The Hunt for Four Brothers (8 page)

“I think I'll find Tringle now and then come back to talk to Daniels,” Joe said.

“Good luck!” Frank called over his shoulder.

•   •   •

Larry Tringle showed Joe out onto the balcony of his room, where Mrs. Tringle was seated at a small table.

“Hello, young man,” Mrs. Tringle greeted Joe.

“Hi. This won't take a second,” Joe said. “Can I ask you just a few questions about the robbery? I'm just trying to figure out how Daniels got in here without breaking in,” Joe told him.

“We can't figure it out, either,” Mrs. Tringle said.

“But you believe he's the culprit?” Joe asked.

“Certainly. Our neighbor said—” Mrs. Tringle began, then stopped herself. “We think Mr. Daniels needed money for food.”

“And since he gave himself up, I just thought—” Tringle started to explain.

Joe jumped in. “Sorry to interrupt, but did someone
tell
you he had given himself up?”

“Well, didn't he?” Tringle asked.

“Yes, but that was before you arrived on the scene,” Joe pointed out.

“Well . . . I don't know why this needs to be a secret,” Tringle said. “Mr. Flatts said that he met up with Mr. Daniels, who explained he needed the money for food. Mr. Flatts asked me not to press charges.”

“Are you and Mr. Flatts friends?” Joe asked.

“Not friends, but neighbors,” Tringle said, pointing to the adjoining balcony.

“That's right, Mr. Flatts's room is—” Joe stopped speaking as a sudden thought struck him.
The two balconies were only six feet apart. “You could almost jump,” he said quietly to himself.

“What's that?” Tringle asked, holding a hand to his ear.

“Do you folks lock the sliding door to the balcony?” Joe asked.

“Why would we?” Mrs. Tringle replied.

Joe paused, thinking. “Is Mr. Flatts in his room?”

“No,” Tringle replied. “He said he was taking a row on the lake.”

Joe shielded his eyes from the sun and peered across the small lake. He spotted only one rowboat, which appeared to have two men in it.

“Thank you,” Joe said, and hurried out of the room.

•   •   •

When he couldn't find Sandy, Frank followed the trail that led through a maple grove to the Joneses' cottage.

Sandy and Borda were on the porch swing, with their backs to the screen door. They were huddled over something on a low table, whispering to each other. Frank didn't want to startle them, so he rapped on the door with his knuckle. Sandy reached for the object on the low table, and for a split second, Frank glimpsed what appeared to be a red gemstone the size of a walnut.

“Frank, what are you doing here?” Sandy asked, shoving the stone into his pocket.

“It's one forty-five,” Frank replied.

“Is it
that
late?” Sandy said, stepping outside. “Well, let's get going.”

Sandy paused, staring into Frank's eyes. “Frank, did you . . . ?” Sandy started to ask, then said, “Borda bought herself a piece of that costume jewelry at the crafts fair in town.”

“Beautiful,” Frank commented, smiling through the door at Borda, whose eyes were darting around, looking at the floor. “It looked real.”

“Oh, no, it's glass,” Borda said.

“Could I see it again?” Frank asked.

Sandy's mouth tightened. “We've got a lot to do this afternoon.”

“Sorry, Sandy, I needed to go to town,” Frank explained, following his boss to the maintenance building.

“Why?” Sandy asked.

“Well,” Frank began to explain, then decided to withhold what he and Joe had discovered that morning. “It doesn't matter now that Mr. Daniels has confessed to the break-ins.”

“Confessed?” Sandy said, pulling up short. Frank told Sandy about the scene with Sheriff Lyle outside Craven's office and the appearance of the two huskies Daniels claimed were his.

“I don't believe it,” Sandy said, walking toward the dump truck.

“We don't either,” Frank agreed, following Sandy, “but why is he lying?”

“No way Rob found two stray huskies,” Sandy
insisted. “Besides, Clem and Beau wouldn't stand for him to keep other dogs.”

This time it was Frank who pulled up short. “Clem and Beau weren't with him.”

“What?” Sandy asked.

“When Mr. Daniels turned himself in, Clem and Beau weren't with him,” Frank explained.

“That makes no sense,” Sandy said. “Rob doesn't go anywhere without his dogs.”

“Maybe he didn't have a choice,” Frank said. “Sandy, before we dump the garbage, I'd like to make a stop at Gus Jons's place.”

•   •   •

“Don't forget this,” Katie called as she flung a life jacket off the dock and into Joe Hardy's rowboat.

“Thanks, Katie!” Joe called back.

Joe put his back into rowing swiftly across the lake. A hundred yards away from Flatts's boat, he veered off and rowed to the other side of the point, trying not to arouse the suspicion of the two men. The second man had dark hair. Joe couldn't make a positive ID from that distance, but he knew if he rowed any closer, they would know he was spying. Rowing around the bend and out of sight of Katie and the other lifeguards, Joe glided into the reeds and ran aground.

Joe climbed out of the boat and began working his way cautiously through the woods.

“Please return to your boat!” Katie's voice echoed across the lake through a powered megaphone. Joe's shoulders sank. How could she have seen me? he wondered. Just then he heard footsteps moving through the woods in his direction.

Joe dove behind the massive roots of a fallen tree.

“Boat number five, please return to your boat.” Katie's voice echoed again.

Just as Joe realized that he had taken boat number six, Milo Flatts, followed by Mr. Alvaro, broke through the brush nearby. “Ignore her,” Flatts told Alvaro. “Just say we didn't know any better.”

Alvaro stopped. “Where's the second brother?”

Flatts looked around, forcing Joe to duck out of sight. Joe could hear only the two men now.

“Here he is, the second brother,” he heard Flatts say. Joe listened closely but couldn't hear anyone else approaching.

“Yes, but without his three siblings, he's only worth one point five,” Alvaro replied.

“No, no,” Flatts protested.

“You have the teenagers sniffing around and now the sheriff is involved,” Alvaro said.

“The third brother turned up this morning,” Flatts said. “Soon, we'll have rounded up all four.”

Joe felt something run across his shoe and looked down just as a giant centipede crept up his pant leg. He swatted the centipede off.

Alvaro stopped speaking—Joe froze but knew it was too late. They had heard him. Joe dropped to the ground and rolled into a five-foot-deep gully.

He could hear someone walking near the fallen tree. Joe knew if the person came any closer to the edge of the gully, there would be no place he could hide.

“Come on. We'll just hike up the hill a little farther,” Joe heard Flatts say. The sound of the footsteps receded.

Joe got to his feet, still eager to see who the second brother was. Moving back behind the fallen tree, Joe could no longer see the two men, but he headed uphill, through light undergrowth, trying to catch sight of them.

Joe stopped suddenly, his head just an arm's length from a sphere about two feet in diameter. It was the biggest hornets' nest Joe had ever seen. Joe took a step back, just as a rock came flying through the air and struck the nest dead center, tearing it wide open and releasing hundreds of angry hornets!

Joe had no time to see who had thrown the rock. As he turned to run, he felt the first sting on the back of his neck. A sea of white-faced hornets swarmed around him, and he was stung another five or six times on the arms and face before he could escape.

Joe shook off a dozen or more hornets and made a run for his rowboat.

Joe didn't noticed the hornet on his eyebrow until it stung him on the eyelid. Joe smacked it away and looked over his shoulder. The light through the trees outlined a trail of hornets, pursuing Joe through the woods.

By the time he reached the water's edge, Joe had been stung so many times, he was hardly aware of the numerous hornets still stinging him on his back and stomach. He dove into the lake and thrashed
under the surface of the shallow water, shaking off the last of the insects. He held his breath for as long as he could, then peeked above the surface. One or two stragglers still flew about, but they soon returned to the forest.

After crawling through the shallow water to his rowboat, Joe climbed in. Swelling was already beginning to close his left eye and obscure his vision. Joe could feel himself going into shock as his body tried to counteract the massive dose of venom that was in his system.

Halfway across the lake, his throat began to close up, making it difficult to breathe.

“Joe, are you all right?” he heard Katie's voice on the megaphone. Joe shook his head without turning around to acknowledge her. If he stopped rowing, he believed he might not be able to make his body start again.

Joe's breathing grew shorter and shorter and he tumbled forward onto the bottom of the rowboat, unconscious.

•   •   •

Frank Hardy walked toward Gus Jons's cabin, explaining his hunch to Sandy. “Earlier, Joe and I thought we heard the two huskies inside,” Frank explained quietly to Sandy. “When the huskies showed up at Konawa with Mr. Daniels, I was thrown. Then I realized Mr. Daniels's dogs weren't with him.”

“And I can tell you, those dogs never leave his side,” Sandy interjected.

“Mr. Daniels left the asylum with Clem and Beau to try to track down the two huskies,” Frank continued. “I think Jons or one of his accomplices snatched Clem and Beau and, well, held them hostage.”

“How could you capture two dogs of that size?” Sandy asked.

“That I don't know,” Frank admitted. “But it sure would explain why Mr. Daniels would make that false confession. He was trying to save his dogs.”

Frank knocked on the cabin door, waited, then knocked again. “This guy is never home.”

Sandy tried the doorknob; it was unlocked. “Something might have happened to Mr. Jons. We'd better check on him,” Sandy said to Frank with a wink.

Inside, they found no sign of Beau or Clem. Jons had an empty gun rack on the wall. On a small table beneath it, Frank found some strange-looking cartridges and examined them. “Look at this, Sandy—tranquilizer cartridges. That's one way to capture two Rhodesian Ridgebacks.”

Frank heard a faint yelp. “That came from behind the cabin.”

Frank hurried outside and around to the back. He heard another yelp from somewhere up the mountainside.

Sandy stepped a few feet beyond Frank. “Look,
there's his truck,” Sandy said, pointing behind the cabin.

Frank moved to the brown pickup and looked in its bed. “The pet carriers are gone.”

“Great,” Sandy said. “What does that mean?”

“It means my hunch about the dognapping is probably right,” Frank told him. “When Joe and I told Jons we had heard dogs in his cabin, he must have moved Clem and Beau.”

“And you think that yelp we just heard might be one of them?” Sandy asked.

Frank nodded. “Jons is probably up on that mountainside with them right now, watching us.”

Sandy shook his head. “You've cooked up quite a theory to explain someone stealing three hundred dollars in cash and a watch.”

“It's not about that,” Frank explained. “It's about Gus Jons's shipment from Russia. Something was in the soap.”

“Look, you need to forget about the soap. Come on, we've wasted enough time,” Sandy said abruptly, turning and walking back toward the dump truck. “Let's get back to work.”

“We can't just walk away—” Frank argued.

“Even if you're right,” Sandy said, interrupting, “I'm not traipsing up the mountain to hunt a professional soldier. Remember, his gun rack was empty.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Frank asked.

“When we get back to Konawa, you can tell Mr.
Craven your theory,” Sandy replied, stepping up and sliding behind the driver's seat.

Something Frank said had spooked Sandy. From the back corner of the truck, Frank watched Sandy's face in the sideview mirror. Sandy was rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes anxious. Frank stepped up onto the bumper, and before he could yell “Clear,” Sandy took off, nearly throwing Frank off the back of the truck.

Sandy had gotten anxious the moment Frank brought up the notion there was something hidden in the soap. More and more, Frank was beginning to think the stone he saw at Sandy's house was more than a piece of red glass.

Frank guessed that Jons and his cohorts were making Rob Daniels the fall guy for their setup theft of Mr. Tringle's room to put everyone off the track about this mysterious shipment of soap. But how was Sandy connected to Jons?

Frank was jolted from his train of thought as Sandy stopped the truck at the trash pit. Hopping off, Frank motioned for Sandy to start backing up toward the edge. “Okay, stop!” Frank called, but Sandy kept backing. “Stop!” Frank screamed, and Sandy slammed on the brakes, the rear tires hanging half over the edge.

Sandy threw the lever and the dump truck bed raised up, dumping the day's garbage. Sandy lowered the truck bed back and turned off the engine.
For a split second, Frank thought he heard another engine, which then shut off.

“Did you hear that?” Frank asked.

“Hear what?” Sandy asked back.

“A second engine, just for a moment,” Frank said.

“Nope,” Sandy replied. “Frank, you're getting as antsy as an aardvark's stomach,” the maintenance chief said, handing Frank a box of matches. “Let's light this thing.”