "Yuck! Rye touched every nasty thing on rhis case."
Velma continued, "All of the DNA tests were uploaded this morning. That is when I called you. According to those results, the young woman was an immediate family member of the man whose toothbrush and hairbrush were in your bedroom and who stayed in that hotel room in Munich for six months. By immediate family member, that would mean that she had to be a parent – she was too young; a child – she was too old; or a sibling. But Reggie was an only child. So, this woman was the sister of whoever you hired to impersonate Reggie on this trip to Germany. A trip that started almost seven months ago.
"That leaves me with some questions for you, Marcie. Like, when did trials start on the new drug that you supposedly developed? If I guess six months ago, would I be close? And, when the drug went into published trials, it would be the person whose name was listed on the applications who would be considered the creator and they would be the one getting a big payday. Everybody else would just get their normal salaries. It was Reggie's concept, wasn't it? How much do you stand to profit by killing him? $20 million? 50?"
Marcie's face turned red. I can't read human facial expressions well, but I know rage, "Yes. It was Reggie's concept, but he didn't have a clue what he had. It was still just on paper when he interviewed me for the job and he talked about it openly to me before I had even signed an NDA. What a dumbass. Somebody was going to get obscenely rich off of that and I wanted it to be me."
"It sounds like there would have been plenty of money for you both. Why kill him?"
"Why share? Also, Reggie was pathetic. I had to make him out to be some popular playboy to make the narrative work but that wasn't him. He was flirty in a geeky, clumsy sort of way but he was painfully shy and his life-of-the-party act was forced. People laughed only to be polite. I was probably his first. It was boringly easy seducing him. Kind of like tricking a puppy by faking a ball throw."
"Are you really pregnant? Or was that just a ruse to arouse my sympathy?"
Marcie shrugged, "Both. Even I make mistakes. I had to have sex with the guy on a regular enough basis to keep him from getting suspicious. Apparently, it wasn't often enough to keep him away from his damn porn sock. You know how I get when I'm on a project, I get immersed in the research and the data and I forget things. Like replacing my patch. I didn't find out I was pregnant until after I had finished with Reggie. It's not like it would change anything, anyway. The fetus provided an opportunity to tug at your heartstrings. So, I kept the concept even after I aborted it."
This crossed my line, "Roo are evil."
She waved the gun at me dismissively, "The concept of good and evil is a construct of a society that wants people to be satisfied with their place in the world so that those on top can stay there. It's something you need to abandon if you are ever going to break through. The Illuminati needs some fresh blood." That one was clearly rehearsed. It's probably what she said to herself whenever she had to look in a mirror.
Velma got back on topic, "In order to get away with murder, you had to have an airtight alibi. Rather than trying to create such an alibi for yourself at the time of the killing, you changed the time and place of the killing. And you didn't go half-ass. You changed the time by six months and the location by a third of the way around the world. I have to admit that it was impressive."
"Thank you." A small curtsy.
Velma kept talking, "Reggie had never served in the military and the Government did not have his DNA on file. Your company had it but that was easy enough for you to switch out. Then you needed to hire someone who looked enough like Reggie to fool some Germans who had never actually seen him in person and the various customs agents who would glance at his passport photo. Little did that poor man know that he was being hired to coordinate his own murder. You told him that he would lead a trail to make us believe that he had run off with another woman while in reality the plan was for him to be killed by a jealous lover. Meanwhile, you were back here in New York making sure that people saw you and remembered seeing you every day.
"And finally, you needed a stooge to come along and follow the trail of bread crumbs to the obvious conclusion and announce it to the world. That's where I come in. One last competition to see who is smarter." There were soft sounds from above and outside. Cars were pulling up to the front of the cabin, "And another thing about the woman who trailed us from Munich to Slupsk. She was an amateur and, at their first meeting, she stroked Scooby's fur. That seemed odd to me and so I checked and found that she had planted a listening device and tracker under his collar. That is not something that we would have done so you had no reason to check for it. That's what Fred and the police used to track us here."
Right on cue, the pounding started on the front door upstairs and a muffled voice could be heard, "Crystal Cove Sheriff's Department. We have a warrant. Open the door or we'll break it down!"
Marcie looked down at Velma, "And I guess, once again, you win."
Velma nodded, "I'm afraid so, Marcie. It's time to put the gun down and give up."
Marcie shook her head, "Nah. I'm seeing public humiliation and then going to prison and then the death penalty. All the time knowing that you won, again. That's not happening. She pressed her pistol against Velma's forehead and cocked it. "Goodbye, V."
Time stood still. The police had still not breached the front door and would not make it in time. Velma squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the end. I screamed, "Relma!" Watching for the tension in Marcie's hand that would signal that she was pulling the trigger.
It never came. The gun didn't go off. Marcie's hand which was holding the pistol dropped to her side. Velma opened one eye and looked up into Marcie's face. Marcie looked down at her and smiled a wistful, sad smile, "V, as much as I hate you, you're still the best friend I ever had." Then she stuck the barrel into her own mouth and pulled the trigger.
As Marcie had moved the gun toward her face, I had closed my eyes. So, I didn't see any details. I heard details. I smelled details. And I felt specks of details hitting me in the face. But I didn't see any details. So, I don't have to describe them, and I won't.
In the cabin above our heads, two sounds penetrated the ringing in my ears. First the front door giving way and second, the fear and anguish in Shaggy's voice as he yelled, "VELMA!" That strained and terrified voice will fill my nightmares for the rest of my life.
I opened my eyes to feel them instantly start stinging from the smoke. Marcie's corpse filled my peripheral vision, but I refused to turn my head. Instead, I focused on Velma who was staring down at her former friend and nemesis. I could see the tears flowing down Velma's cheeks but could hear nothing above the ringing in my ears. Shaggy was the first one down the stairs and he went immediately to Velma… as it should be. He untied her and held her and she held him and they cried together. Two deputies followed and went to Marcie first kicking her gun away and the checking for a pulse. There would not be one.
Fred came in next. I watched as he stepped into the room and stopped cold when he spotted Marcie's body. His face froze and he stared at her until he was pushed from behind by a police officer making her way in. This made him move. I didn't know if he was seeing the lifeless corpse of his long-time acquaintance as a reminder of his own mortality or if he was flashing back and seeing memories of the night he killed Frank Herring. Maybe there would be a day when I could focus on empathizing with my friend but, in that moment, I was wrestling with my own future nightmares. Fred turned away from Marcie and sidled over to me, keeping his back to her as he moved.
He dropped to one knee, "Are you okay, Scooby?" I heard some sounds through the ringing in my ears but more read the words from his lips.
I shook my head, "No."
Then Fred shocked me. He said, "Me, neither." And put his arms around my neck. It was probably Daphne that started untying me. I wouldn't know. I was too busy holding onto Fred and crying.
Did I mention that villain redemption stories are a load of crap? I'm pretty sure I did.
