Rocky Road Read online

  One more reason why it would be a major disaster if this fiend succeeded in damming up the river!

  “Can we find a hotel now?” Joe asked. “I’m about ready to crash.”

  “Just a few more minutes. I want to talk to the head of security first.”

  “Aw, man . . .”

  I knew Joe wasn’t happy, but he followed me down the stairs to the next level of walkways, and then down again until we were almost at the bottom where the falls hit the rocks, became a river again, and flowed toward Lake Ontario.

  The Maid of the Mist was heading back to Canada now. There were other small boats farther away, but none that could handle being this close to the falls.

  How could anyone—with or without a barrel—survive a fall onto these sharp rocks?

  I lifted my binoculars to the top of the falls and stared at the rushing torrent as it leaped into the void, then fell. It seemed so close I almost had to stop looking.

  That’s when I saw something totally out of place.

  A man was teetering right at the edge of the falls, hopping from boulder to boulder.

  Then, as I watched in helpless horror, he jumped!

  5.

  INTO THE WHIRLPOOL

  I was dog tired. We both were. Try riding eight hours on a motorcycle, hitting the world’s biggest pothole, and then taking a walking tour of Niagara Falls.

  And just when I’m ready to tell Frank, “Let’s call it a day,” this guy goes over the edge of the falls!

  What he was thinking, I have no clue.

  What was I thinking? This cannot be happening. No possible way.

  People started screaming, pointing to the spot where he’d hit. In an instant all my aches and pains were gone. There was only one thing to do, and I didn’t have to think about it. I kicked my shoes off, hopped the railing, and jumped in.

  I knew Frank would be right behind me. That’s one thing about the two of us. When it comes to saving a life, there’s no hesitation, ever.

  I was not prepared for the ice-cold water, or for the strength of the current. It swept me away before I knew what was happening. Soon I was swirling slowly toward the Canadian side, then around and back again.

  It was a big whirlpool!

  I’d seen it from up above, but forgot about it when the time came to jump in. And now all three of us were caught in it.

  Great.

  Frank and I were strong swimmers, but stronger than a whirlpool? I knew one thing for certain—we didn’t have much time to dally.

  First things first: Where was the jumper? It was hard to see anything with all the spray and foam, but finally I saw him, ahead of me and to the left. Swimming with the current, which was getting stronger all the time, I caught up to the man’s limp body and grabbed hold of it.

  I was glad he was out cold, or he might have struggled, making us both go under. This way was easier—I only hoped he was still alive.

  Taking his shirt in one hand, I swam with the other, kicking like crazy with my feet. I took an angle that let the current stay behind me, pushing me forward as I slowly tacked to the right—toward the outer edge of the whirlpool.

  Where was Frank?

  There was nothing I could do for him at the moment. If I let go of the jumper, he’d be a goner for sure. So I just had to hope Frank was okay.

  I was willing to bet, though, that Frank could handle himself. I was almost to the edge of the swirling, sucking whirlpool, when the jumper woke up. Right away, he started kicking and screaming, trying to get free of me.

  Fat chance. I wasn’t going to give him a second opportunity to kill himself—not now that I’d gotten myself soaking wet for him.

  Wow, this guy was strong, though. He had the strength of a madman.

  Come to think of it, he was one. What had I expected?

  Totally panicked, he started grabbing my face, digging in with his fingers.

  OW!

  Suddenly he stopped and was calm again.

  Huh. Weird.

  I looked back, and there was Frank, his fist raised for a second blow in case it was needed.

  I was totally spent. Frank grabbed my heavy load, and we both made for shore.

  The rescue squad was just arriving, together with a cohort of police. There was even a helicopter flying overhead.

  Frank laid the unconscious jumper down on the path and sat down to catch his breath. I plopped down alongside him.

  “He’s still alive,” one of the paramedics said. “Let’s pump him out before we load him into the medevac.”

  We watched the professionals do their thing. Soon the jumper was strapped onto a stretcher and ready to go. But the police—not to mention Frank and I—wanted to talk to him first.

  Our nut job had finally woken up. He was babbling away, but it sounded like gibberish to me.

  “What’s your name?” Frank asked him.

  He looked up and seemed to notice us for the first time. “Nut,” he said.

  “I can’t believe this!” I said. “He’s calling you a nut?”

  “Peter Nutt,” the man whispered.

  Boy, life is so strange sometimes, you couldn’t make it up.

  Right away, Mr. Nutt started opening up his heart to Frank, crying his eyes out, saying he wanted to end it all.

  I don’t know what it is about Frank, but everyone always wants to confess to him.

  Anyway, the cops were taking careful notes, and the ambulance guys were getting impatient. But to make a long story short, here’s the gist of what our man Nutt told Frank.

  SUSPECT PROFILE

  NAME: Peter Nutt

  Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  Physical description: Age 32, 5’9” 150 lbs., dirty blond hair. Stutters. Usually seen Wearing a beret.

  Occupation: Being a nut?

  Background: Unpublished children’s book author who went insane after his masterpiece got rejected the same day Everybody Poops topped the bestseller list. Married. Three children.

  Suspicious behavior: You saw it. Is jumping over the falls suspicious enough for you?

  Suspected of: Being crazy enough to dam up the Niagara River.

  Possible motives: Who knows why nuts do things? And everything about this guy-even his name-is nutty!

  I wondered if he was really capable of an organized scheme like damming the Niagara. He seemed like just an ordinary, certifiable nut to me.

  But could it really be just a coincidence?

  After the ambulance rode away with Peter Nutt inside, still raving, the policeman in charge turned to me and Frank.

  “I’m Ned Leeds, Niagara Falls chief of police,” he said, shaking our hands. “Thanks for your good work, boys—he wouldn’t have made it otherwise.”

  “Do you think he’ll live?” I asked him.

  “I’m not a medical man,” he said, “but he doesn’t look too bad to me.”

  “Chief Leeds,” Frank said, “we’re the Hardy brothers, from Bayport. Our dad is Fenton Hardy—you might have heard of him. . . .”

  “Heard of him? He was the head of the Association of Private Investigators a few years back! Hey, I was at conventions with him—the guy’s a legend! And you’re his boys, huh? Well, two chips off the old block! What do you know?”

  He laughed and slapped us both on the back. I don’t know about Frank, but I was sore all over.

  “We’re actually here about the threat to the falls,” Frank said.

  “Threat?”

  “You know—damming up the river at Lake Ontario? We were sent here to check it out.”

  “Well, that’s mighty nice of you, boys, but you’re a little late.”

  “What?”

  “We locked that maniac up almost a year ago.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t read all about it in the papers,” he said, laughing and slapping our backs again.

  Ouch!

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right—you’re not from around here. I guess it didn’t make the
front pages as far away as Bayport. But it was big enough around here, I’m telling you. Ha!”

  Another painful slap on each of our backs. “So, you fellas came all this way just for that?”

  “Yeah,” I said, exchanging a disgusted look with Frank. “Yeah, we did.”

  “You know,” Chief Leeds said, suddenly getting serious, “you shouldn’t have jumped in after him like that. I mean, it took guts, but you could’ve been killed. And for what? To save a nut job like that? It would have been a big waste, if you ask me.”

  Chief Leeds wandered off to talk to his men. We stared after him.

  “You think he’s telling the truth, Joe?”

  “Huh? Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything right now, least of all who to trust.”

  “Not Captain Creamy, that’s for sure. He’s the one who gave us the mission.”

  “Yeah, but Joe, he only delivers what ATAC gives him.”

  “Well, somebody at ATAC screwed up.”

  “Oh, well. At least we got to see Niagara Falls.”

  “And saved somebody’s life.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, great, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” I made a face and sighed. “Now what do we do?”

  “Well, you mentioned a good night’s sleep. . . .”

  “Yeah. I’m down with that.”

  Just then, my cell phone rang.

  “Yello.”

  “Joe, it’s Dad.”

  “Oh, hi, Dad.”

  He didn’t sound happy.

  “What’s up?”

  “You and Frank need to get back home right away.”

  “But Dad, we’re—”

  “There’s trouble in Bayport.”

  “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone, but it’s serious. I’m on my way home. Hurry back. There’s no time to lose.”

  Aw, man . . . !

  “Can’t it wait till morning, Dad?”

  “I wish it could, but I think you’d better get right on your bikes.”

  “Okay,” I said. What else could I say?

  “I’ll see you when you get here. Drive safely, son.”

  Dad hung up, and I turned to Frank.

  “You’re not gonna believe this, bro. . . .”

  6.

  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN, JIGGETY-JIG

  We didn’t hit any more bad potholes on our nighttime ride back through the heart of New York State. Still, out of the past twenty-four hours, we’d spent sixteen on our bikes. I was sore all over. Joe, the pothole king, felt even worse.

  And then, on top of everything else, it started to rain. About an hour out of Bayport, the skies opened up, and rain started coming down in sheets. Lightning was flashing all over the place.

  We had to slow down, along with all the other traffic. During the worst of it, we even took shelter under an overpass. By the time we finally got back into town at six A.M., we were drenched, tired to the bone, and in very crabby moods.

  In the eastern sky, day was breaking. Although the sun was hidden by the storm clouds, they were blowing away fast, and I could tell it was going to be a beautiful day.

  I wished we’d slept in Niagara Falls overnight instead of rushing straight home—but our dad had said the magic words, and we knew there was no time to lose.

  We passed a bus stop. The Bayport Times truck was just making its morning delivery. It pulled away as we drove up.

  “Got any quarters?” Joe asked me.

  “Nope. I used them all on the tolls. How ’bout you?”

  “Same.” He jiggled the door of the dispenser. “Bummer.”

  I looked over his shoulder at the paper in the dispenser window, LOCAL SCHOOLS VANDALIZED, the headline read.

  “Can you believe that?” Joe said. “Our own school system gets hit, and where are we? Hundreds of miles away.”

  “Bad break,” I said.

  “Bad break? I’m gonna cream that Captain Creamy guy.”

  “That kid was just delivering the package, Joe. Besides, he’s an ATAC agent, just like us.”

  “I guess,” he grumbled. “I still want to talk to him about it.”

  “We’ll find him. I’m sure he’s around town. Just don’t jump all over his case, okay?”

  “Me?”

  “Joe . . .”

  “Okay, okay.” I could tell he was still pretty sore about missing the action. He was pretty sore, period.

  “Hey, don’t sweat it,” I told him. “We can still catch whoever did it . . . whatever ‘it’ is.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “I guess we read the article and find out what happened.”

  “Okay, let’s see. We could jimmy the lock on this thing. . . .”

  “Joe, I’m surprised at you.”

  “Just kidding. Man, I wish we had some spare change!” He banged his fist on the metal box, but the door remained locked.

  “I guess we’ll have to find out some other way,” I said.

  “Dad?”

  “He may know something. But since this is a school thing, I think we’ll have better luck asking Chet. He always seems to know what’s going on around school.”

  “Chet? You know he’s still asleep.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, but you know how much fun it is to wake him up.”

  “He . . . hellooo?”

  “Yo, Chet.”

  “Joe?”

  “Yeah. Listen, dude, we’ve gotta meet up.”

  “Sure. Call me later, okay?”

  “Right now, Chet. It’s important.”

  “It’s six in the morning. Nothing’s that important.”

  “It’s six-thirty, and this is.”

  With my ear pressed next to Joe’s, I could hear Chet yawning through the phone. He’s either in training for the Olympic sleeping team, or he should be.

  “Wake up, yo!” Joe yelled. I heard Chet screaming as his eardrums were assaulted.

  “Okay, okay!” he whined. “Give me a break, will you?”

  “Sure, dude. I’ll give you an hour. Meet us at the high school. Front entrance. Oh, and see if you can round up Iola and Callie, too. They may know something about this, even if you don’t.”

  “What? Oh, you mean about the school getting trashed?”

  “Uh, yeah. That would be it.”

  “Okay.” Another yawn. “See you in an hour.”

  “Dude,” Joe said, “do not go back to sleep.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Do I have to call back to check on you?”

  “No, no, I’m up. I’ll be there, for sure.”

  “Cool.”

  Joe folded his cell phone shut and put it back in his pocket. “Okay,” he said, turning to me. “Let’s go home and get some aspirin and dry clothes.”

  Our dad was already out—probably with Chief Collig over at police headquarters. Dad retired a few years ago, but they still call him in for “consultations” every time there’s a problem they can’t solve.

  Mom and Aunt Trudy were still asleep, and we tried not to wake them up. After all the explaining we’d done to get permission for our trip to Niagara Falls, I didn’t want to have to explain why we were already back home.

  We got showered and changed, and wolfed down some muffins, then headed over to the high school. I had to keep slowing down so Joe could keep up. Every time he went faster than 20 mph, he started to feel it in his sore thighs.

  Chet was waiting for us at the locked front gate, along with his sister, Iola, and Callie Shaw—both good friends of ours. The two girls were wearing matching running suits and looked like they’d already done a couple of miles around town.

  Chet, on the other hand, was barely awake. His glasses had broken again since we’d last seen him (way back in early August), and they were now held together with a piece of white surgical tape, right between the eyes.

  So typical. Chet’s sense of fashion is pretty much
“seventies nerd.” But don’t underestimate the mysterious Mr. Morton. He comes in mighty handy sometimes, just when you least expect it.

  Right now he had a paper cup of steaming coffee in one hand and half a buttered roll in the other. The other half was in his mouth. All of it. I swear.

  “Mphmhmgm,” he greeted us.

  “Nice to see you, too,” I said, pulling up and parking my bike.

  Joe was right behind me. “Hi, you guys,” he said. He gave Chet a little pat on the back of his head. “Hey, pal. Thanks for getting up.”

  “Did I . . . mphmgm . . . have a . . . mphmgm . . . choice?”

  “What is that, a roll?” I asked, breaking off a piece for myself. There was nothing Chet could do to stop me—both his hands were full.

  Hey, friends are supposed to share, right?

  “Where were you two last night?” Iola asked.

  “Niagara Falls, believe it or not,” I said. “What did we miss?”

  “Someone went on a total rampage,” Callie said. “It was like a sicko back-to-school smash-’em-up party.”

  “They threw rocks through the windows at all three elementary schools,” Iola said.

  “There’s broken glass everywhere,” Callie added. “It’ll be a miracle if they get it cleaned up and fixed in time for the start of classes.”

  “What else?” I asked.

  “They tore up the grass at the athletic field at the middle school,” Callie said, “and here, they stole a bunch of freshly delivered food from the cafeteria.”

  “All in one night?” Joe asked. “How many of them were there?”

  Chet finally finished his roll and joined in the conversation. “It had to have been, like, a coordinated terrorist attack. As soon as the police got to one school, the alarm went off at the next. It was all timed perfectly.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “Why would anyone attack the school system?”

  “Duh, to keep it from opening,” Joe said.

  “Who would do that?” Chet asked.

  “Hello? Any kid who hates school?”

  “Wait a minute, Joe,” I said. “There may be plenty of kids who aren’t thrilled with summer being over, but that doesn’t mean they’d go berserk like this.”

  “I heard it was some janitor they fired years ago who went crazy and escaped from the mental hospital,” Iola said.