Skin and Bones Read online

  “What did the freight carrier say about it?” Frank asked.

  “Just what you’d expect: ‘Sorry—file a claim.’ Each time the order was changed to a pickup instead of a delivery. Not a pickup here in San Francisco, but one somewhere between the point of origin and here.”

  “Who changed these orders?” Joe asked.

  “No one knows. It was all done on computer. The crates were signed for by someone using my name—I have copies of the receipts.” Cody rummaged around in a desk drawer and pulled out three orders with his signature at the bottom.

  Frank studied them. “Do these look like your signature?”

  “One of them is kind of close,” Cody said, “but it doesn’t really matter. I’m talking about someone picking up one of my orders on a dock in Indonesia or a village in Nairobi. I sent the freight company my signature and asked them to send a copy to everyone along the shipping route, so signatures could be checked against it. But it didn’t do any good. And it probably wasn’t too smart, anyway. Now my signature is floating around the world, so anyone can copy it.”

  Frank scanned the receipt. He had the feeling Cody was holding something back, that he had more to tell.

  “Um, there’s one more thing,” Cody said as if reading Frank’s mind. “Someone’s been hacking into my computer and leaving threatening messages.”

  “Whoa,” Joe said. “Like what?”

  “I’ve got some printouts upstairs,” Cody said. “I’ll show them to you.”

  The three went up to Cody’s apartment. A large living room stretched across the street side, over Skin & Bones. Behind the living room was a kitchen with an eating area at one end. A short hallway led to a bedroom and a large bathroom.

  Frank and Joe settled at the dining table while Cody got the printouts of the threatening messages. Over heated pizza and sodas, the three looked at the pages. “As you can see, they’re pretty standard stuff,” Cody said.

  “I’m watching you” was written on one. Others said, “You can’t escape” and “Close Skin & Bones or you’ll be sorry.”

  “Boy, there aren’t any clues on these at all,” Joe said.

  “They’re hacked in, so there’s no originating address or number or anything,” Frank pointed out.

  “You guys met Dave Cloud the last time you were out here, didn’t you?” Cody asked. He waited while Frank and Joe nodded. “He and I used to be partners. He’s started an online computer supply and equipment auction site.”

  “I remember him,” Joe said. “He was a pilot and a technical wizard.”

  “That’s him,” Cody said. “I told him all about this. He’s going to try to trace the hacker.”

  “What does your dad say?” Frank asked.

  Cody gulped a big slug of soda and shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t told him. Look, he seems okay with everything now, but he was totally against the store at first. He wanted me to be a cop or a government agent or something like that—follow in his footsteps, you know? He was afraid I’d go bust with the store. If I tell him what’s happening, all his worry genes will kick right in.”

  “But you’ve reported the burglaries to the police, right?” Frank asked.

  “Sure,” Cody answered. “Dad knows about them, but we both thought they were standard breaking and entering, like I said. That was before the other stuff happened. I haven’t told him about the intercepted shipments or the computer hacking. I want to be able to handle it myself.”

  “We’d be glad to help,” Frank offered.

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Cody said. “Your being here is great timing.”

  “Hey, three heads are better than one,” Joe said, grabbing another slice of pizza. As he took a bite, he heard a noise outside.

  He sat up, his ears straining. “Shhh,” he cautioned the others. “I heard something.”

  The three sat still. Then Joe heard it again, an odd grating, like metal rubbing against metal. He put a hand up, gesturing to the others to stay put. Carefully, he inched his chair back and walked to the kitchen window. It was very dark outside.

  Joe quickly made his way down the stairs to the first floor and into Cody’s office. His ears tuned to all outside noises, he quietly unlocked a door at the side of Cody’s office. The door opened onto a narrow passageway between Cody’s building and the one next door.

  There was a wooded lot behind Cody’s building—a dark area of trees and large bushes. Joe stood still, listening. This time he heard something from above. Stepping away from the house, he looked up. Someone was moving on Cody’s roof.

  Joe watched the shadowy form darting back and forth. He strained to see who it was, but it was too dark. He sprinted down the narrow passage to Cody’s fire escape at the rear of the building. He lowered the bottom ladder inch by inch, trying to keep the metal from scraping.

  At last it was down and he was able to scale the ladder. He climbed up until he could see over the edge of the roof. Through the darkness, he could make out the back of someone kneeling in the shadow of the chimney at the far end of the roof.

  Joe felt all his muscles tighten as he boosted himself up onto the roof. Crouching, he crept toward the kneeling figure. He held his breath as he moved nearer.

  “Joe! What are you doing up there?”

  When he heard Cody’s voice from below, Joe felt as if his heart had stopped beating. He was distracted for just a second, but that was one second too long. In a single fluid movement, the person beside the chimney stood up, wheeled around, and kicked.

  Pain washed over Joe as the kick landed in his stomach. Unable to catch his breath, he crumpled to the roof.

  3 An Enemy Is Loose!

  * * *

  Joe gasped for air, each breath causing a new ripple of pain through his body. He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. I’ve got to stop that guy, he told himself.

  As Joe sprinted to the end of the roof, he called out to Frank to stop his attacker. He was too late. The person had already scrambled down the fire escape and disappeared into the bushy woods behind the house.

  Joe walked to the chimney and checked out the area where the person had been kneeling. He found nothing but a small mirror, which he put in his pocket, and climbed down the fire escape to join Frank and Cody. They agreed the mirror wasn’t much of a clue.

  The three went up to Cody’s apartment and into the kitchen. “I’m feeling a little woozy,” Cody said, pouring a glass of soda.

  “It’s time to get you to the doctor,” Frank said. “No more arguments.”

  “We’ll see,” Cody said noncommittally. “Joe, can you give me a description of the guy who kicked you?”

  “Well, I keep saying ‘the guy,’ but you know, it could have been a woman, I guess,” Joe answered. “I didn’t get much of a look at the person—dark pants and sweater, hair under a knit cap. I never saw the face at all. You might be able to get a toe print from my stomach, though,” he added with a half-smile. He could still feel the spot where he’d been kicked.

  “Cody, I get the feeling you have a suspect in mind—for everything that’s happened to you,” Frank said. “Have you got a name for us?”

  “Mike Brando,” Cody declared.

  “Who’s Mike Brando?” Joe asked. “And could he be the guy who got me on the roof?”

  “Nope, not on the roof, but everything else maybe. When I first opened Skin and Bones,” Cody explained, “Brando was one of my best suppliers. He told me he was a former game warden and had worked in animal parks and game preserves in Australia, Africa, and Brazil.”

  Cody put down his soda, then leaned back in his chair. The expression on his face showed that he was still angry. “He had the whole package—career records, references, a list of terrific contacts all over the world.”

  “That sounds pretty impressive,” Frank said. “Did his references check out?”

  “Yep,” Cody said. “He’d started his own search business and offered to serve as my middleman to line up the best s
pecimens.”

  “He’d be sort of a bones broker,” Joe concluded with a chuckle.

  “Exactly,” Cody agreed with a lopsided smile. He ran a hand through his thick dark brown hair. “He—” Cody was interrupted by the sound of the door buzzer.

  Cody checked his watch as he stood up. “Yikes, I almost forgot—Deb was going to drop by tonight to meet you guys.”

  “I’ll get it,” Joe said.

  Joe went down and unlocked the shop door. Waiting outside was a pretty young woman in a long skirt and jeans jacket. Thick wavy blond hair cascaded around her face. “Hi, I’m Deborah Lynne.”

  “I’m Joe Hardy. Come on in.”

  He led her through the store and back up to Cody’s kitchen. Cody introduced her to Frank, saying that Deb was his new business manager and also helped out in the store. He quickly filled her in on what had happened earlier.

  “So, what did the doctor say?” Deb asked, helping herself to a piece of now cold pizza.

  “I haven’t seen one yet,” Cody said with a sheepish glance toward Frank and Joe. “I’m okay.”

  “Come on, Chang,” Deb said. She took the pizza out of Cody’s hand and slapped it onto his plate. “I’ll take you to Dad’s. At least he can check you out. My dad’s a doctor,” she told the Hardys.

  “All right, all right, I’ll go,” Cody said with a grin. “I can’t fight all three of you.”

  Deb drove Cody to her father’s, and the Hardys headed back to Sergeant Chang’s. As the brothers were getting ready for bed, Deb called to say her father had given Cody a clean bill of health, and Cody was already back home. They agreed to meet at Cody’s for brunch at ten o’clock the next morning.

  Tuesday morning was cool and damp, and the city was cloaked in thick fog. Deb arrived shortly after the Hardys. In his kitchen Cody was fixing a big platter of burritos and eggs, and Frank was relieved to see that he looked well and rested.

  Over breakfast Frank got right down to business. “So, let’s finish our conversation from last night,” he said. “Why do you suspect Mike Brando?”

  “Mike’s first deliveries were great,” Cody explained. “He got stuff I’d had trouble locating because I didn’t have his contacts. But then he offered to get things that I knew were illegal,” he said, his expression troubled.

  “Internationally restricted bones and skins,” Deb added. “No one can buy or sell them.”

  “But at that point it was just my word against his,” Cody pointed out. “Dad organized a sting, and Brando walked right into it. Man, was he mad. He swore he’d make us pay.”

  “Oh,” Joe said, “so that’s why you said he couldn’t be the guy on the roof. He’s in prison.”

  “Yes,” Deb said. “But we figure he could have someone on the outside helping him.”

  “He definitely could be behind the computer messages,” Frank pointed out. “He’s not in for a violent crime. He’d probably be a good candidate for computer privileges.”

  “If it’s not Brando, then I haven’t a clue who it could be,” Cody said, finishing his third burrito.

  “Great breakfast, Cody,” Joe said, leaning back in his chair.

  “Agreed,” Frank stated. “So, how about that tour of your lab you’ve been promising, Cody. I want to see how your business works.”

  “That’s right!” Cody said. “You’ve never seen Bug Central. C’mon—let’s go.”

  “I’ll open the shop,” Deb said, and went down to welcome the morning’s customers.

  Cody led the Hardys up to the lab, which took up nearly the entire third floor. “Over here is all my media stuff,” Cody said proudly. A wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases was crammed with tapes, books, and CDs. “I’ve got videos and books about nearly every animal, fish, and bird in the world. Plus prehistoric life and fossils.” More shelves held boxes and albums of photographs, neatly cataloged, filed, and labeled.

  A second wall looked like one in an artist’s studio. Shelves, pegboards, and tables were covered with brushes, wire scrapers, scissors, rulers, colored pencils, compasses, tubes of paint, display stands and easels, frames, and rolls of tape and wire.

  “Here’s where I do a lot of the final work,” Cody said, seating himself on the stool in front of his drafting table. “This is my favorite part, really—doing custom work for a client or getting a display ready for the store.”

  A third area of the room looked like a science lab. A worktable with two sinks anchored the wall. Bunsen burners, cleaning fluids, microscopes, and other paraphernalia stood waiting for Cody.

  The fourth wall was nearly covered floor to ceiling by stacks of crates and boxes. In the corner was a door with a hand-lettered sign: Bug Central—Do NOT Open!

  “So, this is Bug Central?” Frank said.

  “Yep,” Cody said, chuckling. “My specimens arrive in different conditions. They’re not always clean, white, and ready to go. Sometimes they still have bits—or even a lot—of flesh on them.”

  With a wide grin, Cody opened the door to a large closet. On one wall were shelves of fiberglass bins of different sizes. Four old refrigerators lined the other wall.

  Cody led the Hardys to one of the larger fiberglass bins, which was clear and gave them a view of what was going on inside. A large skull lay on a bed of cotton batting. Swarming over it were thousands of tiny caterpillars.

  “Meet my assistants,” Cody said with a flourish. “The dermestid beetle colony.”

  “You’re kidding!” Joe said. “This is amazing.”

  “Lots of museums around the world have used dermestids since the eighteenth century—sometimes whole rooms of them,” Cody explained. “Nothing cleans a bone faster. Adult beetles lay eggs in the flesh on the bone. The larvae—the little caterpillars—hatch and eat the meat. Then they burrow into the cotton at the bottom of the bin as pupae, emerge as adults, and the cycle begins again.”

  “Totally cool,” Frank said, watching the dermestids in action. “What kind of skull is this?”

  “That’s the zebra skull we picked up at the zoo yesterday,” Cody said. “It was pretty clean. I put my buddies to work on it last night when I got back from Dr. Lynne’s.”

  “And the refrigerators?” Joe asked.

  “I have colonies in them, too,” Cody answered. “I pick up old refrigerators. Hey, the price is right—and they’re really secure. See, the trick is to keep the dermestids from ‘bugging’ out on their own.”

  Frank and Joe groaned at the bad joke.

  “They’ll eat anything organic,” Cody continued, “so they’re very destructive. They eat wood, so this room has paint that’s toxic to them. In case any of the little critters get away, they won’t be able to eat through the wood.”

  Cody and the Hardys left Bug Central and went back into the lab. “This is really great,” Frank said. “Looks like you have everything you’d ever need here.”

  “And I love it,” Cody said, his eyes sparkling. “Sometimes I wish I could afford to hire all the help I needed to run the business. Then I could just stay up here and play.”

  Frank and Joe followed Cody down the two flights of stairs to the shop. A pretty young woman in her late twenties stood at one of the display counters, talking to Deb.

  “I know you,” Cody said. “You recently bought Reflections, the club next door. Sorry I haven’t been over to welcome you to the neighborhood.”

  “Yes, I’m Jennifer Payton,” the young woman answered. She was tall and looked as though she worked out regularly. Her golden brown hair was pulled back off her face, and she had a huge friendly smile. “And you can make it up by doing me a favor,” she added. “I’m in charge of a fund-raiser for the Children’s Shelter.”

  “That’s this weekend, isn’t it?” Cody said, nodding. “You’re doing a haunted house at the Soxx Mansion. You’ve done a good job promoting it.”

  “Except I’m in a real jam,” Jennifer said, “and if you don’t help me out, we may have to cancel.”

  A frantic look c
ame over Jennifer’s face, and for a minute Frank thought she was going to cry. “What happened?” he asked.

  “There was a plumbing disaster at the mansion over the weekend,” Jennifer answered. “There was a lot of water damage, and it can’t be cleaned up by this weekend. Plus I lost most of my haunted house decorations. I’m sunk.” She sighed. “Unless . . .” She looked at Cody with a pleading expression.

  “I don’t get it,” Cody said. “What can I do?”

  “Well, I had only two choices, really,” Jennifer said. “Cancel or relocate the whole thing to Reflections. I decided to relocate. And that’s where you come in. . . .”

  “I think I get it,” Frank said. “You need to borrow some things from Skin and Bones to replace your decorations.”

  “Very good deduction,” Jennifer said. “Say, you’d make a great detective!”

  Frank and Joe grinned at each other.

  “So, will you?” Jennifer pleaded. “Will you lend me some skeletons and shark jaws and other scary stuff? Please? It’s for a good cause.”

  “Of course,” Cody said. “Glad to help. We’ll even help you set the stuff up.”

  “Thanks,” Jennifer said, looking around the shop. “Some of this will be perfect.”

  “A haunted house, hmm?” Joe said. “Do you need any help during the event?” he asked. “Ticket-taker? Monster? Ghost?”

  “Always room for more volunteers,” Jennifer answered with a grin. “I’ve got the perfect costumes for all four of you. You can pick them up when you bring over the bones.”

  Jennifer bustled out the door, and Deb returned to tending to Skin & Bones customers.

  “I want to take a look at the records of your transactions with Mike Brando,” Frank told Cody.

  “Last night when I got back from Deb’s dad’s, I sorted through all that stuff we picked up last night. So everything’s better organized than usual. I can easily get the Brando stuff.”

  “Could you tell whether anything was missing?” Frank asked. “Records, receipts, whatever?”

  “Nothing that I could tell,” Cody said. “Maybe it was just vandalism.”