Shadows at Predator Reef Page 5

  “Okay, Joe,” I said to myself (the silence was really starting to get to me), “I guess we’re hoofing it.” I stuffed my heavy dive gear, including my flippers, over to the side of the tunnel, though I was still wearing my wet suit and dive boots.

  The tunnel went on for a few hundred yards before it started to branch off into a network of smaller tunnels to who knows where. Some of them were already caved in under a pile of rubble. I was sticking to the main tunnel.

  My right foot slid out from under me, and I caught myself before I could fall. When I shone my light down at the ground to see what I had slipped on, it reflected off something white. There was a muddy piece of fabric lying in the dirt. It didn’t look like much, but there was something about this particular dirty white cloth that told me it could be an important clue.

  My flashlight started to flicker. Not good. It must have been damaged in the fall. If it died and I was left down there in the dark, that tunnel was going to turn into my tomb. Time to get moving. I stuffed the cloth in my dive belt to examine more closely once I made it back to daylight. If I made it back to daylight.

  After a few minutes I reached an intersection, branching left and right. I shone my light left—another endless tunnel into darkness—and right, where it looked like there might be, just maybe, a glimmer of daylight at the end of the tunnel. Right it was.

  Right turned out to be the right call. A few minutes later, I climbed a rickety ladder and found myself in the boiler room of an abandoned warehouse. I looked around for any sign that Captain Hook had been there. There was nothing. The thief must have smuggled the turtle out of one of the other tunnels.

  I made my way out onto the dock and took a deep breath, grateful to be out of the musty tunnel and back aboveground in the fresh air. Unfortunately, the air aboveground wasn’t much better. A potpourri of fish guts and diesel fumes greeted me. I looked around and realized the aromas must have been coming from the old cannery a few lots down and a passing container ship.

  That’s when I spotted Frank on the water taxi.

  I don’t know who was more shocked when we saw each other, Frank or me. I must have looked pretty funny, jumping up and down on the dock in my wet suit, waving my arms like a crazy person. Man, was it good to see him again. After the run-in with the shark and stumbling around in the tunnels, I hadn’t been sure I’d get another chance.

  Once Frank had disembarked from the boat, I brought him up to date on everything that had happened since Bruce had so rudely interrupted our underwater investigation of Predator Reef. Then he filled me in on his chase with the hooded perp.

  “Um, I didn’t want to tell you this,” Frank said when he finished. “But Aly kind of makes sense as a possible suspect.”

  “No way, dude,” I said. “Aly wouldn’t have—”

  But then I stopped and thought about it for a second.

  “She did conveniently disappear right before someone released Bruce, and I guess she would have had access to the shark tank.”

  “And earlier today she was wearing the same kind of baggy aquarium hoodie as the perp I chased,” Frank said. “I didn’t get close enough to tell if it was a guy or a girl, but we can’t rule out the possibility it was her.”

  “Ugh,” I said, closing my eyes. Could the girl I liked actually want me dead? Why does this have to happen every time? Whenever I like a girl, one of our cases never fails to gum things up.

  “Any other ideas who it could have been?” I asked, hoping he’d give me the name of someone I wasn’t interested in dating. “Or how Aly might tie in with the tunnel under the aquarium?”

  “No idea, but I bet the tunnel you found is from the Underground Railroad like the one the history museum is giving tours of across town,” he said excitedly. “They’ve only excavated a few hundred feet of that one, but they think there may have once been a whole network of them. Imagine, a hundred and fifty years ago, escaped slaves could have made their way to freedom through the same tunnel you were in.”

  Yep, trust my bro to give a history lecture at a time like this.

  “If the one across town is a part of the same network of tunnels as the ones I found, then the thief could have taken Captain Hook anywhere in Bayport,” I said.

  “Okay, so we’ve solved part of the mystery. We know how she was taken, but we still don’t know who did it or where they took her.” Frank was stumped. I could see the wheels turning inside his brain. “It doesn’t really help us, but there are rumors that pirates originally built the tunnels as far back as the 1600s to smuggle their plunder in and out of the port,” he said, the nerd in him unable to resist adding another chapter to the history lesson.

  “I guess that would explain why there are old tracks in the tunnels, but I don’t think it was pirates who took Captain Hook, even if she is named after one.” I couldn’t help but laugh at the image of a bunch of pirate turtles abducting their pirate turtle captain.

  “Well, at least now we know that whoever did take her must have had access to the exhibit when it was being constructed. There wouldn’t have been any way to build that escape hatch after the exhibit was filled with water,” Frank said, narrowing down the suspect list.

  I narrowed it down further.

  “That’s not all, though,” I told Frank as I pulled out the muddy piece of cloth. I’d gotten a chance to look at it a little more closely while I’d been waiting for Frank and the water taxi to reach the dock. “I found this trampled down in the dirt. I wouldn’t even have seen it if I hadn’t almost slipped on it.”

  “What is it?” Frank asked. “A handkerchief ?”

  “Not just a handkerchief,” I said, brushing it off to reveal the monogrammed initials B.V. “Mr. V’s handkerchief.”

  THE SECRET LAIR

  10

  FRANK

  WE BOTH FIGURED A SURPRISE visit to Mr. V was in order. A half hour later we had changed into street clothes and hopped back aboard a water taxi headed to his mansion. When he moved to Bayport to start construction on Predator Reef, he’d bought himself a big old house right across the bay on a hill overlooking the harbor so he could see the aquarium from his back porch.

  “There are only so many ways one of Mr. V’s handkerchiefs could have made its way into a four-hundred-year-old tunnel,” my brother said, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “Yeah. And the most obvious one was that he dropped it there a lot more recently than four hundred years ago,” I replied.

  Just then my phone buzzed with a text from Big Chuck.

  “I’ve got news about the shark that attacked you,” I told Joe after reading it. “Big Chuck says that once they finally got Bruce back in the examination tank, they discovered the reason he went all Jaws on us.”

  “Because private detectives taste good?” Joe cracked.

  “No, because someone jabbed him in the side with enough force to break through the shark’s tough skin,” I said. “Someone wanted him angry. He’s usually a really calm shark; he never would have gone after you like that unless he was pretty incensed.”

  “You think Mr. V had something to do with that, too?”

  I was quiet for a second. I didn’t like the idea that Mr. V might be capable of harming an animal.

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  When we got to Mr. V’s and walked around to the front of the property, we could see news vans camped out in front of his house. I guess they didn’t think we were newsworthy, because they let us walk right past. I pressed the buzzer on the mansion’s big double doors. After a few minutes, the tuxedoed chauffeur who resembled Alfred from Batman opened the door. Like Alfred, I guess he was the butler as well as the chauffeur. He looked at us like we were a couple of unwelcome salesmen.

  “Yes, how may I help you?” he said in the same strong New England accent as Mr. V and Ron. From the way they sounded, Mr. V must have recruited everyone on his staff from the same place.

  “We’re here to see Mr. Valledor,” I said.

  “I’m sure you are,” Alfred said. It was hard to tell if he was peering down his nose at us or if it was just the way his face looked. “Mr. Valledor is a very busy man. I don’t suppose you have an appointment?”

  “No, but I think he’ll want to hear what we have to say,” Joe told him.

  “We’ll see.” Alfred sounded unconvinced. “And who might Mr. Valledor have the, ahem, pleasure of meeting unannounced?”

  “You can tell him it’s the Hardy boys,” I said. “He knows who we are.”

  He replied by slamming the big door in our faces. He opened it again a couple of minutes later.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  We walked through the mansion’s grand entrance hall into a large study, where Mr. V was seated with Ron Burris and Laura, the assistant we had met earlier.

  “The young men you wished to see, sir,” Alfred announced.

  “Thank you, Jonathan,” he said to Alfred, whose name turned out not to be Alfred at all.

  Mr. V motioned for us to come in. “This is a welcome surprise. When I heard the doorbell, I assumed it was another reporter hounding me for an interview about Captain Hook.”

  “Sir,” Alfred (aka Jonathan) interrupted, seeming rather put out by the whole affair. “Will there be anything else?”

  “Yes, Jonathan,” he said. “We were just wrapping up here. If you could see Ron and Laura out?”

  This seemed to be news to Ron.

  “But Bradley, we still haven’t figured out what we’re going to do about the delays at the underwater hotel site in Helsinki,” Ron protested.

  “I trust you to handle it,” Mr. V said. “Right now I’d like to speak to Frank and Joe.”

  Ron had been nice before, but now he looked at us like we were a couple of mosquitoes intent on
annoying him.

  “Bradley, there’s a lot of money at stake here. I really think we need to focus on what’s important. I know you’re concerned about the turtle—we all are—but—” Ron didn’t get to finish the sentence.

  “But I pay you a very good salary to handle my company’s public relations,” Mr. V snapped. “What I choose to do with my private time is my business.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” Ron mumbled. He closed his briefcase and walked out of the study, hanging his head like a kid who’d been sent to his room without dinner.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay, Mr. V?” Laura asked, sounding more like an overprotective parent than a young assistant.

  “Thank you, Laura, but I think the Hardy boys and I should be just fine on our own,” he replied.

  “I’ll be on standby if you need me,” she said, forcing a smile as she followed Ron out the door.

  “Sir?” Jonathan asked.

  “You too, Jonathan, thank you,” he said. “I’ll call you if we need anything.”

  Jonathan gave us another nasty look before leaving us alone with Mr. V.

  “My apologies for my staff’s lack of hospitality. Running a company can be a bit like being the head of a household, and like many large families, I’m afraid my team and I tend to be a bit dysfunctional at times. And with the news cameras pounding down the door about Captain Hook, we’re all a bit on edge,” Mr. V. said. “So, have you made any progress?”

  Joe didn’t answer. Instead he pulled out the dirty handkerchief with Mr. V’s initials on it.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” Mr. V said as he stared at the handkerchief. “Is that mine?”

  “Want to guess where we found it?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t have any idea, why—”

  “I’ll give you a hint. It was somewhere it shouldn’t have been,” Joe said.

  “In a tunnel under four hundred thousand gallons of water,” I added. “Maybe you can tell us how it got there?”

  “I—” Mr. V started, then closed his mouth. A moment later, he gave us a weak smile. “You are even better detectives than I had been led to believe.”

  He stood up. “I have a confession to make.”

  Now it was our turn to be speechless. Was Mr. V about to admit to stealing Captain Hook?

  “If you’ll follow me, there is something I’d like to show you.” Mr. V turned and began walking down the hall at the far end of the room.

  My brother and I exchanged a grim look. Normally, we’d be a lot more cautious before blindly following a suspect somewhere, but curiosity had the better of us. We let him lead us down a spiral staircase and past a long corridor to a library at the back of the house.

  It was an ocean lover’s dream. The shelves were lined with endless leather-bound volumes and academic texts with titles like The Early Voyages of Jacques Cousteau, Biodiversity in the Indo-Pacific Reef Environment, and Advances in Submersible Design and Technology. I could have spent a month flipping through the pages and been totally happy! The room was decorated with all kinds of nautical artifacts and maps. There were saltwater fish tanks too, some filled with specimens so rare even Bayport Aquarium didn’t have them.

  But all that was nothing compared to what we were about to see.

  Mr. V ran his fingers along a row of books, settling on one with a battered leather spine and pulling it toward him.

  Joe and I stood there with our mouths hanging open as the entire wall slid away, revealing a secret lair that rivaled the Batcave in coolness.

  We were staring at Mr. V’s own magnificent private aquarium.

  The twelve-foot-high walls were made entirely of floor-to-ceiling glass. Behind them must have been at least two hundred thousand gallons of salt water filled with a flowing kelp forest and an array of awesome creatures, including rays and small sharks. It may not have been as big as Predator Reef, but to find something like this hidden inside a house made it just as impressive. It felt like we were standing underwater in the middle of a vast seascape.

  “This was to be Captain Hook’s new home,” Mr. V said quietly.

  Joe and I shared a glance, reading each other’s minds. There was no doubt anymore that Bradley Valledor was the one who’d built the escape hatch beneath Predator Reef.

  “I’m ashamed to admit that there were selfish motivations for my participation in the aquarium’s new exhibit,” he said. “Still, I pride myself on being a conservationist as well as a collector. When Captain Hook arrived at the Bayport Aquarium, I saw the perfect chance to acquire a rare and remarkable creature for my collection without supporting the poaching trade or taking one of the precious few remaining animals from the wild.”

  “So you pretended to be helping the aquarium by building Predator Reef when the whole time you intended to steal its mascot and betray the entire community?!” I asked in disbelief.

  “I probably deserve your disgust, but let me finish and then you can render judgment,” Mr. V said. “I discovered the tunnels beneath the aquarium during my initial planning and designed the hidden holding tank under the exhibit to take advantage of them.” He took a deep breath. “So yes, I confess . . .”

  Here it came, the big confession. Villains don’t normally lure detectives to their secret lairs just to reveal their master plans, though. Not unless they also intend on disposing of said detectives so they can’t tattle to the authorities. So by this point, I was beginning to expect the worst.

  “. . . I was the architect of the crime,” he continued in a shaky voice. “But I wasn’t the one who committed it. Someone else took Captain Hook before I had the chance.”

  I was too baffled to respond. Had Mr. V just confessed to the crime or hadn’t he?

  “I thought I could provide a good home for her, one that was even better than the aquarium. One that would leave her in peace without being gawked at by thousands of observers each day.” Mr. V paused.

  “Gawked at?!” I couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You’re supposed to be a conservationist! I thought you understood better than anyone how much the aquarium inspires a love of the ocean and educates people about ecology.”

  “I know.” Mr. V turned away, unable to look me in the eye. “And as it turns out, my first impression was wrong. I saw how much Captain Hook thrived in Predator Reef, how much the staff cared for her, the difference she could make in the fight for oceanic conservation. And I started to second-guess myself. Apparently whoever discovered my plans didn’t share my reservations.”

  “C’mon, dude. You really expect us to believe your sob story?” Joe said.

  “I know it won’t be easy to regain your trust, but why would I bring you here to my private sanctuary and reveal my plans to you, only to lie about this?” Mr. V asked in response.

  “You’ve already admitted to lying about everything else,” I challenged. “How do we know you aren’t just hiding her in a different location and trying to throw us off your trail?”

  “Had I wanted to deflect suspicion, I simply would have kept my mouth shut and called my lawyers. A discarded handkerchief is explained away easily enough. And I certainly wouldn’t have insisted to Chief Olaf on your participation in the investigation.”

  Mr. V was making sense, but . . .

  “If you really cared so much about finding Captain Hook, why didn’t you come forward earlier? We lost valuable time on the investigation, and my brother almost got killed finding that trapdoor.”

  “Until you boys arrived this afternoon with my handkerchief and your tales of hidden tunnels, I’d held out hope that you or the police would uncover another explanation for Captain Hook’s disappearance or discover the tunnels in a way that didn’t incriminate me. It was selfish of me.”

  “You bet it was,” Joe said.

  “Frank knows as well as anyone how much that turtle means to me. I dote on her like a spoiled child. I’ve spent so much time with her, it almost feels like she really is family. Now that she’s gone . . .” Mr. V closed his eyes. “The thought that I may have accidentally helped someone with bad . . . intentions,” he murmured brokenly, “take her . . . it’s been torturing me. Which is why I’ve decided to bring you here and confess my role.”