A Treacherous Tide Read online

  “Maxwell conveniently forgot to mention that part when we talked to him,” I said, shaking a piece of fish goop off my arm.

  “Are you going to send back the donation he gave you yesterday too?” Joe asked.

  Cap looked uncomfortable. “Didn’t have a choice this time. Sometimes as a captain you have to make hard calls. This is about finding Trip, and that money helps us do it. We got a few other small donations, but not enough to make a real difference. We may do big things at Shark Lab, but we’re still a small operation. The overhead’s high and the lab doesn’t have a lot of money socked away for contingencies. I need to make sure we’re out on the water searching. Trip can’t conduct any of the great research we’re trying to do if she’s not with us.”

  Joe and I both nodded somberly.

  “Trip is the heart and soul of Shark Lab. Without her—” Cap frowned. “I don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t find her. The lab’s research budget covers all our operation and fuel costs. I feel like a total selfish jerk worrying about myself at a time like this, but I can’t swing both the R/V bank payments and fuel on my own, let alone pay the crew. They rely on Sally as much as I do. If I lost her…” He trailed off. “The crew on a vessel like this is a kind of family. I’m the captain. I can’t let everyone down. I have to get Trip back on board.”

  Cap’s determination to find Dr. Edwards was really moving. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was out of his control—and the odds weren’t looking good.

  “We’re going to do everything we can to help,” I said as confidently as I could. I’m not sure how convincing it sounded coming from a chum-covered greenhorn.

  I saw a familiar gleam in my brother’s eyes. Knowing Joe, this could go one of two ways, and I sure hoped it was the really smart, practical detective path and not the ridiculously risky “what did we get ourselves into” one.

  “I think I have a better way for us to help than this,” he said, squeezing the fish guts out of his sponge.

  “Getting your hands dirty and doing the unpleasant jobs is an important part of crew work,” Cap scolded. “I didn’t get to be a captain without scrubbing my share of guts.”

  “I agree, Captain, but now that the guts are almost scrubbed, maybe Frank and I can put this motorboat to better use. There’s only so much we can do to help with the search on board the R/V. Not that chum-scrubbing duty isn’t important, but the place where my bro and I really do our best work is in the field. We could cover more ground if you let us use the motorboat to search the shallow water closer to shore where Trip might have washed up.”

  Cap took a moment to consider Joe’s proposal. “Can’t do it. You need a boating license to legally operate it.”

  Joe grinned. “Well, it’s a good thing I took that boating course and registered for my license before coming down here. I’m one hundred percent aboveboard!”

  “Still can’t do it, Joe,” Cap insisted. “Shark Lab is responsible for your safety while you’re here, and our insurance only covers actual crew members. I can’t afford to take any more financial risks right now.”

  This time, I was the one who grinned. “If I read the fine print right, we’re covered by Bayport Aquarium’s insurance policy while we’re here, not the lab’s, so you’re not on the hook if anything goes wrong.”

  “Which it won’t!” Joe assured him.

  Cap stared out toward the shoreline a few hundred yards away. “Clear weather and calm seas. It would expand the search, and I can’t spare any of my crew.” He sighed. “Permission granted. You have exactly two hours.”

  A few minutes later, Joe and I were in the water headed toward shore.

  “I knew getting that boating license would come in handy,” Joe said from behind the wheel. “Make way for Captain Joe! Master of the high seas!”

  “You know, Joe—” I began.

  “Captain Joe.”

  I laughed. “I’m not calling you ‘captain.’ ”

  “Admiral?” he asked.

  My smile faded as my original thought came back to me. “Do you think there was anything strange about the wording of that threatening message this morning?”

  “You mean, besides it being written in rotting fish guts?” Joe asked.

  “Maybe I’m overthinking it, but why would the person specifically write ‘Go Home’ instead of, like, ‘Back Off’? If you think about it, Lookout Key is the home of Cap and the rest of his crew. We’re the only ones whose home is over a thousand miles away.”

  “Oh…,” Joe said slowly as my meaning sank in. “You think that threat was meant for us?”

  “Maxwell knows we’re helping Cap’s search and that we’re detectives, so plenty of other locals could too.”

  “Ron and some of the other anti-shark gang heard Chuck hire us the other night,” Joe reminded me. “If any of them are caught up in something shady and know we’re detecting, they could be afraid of what we might turn up in the process.”

  “Even if what we turned up was Trip Edwards alive and well, that could throw a major wrench in both Maxwell’s and Boothby’s works. And there are a lot of other people who benefit from both the development and the anti-shark initiative. Anyone who knows Cap must know he’s too strong-willed to let a message like that stop him. They don’t know us, though, and they might think a couple teenagers from out of town would be scared by a warning smeared in fish blood.”

  “You’re right. They don’t know us. If they did, they’d know threats like that only make the Hardy boys more determined.” Joe’s smile slipped. “And, um, maybe just a little bit scared. I mean, who wants to be turned into shark bait? But mostly, determined.”

  “Like you said before, Chuck hired us to detect, so let’s get to it.” I pointed at the shoreline. “Full speed ahead, Captain!”

  * * *

  We spent the next hour cruising slowly through the little channels carved into the coastline a few miles south of the marina. There weren’t any beaches here. Just a lot of lush green foliage and mangrove trees, with their tangled roots actually growing out of salt water. Joe cut the engine and let the current carry us into a channel that looked like a promising place for someone to seek shelter during a storm.

  I had my eyes glued to my binoculars when a shock of unkempt, dirty blond hair popped out from behind a tree and into my field of vision. I adjusted the focus, and the head the hair belonged to came into view.

  “Shaggy!” I whispered.

  “Huh?” Joe whispered back, pointing his binoculars in the same direction as mine. “Shaggy? What’s he doing out here? This doesn’t look like much of a scuba-diving spot.”

  “And he doesn’t have any gear with him. Just a knapsack.”

  The gangly owner of the Scuba-Doo Dive School looked furtively around, like he was afraid someone might be watching. Luckily, he only glanced our way for a second before continuing toward the water. The trees between us must have been good camouflage.

  We were only about twenty yards away when he unzipped his knapsack and pulled out a bundle wrapped in a Scuba-Doo Dive School sweatshirt. He gave another nervous look around before unwrapping it.

  “What in the world…?” I whispered as we watched Shaggy pull out what looked like a large fin.

  Joe gasped. “Is that a shark fin?”

  “Do you think Shaggy is involved in the illegal shark fin trade?” I hissed.

  “Like what Cap said at the town hall meeting about people cutting off fins to put in soup?” Joe asked.

  I could feel my hands balling into fists. “Finning is the worst. Some people think shark fin soup has medicinal benefits, but that’s bogus. It’s really just cartilage. That doesn’t stop it from being a huge luxury dish in China and other countries, though. The market’s massive. We’re talking tens of millions of sharks finned every year, worldwide. It’s one of the biggest reasons why populations have declined so much.”

  Joe growled, “Don’t people realize what they’re doing to the ocean?”

/>   “Oh, it gets worse. Most of the time, the finners don’t even use the whole shark; they just throw the bodies back in the water to sink while the shark’s still alive! Thankfully, more people are learning about how awful it is, and a lot of countries are finally cracking down on the practice.” I stared through my binoculars at the fin in Shaggy’s hands. “There’s a lot more cracking down to do, though.”

  “Chuck seemed surprised the other night when Shaggy was able to pay cash for his meal. If he’s selling shark fins, that might explain why he suddenly has dough,” Joe theorized.

  I adjusted the focus on my binoculars, trying to get a better look. “Is he tying rocks to the fin?”

  “It looks like it, but if he went to the trouble of getting the fin, why would he throw it away?”

  “Unless he’s afraid of getting caught with it. Cap said the Fish and Wildlife Commission was on high alert for illegal shark fishing.”

  Joe nodded from behind his binoculars. “Maybe he’s worried the mayor’s shark hunt is going to bring heat down on him.”

  “Yeah, but unfortunately, it’s not actually illegal to sell fins in the US if they’re removed from the shark once it’s on shore,” I said, sharing some more of the research I’d done ahead of our trip. “It’s only cutting them off while the shark is still on the boat that’s illegal. It’s a loophole a lot of smugglers use to get around the law, since it’s so hard to tell a legal fin from an illegal one. A lot of states have banned shark fins altogether, but Florida’s behind the curve. It’s been one of the biggest importers of shark fins in the entire country!” I could feel my temper rising and made sure to lower my voice so I didn’t give away our position. “Shaggy could sell the fin if he wanted to and it still wouldn’t be illegal.”

  “So why’s he getting rid of it?” Joe insisted.

  “Let’s ask him,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Joe hit the boat’s engine and gunned it toward Shaggy. Birds squawked and took flight as the sound of the motor broke the silence. So did our perp. He turned to flee as soon as he saw us coming, only he tripped over a mangrove root and splashed face-first into the water without making it five feet.

  I leaped out of the boat as soon we hit shallow enough water, and was standing over him before he could get back on his feet. Joe dropped anchor and was standing on his other side a moment later.

  “That fin doesn’t belong to you,” I said.

  “It’s not mine!” Shaggy shouted, holding the fin out in front of him like a gruesome shield.

  “You don’t say? And here I thought all scuba instructors came equipped with their own dorsal fins,” Joe quipped.

  “I never wanted it!” Shaggy cried. “I didn’t know it would call another shark. I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen, I swear. I—I think it’s cursed.”

  Joe gave me a baffled look. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

  “You can have it! I don’t want! I—I was just going to give it back to the sharks,” Shaggy babbled on. “As a—an offering so they don’t come for me next.”

  “An offering?” I repeated, trying to make sense of his rambling. “To the sharks?”

  “Just—just get it away from me, please!” He held the fin out as far as his arms would reach.

  The idea of touching a severed shark fin made my stomach turn, but confiscating it to take back to the R/V for Shark Lab to document was the responsible thing to do. I took a deep breath and grabbed the fin.

  The fin was a lot harder than I’d expected. Almost like…

  “Is that plastic?” I stared at the object in my hands in disbelief.

  Joe quickly took it from me, tapped it with his knuckles, and then flipped it over. “Other than the strip of Velcro on the bottom, I’d say yeah. And—” He squinted closer to read the tiny words printed next to it. “ ‘Made in America.’ Unless there’s a super-rare species of plastic shark I’ve never heard of, I don’t think we have to worry about Shaggy being tied up in the fin trade. This fin’s a phony.”

  “Why are you in such a hurry to get rid of a toy fin?” I asked.

  “Well, um, did you hear about the other day when everyone spotted that shark swimming near the beach right before Dr. Edwards got attacked?” asked Shaggy.

  Joe looked skeptical. “You must not get out of the Mystery Machine much. Everyone on Lookout knows about that. Half of America does. It’s been all over the news.”

  “Oh…,” Shaggy whimpered. “Um, I was kinda the shark.”

  8 DON’T FAKE THE FUNK

  JOE

  THE PIECES SNAPPED INTO PLACE as soon as Shaggy said he was the shark we’d seen—kind of like how that fake fin must have snapped onto Shaggy’s back.

  “The dorsal fin we saw was a fake, and you were the one doing the faking? No wonder you’re trying to get rid of it.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” he whined.

  Frank scratched his head. “Let me get this straight. You snuck into the water with your scuba gear on without anyone knowing and went for a swim with a fake shark fin strapped to your back on a public beach where it was sure to cause mass panic, and it wasn’t your fault?”

  First he nodded yes. Then he shook his head no. Even his nodding was perplexing.

  “I didn’t want to do it. And I’m not the one who ate Dr. Edwards! I wouldn’t ever.”

  “Well, it’s good to know you wouldn’t eat a person, Shaggy,” I assured him. “I was really worried there for a second. Now what in the world are you talking about?”

  “When I got the package, I just thought it was a harmless prank, but then a real shark ate Dr. Edwards, and I’m the one who summoned it!” he wailed. “I swear I didn’t know she was missing until after I got to Chuck’s later that night. After I wore the fin, I just swam away and went home like the note told me. At first I thought maybe it was just a coincidence, you know, her going missing right after, but then her board washed up all bitten into like that. That’s how I knew I summoned a real shark to eat her!”

  Shaggy buried his face in his hands and moaned. He still wasn’t exactly making sense, but at least more pieces were starting to fall into place.

  “So someone sent you a package with the fin and a note asking you to wear it?” Frank pressed.

  “Of course not! If they’d asked me, I’d have said no. I mean, I didn’t think anyone would get hurt, but pranking people is still kind of mean. And I wouldn’t have done it just for the money, either. Not that I can’t use it. But once I found out I’d caused a real shark to eat her, I donated all five hundred dollars to her lab. Well, four hundred seventy-three dollars of it, at least. I bought some shrimp. And some lottery tickets.”

  The contents of the package Shaggy said he’d received were becoming clearer—fake fin, note, money—which also accounted for the cash-for-shrimp transaction that had surprised Chuck, as well as one of the smaller donations Cap said Shark Lab received along with Maxwell’s. An important chunk of the story was still missing, though.

  “So if you thought the prank was mean and you didn’t do it for the money, then why do it at all?”

  “Oh, no reason really,” he said, laughing nervously.

  It looked like Shaggy’s willing cooperation was over. I was going to have to take drastic measures.

  “I guess I’ll just have to give this cursed plastic fin back to you, then,” I said, holding the phony dorsal fin out to him.

  Shaggy recoiled. And then he started talking.

  “They threatened to tell my girlfriend about all the money I lost at Chuck’s poker games,” he blabbed, staring guiltily at his hands. “Which, um, maybe I promised my girlfriend I wouldn’t go to anymore because she said she’d leave me if I didn’t stop playing, but, well, I found my lucky rabbit’s foot, and it seemed like a good omen, and it would be bad luck not to listen to an omen, right? But I guess I was wrong, because I lost everything in the Scuba-Doo register, and, um, the safe, too.”

  “Blackmail,” Frank concluded as Sha
ggy finished his rambling gambling confession. “I’m guessing the blackmailer wasn’t kind enough to sign their name, were they?”

  “Uh-huh,” Shaggy said matter-of-factly.

  “They did?” Frank and I blurted at the same time. Was the solution really going to be this easy?

  “It was signed Bruce Quint, but I don’t know anybody on Lookout by that name. Or anybody anywhere, really.”

  “I do,” I said, letting out a disappointed sigh. So much for it being easy.

  “You know him?” Shaggy asked in surprise.

  “Not personally, and I don’t think we’ll be interrogating him next,” I said. “I do happen to be a fan of classic horror flicks, though. Quint was the name of the old guy in Jaws, and Bruce was the nickname the filmmakers gave to the mechanical great white shark that eats everybody in the movie.”

  “Whoa, that’s a weird coincidence that the guy who left the note has the same name as the shark in the movie,” Shaggy replied, awed.

  “It’s not his real name, Shaggy. It’s meant as a joke,” Frank said.

  “I don’t find it very funny,” he muttered.

  I looked from the fin back to Shaggy. “So who else knows about you losing all that money?”

  “Uh, let’s see—” Shaggy appeared to be counting in his head. “Everybody, pretty much.”

  “Everybody?” I asked. “If everybody knows, wouldn’t that already include your girlfriend?”

  “Not everybody. Just everybody in Chuck’s Poker Club, which is, well, mostly everybody. It’s a big club.”

  Chuck had made a comment to Ron about him winning a big hand off her, so it wasn’t surprising to hear there was a game in town or that she was the one who hosted it. Chuck’s Shuck Shack did seem to be the center of Lookout’s social universe.

  “If so many people already knew, weren’t you worried someone would tell your girlfriend anyway, even if you weren’t blackmailed?” I asked.