7~

Any thoughts of introducing herself to the woman died quickly at the sight of the confection.

Hungry for leads, Marcie's mind reacted, jumping to any and all connections and conclusions.

"How did that cotton candy get on your shoes?" Marcie blurted out. "That came from my father's amusement park."

"Unfortunately, I stepped in it," the woman said, curtly. "As the janitorial supervisor, I run a clean, tight ship around here, and the last thing I expect to find is this...gunk and trash cluttering up my hallways."

Marcie, finally cognizant of her runaway emotions, glanced down to calm herself and think of another question, and upon doing so, she spotted a folded piece of paper sticking out of the wad on the floor. She kneeled down and picked it up. When she opened it, confusion colored her expression.

On its face was a maze, a network of connecting paths that look like a enlarged picture of a antique integrated circuit.

"Do you know what this is?" Marcie asked her while she held the paper up to the woman's perusal.

The supervisor peered at it, thought for a moment and answered, "It looks like a diagram or floor plan or something."

"Do you know where it came from?" Marcie continued.

"No," the supervisor told her. Then, she suddenly began to puff up with slight vexation. "Now, I don't know why it was on the floor, but I can assure you, I didn't track it through here. Now, you'll have to leave. This is a restricted area and you're trespassing."

Marcie ran into enough people, like Doctor Redding, recently, to know when to bow out gracefully, and so, with a bow, she and Schrödinger began to back away from the still preening woman.

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am," Marcie said as she departed. "We'll be going, now."

Marcie folded the paper and tucked it into her jacket as the two walked back towards the ramp.

They were halfway up it when the double doors swung open revealing a man pushing a cart of cleaning equipment. A man who became more recognizable as he closed the distance between them.

"Hey, old timer," Marcie greeted Alphonse when she saw his face.

Alphonse stopped next to the girl and cat and gave a nod. "Hey, you two. Were you talkin' to the boss lady down there? Oh, don't get on her bad side. I've seen her fire younger and better janitors than me for less."

"Yes, we were just admiring her footwear," purred Schrödinger. "Carnival chic."

Confusion deepened the lines on his face. "Huh?"

"We ran into the Sea Beast in, of all places, my dad's amusement park," Marcie explained to him. "We trapped it in cotton candy and got away, and now we saw that same cotton candy on your supervisor's shoes. Hmm, I might have to rethink my list of suspects, here."

"Suspects?" asked the janitor, perking up with interest. Then, he asked in a whisper, "You looking for someone?"

"Marcie has it in her mind that perhaps this Sea Beast is actually working with a partner," said the cat with an incredulous sigh.

"You mean a...person?"

"Possibly," said Marcie, confidently. "It's just a working theory, at the moment, but I have to entertain all possibilities."

Alphonse suddenly leaned close to Marcie's face, while his eyes darted around, looking around for eavesdroppers. "Well, I don't know about the boss lady, and you didn't hear it from me, but I heard that those eggheads upstairs have been workin' on some kinda thingamajig...that can talk to fish."

"Oh, you mean Professor Angstrom's Marine Communicator? I've read about that. It's old news, though." Marcie chuckled. Then a thunderbolt of thought struck her and suddenly her theory didn't sound so farfetched after all. "Whoa! Of course! Why didn't I see that? The partner could've used that to talk to the creature."

"Whole lotta trouble, if you ask me," the man grumbled under his breath. "Fish were meant to be caught, not chatted with."

The teen ignore the comment and began to speed-walk past the janitor with an inspired gleam in her eye. This case was now closer than ever to being solved, she thought.

"Thank you, sir. You've been very helpful," she called behind her before she and the feline left through the double doors.

"It's just Alphonse!" the man called back amiably. "Alphonse!" He shook his head with a small smile and said to himself. "These kids today. Always runnin'."

Gathered near the foot of the winding staircase back in the center hub of the visitor's area, Marcie and Schrödinger stopped to put their heads together before making their next move. A move that, upon reflection, gave the girl some pause.

"Great," Marcie sighed. "We might have to go back to Doctor Redding just to ask him about the communicator."

"He won't be too keen to see us again, but what's the worst that he could do to us?" Schrödinger asked innocently.

Marcie took a look up at the stairs and wondered for a moment about that question posed by a cat who never had anybody tell him to never ask a question like that.

"Y'know, the only reason you caught me is because there was a patrol car cruising nearby when Doctor Redding called you guys," Marcie said aloud as she reclined on the bench in the holding cell in Sheriff Stone's office. Then, in a parody of all the criminals that she helped to catch, she growled, "I could've gotten away if hadn't been for you competent cops."

"Joke all you want, you recidivist," Stone muttered, unlocking the cell door. "You can go now. It's getting dark and this isn't a bed and breakfast."

"I'm only a recidivist because you keep locking me up," she countered as she and Schrödinger walked out.

"No. I keep locking you up because I'll always be there to stop you from tap-dancing all over the toes of justice."

"Yes, sir. I'll just moon-walk all over them from now on," the teen quipped.

"Just take your sassy mouth and that cat outta here!" the sheriff huffed. Then, with a sigh, he asked, "Why can't you be like Fred, Daphne, those two other kids and that dog of theirs who all left under mysterious circumstances? They were good kids who knew who was in charge of this town's safety. Now, I get stuck with you."

The sheriff's words unexpectedly held Marcie like a vice for a moment. 'Yeah. Mysterious circumstances...' she thought. 'Maybe I should've asked V why she left. Was I afraid to?'

She mentally shook the worry from her and focused on leaving the station. She looked down on the feline. "C'mon, Schrödinger. Let's beat it before he bores us with another telling of Dead Justice again."

That little jibe brought out the fanboy in the sheriff. "Dead Justice is not boring!" he yelled at their backs. "He's an inspiration to young and old alike!"

The sun's dying light painted the neighborhood in a soothing glow of gold while Marcie appreciated her freedom by breathing in the cooling evening air and leaning against her VW, which was parked outside the police station.

Schrödinger sat on the ground, preening himself, but having time to ask, "What do we do now?"

"Lounging in Chez Stone gave me time to think," she said. "Professor Angstrom's Communicator isn't stolen, so the only ones with access to it are Ocean Land's scientists. Ergo, if my theory about the Sea Beast having some sort of partner is correct, then this has to be an inside job. And since I noticed that Doctor Redding made sure that he got rid of us by calling the *police, and not security to escort us out, he just became my next suspect."

"And how are you going to prove or disprove that the good doctor is the partner?"

"I don't know," Marcie shrugged.

Schrödinger growled in annoyance. "You keep saying that. Say something different."

"Okay. Because of the cotton candy we found in the basement, it's a good bet that the Sea Beast freed himself and came back. And thanks to the paper I found in that cotton candy, I can guess that Redding may have something to do with it. Is that better?"

"I suppose," he sulked, slightly.

"Good, because we're going back there and catch him," Marcie said simply as she got into her car.

The cat hoped that, with his impeccable hearing, he misheard her. "What? Who? Redding...or the Sea Beast?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter? It doesn't matter?" Schrödinger sputtered as he jumped with reluctance into the passenger seat. "You-You've been in that lock-up too long. You're lucky Redding doesn't sue you."

"No, think about it. I think Redding is hiding something. He's the lead scientist in Ocean Land. He'd have the most access to the communicator. If he's the partner, then why is he still working there? If I found a buyer, I'd call out sick and leave town with all of the cash," Marcie reasoned as she pulled out into the street. "And what about the cotton candy in the basement? You saw it. Same as me. It's obvious that the Sea Beast came back. Why? Because they're still talking to each other. The only question is why. If they have the canister, why stick around?"

"Tenure?" the cat joked nervously.

"C'mon, 'fraidy cat," Marcie said, confidently merging into the early evening traffic. "I have to whip something up in my lab and then we'll bag a beast or a bad guy."