High-Speed Showdown (10 page)

“That about covers it, I guess,” Joe said. “If all of us keep our eyes open and our guards up, we'll make it a lot harder for the bad guys to pull anything. Thanks.”

The moment Joe finished speaking, about half
the crowd moved in on him and Frank, asking questions and offering suggestions. A similar group clustered around Gerald. No question, the racers were worried.

After fielding comments for a few minutes, Frank raised his voice to say, “I'm sorry, but you'll have to excuse us. We're late for an urgent appointment.” He took Joe's elbow and they nudged their way through the crowd and out the front door.

At the sidewalk, Joe paused to ask, “Urgent appointment? With whom?”

“With Connie,” Frank replied. “I know she wouldn't talk to us yesterday. But now the situation's changed. She's a suspect, and she could find herself in big trouble. Let's hope she's sensible enough to realize that.”

“How do we find her to talk to?” Joe asked.

Frank thought for a moment. “I bet Callie would know where she lives,” he said. Callie Shaw was Frank's longtime girlfriend. “She's been involved in a lot of environmental activities.”

Frank called Callie from the van and explained what he needed.

“I don't know her number,” Callie told him. “But I know she lives over near Sunset Park. Let's see, Fernandez . . . yes, here we are, 4230 Sunset Lane, 555-1939. What do you want with Connie?”

“I'll tell you all about it the next time I see you,” Frank promised. “Thanks for the help.”

Joe put the van in motion. Frank dialed Connie's number. When she heard who was calling, she almost hung up. “Look, Connie,” Frank said quickly. “It's looking worse and worse for you and Earthquest. Joe and I are not out to pin anything on you. We're just trying to find out the truth. And if you haven't done anything wrong, you're going to need help making people believe that. So you really should talk to us.”

After a long pause, Connie said, “I'll give you ten minutes.”

“We'll be right over,” Frank replied.

At Connie's house, they found her waiting in the front yard. She led them around to the back, to a room over the garage. It was furnished with a battered desk and half a dozen metal folding chairs. A color poster on the wall showed a stretch of seashore, with a big drainpipe pouring ugly-looking chemical waste into the water.

“You heard about the fire on Dennis Shire's boat yesterday?” Frank asked, after they'd sat down. Connie nodded, wide-eyed.

Joe said, “We have a witness who saw you hanging around there before it happened.”

Connie took a deep breath. “I can explain that,” she said. It sounded to Frank as if she had been expecting the question. “My grandfather is
Mexican-American, and his favorite song is called ‘Adelita.' It's an old folk song. So when I saw the name on that boat, it got my attention. But I never set foot on the boat. All I did was stand there, thinking of my grandfather. Then this big thug from Newcastle Trucking came and chased me away.”

“A guy in a green uniform?” Frank asked. She nodded. “Yeah, he hassled us, too. Where were you between eight and eight-thirty this morning?”

“Right here,” Connie replied, with a new tone of alarm in her voice. “Why? What's it to you?”

“It looks like somebody sneaked into Barry Batten's room and took his medallion,” Joe said.

For a long moment, Connie stared silently into space. Then she shook herself and said, “Well, it wasn't me. Just the idea of touching something carved out of whale ivory makes me sick to my stomach. And I haven't been away from the house all morning. My mom can vouch for that.”

“What about Angelo?” Joe asked.

Connie jumped to her feet. “That's it! Angelo was right, you're just trying to discredit our organization. Get out of here, right now!”

Frank blinked in surprise. Why had Connie just exploded like that? “Now, wait,” he began.

“No, get out!” Connie repeated, her voice rising. “Before I scream for help!”

“Okay, okay,” Joe said, getting up from his chair. “We're out of here.”

Before leaving, Frank tore a sheet from his notebook and scribbled their phone numbers on it. “If you change your mind, get in touch,” he said.

As they drove off, Frank said, “Did you notice that she didn't really get upset until we asked about Angelo? I wonder if he's the one who's up to something, and she knows it.”

Joe's reply was cut short by the buzz of the cellular phone. Frank picked it up.

“Listen,” a muffled voice said. “I just spotted somebody messing with the race buoys. If you hurry, you can catch him red-handed.”

“Who is this?” Frank demanded. The only response was a click. He told Joe what the caller had said.

“Sounds a little fishy,” Joe said, speeding up. “But what'll it cost us to check it out?”

“Go for it,” Frank said.

Joe parked in the Waterside Inn lot. He and Frank dashed across the street to the marina and sprinted to the slip where
Sleuth
was tied up. Frank took the helm, while Joe cast off the lines.

Once the boat was clear of the slip, Frank pushed the throttle forward and steered for the harbor mouth. A couple of hundred yards ahead, a group of windsurfers was crossing his course. The brightly colored sails shone against the blue sky and water.

Frank started to pull the throttle back, to slow
down before passing the windsurfers. Suddenly he let out a startled exclamation.

“What is it?” Joe demanded. “What's wrong?”

“The throttle!” Frank replied. He wiggled the lever back and forth. It moved much too freely. “It's not responding!”

The rising whine of the powerful outboard covered Joe's reply. Frank stared, horrified. The windsurfers were now dead ahead and Frank could not slow down!

12 Throttle Down!

“Frank, look out!” Joe shouted. “Slow down!”

By now the group of windsurfers was less than fifty yards away. Some of them, alerted by the roar of
Sleuth
's motor, looked around to see where it was coming from. One surfer, in a green and black wetsuit, was so startled that he lost his balance and fell backward into the water.

“I can't slow down,” Frank shouted back. “The cable must be broken. Kill the engine, quick!”

Joe instantly understood. He stood up and lunged back toward the stern of the boat. But just at that moment, Frank put the wheel hard over to port, to avoid the windsurfers. The boat banked sharply. Joe lost his balance and went sprawling to the deck. His head slammed into the siderail.

For one moment Joe imagined that he was on the football field. Someone on defense had just blindsided him. Then he remembered where he was and what he had to do. He shook his head to clear it, then crawled over the rear bench seat. The manual throttle on the big outboard was under the engine housing and hidden by a thicket of control cables. Joe groped for it, being careful not to touch the hot metal housing, and gave it a hard twist to the left. The motor coughed and died.

Sleuth
settled into the water and began to rock from the effect of its own wake. Joe straightened up and looked around. The windsurfers were now gliding past the starboard beam, near enough for him to see their frightened expressions. Some of them looked angry. That had been close.

Joe rejoined Frank at the helm. “What happened?” he demanded. “Did the throttle cable break?”

Frank looked up at him grimly. “No, it came unscrewed,” he replied. “Here, take a look.”

He held up the end of the cable. Joe studied it. There were fresh scratches on the locking collar. “Somebody must have loosened it until it was just barely on,” he said.

“And when I pushed it to full ahead, it came off,” Frank said, finishing the thought. “What would you like to bet that that call about somebody
messing with the buoys was a hoax, to lure us out onto the water?”

“Uh-huh. And—Frank, wait,” Joe said. He felt a thrill of excitement. “Whoever made that call had to know the number of our cellular phone. That means we can narrow it down to one of the people in the lobby this morning.”

“Not quite,” Frank said, with a shake of the head. “I gave Connie our numbers, remember?”

The thrill died down. “Oh, right,” Joe said. “I forgot. But, hey, that was right before we left her. And the call came through just five minutes or so later. Awfully fast work.”

“Fast, yeah, but just barely possible,” Frank replied. “If she knew how to contact Angelo, and he was already at the marina, he could have called us, then jiggered the throttle cable. I'm not saying they did it, but we can't cross them off.”

It took ten minutes of concentrated work to reattach the throttle cable and motor back to the dock. Joe and Frank jumped out, tied up
Sleuth
, and went straight to the Earthquest slip. The big rubber boat was there. So was Angelo. He had his back to them, as he rummaged through a jumbled wooden locker.

“Angelo?” Frank said. “We need to talk.”

Angelo jumped up and whirled around to face the Hardys. He reached out to close the locker door, but Joe put out an arm and stopped him. On the floor of the locker, peeping out from under a
pile of orange life preservers, was a compact but powerful bolt cutter—the exact tool that could have been used to sever the cables on the marker buoys.

“What do you need that for?” Joe demanded, pointing at the bolt cutter.

Angelo looked down, then used his heel to kick the tool farther out of sight under the life preservers. “None of your business,” he said sullenly.

“Somebody messed with our boat this morning,” Frank told him. “You wouldn't know anything about it, would you?”

“Not a thing. Get lost,” Angelo retorted. He started to turn his back on them. Joe reached out to stop him. But at the first touch of Joe's hand, Angelo spun back around and knocked Joe's arm away.

“Keep your hands off me,” he shouted.

Joe took a step back and held up his hands, palms outward. “Okay,” he said. “Take it easy.”

“Angelo, do you know anything about Barry Batten's medallion?” Frank asked.

Angelo scowled at him. “I know somebody ought to rip it off his neck and throw it back in the ocean where it belongs,” he replied.

“Somebody took it from his room this morning,” Joe said.

“Great!” Angelo said. “But if you clowns think you can pin it on me, you can take a long hike on a short pier.” He turned and walked away.

“We're wasting our time with this guy,” Frank muttered, turning his back to Angelo. “Let's go back to the inn. I'd like to find out if anybody saw him hanging around there earlier today.”

They left the marina and made their way through the crowds to the inn. As they started up the walk, Joe noticed that a painter had set up her easel on the hill overlooking the inn and the harbor. How long had she been there?

“I'll be right back,” Joe murmured to Frank. He crossed the lawn and climbed the slope in long, impatient strides.

The painter was in her twenties, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a light-colored, paint-stained smock. She gave Joe a cautious glance as he approached, then concentrated on her canvas. Joe looked over her shoulder. The bright colors were applied in wide, strong brush strokes, but he could recognize the harbor, the crowds, and the corner of the inn veranda.

“Er, excuse me,” Joe said. “I'm sorry to bother you, but have you been up here for long?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Why do you ask?” she replied.

“There was a burglary at the inn this morning,” Joe explained. “Supposedly, the crook got into the room from the veranda roof. Since you've got a good view of it from up here . . . ”

The painter frowned in concentration. “I got here about eight,” she said at last. “And I've been
here all the time since then. I'm sure I would have noticed if anybody had climbed on the porch roof, and I didn't see anybody.”

“Thanks,” Joe said. “That's a big help.”

He dashed down the slope to rejoin Frank and quickly explained what he had learned.

“Just as we thought,” Frank said, nodding. “It was an inside job. The open window was to make us believe that the burglar came from outside.”

Joe had a sudden thought. “Could Barry have done it himself? Hidden the medallion, then arranged for us to find out about the theft?”

“Of course he could have,” Frank replied. “Nothing easier. But why?”

“Uh . . . I have no idea,” Joe admitted.

“When we went upstairs with him and he unlocked his door, how many times did he turn the key?” Frank asked.

Joe stared off toward the water as he tried to recall. “Hmm . . . I think he just put it in and gave it a half turn. I don't remember hearing a click.”

“That's what I thought, too,” Frank said. “Which means that he didn't have the dead bolt on, just the spring latch. Come on—I'd like another look at that door.”

As they entered the lobby, Joe noticed a crowd clustered around the television set in the far corner of the room. He nudged Frank, and they went over to find out what was going on.

On the screen, Barry was being interviewed by
Peter Singer, the cohost of “Sporting America.” Barry's boat and Bayport harbor were in the background. Singer was asking, “What does this loss mean to you, Barry?”

“It means I'm finished with powerboat racing,” Barry replied.

The gasps from the watchers covered his next few words.

“ . . . my ancestor's medallion,” Joe heard. “It's not that I'm superstitious. It's a question of family pride and family tradition. When I wore that medallion in a race, I felt I stood for something more than myself. Without it . . . well, it just wouldn't be the same, that's all.”