Secret of the Red Arrow (9 page)

“What do you think?” Joe asked, crossing his arms and looking up at the sky. He seemed as startled by the bright, cool day as I felt.

“I can’t believe this Red Arrow thing has been going on for years and we never knew,” I replied.

“I can’t believe Dad knew,” Joe added.

“Maybe he was protecting us,” I mused, looking up and down the street. “Hey, can I say something I’m pretty sure will surprise you?”

Joe shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “It seems like a day for surprises.”

“I don’t think Pett is behind this,” I said. Joe turned to me, an eyebrow cocked. “It’s too sophisticated,” I went on. “Pett is a psychopath. If he was going to go after you, he would hit you over the head with something big and heavy, douse you in gasoline, and set you on fire. There’d be none of this psychological torture kind of thing.”

Joe seemed to consider what I was saying. “I don’t think Pett even knows the word ‘psychological,’ ” he agreed.

“This just seems too big for him,” I concluded. “Not that he couldn’t be involved.”

Joe sighed. “Which leaves us back at square one,” he said. “If it’s not Pett, who could it be?”

I sighed. It had been such a long day. I didn’t have the energy to reply. And I knew I didn’t need to. Joe and I know each other well enough that I knew we were both feeling the same thing.

“Hey,” I said, pointing at the restaurant across the street. “Do you see that?”

“What?” Joe followed my gaze.

“Over the doorway there,” I said. “Come on.”

I led Joe over to the crosswalk, where we waited for the light and then crossed. (
Although that didn’t help Neanderthal
,
I thought grimly.) Then we walked over to the restaurant I’d seen, which looked like it was in the process of being renovated and wasn’t currently open.

Over the door, a small triangle-with-legs symbol had been painted.

“The Red Arrow,” Joe and I breathed at the same time.

“So what do you think?” Joe asked. “Did the owner tick off the same person as Neanderthal?”

“Or maybe someone different, but who’s involved in the same criminal organization?” I suggested. “How big do we think this thing is?”

“Neal said it was big,” Joe pointed out. “Really big. Remember—he wouldn’t be surprised if there were city officials involved.”

I frowned, thinking that over. “Let’s take a walk,” I suggested.

Joe followed me as I led the way down Main Street. We took a meandering route, wandering along the side streets, through the parking lots, past city buildings.

“Look,” Joe whispered, pointing at a bulkhead that led into a basement under On Second Read, the town bookstore. A tiny Red Arrow symbol had been painted there—and was already fading.

We saw another one stenciled over the window of an apartment on the second floor of a building on River Road. And a third—very tiny—painted on a bike chained to a rack in Heller Park.

“It’s everywhere,” I said. “Has it always been everywhere? Have we just not seen it?”

Joe shook his head but didn’t reply.

“What kind of detectives are we?” I asked. “These have been hiding in plain sight for how long?”

Joe walked over to a bench and sat down. I sat down next to him. Together, we looked back at the main square of the town we’d grown up in, the town we’d almost derailed our whole future investigating and trying to clean up. Was it possible that Bayport was still keeping secrets from us?

The side door of the library opened up, and out stepped Seth Diller.

Joe groaned.

Seth didn’t seem to see us as he hustled across the street and into the park. He was nearly right on top of us before his eyes narrowed in recognition and he stopped short.

“Oh,” he said, not looking very psyched to see us. “Frank and Joe Hardy.”

“We meet again,” Joe said, nodding.

“Neal Bunyan got hit by a car,” I said, not even saying hello. “We were just visiting him in the hospital.”

Seth’s eyes bugged out. “Are you kidding?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I wish I were,” I admitted. “But it’s true. It seems like someone really has it out for him.”

Seth nodded slowly. It looked like there was more he wanted to say, but he didn’t.

“Seth,” said Joe, pulling out the sketch I had drawn in the hospital, “are you sure you can’t tell us about this symbol? Neal seems to think it’s related to what’s happening to him.”

“Really?” Seth looked surprised. But his expression quickly returned to neutral. “I don’t know anything about it.”

“You’ve never seen it before?” I pressed.

Seth looked away. “I have to go.” He pushed his backpack up on his shoulder, fished some car keys out of his jeans pocket, and started walking toward the parking lot. I glanced quickly at Joe, who nodded, and we both stood up and started walking with him.

“Seth,” Joe said, “man, I’m a fan of yours. We go way back. You can tell us the truth!”

“Neal told us a little bit about it,” I added. “We just want to know as much as we can. We’re not accusing you of anything.”

Seth was speeding up. We had to work to keep up with him. We reached the parking lot, and Seth clicked the button on his keys. A
beep
sounded from a nondescript silver coupe parked near the dog run. He hustled over to it, and Joe and I followed.

About ten feet away from the car, Seth stopped short. Joe and I didn’t realize at first, and we almost went plowing into him.

“Oh my—oh,” Seth stammered weakly. His face was paper white.

I looked at Joe and then followed Seth’s gaze to the car. Within seconds I saw what was causing Seth’s distress. Something was stenciled on the driver’s-side window.

The Red Arrow.

S
ETH TRIED TO PLAY IT COOL, LIKE HE
wasn’t worried, but I could see him shaking as he walked over to the driver’s-side door and opened it.

“Seth, come on,” I begged, moving closer. “We saw the Red Arrow. We want to help you. Let us.”

He climbed into the car and put the key in the ignition.

“Seth!” I yelled, moving around and banging on the windshield. “Come on!”

Seth looked at me through the windshield, his jaw set, his expression grave. “You guys can’t help me,” he insisted, looking from me to Frank, who was trailing a few steps behind. “Not with this.”

Without another word, Seth slammed his door and
turned the key in the ignition. I backed away from the car just in time for him to throw it in drive and peel out of the parking lot.

Frank looked as worried as I felt. “What do you think will happen to him?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Hopefully, it won’t be as bad as what happened to Neanderthal,” I replied. “But I’m not feeling optimistic.”

Frank sighed. “Let’s go home,” he suggested.

Home—and a nice home-cooked meal from Aunt Trudy—sounded pretty great right now. The sun had just gone down, and the streetlights made a warm glow against the inky-blue sky. It was the kind of night that made you want to be safe at home, tucking into a bowl of spaghetti or something.

Mmmmm. Spaghetti.

That’s when I heard the
WEE-OO, WEE-OO
of a police siren right behind us.

I turned around and groaned. A cruiser had pulled up right behind us, as quiet as a mouse. Clearly, whoever was inside was looking to startle us.

The driver opened the door and climbed out, and I can’t say I was surprised.

Officer Olaf. As Neanderthal had said of Pett earlier, he really hates us. Our investigations haven’t exactly made Frank and me the most popular kids in town.

What’s Officer Olaf’s deal? I’m not really sure. Secret
insecurity about his mustache? Not enough affection from his mother? Possibly both of those, and more. But his problem with Frank and me seems to stem from the fact that we’ve caught a lot of crooks in this town—a lot more than he has, frankly. And I don’t think he likes that. I don’t think he likes looking like the ineffective cop he is.

“Look who it is,” he said now, a smile hovering insincerely below his droopy mustache, “the Hardy Boys!”

“You seem happy to see us,” Frank said. He nodded politely to Olaf’s rookie partner, who was sitting in the passenger seat, looking like he’d prefer to be spared this whole sordid scene.

Officer Olaf grew serious. “Happy to have found you, yes. Happy about what I have to say? No.” He furrowed his bushy eyebrows. “There are rumors around town that you boys have been asking about the Red Arrow.”

Gulp. Who had told Olaf? I guess it didn’t matter. It’s impossible to keep a secret in a town like Bayport, where everybody knows everybody else’s business. You sneeze and someone three houses down says, “Bless you.”

Frank shot me a surprised look, then turned to Olaf. “Huh. Who told you that?”

At this point, I was distracted. From my viewpoint I could see, behind Olaf and his cruiser, the stores of Main Street. Specifically, I had a pretty good view of the restaurant that had the Red Arrow over the doorway. As I watched, an older man with glasses, wearing a sport coat, walked up to
the door, carrying a box filled with what looked like pots and kitchen stuff. He put down the box, grabbed a key from his coat pocket, and unlocked the door. Then he disappeared inside with his box.

I’m not sure why this stood out to me, but something just seemed off with this guy. I’d been curious about the owner of this restaurant and what he might have done to anger the Red Arrow. This guy didn’t look like a troublemaker or anything. He looked like he might be a math teacher. Or an accountant.

“Ohhhh, I see,” Frank was saying. I’d missed whatever Olaf said to explain how he’d heard about our investigations. “No, what you heard about isn’t an investigation at all. Joe and I are working on a project for our civics class.”

Olaf looked dubious. (To be honest, I thought it was kind of a stretch too. Frank and I aren’t even in the same grade.) He leaned his elbow on the hood of the cruiser. “About the Red Arrow?” he asked. “Your teacher approved that?”

Frank didn’t miss a beat. “It’s taught by Coach Gerther,” he said quickly.

I saw movement back on Main Street that caught my attention. Looking frustrated, the man with the glasses exited the restaurant and sighed, looking down the street, maybe toward his car. It looked like he’d forgotten something. He scurried off in that direction, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

I turned back to Olaf, who seemed to understand now.
Clearly, he was acquainted with Coach Gerther. “I see,” he said. “Well, you boys know the Red Arrow is just an urban legend, don’t you?” He laughed in a forced kind of way. “Do you also believe that alligators live in the sewers in New York City? Or that Pop Rocks and soda killed that kid from the Life cereal commercials?”

Frank and I started chuckling too. “Of course not,” I said. “But the Red Arrow definitely has a . . . presence in this town, wouldn’t you say?”

Olaf stopped laughing. “If you mean that teenagers love to whisper about the horrible things he’s supposedly done, and paint that stupid symbol all over town, then sure.” He stood up from the cruiser and stepped closer to us, eyes intense. I’m pretty sure he was hoping to stare us down, but that’s impossible, because Olaf is a couple of inches shorter than both of us. “But let me tell you this. There’s no such thing as the Red Arrow. It’s just a stupid myth that encourages vandalism and distrust of the authorities. I don’t want you boys legitimizing this story by asking around about it. And I especially don’t want you boys investigating.” He leaned even closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We all know what happens if you boys are caught investigating, don’t we?”

I was opening my mouth to answer when it happened.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

An earthshaking sound engulfed the whole center of town, so loud and startling that Frank grabbed both Olaf and me and dragged us to the ground.

Chaos erupted, people screaming and running out of buildings to see what had happened. Olaf jumped to his feet and turned to Main Street in shock.

The restaurant with the Red Arrow over the door was on fire. Well, what remained of it.

It had exploded!

I
DIDN’T SLEEP WELL THAT NIGHT DESPITE BEING
exhausted, having gotten only a few hours’ sleep the night before. I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling, working the facts over and over in my mind, trying to find a way to make it all make sense.

I like for things to make sense.

An electrical fire. That was the official finding of the Bayport police and fire departments regarding the restaurant we’d watched get blown away before our very eyes. The Red Arrow stenciled above the door had been dismissed as graffiti. A teenage prank, Olaf had hissed at us, his expression practically begging us to argue with him.

Which we couldn’t, of course. Joe and I were caught in a major catch-22 here. Tell the police what we knew—and
why we knew it wasn’t a coincidence—and we’d be admitting to doing some real investigating, therefore breaking the Deal. The J’Adoube School for Behavior Modification Therapy on Rock Island beckoned.

But that meant accepting—or pretending to accept—the Official Explanation. The restaurant’s owner, a mild-mannered guy named Paul Fumusa, certainly seemed to accept it. He even admitted that he hadn’t had the electrical systems inspected yet, thereby leaving him open to mishaps like this one.

But really. Let’s be realistic for a second here. Bad wiring and weird electrical connections cause fires, sure.

But explosions? Big and loud enough to blow half the roof off the place, and clear the town?

Then there was the guy’s face. Paul Fumusa’s, I mean. His expression was a combination of shell shock and resignation that I’d seen only once before—on Neanderthal Bunyan when we showed up at his house after the beating.

Yeah. This whole scenario had Red Arrow written all over it.

Exactly what—or who—was the Red Arrow? When Joe and I had talked briefly before we hit the hay, I reminded him that when Officer Olaf scoffed at the existence of the Red Arrow, calling it an urban legend, he’d referred to the Red Arrow as “he.” What if there was one person, some kind of criminal mastermind, behind the strange events of the last few days? But we’d been too exhausted to discuss this new possibility.