Tunnel of Secrets Read online

  “But it could— But my marriage,” she pleaded.

  “Think about Layla,” Joe said gently. “The police need to know everything having to do with her disappearance, even if it seems like a long shot. Your husband will be a lot more understanding if you come clean with him now than if you keep hiding something that could possibly help him find your daughter.”

  Delia nodded. “Thank you for letting me tell him myself.”

  “We have to check with the deputy later to make sure he knows,” Joe said. “I hope you understand.”

  “Yes, thank you.” She rose, then turned back to Joe.

  “I don’t blame you for being mad at me, Joe. You’ve been a good friend to Layla. When she comes home, well, if you wanted to ask her out, it would be okay with my husband and me.”

  “Oh, um, okay, thanks,” Joe said, turning a shade or two pinker, which isn’t something you see every day. I mean, I’m usually the one who does all the blushing when it comes to girls.

  “Well, that’s a new one,” I said to Joe as she drove away. “I don’t think we’ve ever had someone invite one of us to date their daughter during questioning.”

  “We have to find her first,” he said.

  “What do you make of Delia’s story?” I asked.

  “Which part? That Sal’s secretly her uncle or that the Admiral’s ghost is her daughter’s kidnapper? It all sounds nuts.”

  “It’s a crazy story, all right, but that doesn’t mean her version of what happened isn’t true,” I said. “Though it’s going to be tough to trust Delia knowing that she kept such a big secret from her own family. And even if she was telling the truth about Sal being her uncle, she could still be making up the story about the Admiral’s ghost.”

  “We have no way of knowing for sure what Sal told her, or wrote her,” Joe agreed. “And I don’t want to burst my own bubble, but it’s possible she mentioned me going out with Layla just to butter me up.”

  “It’s awful to think about, but we have to at least consider the possibility that she knows more than she’s letting on about her daughter’s disappearance,” I said.

  “But why would she want to harm her own daughter?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Who knows what other deep, dark family secrets she has to protect? She and Sal could even be in on it together.”

  “Or maybe he’s blackmailing her,” Joe suggested. “Sal being disowned by his family would give him a strong motive for trying to get back at them.”

  “From what I saw of the press conference, it’s better than anything the police have to work with.” It didn’t sit well with me, though. Sal had always seemed so harmless. Some of the local kids made fun of him, but I always went out of my way to be nice when I saw him.

  “Deputy Hixson will definitely want to interview him to find out where he was when Layla went missing,” Joe said.

  “As loony tunes as Sal’s story sounds,” I said, “don’t you think it’s a little strange that he warned Delia about the Admiral’s ghost just a few minutes before the Admiral’s statue was sucked underground by an inexplicable sinkhole?”

  “Well, you know what Dad always says about coincidences,” Joe reminded me. Our dad, Fenton Hardy, is a legendary retired detective who taught us a lot of what we know about investigating.

  “It isn’t coincidence when you make yourself look like a fool by ignoring a coincidence,” I recited. “I don’t have a clue how the Admiral and his ghost fit into it, but Dad also says that even the most far-fetched stories can loosen the thread that unravels the truth.”

  “Does that mean we get to interrogate a ghost?” Joe asked.

  I laughed. “I don’t know where to find his ghost, but maybe we can start by getting the lowdown on the real Admiral and his creepy statue.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Joe asked. “Did you find a time machine and forget to tell me about it?”

  “Nope.” I grinned. “The next best thing.”

  6

  GHOST HUNTERS

  JOE

  IF THERE’S ANYWHERE IN BAYPORT we’re going to find pertinent information about Admiral James T. Bryant, it’s here,” Frank announced with an especially nerdy glow as we walked up to the information desk at the Bayport Historical Society library.

  “Frank! It’s good to see you again,” said the bushy-haired man behind the desk.

  “Hi, Mr. Schneider. We need to dig up some information on Admiral Bryant and his statue. There isn’t much online besides the basics they taught us in middle school,” Frank explained.

  “I hear it’s been an eventful day for the old Admiral,” Mr. Schneider said.

  “Not just the Admiral,” Frank said. “Joe was underground exploring the old tunnels when the sinkhole caved in.”

  “Well, I’m certainly glad you made it out safely to join us, Joe,” Mr. Schneider said.

  “Yeah, I’m not so sure. Being trapped underground is a lot more exciting than being trapped in a library with my brainiac brother,” I quipped. I quickly added, “No offense, Mr. Schneider.”

  Mr. Schneider responded with a good-natured laugh. “None taken, Joe, but maybe I can show you something that will make the library more exciting for you.”

  Now it was Frank’s turn to laugh. “Fat chance. Joe won’t read anything without pictures.”

  “Very funny, dude,” I said. I may not be a hard-core nerd like my brother, but I do like reading. “I’d just rather read something more exciting than a history lesson about a crusty old dead guy.”

  Mr. Schneider gave me a sly smile. “What if that crusty old dead guy was caught up in rumors of ancient cults and marauding pirates?”

  “Now that sounds like my kind of book,” I said.

  Mr. Schneider disappeared into the stacks and came back a few minutes later with a couple of old, leather-bound books.

  “We’re still in the process of digitizing our archives, so much of the information in our older volumes can only be gleaned through old-fashioned page turning. Or talking to me, of course.” Mr. Schneider smiled proudly. “You already know the basic facts about our esteemed founding father, Admiral James T. Bryant. Hero of the seas during the War for Independence and wealthy merchant mariner, whose grand plans and fleet of ships might have transformed our humble little town into one of the nation’s great port cities were it not for his mysterious disappearance shortly after the town was incorporated.”

  “Don’t forget the stories about him haunting the old graveyard,” I inserted.

  “Of course. It’s a rather romantic story, actually,” Mr. Schneider said. “The tomb he was supposed to share with the beloved wife who tragically passed away has two sarcophagi, but one is destined to remain empty forever. The lovers are never to be reunited—even in death.”

  I groaned. I wanted excitement, and instead the librarian was telling us froufy love stories.

  “But that’s all fairly common knowledge. What most of the local histories neglect to mention are the many legends and rumors the man inspired while he was still alive.” Mr. Schneider opened one of the books to a yellowed page that had an old-timey illustration of a tall ship with raised sails and cannons.

  It wasn’t just any old ship either. This one flew an unmistakable black flag with a skull and crossbones.

  “The local politics of the time were quite heated, and the Admiral had more than a few enemies,” Mr. Schneider continued. “According to them, he wasn’t a merchant at all, but a pirate king disguised as an honest businessman, who amassed his fortune by sending his ships out to plunder and pillage on the high seas.”

  “Cool!” I exclaimed.

  “Really?” Frank asked. I knew what he was thinking—that maybe Sal’s story about treasure had a hint of truth to it after all.

  “None of it was likely true, of course, but at the time the newspapers had a field day,” Mr. Schneider said.

  Then the librarian flipped to a page filled with the same strange symbols engraved on the bron
ze book carried by the Admiral’s statue.

  “Other rumors, however, may have held more merit,” he said.

  Frank and I perked up. As far as we knew, those symbols were a total mystery. And the Hardy boys love a good mystery!

  “You, no doubt, are familiar with the Freemasons?” Mr. Schneider asked.

  “Sure! The Freemasons were a secret society that Colonial settlers brought to America in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, but no one really knows exactly where they came from originally,” Frank chimed in. I just nodded, pretending like I knew what he was talking about. “The title Freemasons refers to the profession of masonry, or stonework, and that’s where the society gets a lot of its symbolism and rituals. Though some people say the order itself may have originated as far back as the ancient Druid or Egyptian Isis-Osiris cults, other accounts say it started with the Knights Templar, the twelfth-century warrior monks who safeguarded the church’s most secret treasures!”

  Uh-oh! Frank had entered a full-on nerd warp! My brother gets super excited about this kind of historical stuff. He barely even paused to take a breath before going on.

  “The American version of the Masons played an important role in early US politics. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere were all members. Some of the symbols found on US currency are supposedly inspired by freemasonry, like the ‘Eye of Providence’ on top of the pyramid on the dollar bill. The Masons have all kinds of secret symbols and rituals. A lot of people considered them a cult, but others claimed they were just a club of educated guys who got together to discuss intellectual matters. There are also all kinds of conspiracy theories about the Masons leading secretive underground movements throughout history—bent on world domination.”

  “So was the Admiral a Freemason?” I asked Mr. Schneider, knowing if I didn’t cut in, Frank might never stop talking.

  “He was, but that’s not even the really interesting part,” Mr. Schneider said. “The Masons spawned a number of smaller secret societies that are said to have ruled from behind the scenes throughout the Colonial era. While very little is known about the inner workings of Bayport’s Masonic Society, its existence was widely known, and the Admiral and his inner circle were assumed to form its core. So, along with defaming him by calling him a pirate, his political opponents also accused him of being an underground cultist with plans to control everyone in Bayport.”

  “Sounds like the Admiral was one rebellious dude,” I said.

  “Who knows how much of it was actually true, but it certainly made him a hot topic of conversation,” Mr. Schneider said.

  “And his affiliation with the secret society would explain all the cool symbols on the book his statue carries,” Frank observed.

  “The trident and the symbols that adorn the book undoubtedly held hidden meaning for the society, though sadly those details are mostly lost to history,” Mr. Schneider said. “Unlike the Freemasons and a number of other early American secret societies that continued into modern times, the Admiral’s little club appears to have disbanded shortly after his death. Local historians interpreted that as meaning he had been the society’s leader.”

  “What about the key on the Admiral’s belt? Do you know if that has any hidden meaning?” I asked.

  Mr. Schneider gave me a curious look and hesitated a second before answering. “Not that I’m aware. I believe it simply represented the key to the city—a way to acknowledge his role in the town’s early prosperity. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, no reason,” I fibbed, thinking about the key hidden safely in my gear bag. “Is there anything else you can tell us about the Admiral or the statue?”

  The Admiral had turned out to be a lot more admirable than I had expected, but I wasn’t sure what any of his rumored eighteenth-century exploits might have to do with the mysteries we were investigating.

  “Not too much more to tell, unfortunately,” Mr. Schneider said. “A lot of the local histories have been lost and his prominence beyond Bayport was cut short by his early demise, so he never made it into the national history books. We do know he was feared by a lot of people, but he was also uncommonly generous and was very charitable with Bayport’s less fortunate citizens. He personally funded much of the town’s early civic development, which probably accounts for the town erecting a statue in his honor while he was still alive and kicking. I’m not really sure what else you boys are looking for. . . .”

  “Us either,” Frank admitted.

  “But there is one other book from that time that could shed a little more light. This way, gentlemen,” he said as he stood up.

  I lifted my gear bag (which was a lot heavier than normal thanks to the Admiral’s key) onto my shoulder and followed Mr. Schneider toward the back of the library, where he pulled a very beat-up book from the stacks.

  “Now, this came to us in very poor shape. It’s missing more pages than not, but it does include some speculation about the Admiral’s secret society from shortly after his demise.”

  Just then, a phone rang at the front of the library.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get that,” Mr. Schneider said. “Let me know if you have any other questions!”

  “Thanks, Mr. S,” Frank said as the librarian hurried off.

  “I have to admit, if the history they taught at school was this interesting, I might actually pay more attention in class,” I told Frank once we were alone in the stacks. “But . . .”

  “It doesn’t really help us understand what the Admiral or his statue has to do with Sal or Layla’s disappearance.” Frank finished my thought for me.

  “Except that maybe Sal somehow learned about the pirate myth and took it a little too seriously,” I added.

  “Which doesn’t make him any less crazy,” Frank said.

  “Nope.” I dropped my bag in the aisle and started paging through the raggedy old book.

  I stopped at an illustration of a figure in a long, hooded robe holding a trident a lot like the Admiral’s. The figure had the face of a mouthless bird-man, with arched slits for eyes and a long crooked beak.

  A tingle of fear shot through me as I read the caption aloud. “ ‘Ghouls such as this have been glimpsed haunting Bayport’s darkest alleys after the midnight hour. Were they summoned from the underworld as some suggest? Citizens are warned to venture out after sundown at their own peril.’ ”

  “I guess people took things pretty seriously back then,” Frank noted.

  I flipped past a few more pages before I saw something else that made me stop. The page was partially torn, but the important part was still intact.

  “Dude, you said Delia’s family was big around Bayport way back in the Admiral’s day, right?” I asked Frank.

  “Yeah, they were supposedly one of the first families to settle the area. Why?”

  I held the book open for him to read.

  “. . . others made public accusations that Bryant and his cronies were cultists. Among the more prominent citizens who came under suspicion were Mayor Samuel Smithwick, Treasurer Jedidiah Coleman, and Constable Joel Foreman.”

  Frank stopped reading. “Wait, isn’t Foreman—?”

  “Delia Hixson’s maiden name? Yep,” I affirmed.

  “Do you think Delia and Layla could have been related to one of the Admiral’s secret society brothers?” Frank asked.

  “It would help explain why Sal is so obsessed with the Admiral,” I said.

  “It would also mean he isn’t all-the-way crazy. There really could be a link connecting Layla and Admiral Bryant,” Frank said.

  “If there’s truth to that, do you think there could be truth to his other statements? Like there being some kind of Secret City full of treasure?” I asked.

  “I don’t—” Frank stopped and looked up. “Hey, did you hear something?”

  “Huh? Nah, dude, I—”

  A second later a book fell off the shelf above me, conking me in the head. “What the . . . ?”

  “Watch out!” Fran
k yelled, slamming into me just as the eight-foot-high bookshelf toppled over toward us.

  Luckily, my brother had been paying closer attention than I had. Frank tackled me, pushing me out of the way just in time to save me from being crushed by an avalanche of books. Thanks to my brother’s quick reflexes, neither of us were injured. When I looked up at him, he was staring past the fallen shelf with his mouth wide open.

  “What just happened . . . ,” I started to ask, but then I saw it too.

  Standing at the end of the aisle was a red-robed figure with a monstrous beaked face and no mouth. Just like the one in the book we’d been reading.

  Only this ghoul wasn’t holding a trident. It was holding the gear bag where I’d stashed the Admiral’s key!

  Suddenly Sal’s belief that he was being haunted by the Admiral’s ghost seemed a lot less crazy. I was so stunned, I just sat there staring.

  “It has the key!” Frank yelled, snapping me out of my daze.

  The ghoul fled through the stacks, and we took off after him . . . or her, or whatever it was! The figure slipped through the back exit into the alley behind the historical society. We nearly lost track of it until I glimpsed its red robe up ahead.

  “It’s heading toward Central Station,” I cried, pointing to the tall stone arches in front of Bayport’s old train station.

  The ghoul may have gotten the drop on us in the library, but we were faster, and the distance between us was shrinking. It ran into the station through a side door, and we sprinted in after it just a few seconds later.

  There weren’t many people in the big, open lobby, so the figure’s red robe should have been easy to spot. Only it wasn’t. The thief had vanished.

  “Where’d he go?” I asked, skidding to a stop.

  Frank looked around, stumped. “Maybe he slipped back out through a different door?”

  “We should have seen him. Let’s check behind the benches and in the restroom,” I suggested.

  The thief wasn’t anywhere to be found. But someone else we were looking for was.

  When we came out of the restroom, we spotted a scruffy, disheveled-looking man with a ratty duffel bag hurrying across the lobby toward a bunch of old luggage lockers.