Foreword: I started a blog. It's "James Stapleton's Blog," and you can visit there by going to my profile. I will be writing about my progress in the newest novel and some hints for you along the way.

Wow! I just checked the stat for Out of Tune, and I found out that there were more than four hundred hits to this story! The first one only had 106 hits and the second had only 160. The newest one got four times more hits than the first one! I'll try harder for my next story and aim for 700 hits! Hope you'll still be interested in my next story as well as the end of the current mystery.

My story will be concluding in six more chapters, and I hope you will be able to catch up! That's because chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 will go faster than ever, with the detectives facing yet another challenge... You'll have to read this chapter to find out what the next complication is! Anyway, the mystery will disclose in chapter 13. Who might be the killer? If you guess right, I'll send you the first three pages of my next mystery by replying to your review. If you don't know who the killer is, then you might want to wait four more weeks! Consider the disclosure to be a Christmas (or Hannukah or Kwanzaa) gift from me. I assure you one thing: the alibi trick is really easy to figure out, as long as you've been getting the clues I've been scattering here and there in the storyline. And the killer? Well, I know that some of you are falling for the red herring I put in and will be quite surprised to find out who was the cold-blooded serial killer. The climax starts at this chapter, and the rest will be a roller coaster ride, getting faster and never slowing down (at least not until the epilogue. Then, you'll get a chance to catch up to the story)! Read this chapter and review, please!

9

Lost in a Discord

"Are you sure the car was the one you saw when you left the house?" asked Nancy, who was perhaps the one most surprised to hear of Frank's discovery.

The dark-haired detective nodded. "I'm sure of it. I saw the car just today so I can tell if it's the same car or not."

Bess was scared. "Now I think she might be the killer after all. But I can't believe our friend's mother killed someone!"

Nancy nodded. "I'm not willing to believe it, but if she's the only suspect and lead we have, we have to investigate her background. But, I've been thinking something… If all the windows and doors were locked, how did Mrs. Fontaine enter the house in the first place?"

Frank understood. "There might have been an accomplice. Or, she used some kind of wire to lock the window after she entered the premise."

Joe looked at the machine. "But I wonder how she knew how to use this machine over here. A normal person wouldn't know what this machine is for unless he or she works here in the theater for some time."

"Then, I think the person with most experience is Leticia," Bess said. "She's the stage hand, and she's pretty used to working these machines."

The titian-haired girl then interrupted. "Guys, I don't think we can make any guesses here. Everyone's equally suspicious, and we need evidence and an explanation for the murder of Jack Rocky."

"We should go back," Frank said after a while. "I need to check something."

The detectives went to their cars and returned to the mansion. The suspects were still arguing with the officer, who was the same one that investigated Jack's murder.

Leticia said to the officer when the detectives opened the door and entered the mansion, "We all have solid alibis during the concert, and none of us could have killed Jack. You started being suspicious of us just because you saw our names on the notebook you found on the floor at the scene of the crime. And according to your statement, Abraham should be the one to be suspicious about in the murder of Katrina."

"Yes," Jennifer said. "I don't think we should be kept here." She then stared coldly at Abraham. "If you think he could be the one, why not just take him to the station and interrogate there? All of us shouldn't be kept in the house where a crime had been committed!"

"Please," Officer Barnhart said impatiently, "let us do our job here. The victim left Mr. Connor's name on the piano, but he is the only one with a solid alibi at the time of the crime, and these detectives here"—he turned to Frank, Joe, Bess, and Nancy—"all have alibis as well. The only ones without them are you five people." He then looked at Jennifer, Smith, Luke, Leticia, and Mrs. Mott. He got a sheet of paper from another policeman in the scene of the crime.

"Well," he started, looking at the sheet of paper, "it seems like most of you have a grudge against Katrina. Is that true?"

All six of the suspects didn't say a word.

"Miss Fontaine," the officer said, facing the violinist. "You disliked Miss Berkeley from the moment she stole your boyfriend, who was Mr. Connor. You and Mr. Connor had been dating before you were in the quartet and felt great shock when he went after Miss Berkeley."

Jennifer looked away from the officer, biting her lip as she did so.

"And Mr. Connor," he then said to Abraham, "I see that you hated her for dumping you after you started dating her for a few months."

Now it was Abraham's turn to glare down at his feet, his hands making a tight fist.

"Mr. Wickliffe," Officer Barnhart said as he went to Smith, "it seems like you've been Miss Berkeley's boyfriend for some time now, until you found out that she was in love with Jack Rocky, is that right?"

Smith didn't answer. He just stared blankly out the window.

The middle-aged policeman then went to Luke, who was sitting by the TV. "And Mr. Terrain, according to our records, you've once been convicted of a robbery when you were sixteen and got paroled just a year ago. And according to the bank records of Miss Berkeley, she had been depositing a thousand dollars more than the money she makes in performing in quartet into her account every month, and I assume she was blackmailing you about your past, is that right?"

Luke looked coldly at the officer and nodded. "Yes, that woman wanted everything and blackmailed me. She said that if I didn't give her the cash, then she would tell Mrs. Mott about my horrible past, and I thought that she wouldn't let me be the conductor any more…"

Nodding, the officer then went to Leticia. "Miss Meadow, I believe you had been angry toward Miss Berkeley ever since she cheated in her exam when you and she were in the same high school, before she went to the famous music college. According to a former classmate, she switched her answer sheet with yours and got the score that you thought you deserved."

Leticia's face held no expression as she sat there. "That may be so," she said after a while. "But that doesn't make me want to kill her, officer."

"And finally, Mrs. Zelda Mott," the officer said, "I noticed that your niece, Maria Voorhees, died in her mansion in Maine just a few years back. And according to our sources, she was in the same classroom as Miss Berkeley. Do you think that she had anything to do with Maria's suicide?"

"I…I honestly don't know," Mrs. Mott said after a while. She looked paler than usual. She then took out a handkerchief and mopped her eyes, which were now wet with tears.

The detectives watched the suspects' expressions. "So everyone has something against the dead pianist," Nancy muttered. "Any one of them could be the killer."

Suddenly, something struck Frank's mind. "Wait a minute…" he thought. Something didn't seem right from the moment the detectives entered the house.

The detectives, after agreeing that there were nothing to search in the house, left and went back to their cars. After getting into their hotel room, Nancy turned to Bess after wondering for a moment. "Bess, I'd like to go search that concert hall again."

"Huh?" Bess asked, with a questioning look. "Why?"

Nancy smiled. "I have a feeling that I'm coming close to the conclusion of this mystery!"

Bess finally agreed upon going there. "But promise me it'll be quick. I'm starving!"

The girls decided to eat first. After that, Nancy and Bess went to the concert hall. Entering the hall was as easy as before, and in less than few minutes, the girls were behind the stage.

Nancy started searching immediately. She went to look at the practice rooms. Bess started to search the backstage, but she then said to Nancy, "I have to use the restroom. I'll be back in a sec."

After the blonde girl was gone, Nancy turned to the practice room. She didn't notice this before, but there were many decorations in the room. She looked at the door. She was in practice room number four, in which Katrina stayed during the concert. There were a beautiful painting of a mountainous landscape and a colorful carpet on the floor. Nancy then went to the next room, which was room number three. She noticed that the decoration was totally different from the last room. There were two masks and a fancy lamp. The next room, number two, had a grandfather clock and a vase with roses in it.

The titian-haired detective went to the last room. She almost gasped as she saw what were hung on the wall. Right next to the table with a chair were two scythes, gleaming in the light from the lamp.

The girl detective touched them, and a rush or relief swept into her. It wasn't real; the scythes were props for a play. Nancy turned around and exited the room.

As Nancy went to the backstage, she began first at the machine used to control the height of the klieg light. Nothing was wrong with the machine, so she turned around. Suddenly, she realized a horrible possibility.

"Could it be that the killer used that trick?" she wondered.

With a flash, she remembered everything. The call made to Jack after the concert, the strange position of the phone in the ransacked room, the position of the body…

Everything made sense now. And she knew that the person who said the strange statement was the killer. And she finally knew what the message meant.

She was so busy looking for clues that she didn't notice that someone had gone to the practice room number one and took one of the two scythes. She didn't know that the person was sneaking to the backstage.

Nancy was too busy searching the floor and didn't hear the stranger with a scythe sneaking up on her. With a swing of the scythe, the back of the scythe hit the back of her head and Nancy was on the floor.

After two minutes, Bess came back from the restroom. She looked around. "Nancy?"

Frank and Joe Hardy were watching TV in their hotel room. The show on TV was the one that showed the cops chasing cars on highways and local streets. It wasn't particularly exciting, but this was the only one the detectives could find amongst the limited number of channels offered by the hotel. And since they knew their parents would never pay extra for them to watch pay-per-view, they just sat there and stared at the TV. When a commercial appeared on the screen, Frank picked up the remote control and changed the channel. The screen changed to the channel that showed classic movies. At that time, it was showing The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews as Maria. The short-haired woman started singing one of the most memorable songs in the entire show:

"Let's start at the very beginning/ A very good place to start/ When you read you begin with A-B-C/ When you sing you begin with do-re-mi/ Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti…"

Then, Frank noticed that his cell phone was vibrating. He took it out from his pocket and looked at the phone number of the caller. "Bess?" he muttered, wondering what the blonde girl could be calling him for in the middle of the night. He quickly answered. "Hello?"

"Frank!"

Bess's voice was so scared and confused it immediately told Frank that something was wrong. Indeed, something was terribly wrong.

"What is it, Bess? What happened?"

Bess seemed to sob at the other end of the line. "Nancy and I were in the concert hall to investigate when I went to the restroom. But when I came out, Nancy was gone!"

"Gone?" Joe asked. He had heard Bess's sobbing and was listening to their conversation. "What do you mean? Did you search the place?"

"Yes! Of course I did!" the blonde detective said with a quivering tone. "I'm worried about her. What if she found a clue that the killer didn't want her to find? What if she was kidnapped again? And what if she saw the killer's face? She would be killed for sure!"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Bess," Frank said soothingly. "Joe and I'll be there in a few minutes. Wait at the lobby and, whatever you do, don't call the police."

"W…why?"

"Because the kidnapper might still be in the theater, or he might've hidden a bug in there somewhere. If he sees or hears you call the police, he'll kill Nancy for sure."

"O…okay. Please hurry!" Bess said, then hung up.

Joe turned to Frank. "We'll need to go to the concert hall, pronto!"

Frank nodded. "But I don't understand something…" he said.

"What is it?"

"If Nancy faced the killer, then she would've used the karate chops and knocked the attacker out. If she was knocked down, then I'm guessing that the attacker had actually sneaked up on her."

Joe nodded. "And looking at how good she is at karate, I'm sure that she didn't even realize that the attacker was there."

"Then we have to hurry," Frank added. "I don't think Nancy's going to be safe for long. Once she wakes up, she'll be trying to find a way out or at least to contact us."

Joe took the car keys. "Should I?" he asked, grinning.

Frank rolled his eyes. "Why not?" he responded. "After all, we're in a hurry. Just be careful not to zoom by any cop, okay?"

"Roger that," said the younger Hardy, heading out from the door of the room.

A few minutes later, the Hardys got to the concert hall and discovered Bess waiting for them at the door. "About time!" she said, more worried than ever. "We have to search for Nancy. I went to every single room in the whole building, but none was occupied. And Nancy was nowhere to be seen!"

Frank suggested that they go to the backstage. "Maybe the killer escaped from the back entrance," he suggested. He then went to the exit. The door was opened, and the car in which the kidnapper came was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay," muttered Frank, "I don't think we can catch them anymore. Let's investigate the scene of the crime first."

Frank went to the stage. The curtain was down, so he pushed the button next to the pillar. The curtain slowly rose.

When the curtain rose halfway, Bess saw what was behind it and screamed.

A scythe was hanging from the ceiling, held by a single string, swinging from side to side. What scared her the most was the dark-red liquid that was smearing the blade of the scythe.

The scythe was stained with blood.

Postscript: Could it be? Is the famous girl detective dead? What could've happened to her? What did she find out? And, most important of all, will Frank be able to save her? The chase starts from the next chapter, titled: A Bloody Serenade (creepy title, isn't it?)

Frank noticed that there was a note posted on the scythe. He read it out loud:

"Stop the investigation, or your redheaded friend will be sacrificed to the MUSICIAN FROM THE GRAVE!"

P.S. A big news! This mystery and the second one will be connected. In other words, to get the full story, you'll have to read this and the next novel (the title is still unknown, but I have the plot all made and ready), and the ending of this story is the beginning of the other... More information coming soon! Oh, and please review! I'd like to hear from you, especially readers who read my story but didn't review it. I would appreciate it if you could just write a few words describing whether you liked my story or not.

The next update is: December 9.