High-Speed Showdown Read online

  Joe grinned. Frank was right. This felt more like an F-16 fighter plane than a boat. Miguel fired up the two supercharged V-8 engines, and they moved slowly out of the marina into the harbor.

  Frank could see that it was Miguel’s job to operate the lever controlling the speed of the engine while Dennis was at the wheel. The deep rumble from the exhausts echoed in Frank’s chest and seemed to hint at incredible power waiting to be unleashed.

  They passed Geller’s Neck and crossed into the open waters of the bay. As the boat started to rock in the waves, Dennis turned toward Miguel and nodded once. The engine note mounted to a roar. It was as if a giant hand were pressing Joe back into his seat. The bow of the boat rose, blocking his view ahead. Looking to the side, through the rainbow-streaked curtain of spray, he saw that the entire boat was riding two or three feet higher now. They were “on the step.” Instead of floating in the water, they were planing on the water. Only the tip of the stern and the two propellers were touching the surface.

  Joe tapped Frank on the shoulder, grinned, and gave him a thumbs-up. No point in trying to shout over the racket of the engines. He was about to try some sign language when, without even slowing, Dennis made a sweeping turn to starboard. The boat heeled over so far that Joe was almost afraid he would fall out. Then it leveled off, just in time for the bow to smash into an oncoming wave. The shock threw Joe forward. Only the safety harness kept his head from slamming into the back of Miguel’s seat. Joe caught his breath, then met Frank’s eye again. This time his grin was a little weaker.

  All too soon they were back in the harbor, putt-putting toward the marina. Dennis nosed Adelita into the slip, and Miguel threw the gear lever into reverse, blipping the throttles just enough to bring the big boat to a dead halt. Then he jumped onto the dock, taking one of the bowlines with him. In minutes the boat was securely moored and the four were standing on the dock.

  “That was fantastic,” Frank told Dennis. “Compared to our little runabout, it was like riding in a Formula One race car instead of a tired old family sedan.”

  Dennis smiled. “Don’t knock your runabout. You can take your friends out for a relaxing Sunday on the water, if you want. Not me. This beast of mine was built with one single thing in mind—winning races.”

  “And that’s what she’ll do on Saturday,” Miguel said.

  “We’ll see,” Dennis replied. “With some decent wave heights, we might have a pretty good chance. Barry’s the one to beat, and his boat doesn’t handle rough water as well as Adelita.”

  “How fast were we going today?” Frank asked.

  Dennis shrugged. “No more than eighty-five on the straightaways,” he said. “I was holding it in.”

  Joe whistled. “Weren’t you afraid of getting a ticket?” he asked.

  “There’s no speed limit on open water,” Dennis said with a grin. “That’s the main reason people buy these boats. They’re one of the last ways around that you can really let ‘er rip.”

  Dennis bent down to check one of the stern lines. As he did, his folder of charts slipped out of his hand. The navigational maps spilled out and started to blow across the dock. Joe and Frank scrambled to help Dennis grab them before they skated into the water.

  Joe stopped one of the folded maps with his foot and bent over to pick it up. He froze with his fingers just inches away from it. Tucked into the chart was a paper that looked very familiar. He reached down and pulled it out.

  Just as he thought. It was the Earthquest leaflet, with a skull and crossbones drawn near the bottom. But this time the scrawled words read: “Polluters Die—And You’re Next.”

  6 Dennis Menaced

  * * *

  Something about the stillness of Joe’s posture alerted Frank. With two quick strides he was next to Joe. In a low voice, he asked, “What’s the matter?”

  Wordlessly, Joe held up the leaflet.

  “What’s that?” Dennis asked, coming over to join them. After looking at the leaflet, he added, “Where’d you get that?”

  “It was tucked into one of your maps,” Joe told him. “This one.”

  Dennis took the map and glanced at it. “Manasquam Inlet,” he said, scratching his beard. “I haven’t used that chart in weeks. That leaflet could have been sitting there a long time.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Frank responded. “I happen to know that Earthquest just printed up those flyers recently . . . without the threatening message at the bottom, though. Where do you usually keep your maps? In the boat?”

  Dennis shook his head. “I don’t leave anything in Adelita. There’s no safe place for stuff, so I lock everything in the trunk of my car.”

  “You mean that folder of maps was locked up until just before we went out in the boat?” Joe asked.

  “No, I had it with me earlier. I wanted to use my lunch hour to get more familiar with the waters off Bayport,” Dennis replied.

  “So you took the folder to lunch at the inn,” Frank said. “Did you leave it at your table while you went to the buffet?”

  Dennis frowned in concentration. “You know, I think I must have,” he finally said. “I don’t really recall. I did talk to Magnusson on my way back to the table, though, and I can’t see myself juggling my plate, glass, and silverware with a portfolio tucked under my arm.”

  Joe asked, “Can you think of any other time today when the folder was out of your sight?”

  Dennis’s frown deepened, and his eyes shifted back and forth from Frank to Joe. “Say, you guys do a good imitation of detectives, don’t you?” he said. It seemed to Frank that there was a new coolness in his voice.

  “Anyway, the answer’s no,” Dennis continued. “Whoever put that thing in my map folder must have done it during lunchtime. Any more questions? Because Miguel and I have work to do.”

  Frank glanced at Joe, then said, “No, that’s all I can think of, Dennis. Thanks for the ride. We’ll see you later.”

  He and Joe handed Dennis the maps they’d rescued, then left. As they started down the dock, Joe said, “There’s another possibility, you know.”

  “You mean that Dennis may have put the leaflet there himself and wrote those words on it?” Frank said. “I know, I thought of that. But if he did, what was he planning to do with it? Slip it to someone else? Or pretend to find it, so we’d all think that he’s a target of the harassment, too?”

  Joe let out a sigh. “I wish that, just once, we’d find ourselves investigating a case that was simple and straightforward.”

  Frank grinned. “You mean, like, ‘Mister, Stevie took my bike and won’t give it back. Will you get it for me?’ Let’s face it, if we did get a case like that, it’d turn out that the bike was really Stevie’s after all and that a criminal gang wanted it because some rival crooks had hidden the floor plans for the local bank inside the handlebars!”

  “I guess you’re right,” Joe said with a laugh. “Hey, look, there’s Susan Shire. Why don’t we try to get some information from her?”

  Dennis’s ex-wife didn’t look much like a glamorous TV star at that moment. She was bending over the open engine hatch of a sleek metallic purple boat. Her hair was pulled back roughly into a ponytail, she was wearing a big T-shirt stained with grease, and she had a big black smudge on one cheek. Frank called to her.

  “Who—” Susan said, straightening up. She was holding a flashlight in one hand and a small screwdriver in the other. She recognized Joe. “Oh, it’s you. The one who rescued Dennis this morning, when I shoved him in the water. I should thank you . . . I guess.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Joe said wryly. He pointed with his chin toward the boat engines. “Are you having problems?”

  Susan gave a short laugh. “Does a duck quack?” she demanded in return. “Look at it this way, these engines are incredible if every one of a few hundred delicate parts works exactly the way they’re supposed to. And if some of them don’t do what they’re supposed to, all you’ve got is a very big, very expensive boat anchor.”
/>   “This morning Dennis seemed to think somebody had been messing with his engines,” Frank said.

  “Well, aren’t you the little diplomat,” Susan replied, with a lopsided grin. “He accused me of doing it, in case you missed that part of the scene. Believe me—Dennis never was very good at recognizing his own shortcomings. And as for accepting responsibility for them, well, what can I say!”

  “I’ve heard other people complain about somebody messing with their boats, though,” Frank said, stretching the truth a little. “There’s talk that somebody’s out to sabotage the meet.”

  “I guess it’s possible,” Susan said. “There are all kinds of crazies out there. But if you ask me, people who say things like that are just making excuses for themselves in advance.”

  “Did you hear about Chuck, Barry Batten’s throttleman?” Joe said. “He got bad stomach cramps and had to be taken off by the first-aid squad. He thought it was the shrimp salad at lunch, but Barry claimed he’d been poisoned.”

  Susan rolled her eyes theatrically. “That Barry!” she exclaimed. “I stopped listening to that stuff about five minutes after I met him. He is a classic paranoid. And he’s also unbelievably superstitious . . . Anything that happens, he’s convinced it’s connected to him. Too bad about Chuck, but he shouldn’t have risked that shrimp salad. It looked to me as if it had been sitting out too long.”

  Joe was about to ask another question when Susan added, “Sorry, fellows, but I don’t have any more time to chitchat. I’ve got a lot of work to do.” She turned back to the engines.

  Frank and Joe walked away. “So,” Joe said in an undertone, “Susan Shire had lunch at the inn also. She could have put that leaflet in Dennis’s mapcase to bug him. They obviously don’t get along.”

  “Maybe,” Frank said. “But whoever was responsible for Dennis’s leaflet had to know about the other one, the one that Magnusson got this morning. And the two are so much alike that they probably came from the same person. I can see why Susan might decide to do something to shake up Dennis. But would she go to all the trouble of faxing that other leaflet to the meet office first?”

  Joe scratched his head. “Well, she might . . . if it was part of a bigger plan to ruin the meet,” he suggested.

  “Okay, sure,” Frank replied, frowning. “But what motive would she have for doing that? I get the impression that she’s expected to do well in the big race. Why wreck it?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe said, frustration showing in his voice. “It’s just a theory. What we need now are a lot more facts.”

  Frank nodded decisively. “Right. And the best way to get them is to talk to the people who have them. Let’s head over to the inn and do a little high-level mingling.”

  • • •

  Joe and Frank made sure to get home in time to set the table for dinner. Afterward, Laura Hardy, their mother, said, “I’m off to a meeting of the neighborhood improvement committee. We’re going to try to get a traffic light put in at that corner by the elementary school.”

  “Good luck,” Aunt Gertrude said. “As for me, I’m going to watch a rerun of one of my favorite shows. Boys, would you care to join me?”

  “Sorry, Aunt Gertrude,” Joe said with a smile. “I’m allergic to black-and-white television. It makes me break out in colored spots.”

  Frank said, “We’ll clear up. Then we have to put in some work on our latest case.”

  It didn’t take the two brothers long to wash and dry the dishes and clean the kitchen counters. Soon they were back at the dinner table with a supply of felt-tip pens and index cards.

  Frank started by making a card for each of the important people in the case. “Okay,” he said when he had finished. “What do we know so far?”

  Joe took the deck of cards, thumbed through it, and stopped at Barry Batten. “A lot of people think Batten is a royal pain in the neck,” he said. “They also think that he’s going to win the cup on Saturday.”

  “Unless a black cat crosses his path or something,” Frank pointed out. “The one thing they all mentioned was how superstitious he is. Remember that story about the time he dropped out of a race because he didn’t like his horoscope in the newspaper?”

  “He’s pretty cold-blooded, too,” Joe said. “Did you notice that with his friend Chuck lying there sick, all he cared about was fishing his helmet out of the water, and then finding a replacement for Chuck? It wouldn’t surprise me if he poisoned Chuck’s shrimp salad.”

  Frank said, “Let’s not go overboard, Joe. In that case, why would he make a big deal of telling us Chuck had been deliberately poisoned? Why not let us assume that it was food poisoning?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, anyway . . . ” Joe flipped to the next card. “Dennis. He seems like a really nice guy. But two different people mentioned how furious he is that Susan wins more races than he does.”

  Frank clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back to gaze at the ceiling. “How about this?” he said. “Dennis wants to make sure Susan loses. But if he simply does something to her boat, it’ll be really obvious that he’s the one who’s responsible. So he creates a whole campaign of sabotage as a smoke screen.”

  “That’s clever,” Joe said. “A long shot, but we should keep it in mind. For Dennis as well as his ex-wife. How about Carl Newcastle? He’s one of the few racers who’s actually from Bayport. He owns a big trucking company here in town. The company picks up the bills for his racing. Nobody seems to know what he and Barry were squabbling about this morning.”

  Frank made a note to look into this further. Then he said, “Who’s next? Connie? She obviously had the opportunity to fax that leaflet to Magnusson. She said she had them printed yesterday. And she was in the dining room at lunchtime today, according to Batten, so she could have doctored Chuck’s food and slipped that second leaflet into Dennis’s mapcase. Also, she doesn’t even bother to hide her motive. I’d like to find out what she meant by saying that she’d make sure the big race wouldn’t take place.”

  “Just sounding off, if you ask me,” Joe replied. “What about Angelo? Same motive as Connie, and he seems like a real hothead.”

  “We can’t place him in the dining room, though,” Frank pointed out. “We’d better keep an eye on both of them. If they are involved, the chances are that they’re working together.”

  “Right.” Joe flipped through the cards. “That’s it for now. How about a computer game? I’ll spot you two power pills and an invisibility spell.”

  “You’re on,” Frank said, with a grim smile. “In other words, you’re as good as dead!”

  • • •

  The next morning Frank decided to stay home and compile some background information on Barry, Dennis, and the others. Joe drove to the marina alone, and the first people he saw as he parked were Dennis and Miguel. Dennis waved to him and crossed the street.

  “Are you ready for another little cruise?” he asked, leaning in the window of the van. “Miguel and I are on our way down to the dock right now.”

  “You’d better believe I am,” Joe said, with a big grin. “Let’s go!”

  Five minutes later Adelita was leaving the harbor for open water. Dennis turned right and went parallel to the shoreline. As Miguel picked up the speed, he began a series of wide, easy S-turns. Joe, in the seat just behind Dennis, sat back and enjoyed the ride.

  Suddenly he straightened up and frowned. He and Frank knew these waters like their own backyard. The church steeple just ahead of the starboard beam told him that they were getting close to Cooley’s Ledge, a rock formation that was only inches below the surface at low tide. Why didn’t Dennis turn to port to avoid the hazard? Didn’t he see the warning buoy?

  Then, as Dennis made a shallow turn toward the shore, Joe got a clear view of the water ahead of them. The warning buoy wasn’t there. Dennis was steering right toward Cooley’s Ledge, at over fifty miles an hour. He obviously didn’t realize that in less than a minute the jagged rocks were going to rip the bottom out of h
is boat!

  7 On the Rocks

  * * *

  “Dennis!” Joe shouted, trying to warn him about the onrushing danger. But the roar of the engines and the hiss of the water surging under the hull covered the sound of Joe’s voice. He lunged forward, reaching out to grab Dennis’s shoulder, but the safety harness held him trapped in his seat.

  Frantic, Joe slapped the quick-release buckle of the harness. There was no time left to alert Dennis. They’d be wrecked on Cooley’s Ledge before he could hope to explain. Instead, he flung himself forward, through the gap between Dennis’s and Miguel’s bucket seats. Grabbing the wheel with both hands, he jerked it to the left, throwing the boat into a hard turn to port.

  As the boat heeled over sharply, Dennis fought Joe for control of the wheel. He thrust his elbow toward Joe’s face, but Joe’s helmet protected him. Joe kept the wheel cranked over to port until he was sure that the bow was pointing away from the danger. Then he let go and fell back into his seat, just as Miguel throttled back the engines.

  In the sudden silence, Joe heard Dennis yell, “Joe, are you out of your mind? You could have killed us!”

  “I saved our lives,” Joe replied, after taking a deep breath. He felt exhausted by the strain and his effort. “Look at your chart. We were headed straight for a dangerous ledge. There’s supposed to be a warning buoy, but it isn’t there. I don’t know why.”

  Dennis narrowed his eyes at Joe. Then he took out the chart and looked back and forth between the markings there and the surroundings.

  “You’re right,” he said at last. “Thanks, Joe. This area is terribly dangerous. Without a marker there, someone who doesn’t know these waters as well as you do could easily go aground. We’d better get back and let the authorities know about this, before somebody gets badly hurt.”

  Back at the marina, Dennis went to the harbormaster’s office to report the missing buoy. Joe found a pay phone and called Frank.