The Chase for the Mystery Twister (8 page)

“Everything you treasured?” Joe said angrily. “You mean your phony Ming vase and forged paintings?”

“I have papers proving they're all authentic,” Kanner insisted.

“I'm sure that's all part of your scam,” Joe went on. “You've probably been planning it for months.”

Frank put a hand on his brother's arm. “Cool it, Joe.”

“Joe, think about what you're saying,” Snowdon warned. “How could Mr. Kanner know in advance that a twister was going to destroy his house? It's impossible.”

The crowd murmured. “Snowdon's right,” one man said.

“Who are these kids? Does anyone know them?” another asked.

Frank could see that they were losing credibility. “We were only trying to clear up a few questions.”

“Like how I could call my insurance company if my lines had been torn down?” Kanner asked. He pulled something out of his pocket and held it up for them to see. “Ever hear of a cellular phone?”

“I guess we were wrong, Mr. Kanner,” Frank said. “I'm sorry if we've upset you.”

Joe turned to his brother, unable to believe his ears. “He could have bought that phone five minutes ago!”

“Chill out, Joe,” Frank said sharply, then turned to Kanner. “Please accept our apology,
Mr. Kanner. If you've come to help rebuild the Parlettes' barn, you're obviously not in a hurry to leave Lone Wolf.”

“I—I—” Kanner stammered. “I am here to help, that's right.”

“Well, then, let's get back to it,” Snowdon said. The crowd broke up and returned to work.

Joe was still fuming when Frank pulled him aside. “I think Kanner is guilty, Joe. But we've got some holes in the mystery we have to fill before we go after him.”

“So your polite apology was just an act?” Joe asked.

Frank nodded. “Now we've got Kanner stuck here building a barn. The longer we can stall him, the better.”

“Don't worry, Joe,” Phil said. “Mr. Bixby is sending a team of insurance investigators to Kanner's farm. We'll nail him sooner or later.”

“I wouldn't bet on Bixby sending anyone,” Frank remarked.

“What do you mean?” Phil asked.

“How did Kanner know we had accused him of lying about phoning Bixby from his farm after the twister hit?” Frank asked. “The only person I've mentioned it to is Bixby, and thirty minutes later Kanner shows up here brandishing a cellular phone.”

“So Bixby and Kanner are in this together,” Joe said.

“It's possible,” Frank replied.

Frank noticed a man with curly black hair and a black mustache who had been edging closer and closer to them while measuring a support beam. He kept turning his ear toward them, as if trying to catch the conversation.

Frank lowered his voice, “But Snowdon had a good point. Even if Bixby and Kanner are working together, how could they predict a tornado?”

Frank thought hard, recalling everything he had seen at the site of the Kanner place—the strange markings on the toppled trees and telephone poles, and the debris patterns that even an expert like Lemar Jansen couldn't explain. “What if there never was a twister?” he said slowly.

“What?” Phil asked.

“What if Kanner was somehow able to recreate tornado damage by some other means?” Frank said.

“It would take the mystery out of the mystery twister,” Joe pointed out.

“And give us a motive for why someone jammed radar transmissions,” Phil added. “No one would be able to verify that the tornado ever existed.”

“Joe, could you and Phil give me a hand moving this support beam?” Snowdon called. Phil and Joe moved to help, and Frank turned to see if the black-haired man was still trying to listen in. The man was nowhere to be seen.

Joe heard a loud creaking noise. From his viewpoint, he could see the ropes that were holding up one of the new walls begin to give way. He realized his brother was right beneath the wall.

“Frank, get out of the way! The ropes are breaking!” he screamed.

Frank looked up just as one of the ropes snapped. The two-story barn wall was about to fall down on top of him!

Frank knew he couldn't run beyond the height or width of the great wall before it crashed to the ground. Thinking fast, he took one long stride left and tried to time his leap so that his body would end up in the space left open for the loft's door frame.

“Frank!” Joe screamed again as the wall crashed to the ground with a thundering boom, sending a cloud of dust shooting in every direction.

Joe ran through the cloud, desperate to free his brother from the heavy wooden structure. Joe lifted with all his might, but it wouldn't budge. “Help me get my brother out from under here!” he shouted to the onlookers.

“Forget it,” a voice from the midst of the dust cloud said. “I'm over here.” Standing in the open door frame, unhurt, was Frank Hardy. Coughing up some dust, he said casually, “Don't try this trick at home, folks.”

The Hardys found Phil examining the ropes that had broken. “See how this part is frayed and the other half is smooth?” he said, pointing to the end of the rope. “Someone cut it halfway through.”

All the workers had rushed over to help. Joe noticed one person was missing, though. “Where's Hal Kanner?” he said.

“Someone else is gone, too,” Frank told Joe. “I saw a man with black hair and a mustache listening to our conversation. He disappeared right before the wall fell.”

“There's thirty of us, and we ought to be able to find them,” Snowdon said, urging the group in every direction.

Instead of rushing off with the others, Joe paused and scanned the area. He noticed a place in the cornfield where stalks had been trampled down. “Frank, over this way!” Joe called after his brother, then set off at a dead run into the field.

Joe looked both ways down each row as he crossed them. He was crossing his ninth row of corn when someone leaped out from behind and tackled him to the ground. Joe got a glimpse of
his assailant out of the corner of his eye before the man ground Joe's face into the red dirt of the cornfield, making it nearly impossible for him to breathe. Joe wriggled and bucked and tried every move he knew, but he could not shake off his opponent. He reached back and got a hold on the man's hair.

“Joe!” he heard his brother shouting from a distance.

At the sound of Frank's voice, Joe's assailant bolted. But his hair did not go with him. Joe rolled over and found he was clutching a curly black wig. He could hear his attacker brushing past stalks of corn and jumped to his feet to pursue the man.

This time he was on his guard when he broke through each new row, but he did not catch sight of the mystery man. He stopped to listen again and heard the sound of machinery being started up. He ran toward the sound and was just able to see the top of a farm machine over the cornstalks. As he drew near, a row of corn in front of him was flattened and cut to shreds by the rotating blade of a giant thresher.

Joe stopped short and began to backpedal, barely able to avoid the churning blades as they grazed his clothing. He stumbled, fell to the ground, and rolled away through to the next row of corn. He made it to his feet just as that row was obliterated by the thresher.

Joe knew he could outrun the machine if he could stay on his feet, but as he crashed through the next row of corn, his path was blocked by a tractor parked there. Joe was trapped with no time to think.

At the last second, he dove beneath the tractor. The blades of the thresher struck the heavy metal frame of the tractor, shooting sparks against Joe's back. His brain was filled with the earsplitting sound of metal on metal. The rotating blades stuck fast, unable to move, and the thresher's engine stalled out.

Joe breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“Joe?” he heard Frank calling again, much closer now.

“Over here!” Joe called back.

Frank and Phil quickly found Joe and helped him to his feet.

“Are you all right?” Phil asked.

“Better than I might have been,” Joe joked, pointing to the mangled blades of the thresher.

“What's in your hand?” Frank asked.

Joe looked down and was surprised to see that through that whole ordeal he had not let go of the black wig. “It belongs to the guy who nearly made a pancake out of you and a sausage out of me.”

“Did he look familiar?” Phil asked.

Joe searched his memory. “Yes! The morning we got here. It was the man who was driving that unmarked white truck really fast!”

“He would have had to make a quick change somewhere near the barn,” Frank said, “but it's possible it was Hal Kanner in disguise.”

Snowdon and the other barn raisers helped the Hardys scour the fields for nearly an hour, but there was no sign of either the mystery man or Hal Kanner.

When they returned from the cornfield, Lemar Jansen was waiting. “Phil,” Jansen said, “we have to get down to Channel Nine.”

“What's up?” Phil asked.

“All morning, Terry Clark has been hyping an interview with Greg Glover that Channel Nine is broadcasting live in thirty-five minutes,” Jansen explained.

Just then Sheriff San Dimas pulled up in his squad car. Hal Kanner emerged from the backseat.

“Congratulations, Sheriff!” Joe called as San Dimas got out of the driver's seat. “You found the culprit.”

“On the contrary, Joe. Mr. Kanner found me,” San Dimas said in a serious tone. “He's lodged a complaint against you and your brother for slander and for threatening him in public.”

“If you'll come with us to the Kanner farm, we think we can prove that Mr. Kanner did not lose the priceless artwork he's claiming,” Frank said, “and that he faked this mystery twister altogether.”

“Frank, listen,” Jansen said. “The mystery twister
does
exist. That's what the hubbub at Channel Nine is about.

“Greg Glover has videotaped footage of the mystery twister destroying Mr. Kanner's home!”

The TV studio was crowded and buzzing with people when Frank and Joe made their way in with Lemar Jansen and the rest of his Windstormer team. Terry Clark was seated on a small platform in front of the cameras. Seated across from her was Greg Glover.

“I'm extremely doubtful about Greg Glover's presentation since you boys told me about all the things you discovered at the Kanner farm,” Jansen said.

A technician signaled for Jansen to be quiet. The broadcast was about to start.

“Good afternoon. I'm Terry Clark with a Channel Nine News extra,” the newscaster began. “Today science is one step closer to understanding a rare phenomenon, which meteorologist
Greg Glover has dubbed the mystery twister.”

Phil and Joe looked at Frank, shaking their heads. “He even stole your name!” Phil said angrily.

“Tell us what we're about to see, Professor Glover,” Terry asked him.

“Professor
Glover?” Jansen scoffed under his breath. “He must have bought off the TV station.”

“This is an amateur photographer's videotape of the event,” Glover explained as images appeared on monitors around the studio, including one right over Frank's head.

Frank watched as a funnel cloud dipped down and made contact with the earth. It moved toward the Kanner farmhouse, uprooted trees, and then destroyed the front wall.

“Now watch closely. It will appear to stall for a moment,” Glover said. Sure enough, the funnel cloud dissipated and a moment later re-formed. Only now, Frank realized, it was rotating in the opposite direction.

“Notice the clockwise rotation now,” Glover instructed. There were gasps from people in the studio. “This is almost unheard of in the Northern Hemisphere and never as part of the same thunderhead that produced a normal tornado.”

Frank stared at the screen, dumbfounded, as the re-formed twister, rotating clockwise, demolished the rest of the Kanner house, dropping
debris to the right of its path before disappearing once and for all.

The tape was so real, so seamless, Frank began to believe the mystery twister really did exist.

“And who took this footage?” Terry Clark asked.

“The man wishes to remain anonymous for personal reasons,” Glover replied. “Although he will make himself known in two days' time.”

“You said you had discovered evidence of one other such twister in your illustrious career,” Terry Clark said.

“Yes, in New Mexico about five years ago,” Glover replied. “But those observations were based on debris patterns. This is the first solid evidence we've had.”

“Astonishing,” the newswoman said to Glover, then looked into the camera.

“It's a fake!” Jansen exclaimed from the back of the room. The crowd murmured as Jansen made his way up onto the stage. “No force on earth could make a tornado behave like that, and you know it, Greg.”

“I know that over the centuries, mankind has claimed hundreds of things to be impossible that we have since proven possible. The mystery twister is the newest of these.”

“Let me analyze that videotape if you're so certain,” Jansen challenged.

“Currently, I have only the original copy, which has been placed in my hands for safekeeping,”
Glover explained. “The owner is seeking legal counsel before proceeding with the duplication and sale of the material. In the meantime, I myself will continue to analyze and study the tape at Glover Laboratories.”

“Why, you snake oil salesman!” Jansen fumed. Joe saw Terry Clark signal two stagehands to remove Jansen. He beat them to the stage to save the scientist any embarrassment.

“Mr. Jansen, I think we'd better continue this discussion off-camera,” Joe said quietly. Jansen scowled at Glover, then reluctantly left the stage.

Outside, the boys convened with Jansen and his team on the Windstormers' red bus.