High-Speed Showdown Read online

  Connie tossed her head and said, “Of course it does. You guys are really something, aren’t you? You must feel proud of yourselves.”

  Joe took a step forward. “Now hold on,” he said. “Are you trying to say that we—”

  She raised her voice. “Come off it, Joe Hardy! Of course you set me up. Are you going to try to tell me you just happened to be driving by at the exact same time I came here? Give me a break! By the way, which of you made that phone call? You’re good at disguising your voice. I never would have thought it was one of you guys.”

  “We followed you here,” Frank said. “We were watching your house because we got a phone call this morning telling us to.”

  “Are you for real?” Connie demanded. “You’re asking me to believe that whoever set me up set you up, too?”

  “Believe it or not,” Joe said. “We got a call this morning. And we did find you here with Barry’s lucky charm, didn’t we?”

  A shudder went through Connie. “Will you please get that horrible thing out of my sight?” she pleaded. “It makes me sick just to look at it. If I had to touch it, I think I’d keel over.”

  Frank wondered if Connie wasn’t protesting too much. Did she really have such a strong emotional reaction to a piece of whale ivory that was over a hundred years old? Or was she trying to convince them that she wasn’t physically capable of stealing it?

  “This does smell like a frame,” Frank said. “But you’ve still got a lot of explaining to do. What were you and Angelo doing to that buoy the other day?”

  When Connie started to protest, Joe said, “We saw the marks on the cable. And we spotted the bolt cutter in your locker at the marina.”

  Connie stared down at her hands. In a voice so low that Frank had to lean forward to hear, she said, “We didn’t do anything. Angelo was kidding around about how easy it would be to, like, totally mess up the races. But when he actually started to cut that cable, I made him stop. I don’t think he really meant to, anyway—just to show me he could. And then you guys nearly ran us down.”

  “Poor you,” Joe said, in an unsympathetic voice.

  “Look, what we’re trying to do is important,” Connie said, thrusting her chin out. “We haven’t broken any laws, and nobody can prove we did. We had nothing to do with the missing buoy. Earthquest is committed to keeping the waters safe. For all creatures, including humans.”

  Frank looked at Joe, who gave a tiny shrug. “Well, whether you or someone in your group took Barry’s medallion or not,” Frank said, “right now the main thing is to get it back to him. He did say he wouldn’t press charges if he got it back.”

  “I don’t care if he does press charges,” Connie said. “We’re the victims in this, not him.”

  Joe said, “If you’re in jail, you won’t be able to spread your message to the public.”

  Connie’s eyes widened. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “Angelo! I said I’d pick him up at nine-thirty. We’re going to be leafleting all day. I’d better run.”

  “We’re going, too,” Frank said. He reached over and scooped up the medallion. Then he and Joe accompanied Connie out to the parking lot.

  “What now—follow her?” Joe asked under his breath.

  Frank shook his head. “If we need her, we’ll find her easily enough,” he said. “Let’s get over to the inn. I wonder . . . once he has his medallion back, will Barry decide to race after all?”

  • • •

  The door to Magnusson’s office was ajar. Frank tapped on it, then put his head in. Magnusson was on the phone. When he saw Frank and Joe, he motioned for them to come in. Then he held up five fingers to show that he’d be with them in a few minutes.

  Frank took a pen and memo pad from Magnusson’s desk and wrote, “We found the medallion.” He tore off the page and held it up for Magnusson to read. Magnusson’s eyes widened. He muttered an excuse to the person on the other end of the phone and hung up. To Joe and Frank, he said, “You really have it? Amazing! I’d better let Barry know, right away.”

  Magnusson called Barry’s room. Frank glanced around for a wastebasket. He didn’t see one, so he folded the memo page and stuck it in his shirt pocket. Just then Barry came rushing in.

  “Is it true?” he demanded. Frank showed him the medallion. Barry grabbed it and put it around his neck, saying, “Now I’ll show those jerks a thing or two. You know what my boat’s called?”

  Joe said, “It’s Mine, right?”

  “That’s right,” Barry replied. His mouth twisted into a sneer. “And today’s prize cup? And the championship title? Guess what? It’s Mine.”

  He turned and hurried away.

  “Thanks a lot for finding my lost lucky piece for me, guys,” Joe muttered.

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Look, at least this means that Dave will get his big break after all,” he said.

  “Boys, I’m really proud of you,” Magnusson said. “How would you like to watch today’s race from the judges’ boat? We sail at eleven-thirty sharp. There’ll be lunch while we wait for the starting gun.”

  “We’d love to,” Frank said, in the same instant that Joe breathed, “Awesome!”

  “Fine. I’ll see you then.” Magnusson reached for the phone.

  As Frank and Joe were leaving the inn, Dennis stopped them. “I hear you guys tracked down Barry’s charm,” he said. “Lucky for him—it’s the closest thing to charm that he has. But couldn’t you have waited a few hours? You know, until after the race?” He laughed. “Who took it, anyway?”

  “That’s not clear,” Frank answered.

  “Oh?” Dennis raised his eyebrows. “Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter, anyway. Even with Barry back in the race, I’m bound to take at least fourth place in Open Class.”

  “How many are racing?” Joe asked.

  Dennis grinned. “In Open? Four—Barry, Susan, Pete Carnofsky, and me. Newcastle pulled out. Hey, who knows? I might even pull down third or second place! But I’d better go make sure Pavel is talking nice to the engines.”

  • • •

  The judges’ boat was a yacht big enough to make Sleuth look like a dinghy. During lunch, in the teak-paneled saloon, Joe and Frank got to know a young man named Sean. He was one of the official timekeepers. Just before the race started, he took them up to the flying bridge to show off his electronic gear.

  Joe looked over the notebook computer and the array of digital timers. “This sure beats a stopwatch and a clipboard,” he remarked.

  “Don’t laugh,” Sean said. “I’ve timed races that way, too.”

  Out on the open water, the racing boats were getting into position for the start. Frank asked, “Why are the biggest, most powerful boats in the first row? That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “It spreads out the field and cuts down on dangerous bunching,” Sean explained.

  A cabin cruiser loaded with spectators strayed across the course, pursued by one of the marshals.

  “What if a bystander gets in the way of one of the racers?” Joe asked. “Would the officials stop the race and rerun it?”

  Sean shook his head. “The usual rules of the road still hold,” he said. “Just because a boat’s in a race doesn’t give it any special privileges. Hey, you’d better go now. I have to get to work. You’ll have a good view from the bow.”

  Frank and Joe hurried down to the main deck and weaved through the crowd to a spot near the bow. Three helicopters were now hovering over the field of competitors. Two were marked with the logos of rival sports TV channels. The third carried official observers.

  The loud-hailer on the bridge of the judges’ boat started broadcasting a countdown. At “zero,” there was a flash of flame and a puff of white smoke from a small cannon. Whatever sound it made was completely covered by the sudden roar from dozens of race-tuned, supercharged engines. Tightly bunched, the pack accelerated quickly, throwing up a cloud of spray shot through with rainbows. In what seemed like only moments, all the boats were out of sight.

 
Frank unclenched his fingers from the wooden rail and said, “Wow! Don’t you wish we could hitch a ride with one of them?”

  “Why not ask Barry?” Joe suggested. “He owes us.”

  “Ho, ho,” Frank replied, making a face. “That guy has the gratitude of a weasel. I’m almost sorry we got his medallion back. And we still don’t know who took it.”

  “I’m ready to cross off Connie,” Joe said. “That scene this morning was too obviously a setup. How about Newcastle? Maybe, after we forced him to drop out of the race, he didn’t see any reason to hold on to the medallion any longer.”

  “But why give it back?” Frank replied. “Why not simply lose it overboard? In fact, why would anyone risk stealing the medallion, then turn around and give it back? An attack of bad conscience? I doubt it.”

  Joe scratched his chin and said, “It looks like the crook wanted to make Barry drop out, then decided that he—or she—wanted him to race after all. But what kind of sense does that make?”

  “We’ve got a few minutes before the racers come in sight again,” Frank said. “Let’s make a list of possible suspects and motives.”

  As he reached for his ballpoint, Frank felt the crinkle of paper in his shirt pocket. He took it out and recognized the memo sheet from Magnusson’s desk. He was about to start writing his list on it when he noticed a faint line of indentations near the top. It looked like writing, and the first characters looked like 702. Wasn’t that the area code for Las Vegas?

  “Joe!” Frank said urgently. “Look, those marks show what was written on the sheet before this one. See what you make of them.”

  By holding the sheet at different angles to the sunlight, they deciphered what looked like a Las Vegas phone number, followed by “BB 5:2 100K.”

  “‘BB’—Barry Batten!” Joe exclaimed.

  “And five to two must be the odds,” Frank added. “In other words, someone was planning to bet 100K—a hundred thousand dollars—on Barry, at odds that would pay off a quarter of a million bucks.”

  “Really?” Joe asked. “Are you sure?”

  “One hundred percent sure,” Frank replied.

  Joe’s jaw dropped. “Frank! That’s what he said—the guy I overheard on the phone at Magnusson’s dinner party. And he was checking on BB.”

  “Magnusson! I’m one hundred percent sure that’s where I picked up that phrase. He says it all the time. Joe, that’s it!” Frank exclaimed. “I see it now. Magnusson took the medallion, so that Barry would drop out and the odds on him would change. Then he placed his big bet. After that, he arranged for us to find the medallion, so that Barry would race after all. It was all a scheme to manipulate the odds.”

  “So that’s why he asked Dad to take the case, when he already knew Dad was going to be busy in California,” Joe said. “Because he knew he’d get us instead.”

  Frank nodded. “He needed to be able to show that he was doing something about the sabotage, but he didn’t want anyone around who’d do too good a job. I bet he expected to lead a couple of teenage detectives around by the nose!”

  “I guess we surprised him,” Joe said. “And all that business about Earthquest was just a smoke screen. He must have sent himself that fax, and he probably put the other leaflet in Dennis’s file. Magnusson then set the scene for us to find the medallion this morning. He wanted us off on a wild-goose chase. Okay, what now?”

  “We tell him what we know,” Frank replied. “After that . . . well, we’ll see.”

  Joe grabbed his arm. “Look, here come the leaders on the return leg. Barry’s in front, but Dennis isn’t that far back. Do you think he has a chance to win?”

  “With more than two laps still to go?” Frank said. “Anything can happen. Come on.”

  They found Gerald Magnusson near the stern, next to the gangway. He was leaning over the rail, talking to a man in a speedy-looking runabout. He looked up as the Hardys approached. Something in their faces must have tipped him off.

  “Is anything the matter?” he asked warily.

  “We have the number of your bookmaker in Vegas,” Frank announced. “How do you think he’ll react when we tell him how you rigged the odds on today’s race?”

  “Even if Barry does win,” Joe added, “I don’t think you’re going to collect on your bets. Sorry about that.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Magnusson blustered. “I have more important things to do than listen to this nonsense.”

  He pushed past Frank. Suddenly he turned, jumped down into the idling speedboat, and shoved its occupant over the side, into the water. Joe lunged toward the rail, ready to leap after him, but Frank grabbed his arm and held him back.

  “No!” Frank exclaimed. “Too late! Let him go. He can’t escape. Besides, by trying to run away, he’s just proving that we were right about him.”

  The speedboat surged forward as Magnusson shoved the throttle to full speed ahead. For a moment, he seemed about to steer for the harbor. But his path was blocked by the hordes of spectator boats. He swung the speedboat to starboard, toward open water . . . and the marked-off channel of the race course.

  “No, stop!” Frank shouted, as he suddenly saw the danger. But there was no chance that Magnusson would hear him. Even the loud whine of the speedboat’s motor was drowned out by the clamor of the unmuffled thousand-horsepower racers, roaring toward the end of the first lap at well over a hundred miles an hour.

  It’s Mine, in the lead, was on a collision course with the little speedboat. Barry seemed to see the danger at the same instant as Magnusson. Following deeply ingrained rules of the road, both swerved to starboard. Magnusson’s boat, caught in the ferocious wake thrown up by It’s Mine, flipped over, pitching Magnusson like a rag doll into the water.

  “He never had a chance of getting away,” Joe said, watching a rescue boat take off toward Magnusson.

  “I hope he didn’t ruin the racers’ chances by getting in the way,” Frank said, his eyes intent on the racing boats.

  Just then Barry and Dave made an S-turn to regain the channel. As they pulled back on the course, Dennis and Miguel roared past, into the lead.

  “Nothing can stop those guys,” Joe observed. “It’s full throttle forward with an eye on the prize.”

  • • •

  “So it was Carl’s sabotage that gave Gerald the idea?” Dennis asked. He, Miguel, and Dave were sitting with Joe and Frank on the veranda of the Waterside Inn. Dennis still wore the wreath that had been placed around his neck after winning the big race.

  “It was a convenient smoke screen,” Frank said. “With all the confusion, who would question a stolen lucky charm? Magnusson just had to be sure we got the medallion back to Barry after the odds had changed, but in time for the race.”

  “He’s been having business problems,” Joe added. “This seemed like a perfect way to get a big wad of quick cash. It nearly worked, too.”

  “It would have, if not for you,” Miguel said. “At the next Powerboat Racing Guild meeting, I’m going to move that you be given life memberships.”

  “I’ll second it,” Dennis said, smiling. “Dave, that was a nice job you did, recovering from Gerald’s interference well enough to take second place. You deserve a better racing partner than Barry.”

  Dave grinned. “I’ve got one—my brother. I called home after the race, to tell him Barry and I took second place. He said he thinks he may have found someone to sponsor a boat for us.”

  “I hope it works out,” Joe said.

  “Say, Joe, Frank?” Dennis said. “Are you guys doing anything three weekends from now? I’m entered in a race off Cape Cod, and Adelita’s got room for two more.”

  “We’ll be there!” Frank and Joe said, in one breath.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Minstrel
Book published by

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  Copyright © 1996 by Simon & Schuster Inc.

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  ISBN 0-671-50521-1

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8599-0 (eBook)

  First Minstrel Books printing April 1996

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