"It is nice to be home," Laura said when she and Fenton arrived home. "This experience has really made me appreciate Joe," she continued. "Poor kid. To think how much time he has spent in hospitals. It's no wonder he hates the place now."
Fenton laughed. "I know," he agreed. "He couldn't wait to get out of there this morning."
"Where is he?" Laura asked in concern when she didn't see him about. "Isn't he supposed to be home?"
"Maybe he's doing his homework," Fenton said, resetting the alarm he had disarmed when they had gotten in. "I'll run upstairs and check on him."
Fenton went upstairs to Joe's room and knocked on the door. Receiving no answer, he tried the knob, breathing a sigh of relief when it twisted open. He had been afraid that something might have happened in their absence.
Fenton smiled when he saw Joe sleeping on his bed, fully clothed. "Son," Fenton said, going over to Joe and touching him gently on the back. "Wake up," he said. "I brought your mother home."
Joe never moved. "Joe," Fenton said a bit louder, his voice growing concerned. He turned Joe over, noticing how hot he was to the touch. "Joe!" he shouted at his youngest son, growing terrified when Joe's eyes remained shut. Fenton felt for Joe's pulse. "Oh, God," Fenton said, his breathing heavy with emotion. He lifted his son into his arms and moved as quickly as he could down the stairs.
"Get the door!" he shouted at Laura who had come running from the living room to see what was causing the heavy footsteps.
"Joe!" Laura screamed even as she raced for the front door. She opened it to the peal of the alarm that she had not shut off.
"Get in the car," ordered Fenton, ignoring the alarm and continuing to the back of the car. He set Joe inside and Laura climbed in with him as Fenton got behind the wheel. He tore out of the driveway and sped toward the hospital.
Fenton pulled to a screeching halt in front of the hospital's emergency room followed immediately by squad cars with sirens blasting and lights flashing. Fenton leapt from the front seat and yanked open the rear door. Two orderlies, a nurse, and a doctor came running out with a gurney as he pulled Joe from the backseat.
Laura got out with tears streaming down her face. "He's not breathing!" she screamed as they rushed Joe inside. But that had already been discovered because an oxygen mask was being placed over his face.
"What happened?" asked Officer O'Brady rushing up to the Hardys.
Fenton looked at the officer blankly. "Sir?" O'Brady pushed gently as the other officer escorted Mrs. Hardy inside.
"We left the alarm on," Fenton said finally. "Joe was unconscious," he said. "His pulse was so weak I didn't think he would last until an ambulance could get there."
"Do you know what is wrong with him?" asked a nurse coming over to the Hardys and the officers as they entered the emergency room.
Fenton shook his head. "He was lying on his bed when we got home."
"Do you know anyone who might know?" she asked.
Fenton nodded. "I'll call Phil," he said. "He was supposed to have been with Joe all afternoon."
While Fenton went off to ring Phil, O'Brady radioed in about the Hardys. A squad car had already been dispatched to the Hardy residence to see about the alarm and had found the house unoccupied with no sign of attempted entry.
"Phil doesn't know what is wrong with Joe," Fenton informed the nurse when he hung up with Phil. "He did say that Joe hadn't been feeling well today and was sent home from practice early. Phil also said he skipped lunch," Fenton added. "Joe ingested some poisonous mushrooms earlier this week and was on a special diet. Could he have gotten this way because he didn't eat like he was supposed to today?"
"No," the nurse replied. She had been looking at Joe's file while Fenton had been on the phone. "The diet was to flush any possible remaining poisons from his system. If there had been any poison left it would affect his liver first. Symptoms like these would be an advanced stage of poisoning." She frowned. "I'll let the doctor know anyway," she promised.
It was close to an hour later when a doctor came out to talk with the worried parents. "How is he?" Laura demanded, jumping to her feet.
"He is doing much better," the doctor said.
"What was wrong with him?" demanded Fenton.
"He was poisoned," the doctor informed them.
"Again?" Fenton thundered in disbelief.
"Unlike with the mushrooms, this was a slower acting poison," the doctor said. "As a matter of fact, this particular poison is only dangerous if misused. It's actually a combination of two medications."
"You mean he may have gotten it here?" demanded Fenton. "When he was in here last night?"
"More likely, this morning," the doctor affirmed Fenton's suspicions. "Someone gave him the poison before he left the grounds."
"How do you know?" asked Laura. "Maybe it was given to him after he left?"
The doctor shook his head. "When it was discovered what was doing this to him and that he was a patient here earlier today, we checked the floor he was on. A bottle of each medication is missing form the floor's pharmacy."
"The woman who brought him breakfast," Laura said, her eyes flashing angrily.
"Or it could have been whoever prepared the food," Fenton said. He turned to O'Brady who had remained with the Hardys to find out if indeed it was an attempted homicide. "Find out who the volunteer was and everyone else who had access to Joe's breakfast," he ordered.
"Will do," the officer acknowledged. "Doctor?" O'Brady asked. "I'm going to need your help."
"What are we going to do with him?" asked Mrs. Wilson joining her husband and brother outside.
"We have to kill him," Matthews said. "He knows everything."
"I'm not the only one," Frank said.
"How?" asked Wilson, ignoring Frank.
"Smother him?" suggested Mrs. Wilson.
"That wouldn't be messy," agreed her husband.
"But what are we going to do with the body?" asked Mrs. Wilson. "I don't want him buried here."
"We won't leave him here," said Matthews. "We'll take him back to Braun Enterprises," he said smiling. "And we won't suffocate him. I have a better idea."
"What?" Wilson asked curiously.
"We'll take him to the factory and let him have an accident," Matthews said. "It will give Braun bad publicity and keep us from getting into trouble because no one will know we had anything to do with it."
"And I know just the machine to do the trick," Wilson said. "I worked it long enough," he added bitterly.
"Let's go," Matthews ordered Frank.
"No," Frank refused to move.
"He said move," Wilson declared preparing to fire at Frank.
"Why should I?" demanded Frank. "You're going to kill me anyway," he said. "Now, if you want to let me call and let someone know about my brother, then I will go with you willingly," he tried to negotiate. "You'll have one death on Braun's plate. You don't have to kill my brother too."
"It's probably too late for him anyway," Mrs. Wilson said. "I put in just enough to make it seem like he was just coming down with the flu. He probably went to bed and died in his sleep."
"Almost," snarled Fenton from the side of the house.
Startled, Wilson spun around to face the speaker. Frank lost no time. He jumped Wilson and grabbed the gun with his left hand at the same time making a fist with his right hand and smashing it into Wilson's face.
"Freeze! Police!" ordered Sergeant Ballen of the East Bridge Police Department. "You are under arrest. Place your hands behind your heads."
"For what?" Matthews demanded. "This young man was trespassing. We were just going to take him to the police station," he lied.
"Forget it," snarled Fenton. "You three are going up for several counts of attempted murder."
"It was me," Wilson said, taking the blame. He was dying anyway, he thought. No sense in making his wife and brother-in-law suffer.
"Dad, they poisoned Joe!" Frank interrupted. They were wasting valuable time!
"He's okay," Fenton quickly assured his eldest son. "We found him in time. And," he added, looking at Mrs. Wilson. "We know who poisoned him and have the evidence. She left the bottles in the trash in the pharmacy. Her fingerprints were all over them."
Sergeant Ballen's men moved forward and began reading the threesome their rights. "I understand you want to return tomorrow and file charges?" he asked, remembering what his chief had told him when he had been placed in charge of this bust.
"That's correct," acknowledged Fenton. "We want to return to Bayport and see about my youngest son."
"We'll take care of things here," Ballen stated, nodding his head in dismissal.
"You don't understand!" Matthews shouted. "Braun Enterprises has been getting away with unethical, even illegal, practices."
"We know," Fenton told him. "And they are going to be brought up on charges," he said. "But there is no excuse for what the three of you have done. You are very lucky that no one was killed."
"Not for lack of trying," Frank snarled, glaring at the three.
It was almost midnight when Joe regained consciousness. "Hey, Baby Brother," Frank said, smiling down at his little brother. "It's over."
"What? Where?" Joe asked, confused when he saw his brother and parents in the small hospital room with him.
"The volunteer this morning was Wilson's wife," Fenton explained. "When we found out, Ezra called the chief of police in East Bridge and arranged for me to go with them to make the arrest."
"Good timing too," Frank put in. "I had just been caught spying on them."
"So the tournament is still on?" asked Joe. After everything that had happened, he really didn't feel like competing anymore but he couldn't let everyone down.
"No," Fenton replied shaking his head. "Matthews, Wilson and his wife were responsible for all of the attacks but Braun Enterprises is guilty of illegal labor practices. The investigation began this afternoon when I called them from the hospital to tell them what we suspected."
"So the Labor Board canceled the tournament and the contract the school board has with Braun is null and void," Laura put in.
"But Dr. Vaughn wants to have the tournament next year," Frank continued. "He told dad it would be better organized and there would be no sponsor like there would have been this year. They would work something into the school budget."
"That's good," Joe said. "But I still don't understand how they knew everything that was going on."
"The briefcases were bugged," Frank informed him.
"But..."
"They gave me one that wasn't because they suspected I might look for one," Frank informed him. "See, they knew from the beginning that I was a plant."
"Crazy," Joe said, shaking his head. "They went to all that trouble just to get Braun into trouble. Why not just use their know-how to get info on what was really going on at Braun?" he asked.
"Because Matthews was never involved in that part of the business," Fenton answered. "He didn't have access to anything involved with the medical or legal aspects of the company."
"The tournament was even Matthew's idea. He went to Tomlin and met up with Principal Reynolds after school at a restaurant," Frank picked up the tale. "During the "chance" meeting, Matthews dropped enough hints to light a fire under Reynolds."
"Those three are going up for a long time, aren't they?" asked Joe.
"Let's hope so," Laura answered. She leaned down and kissed Joe's forehead. "Look at all the people they hurt. And you aren't even out of the woods yet," she said. "You still have to have the blood work done to make sure there are no aftereffects of the poisonous mushrooms."
"No, he doesn't," Fenton said.
"Why not?" demanded Frank.
"They ran tests on him when they checked to make sure the toxins from the poison this morning had worn off," Fenton explained. "His system is free and clear. When he gets out of here tomorrow, he won't have to come back."
"Until next time," Joe said with a sigh.
"Don't say that!" admonished Laura.
"Why not?" Joe asked. "There's always a next time."
The End...until next time....
Fenton laughed. "I know," he agreed. "He couldn't wait to get out of there this morning."
"Where is he?" Laura asked in concern when she didn't see him about. "Isn't he supposed to be home?"
"Maybe he's doing his homework," Fenton said, resetting the alarm he had disarmed when they had gotten in. "I'll run upstairs and check on him."
Fenton went upstairs to Joe's room and knocked on the door. Receiving no answer, he tried the knob, breathing a sigh of relief when it twisted open. He had been afraid that something might have happened in their absence.
Fenton smiled when he saw Joe sleeping on his bed, fully clothed. "Son," Fenton said, going over to Joe and touching him gently on the back. "Wake up," he said. "I brought your mother home."
Joe never moved. "Joe," Fenton said a bit louder, his voice growing concerned. He turned Joe over, noticing how hot he was to the touch. "Joe!" he shouted at his youngest son, growing terrified when Joe's eyes remained shut. Fenton felt for Joe's pulse. "Oh, God," Fenton said, his breathing heavy with emotion. He lifted his son into his arms and moved as quickly as he could down the stairs.
"Get the door!" he shouted at Laura who had come running from the living room to see what was causing the heavy footsteps.
"Joe!" Laura screamed even as she raced for the front door. She opened it to the peal of the alarm that she had not shut off.
"Get in the car," ordered Fenton, ignoring the alarm and continuing to the back of the car. He set Joe inside and Laura climbed in with him as Fenton got behind the wheel. He tore out of the driveway and sped toward the hospital.
Fenton pulled to a screeching halt in front of the hospital's emergency room followed immediately by squad cars with sirens blasting and lights flashing. Fenton leapt from the front seat and yanked open the rear door. Two orderlies, a nurse, and a doctor came running out with a gurney as he pulled Joe from the backseat.
Laura got out with tears streaming down her face. "He's not breathing!" she screamed as they rushed Joe inside. But that had already been discovered because an oxygen mask was being placed over his face.
"What happened?" asked Officer O'Brady rushing up to the Hardys.
Fenton looked at the officer blankly. "Sir?" O'Brady pushed gently as the other officer escorted Mrs. Hardy inside.
"We left the alarm on," Fenton said finally. "Joe was unconscious," he said. "His pulse was so weak I didn't think he would last until an ambulance could get there."
"Do you know what is wrong with him?" asked a nurse coming over to the Hardys and the officers as they entered the emergency room.
Fenton shook his head. "He was lying on his bed when we got home."
"Do you know anyone who might know?" she asked.
Fenton nodded. "I'll call Phil," he said. "He was supposed to have been with Joe all afternoon."
While Fenton went off to ring Phil, O'Brady radioed in about the Hardys. A squad car had already been dispatched to the Hardy residence to see about the alarm and had found the house unoccupied with no sign of attempted entry.
"Phil doesn't know what is wrong with Joe," Fenton informed the nurse when he hung up with Phil. "He did say that Joe hadn't been feeling well today and was sent home from practice early. Phil also said he skipped lunch," Fenton added. "Joe ingested some poisonous mushrooms earlier this week and was on a special diet. Could he have gotten this way because he didn't eat like he was supposed to today?"
"No," the nurse replied. She had been looking at Joe's file while Fenton had been on the phone. "The diet was to flush any possible remaining poisons from his system. If there had been any poison left it would affect his liver first. Symptoms like these would be an advanced stage of poisoning." She frowned. "I'll let the doctor know anyway," she promised.
It was close to an hour later when a doctor came out to talk with the worried parents. "How is he?" Laura demanded, jumping to her feet.
"He is doing much better," the doctor said.
"What was wrong with him?" demanded Fenton.
"He was poisoned," the doctor informed them.
"Again?" Fenton thundered in disbelief.
"Unlike with the mushrooms, this was a slower acting poison," the doctor said. "As a matter of fact, this particular poison is only dangerous if misused. It's actually a combination of two medications."
"You mean he may have gotten it here?" demanded Fenton. "When he was in here last night?"
"More likely, this morning," the doctor affirmed Fenton's suspicions. "Someone gave him the poison before he left the grounds."
"How do you know?" asked Laura. "Maybe it was given to him after he left?"
The doctor shook his head. "When it was discovered what was doing this to him and that he was a patient here earlier today, we checked the floor he was on. A bottle of each medication is missing form the floor's pharmacy."
"The woman who brought him breakfast," Laura said, her eyes flashing angrily.
"Or it could have been whoever prepared the food," Fenton said. He turned to O'Brady who had remained with the Hardys to find out if indeed it was an attempted homicide. "Find out who the volunteer was and everyone else who had access to Joe's breakfast," he ordered.
"Will do," the officer acknowledged. "Doctor?" O'Brady asked. "I'm going to need your help."
"What are we going to do with him?" asked Mrs. Wilson joining her husband and brother outside.
"We have to kill him," Matthews said. "He knows everything."
"I'm not the only one," Frank said.
"How?" asked Wilson, ignoring Frank.
"Smother him?" suggested Mrs. Wilson.
"That wouldn't be messy," agreed her husband.
"But what are we going to do with the body?" asked Mrs. Wilson. "I don't want him buried here."
"We won't leave him here," said Matthews. "We'll take him back to Braun Enterprises," he said smiling. "And we won't suffocate him. I have a better idea."
"What?" Wilson asked curiously.
"We'll take him to the factory and let him have an accident," Matthews said. "It will give Braun bad publicity and keep us from getting into trouble because no one will know we had anything to do with it."
"And I know just the machine to do the trick," Wilson said. "I worked it long enough," he added bitterly.
"Let's go," Matthews ordered Frank.
"No," Frank refused to move.
"He said move," Wilson declared preparing to fire at Frank.
"Why should I?" demanded Frank. "You're going to kill me anyway," he said. "Now, if you want to let me call and let someone know about my brother, then I will go with you willingly," he tried to negotiate. "You'll have one death on Braun's plate. You don't have to kill my brother too."
"It's probably too late for him anyway," Mrs. Wilson said. "I put in just enough to make it seem like he was just coming down with the flu. He probably went to bed and died in his sleep."
"Almost," snarled Fenton from the side of the house.
Startled, Wilson spun around to face the speaker. Frank lost no time. He jumped Wilson and grabbed the gun with his left hand at the same time making a fist with his right hand and smashing it into Wilson's face.
"Freeze! Police!" ordered Sergeant Ballen of the East Bridge Police Department. "You are under arrest. Place your hands behind your heads."
"For what?" Matthews demanded. "This young man was trespassing. We were just going to take him to the police station," he lied.
"Forget it," snarled Fenton. "You three are going up for several counts of attempted murder."
"It was me," Wilson said, taking the blame. He was dying anyway, he thought. No sense in making his wife and brother-in-law suffer.
"Dad, they poisoned Joe!" Frank interrupted. They were wasting valuable time!
"He's okay," Fenton quickly assured his eldest son. "We found him in time. And," he added, looking at Mrs. Wilson. "We know who poisoned him and have the evidence. She left the bottles in the trash in the pharmacy. Her fingerprints were all over them."
Sergeant Ballen's men moved forward and began reading the threesome their rights. "I understand you want to return tomorrow and file charges?" he asked, remembering what his chief had told him when he had been placed in charge of this bust.
"That's correct," acknowledged Fenton. "We want to return to Bayport and see about my youngest son."
"We'll take care of things here," Ballen stated, nodding his head in dismissal.
"You don't understand!" Matthews shouted. "Braun Enterprises has been getting away with unethical, even illegal, practices."
"We know," Fenton told him. "And they are going to be brought up on charges," he said. "But there is no excuse for what the three of you have done. You are very lucky that no one was killed."
"Not for lack of trying," Frank snarled, glaring at the three.
It was almost midnight when Joe regained consciousness. "Hey, Baby Brother," Frank said, smiling down at his little brother. "It's over."
"What? Where?" Joe asked, confused when he saw his brother and parents in the small hospital room with him.
"The volunteer this morning was Wilson's wife," Fenton explained. "When we found out, Ezra called the chief of police in East Bridge and arranged for me to go with them to make the arrest."
"Good timing too," Frank put in. "I had just been caught spying on them."
"So the tournament is still on?" asked Joe. After everything that had happened, he really didn't feel like competing anymore but he couldn't let everyone down.
"No," Fenton replied shaking his head. "Matthews, Wilson and his wife were responsible for all of the attacks but Braun Enterprises is guilty of illegal labor practices. The investigation began this afternoon when I called them from the hospital to tell them what we suspected."
"So the Labor Board canceled the tournament and the contract the school board has with Braun is null and void," Laura put in.
"But Dr. Vaughn wants to have the tournament next year," Frank continued. "He told dad it would be better organized and there would be no sponsor like there would have been this year. They would work something into the school budget."
"That's good," Joe said. "But I still don't understand how they knew everything that was going on."
"The briefcases were bugged," Frank informed him.
"But..."
"They gave me one that wasn't because they suspected I might look for one," Frank informed him. "See, they knew from the beginning that I was a plant."
"Crazy," Joe said, shaking his head. "They went to all that trouble just to get Braun into trouble. Why not just use their know-how to get info on what was really going on at Braun?" he asked.
"Because Matthews was never involved in that part of the business," Fenton answered. "He didn't have access to anything involved with the medical or legal aspects of the company."
"The tournament was even Matthew's idea. He went to Tomlin and met up with Principal Reynolds after school at a restaurant," Frank picked up the tale. "During the "chance" meeting, Matthews dropped enough hints to light a fire under Reynolds."
"Those three are going up for a long time, aren't they?" asked Joe.
"Let's hope so," Laura answered. She leaned down and kissed Joe's forehead. "Look at all the people they hurt. And you aren't even out of the woods yet," she said. "You still have to have the blood work done to make sure there are no aftereffects of the poisonous mushrooms."
"No, he doesn't," Fenton said.
"Why not?" demanded Frank.
"They ran tests on him when they checked to make sure the toxins from the poison this morning had worn off," Fenton explained. "His system is free and clear. When he gets out of here tomorrow, he won't have to come back."
"Until next time," Joe said with a sigh.
"Don't say that!" admonished Laura.
"Why not?" Joe asked. "There's always a next time."
The End...until next time....
