3~
Marcie settled into a more comfortably prone position in her bed while she straightened her laptop's angle to remove the late afternoon glare from its monitor and to better face its webcam.
"I don't know, V," she fretted. "This isn't like the old Young Detective mystery board games we used to play when we were little. This was serious."
Velma, sitting in her customary spot in the rear of the cruising Mystery Machine, looked at her laptop with a puzzled expression and promptly forgot the timeline change, once again. "We played mystery board games together?"
Marcie gave a chuckle that tried to mask her dismay at yet another worrying gap in her friend's recollection. "C'mon, V, you don't have to make me laugh to cheer me up. I'll just pass on what I know to Sheriff Stone and let him deal with it."
The mentioning of Sheriff Bronson Stone's name jarred Velma into remembering his counterpart's erstwhile ineptitude. Chances were better than good that his bungling could transcend time and space itself.
"Well...that would be the right thing to do," she counseled. "But, if it looks like Bronson doesn't believe you, and chances are, he probably won't, then I'd say, maybe you should solve this mystery yourself, Marcie."
That unexpected line of reasoning stunned Marcie. "Really, V? You really think so?"
"Well, we're out here on the road. Someone has to look after Crystal Cove while we're away. You can just gather evidence, and when you think you've solved this thing, just give your findings to Mayor Nettles. I think she has a better head on her shoulders than her hubby. I just didn't think anything would happen so soon after we...uh, we left."
"But, V, I already have so much to do," Marcie explained, allowing the weight of the other parts of her life to settle heavily upon her mind. "I've still got school, and then I have to enter the Tri-State Olympiad of Science without my favorite partner, and my driver's exam is coming up, and you know I have to help my dad with the amusement park and, oh, yeah, I want to start checking out some colleges, too, even though I just know Dad's going to want me to go to Darrow because he's a Darrow man, and-"
Velma mercifully cut her off. "Marcie, throttle down, will ya? Relax. You're one of the smartest girls I know. Obviously, I'm much smarter, but..."
"Ah, Velma Dinkley, you're just as modest as ever," Marcie joked.
"Just kidding. But, listen, I know you can do this. As big a whodunit freak as I am, I should know. And as you said, it's just like those mystery games we used to play, just more serious. So, just treat it that way."
Marcie smiled grimly. "I suppose. Wow, V, I didn't know you were that into mystery-solving. We just did it because it was a fun way to keep sharp. Still, I wish you were here with me while I was doing this."
Velma gave Marcie a wistful smile in return. "Yeah. It would be nice going mano-a-mano on this case with you."
"Well, it'll be alright," Marcie said. "I'll just follow the Young Detectives' Credo from the games. 'Open eyes, open ears, open minds and...'"
Velma wondered why Marcie would suddenly break off from speaking until she looked into her friend's eyes and saw the expectation of remembering another memory Velma had no clue of having.
Seeing the now familiar, uneasy gaze on Velma's face, Marcie quietly finished the credo. "'Open hearts.'"
"Well...that goes without saying," Velma nervously commented, trying to change the subject slightly. "Now, you go out there and show them what you're made of, Marcie Fleach."
She then soberly placed a finger against the image of Marcie's cheek. "But, be careful. No mystery's worth losing my best friend over."
Marcie put aside the nagging questions concerning Velma's off behavior in favor of this quiet moment, likewise placing a finger on Velma's freckled cheek.
"Don't worry, V. I'll make sure Crystal Cove is still standing when you get back."
Velma smiled again, but some deep sadness still managed to bleed through it. "I know. Oops, gotta go! Fred just told us that we're coming up on Utah. Tell my parental units that I love them, and if you have the time, check out Miskatonic University. I hear they have a wicked chemistry course."
Marcie brightened at that. "That good, huh?"
"It's a killer. 'Til next time." Then, Velma cut the connection and gently closed the computer. She sat there quietly, head bowed, for several minutes, wishing she could lose her guilty conscience like the van had lost the long miles behind it.
Beside her, Shaggy had listened to the conversation and glanced at her while he softly scratched behind a sleeping Scooby-Doo's ear. His time as her old boyfriend gave him the most basic perception needed to catch and recognize her in her happiest moods, as well as her most sour and remorseful ones. Such as what he was seeing now.
"Like, I don't know why you told her that," he said quietly. "I know she's your friend and all, but, like, you know that's not really our Marcie or your parents."
Velma, sad and annoyed that someone like Shaggy Rogers could be so insufferably insightful when he wanted to be, spoke with a quiet pain.
"Y'know, only you could be both tactful and untactful at the exact same time. If we'd stayed in our own universe when history had changed, they could have been, and I don't need you to remind me of that."
Shaggy, regret in his eyes for mercifully forgetting the tragic cross they had to bear, hung his head. "Like, I'm sorry, Velma."
Velma stoned up inside. She wanted to scream to whatever god was in charge of time travel and spit into his/her/its cosmic face. Penance for setting them against an ancient evil and then getting cheated out of a better life for their troubles.
"Forget your pity," she told him bitterly. "Don't you have a sandwich you need to stuff in your mouth right now?"
Everyone within the van held still, not daring to openly complain their lot for the sake of friendship and team unity. But secretly, they internally voiced their own discontent at that unfairness, as well.
And as the Mystery Machine passed under the highway sign welcoming them into the great state of Utah, they began to wonder, with heartrending clarity, if the Evil Entity, in death, had gotten the last laugh, after all.
The interior of the Crystal Cove Police Department could, at best, be described as a casual workplace environment, most days. Deputies sat at computer terminals, filling out paperwork, explaining legal concerns to citizens over the telephone, or drinking coffee. At the same time, they sometimes chatted with the odd minor offender in the building's holding cells.
With so little law enforcement in such a relatively quiet town, the deputies often felt less like officers than small-town stereotypes. Still, whenever they thought about what might be happening in hot spots like Los Angeles or San Francisco, things that could be described as quick, brutal, and messy, they would swallow their self-conscious, collective pride and bear their small-town public image dutifully.
One of the deputies turned in the direction of the Sheriff's Office and, before munching on his second cruller, called out, "Sheriff, there's a girl here to see you!"
Marcie stepped into the office and took in the cluttered desk and even more cluttered bulletin board with the odd wanted picture almost obscuring the post-it from Mayor Nettles reminding the sitting sheriff to bring some milk from the store after work.
Sheriff Bronson Stone looked up from his crossword puzzle to regard this obviously unauthorized person.
"Who are you, and how did you get in here?" he asked.
"One of your deputies let me in," said Marcie, approaching his desk and looking at his progress. "Don't you know who I am, Sheriff?"
Stone, peering and concentrating on her features, drew a quick blank. "Not particularly. I'm a busy man, protecting Crystal Cove from villainous scofflaws, and you're just the latest in a long line of people who, obviously, heard of my long years of expertise."
Ignoring his self-important speech, Marcie scrunched her up-turned nose at the officer. "Scofflaws? Have you been talking to my dad?"
"What a minute," Stone said, stiffening. "You're not one of those liberal law students studying for a police brutality case, again, are you?"
"No, Sheriff," Marcie said patiently, then pointed down at the puzzle. "And sixteen down, two across? The answer is 'sesquicentennial.'"
Stone laid back in his chair. "That's a relief! Because the last thing I need is someone coming down here to give me a lecture on...uh, what was that word again? Sibyl? Civilian?"
"Civil Liberties?"
"Bingo!" Stone said, nonplussed.
"No, Sheriff. I'm Marcie Fleach. The girl you sometimes hire to babysit your kids?"
Crisis averted, Stone returned to his "paperwork." "Oh, okay. Well, what can I do for you, Mackenzie?"
"That's Marcie," she corrected him. "And I wanted to talk to you about what happened at the mall earlier today."
Stone gave a world-weary sigh. 'Geez, not another one,' he thought. 'Don't these busy-bodies have enough on their plate without checking up on us to make sure that we're doing our job?'
"Didn't one of the deputies already take down your statement at the mall? Don't worry, miss. The Crystal Cove Police Department will look into this," he said without looking up from his desk.
"Thank you, Sheriff," Marcie said to the near-back of his head. Maybe Velma was wrong about Sheriff Stone, after all.
"Right after we solve this backlog of real crimes that are plaguing our fair town."
Then again...
"What? You're saying what happened at the mall didn't rate?" Marcie asked, incredulously, almost losing control of her 'indoor voice' in the process. "According to your wife, the mayor, Crystal Cove has one of the lowest crime rates in the state. Don't you want to make sure that that's the case by looking into this?"
Stone lifted his head and nodded towards Marcie conspiratorially. "You may not know this, but Her Honor, Mayor-wife has to say things like that to placate you citizens and protect you all from the truth."
"Which is?" Marcie asked with borderline sarcasm.
"That this town is just a gnat's wing from falling into the abyss of urban decay and degradation. As her husband, I'm, of course, privy to such political bombshells like this. I mean, it's bad enough that there's a group of punks out there, breaking into people's homes and places of business, but now they made the mistake of making it personal."
"How so?"
Taking the tone of a grizzled Hollywood cop, Stone growled, "They're doing it in my town." Then, he began to talk, or in this case, rant, normally. "Not to mention all the littering, jaywalking, and curfew-breaking that usually goes on here. We have to be vigilant, Miss Fletch. Ever vigilant."
Marcie looked exasperated. "It's Fleach, and look, Sheriff, what happened at the mall might be connected to your story about those punks. That hippy had some teens with him when he left that robbed three stores while he was there. Now, that lady who was hit by that explosion, and those mall cops, are in the hospital. They're doing fine now, but that clown could have really hurt somebody. Aren't you concerned about that?"
Stone stared at her dismissively. This conversation was starting to get too critical for his liking. "I thought you said he was a hippy. Look, Macy-"
"Marcie."
"Mary. We don't have one of those big, fancy-schmancy crime divisions here."
"But-"
"I can't shut down Crystal Cove and call men away from more important cases just because of one of those Internet pranks that you young people love to make got away from you," he lectured.
"But-"
"I'm sorry, miss," Stone said pointedly. "But, we're just a hard-working, small-town police department, and you'll just have to be thankful that people like me are watching over you and all the good folk in town when you sleep at night. Now, is there anything else, Miss Fleece?"
Marcie, frustrated, walked from his desk and prepared to leave his office. "It's Fleach, and no, Sheriff Stone, I've got nothing else to say. In fact, you've made a previously hard decision, very straightforward for me. Sorry for wasting your time, sir."
'Sir' may have been what she said, but as she left the office, her mind screamed, 'Blowhard!'
Finally having the room to himself again, Stone soliloquized, "Ah, the life of a sheriff is, indeed, a thankless job. Part crimefighter, part peacemaker, part babysitter."
Upon mentioning that, he looked out of his doorway and called out to the departing Miss Fleach.
"Oh, hey! Are you still free to babysit the kids this weekend?" he asked her, simply.
"Yeah, I'll be over at six," Marcie answered with an equal tone. There may have been bad blood between them at the moment, but when it came to extra money via babysitting, business was still business.
