Skin and Bones (2 page)

The wooden door creaked as it moved out and up.
Fringes
of fog darted in through the opening, and Joe squinted his eyes a little to get a better
look.

A shot of adrenaline slammed through him as the floor next to the SUV
slowly came into view. There was no mistaking the crumpled form lying next to the
driver's side door. It was Cody Chang!

2 Roof Rage

“Frank!” Joe said. “It's Cody. And he doesn't look good.”

Frank dropped the food on the ground and followed Joe into the garage. As Frank knelt next to Cody's still body, Joe flicked on the light.

“Cody!” Frank called, carefully lifting Cody's arm to check his pulse.

“I'd better call nine-one-one,” Joe said.

“No!” Cody mumbled, rolling his head from side to side. “No, don't call anybody. I'm okay.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position and rubbed the side of his head.

“You've got a lump,” Frank said, examining Cody's head. “And the skin's all scraped away. You might have
a concussion. Are you sure you don't want to see a doctor?”

“Yes, I'm sure,” Cody said firmly. “No doctor. I just got knocked out. It's not the first time. Don't worry, if I think I'm in trouble, I'll let you know.”

Frank knew he couldn't make his friend go to a doctor, so he resolved to keep an eye on him for a few hours, just in case. “What happened?” he asked, leaning down to help Cody to his feet.

“Somebody must have been waiting for me when I got back,” Cody responded. “As soon as I stepped out of the car, I got hammered.” He shook his head. “The bones!”

Joe and Frank lunged for the SUV. “There's one crate missing,” Joe reported.

Cody checked each crate, reading the codes on the outside. “Oh, man,” he said with a moan. “The ostrich skeleton. They took the ostrich skeleton and the anteater claws.”

“They?” Frank said. “More than one?”

Cody thought for a minute, then sighed. “I don't know. I just said that. I never really saw anyone. I wonder why they left the rest,” he added, staring at the other two crates.

“Are you sure you're feeling okay?” Joe asked Cody. “How about an ice pack?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. But ice sounds good. Let's go inside.” Cody led the way out of the garage and into his office behind the shop.

While Frank picked up the packages from Alma's Pizzatorium, Joe checked the garage door lock. “The lock is pretty rusted out, but it might have been jimmied,” he told Frank as they made their way into Cody's office.

“Wow,” Joe said when Cody flipped on the light. The office was a mess, with papers and files flung around the room.

Frank reached down and picked up one piece of paper with mud caked on it.

“Is that a footprint?” Joe asked, tilting his head for a different angle of the smudged shape.

“Might be,” Frank said, “but it's not very clear. We could probably narrow it down to size but I can't make out a sole design. It would be pretty hard to trace.”

“What's this stuff?” Joe asked, picking off a reddish brown crumb. “There seem to be dozens of these stuck in that mud. It's soft, kind of spongy.”

“I think I know what it is,” Cody said, taking the speck and slipping it under a microscope on the table behind his desk. “Yeah, I was right. It's redwood bark and it's fresh.”

“Fresh? What do you mean?” Joe asked.

“I mean it's untreated—it actually came from a tree,” Cody answered. “It's not a piece of a weatherproofed deck or some chip that's been treated to be garden mulch.”

“So are there actually giant redwood trees in San Francisco?” Joe asked.

“There sure are—very special ones. The coast redwood grows only in a very narrow strip of Pacific coast in northern California and southern Oregon,” Cody answered. “The largest concentration around here is in Muir Woods National Monument, about twelve miles north of the city. There's a small grove in the city in Golden Gate Park.”

“That doesn't really help us pinpoint a suspect,” Joe said, picking up more loose files. Frank pitched in, and soon they had everything stacked neatly on Cody's desk.

Cody slumped into a large carved chair and leaned his elbow on the desk. With a sigh, he propped his head on his hand.

“Do you have any idea who did this, Cody?” Frank asked, pulling up another chair.

“Not exactly,” Cody said quietly. “I mean I don't know who it is, but it's probably the same person or people who've been causing other trouble lately.”

“Tell us what's up,” Joe said, perching on the corner of the huge desk. “Maybe we can help.”

“Man, the last several months have been tough,” Cody began. “I've had a couple of other burglaries. The first time they just took stuff from the shop while I was at a police benefit Dad had organized. I figured it was a routine burglary—you know, B and E—breaking and entering.”

“How about the next time?” Frank asked.

“That was different. They stole a shipment that had just arrived. Wasn't even uncrated. I'll bet they were surprised when they opened one of the crates. It was full of skulls and jawbones. Not what the run-of-the-mill burglar wants to try to unload.” Cody gave the Hardys a weak smile.

“Any money taken? Safe robbed?” Frank asked.

“Nope,” Cody replied. “Just merchandise. And this is the first time I've ever been hurt or there's been any vandalism,” he added.

“I'm not sure this was just vandalism,” Frank suggested. “Whoever did this might have been looking for something specific. You need to go through your files and papers to try to figure out whether anything's missing.”

“Are those the only problems you've had?” Joe asked.

“No,” Cody said. “At first I didn't think this other deal was related, but now I'm not so sure.”

“What other deal?” Frank asked, jotting a few notes in a small pocket notebook.

“I've had trouble with shipments not arriving. Stuff mysteriously getting lost—some of it very special merchandise from faraway suppliers. That's been a real problem.”

Cody stood up and began pacing behind his desk. “My business is different. I can't just order things the way a traditional store owner does and have them delivered by a certain date. I have to take what's available from my suppliers or wait until nature takes its course.”

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.

“Say someone wants a mountain lion skeleton for a museum,” Cody explained. “I can't just go out and shoot one or have someone shoot one for me. I never kill animals or have them killed. I have to wait until one dies from natural causes.”

“The orders that were lost in transit were special orders for the same guy,” Cody continued. “One I'd been waiting for for a couple of years. So I lost not only the shipment, but one of my best customers.”

“And you think the lost shipments weren't really lost?” Joe asked. “You think they were stolen or something?”

“I sure do,” Cody said firmly. He stopped pacing
and glared. “One shipment lost, maybe two. But three in five months? I don't think so.”

“What did the freight carrier say about it?” Frank asked.

“Just what you'd expect: ‘Sorry—file a claim.' Each time the order was changed to a pickup instead of a delivery. Not a pickup here in San Francisco, but one somewhere between the point of origin and here.”

“Who changed these orders?” Joe asked.

“No one knows. It was all done on computer. The crates were signed for by someone using my name—I have copies of the receipts.” Cody rummaged around in a desk drawer and pulled out three orders with his signature at the bottom.

Frank studied them. “Do these look like your signature?”

“One of them is kind of close,” Cody said, “but it doesn't really matter. I'm talking about someone picking up one of my orders on a dock in Indonesia or a village in Nairobi. I sent the freight company my signature and asked them to send a copy to everyone along the shipping route, so signatures could be checked against it. But it didn't do any good. And it probably wasn't too smart, anyway. Now my signature is floating around the world, so anyone can copy it.”

Frank scanned the receipt. He had the feeling
Cody was holding something back, that he had more to tell.

“Um, there's one more thing,” Cody said as if reading Frank's mind. “Someone's been hacking into my computer and leaving threatening messages.”

“Whoa,” Joe said. “Like what?”

“I've got some printouts upstairs,” Cody said. “I'll show them to you.”

The three went up to Cody's apartment. A large living room stretched across the street side, over Skin & Bones. Behind the living room was a kitchen with an eating area at one end. A short hallway led to a bedroom and a large bathroom.

Frank and Joe settled at the dining table while Cody got the printouts of the threatening messages. Over heated pizza and sodas, the three looked at the pages. “As you can see, they're pretty standard stuff,” Cody said.

“I'm watching you” was written on one. Others said, “You can't escape” and “Close Skin & Bones or you'll be sorry.”

“Boy, there aren't any clues on these at all,” Joe said.

“They're hacked in, so there's no originating address or number or anything,” Frank pointed out.

“You guys met Dave Cloud the last time you were
out here, didn't you?” Cody asked. He waited while Frank and Joe nodded. “He and I used to be partners. He's started an online computer supply and equipment auction site.”

“I remember him,” Joe said. “He was a pilot and a technical wizard.”

“That's him,” Cody said. “I told him all about this. He's going to try to trace the hacker.”

“What does your dad say?” Frank asked.

Cody gulped a big slug of soda and shrugged his shoulders. “I haven't told him. Look, he seems okay with everything now, but he was totally against the store at first. He wanted me to be a cop or a government agent or something like that—follow in his footsteps, you know? He was afraid I'd go bust with the store. If I tell him what's happening, all his worry genes will kick right in.”

“But you've reported the burglaries to the police, right?” Frank asked.

“Sure,” Cody answered. “Dad knows about them, but we both thought they were standard breaking and entering, like I said. That was before the other stuff happened. I haven't told him about the intercepted shipments or the computer hacking. I want to be able to handle it myself.”

“We'd be glad to help,” Frank offered.

“I was hoping you'd say that,” Cody said. “Your being here is great timing.”

“Hey, three heads are better than one,” Joe said, grabbing another slice of pizza. As he took a bite, he heard a noise outside.

He sat up, his ears straining. “Shhh,” he cautioned the others. “I heard something.”

The three sat still. Then Joe heard it again, an odd grating, like metal rubbing against metal. He put a hand up, gesturing to the others to stay put. Carefully, he inched his chair back and walked to the kitchen window. It was very dark outside.

Joe quickly made his way down the stairs to the first floor and into Cody's office. His ears tuned to all outside noises, he quietly unlocked a door at the side of Cody's office. The door opened onto a narrow passageway between Cody's building and the one next door.

There was a wooded lot behind Cody's building—a dark area of trees and large bushes. Joe stood still, listening. This time he heard something from above. Stepping away from the house, he looked up. Someone was moving on Cody's roof.

Joe watched the shadowy form darting back and forth. He strained to see who it was, but it was too dark. He sprinted down the narrow passage to Cody's fire escape at the rear of the building. He lowered the
bottom ladder inch by inch, trying to keep the metal from scraping.

At last it was down and he was able to scale the ladder. He climbed up until he could see over the edge of the roof. Through the darkness, he could make out the back of someone kneeling in the shadow of the chimney at the far end of the roof.

Joe felt all his muscles tighten as he boosted himself up onto the roof. Crouching, he crept toward the kneeling figure. He held his breath as he moved nearer.

“Joe! What are you doing up there?”

When he heard Cody's voice from below, Joe felt as if his heart had stopped beating. He was distracted for just a second, but that was one second too long. In a single fluid movement, the person beside the chimney stood up, wheeled around, and kicked.

Pain washed over Joe as the kick landed in his stomach. Unable to catch his breath, he crumpled to the roof.

3 An Enemy Is Loose!

Joe gasped for air, each breath causing a new ripple of pain through his body. He shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. I've got to stop that guy, he told himself.

As Joe sprinted to the end of the roof, he called out to Frank to stop his attacker. He was too late. The person had already scrambled down the fire escape and disappeared into the bushy woods behind the house.

Joe walked to the chimney and checked out the area where the person had been kneeling. He found nothing but a small mirror, which he put in his pocket, and climbed down the fire escape to join Frank and Cody. They agreed the mirror wasn't much of a clue.

The three went up to Cody's apartment and into the kitchen. “I'm feeling a little woozy,” Cody said, pouring a glass of soda.

“It's time to get you to the doctor,” Frank said. “No more arguments.”

“We'll see,” Cody said noncommittally. “Joe, can you give me a description of the guy who kicked you?”

“Well, I keep saying ‘the guy,' but you know, it could have been a woman, I guess,” Joe answered. “I didn't get much of a look at the person—dark pants and sweater, hair under a knit cap. I never saw the face at all. You might be able to get a toe print from my stomach, though,” he added with a half-smile. He could still feel the spot where he'd been kicked.