CHAPTER 10
After dinner, Frank brought the van into the garage, and made sure the front door was locked. When he returned to the kitchen, Joe reminded him, "It's your turn to take out the trash." He rinsed the last dish and placed it on a nearby rack.
Frank narrowed his gaze. "You never like washing dishes. What gives?"
Joe's blue eyes twinkled mischievously. "Oh, you know, I've got this thing."
"Another thing with Iola?" Then Frank shook his head and sighed. "Fine."
Joe made his way upstairs and left Frank to carry the refuse bag into the garbage bin outside.
The night was cool and soft breeze fanned the leaves of the oak tree at the front yard. The sound of a dog barking from a distance carried into the air, followed by the faint sound of a car engine starting from one of the neighboring houses. Frank rolled the garbage bin down the driveway to the front of the house.
Just then he caught a light — like from a camera flash — from somewhere across the street. Instantly, Frank stiffened with a sense of apprehension. A few cars were parked at the curb, and it was hard to tell if anyone was in any of those cars. When he saw the road was clear, he crossed to the other side toward the direction of the parked cars. The first car was a blue Lincoln. Its engine felt cold when Frank placed a hand on the front hood. He tried the next car and the next and the next. None of them had been running for the past few hours.
Frank studied the houses along this side of the street. A couple of them had the outdoor lights turned on, and he could see no shady-looking movements. Whoever was taking pictures was no longer there. Maybe. The longer he was standing at the sidewalk the more he began to feel self-conscious about his presence. As he returned back to his house, he wondered if there was a pair of eyes watching him right now, somewhere in the darkness. He waved off the ridiculous thoughts.
–o–
Frank woke up with a start from an unpleasant dream. He rolled on the bed to look at the alarm clock on the nightstand. The neon red light displayed 3:20 AM. Tried as much as he could to sleep, he found himself waking up every hour. Even in his sleep, he still couldn't get the image of the tampered brake line from his mind. Why would anyone want to hurt Callie?
Sighing, he rose from the bed, bracing his upper body with his elbows. The rattling branches against the window had the same urgency as what he was feeling now. He might as well do something useful. Reaching over the nightstand, he turned on the bedside lamp and climbed out of the bed.
A few minutes later, Frank was already in the study, looking through old case files in the filing cabinet. Most of the convicts the Hardys had put away were still serving time in prison. He searched through the Internet to see if any of them had escaped or being released from prison. Fortunately, there were none. He tapped a pencil against the desk, and considered other angles. Why is it happening now? What's changed lately?
There was another possibility he hadn't considered, yet. What if the attempt on Callie's life was due to her work? She had been known to ruffle a few feathers, and her work at the school newspaper had landed her in trouble before. He returned to the computer and went to search Bayport High newspaper website, specifically articles with Callie's name as the byline: the school science fair, the school presidential campaign, sustainability awareness week, vandalism at the computer lab, and a bicycle-theft ring. Those were just from the past four months. As far as he knew, she wasn't working on anything critical lately — nothing that could make her a target for someone.
Frustrated, he slammed his fist on the desk. The pencil bounced off the table and clattered to the floor. Massaging his temples, he took a moment to carry out some deep breathing exercise. No, getting emotional is not gonna work. He faced the computer screen again.
Thinking of the main suspects for the stolen painting case, Frank made a search for Morgan's and Dana's names, even though the clues did not provide any links between the sisters and Callie's accident. If he were the police, he would consider it as fanciful imagination. There was no reason to accuse them of sabotaging Callie's car. It wouldn't even hold up in courts.
The web search didn't turn up anything on Morgan's name, but there was a couple of articles on Dana Bailey and Stan Bailey, her father. The first one was dated almost ten years ago when Mr. Bailey began his venture as the founder of Meru, Inc., one of the pioneers in clean energy. The headquarters of Meru, Inc. was located in Seattle. There was a short biography on Mr. Bailey, an American-born who grew up in London, England. By twelve years old, he and his parents moved back to the US. He returned back to the UK to study electrical engineering at Imperial College London. A grainy photo of Mr. Bailey, his first wife, and eight-year-old Dana was located at the end of the article.
The second article was an obituary of Mrs. Bailey. It was dated two years ago. The first Mrs. Bailey had died in her sleep and it was Dana who found her body. Finding her mother like that had to be traumatic on its own.
He scrolled through other search results and discovered a blog by Dana Bailey. He clicked on the link. A bright, white background splashed on the screen with the title 'Life in Chiaroscuro' in bold pink letters, but the rest of the blog was in tiny, light gray font that hurt his eyes when he tried to read the passages. He was pretty sure Dana didn't aim for readability for the blog visitors. He had to zoom in the web page to skim through the contents.
Some of the posts were on her family vacation in Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Cairo, Tibet, Shanghai, Tokyo, and several other places — not in chronological order. The trip to Tibet, Frank discovered, was simply a reminiscence of her first outing abroad based on a scanned photograph taken almost ten years ago. Her father was described as being fascinated by the mythology of Mount Meru. Frank leaned closer to study the photo of the Baileys in front of a Buddhist temple. They did look happy back then, he thought. Recent family vacations, according to her posts, coincided with Mr. Bailey's business meetings with prospective investors.
A knock on the door interrupted his concentration. The door swung open and Joe stepped in. "I heard you moving 'bout earlier," his brother said with a yawn. "What're you doing up at this hour?"
"Reading," Frank replied.
"Anything interesting?"
He narrated to him what he had discovered from the news articles and Dana's blog, and he added, "She never failed to mention again and again that she was a back-to-back winner of science fair projects at her previous school."
Joe yawned again. "What did she build? Lemme guess… something to do with solar?"
"You're half right. A solar cooker, and something called… panic generator. They're actually pretty neat stuff."
"Huh, panic generator." Joe shook his head. "Is that even allowed? Never mind. She sounds more and more like a mad scientist. That's right up your alley. I'm going back to bed." He turned around and shuffled out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Frank turned his attention back to the screen. The rest of her blog were either rants against some classmates who slighted her for some reason or gloating posts. No identities were given on who these classmates were. They were all labeled as ABCs. She stopped posting two years ago, he noted, before the first Mrs. Bailey passed away.
Still, he wasn't sure how these information could be helpful. Rubbing his eyes in tiredness, he glanced at the grandfather clock and was shocked to see it was almost six in the morning. He turned off the computer and left the room.
Frank was bleary-eyed when he arrived at school. While on the way to school, he had told Joe what had occurred when he was taking out the trash last night. Of course, Joe had to rub it in about him being right. Frank, too tired to argue, simply acquiesced.
When Frank stopped by Callie's locker, she was looking glum. His mind started to think something bad had happened.
"What's wrong?" he asked her, slipping an arm around her shoulders.
"Never mind me," Callie replied. "What happened to you?"
"Couldn't sleep." He stifled another yawn. "Let's get back to you. What happened?"
"It's Gigi," she replied, taking some books from her locker. "He's missing."
He didn't expected that. It didn't sound as bad as he had feared. "I'm sorry to hear that. Did he run away?"
She shook her head. "No. I mean, I don't know. He was fine when I fed him in the kitchen last night. But this morning when I came looking for him, he's not around. I've searched everywhere — inside and outside the house. No sign of him."
"Were there any windows or doors open?"
She frowned. "Before I left the house this morning, I noticed the back door was ajar, but I know I closed it last night. I'm sure of it."
"You know, it's possible he could've wandered into your neighbor's house. And if he still isn't found, we'll have the gang to look for him after school."
"Thanks. Then we'll meet after the school paper meeting." She closed her locker and managed a small smile. But the anxiousness still lined her forehead.
The hallway was swarming with other students and they had to meander through the flow. As they turned around the corridor, Frank caught sight of Morgan opening the lock on her locker, which was next to his. It was plausible that she could have made an honest mistake thinking her locker was his, Frank reflected.
Once Morgan pulled open the locker door, a rotten stench of decay wafted into the air.
"Yuck!" Morgan said, lifting a shoe box from her locker, and dropped it to the floor. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Whose idea of a prank is this?" she called out to no one in annoyance.
The other students nearby became quiet and stared at her.
Frank, suddenly filled with a wave of dread, raced toward Morgan. He looked down at the box. Its cover lay sideways, revealing what was inside. His stomach turned at the sight.
Callie rushed forward. Before he could stop her, Callie looked down into the box and screamed.
–o–
"Well, that's done," Joe said, giving a final tap of the shovel against the earth. He stood up from a crouching position. "I can't wait to get the sicko who did this."
"You're not the only one," Frank agreed, staring at the mound on the ground, where Gigi was laid to rest. They had picked the spot near the willow tree at the school lawn. Callie, who couldn't bear to watch the burial, was at the school infirmary. She was still grieving and inconsolable when Frank had checked up on her half an hour ago.
Joe tossed the shovel to the ground. "Just what the heck is going on here, Frank?"
"This is more proof that someone's targeting Callie."
"Yes, you mentioned that. But why? By whom? Is it Morgan?"
"I don't know. She hates cats, though." But was it enough to kill one? After finding that box, Morgan had run away before Frank could question her.
"Have you noticed that Morgan seems to be the center of everything," Joe pointed out. "First, we have that fake painting, then that note she sent you and that Shakespeare book. Callie's car–"
"We don't know if Morgan tampered the brakes," Frank interrupted. "She denied about the others except that painting."
Joe held up a hand to silence him as he went on. "Then Gigi happened. And what about Vinnie? What's his connection to Morgan? This case is bonkers."
"Then maybe you should warn Iola about Morgan."
"That's just it. She's a different person when she hangs out with Iola. It's like she has split personality."
"I think experts called it something different in psychology books. But we're getting way ahead of ourselves. There's probably another explanation, simply because she and Iola like arts. C'mon, do you behave differently if you discuss baseball with another baseball fan?"
"Well… you have a point," Joe replied grudgingly. He remembered having heated discussions with Biff, who was also a baseball fan, to the point they'd begun competing with each other on baseball card collection.
"Frank," a voice called out from the front steps of the school.
Joe looked up and saw Dana. She was staring at Frank with her doe-like green eyes. He raised his eyebrows at his brother, who straightened up.
"Hi, Dana," Frank replied calmly. "What can I do for you?"
"Do you think I could ride with you after school? Morgan took the Dodge and I couldn't find her."
Joe found himself getting irritated.
"No problem," Frank replied. "We have some room."
"Oh." Her smile remained frozen. "Okay. Where's Callie? I heard about what happened. I want to offer my condolences to her."
"You can find her at the infirmary. She's not feeling too well."
Silence.
After some hesitation, Dana asked, "So, was it Morgan?"
"What do you mean?" Frank instantly looked curious.
"Was it her? I heard it was found in her locker."
"She's your sister," Joe cut in. "Do you think she could've done it?"
"Step-sister," Dana corrected, looking equally vexed at Joe. "Well, you're the detective. Find. Out. Maybe there's something true about the rumors around her old boyfriend."
Before Frank had a chance to ask her, Dana had turned around and gone up the stairs into the building.
–o–
By the time school was over, Joe was ready to go home. The late afternoon sun turned the sky into deep orange and grayish blue when Joe strolled down the steps of the building. It had been an exhausting day to say the least. Other students spilled out of the building as classes ended. Biff raced down alongside him.
"What's the rush, Biff?" Joe asked.
"Dude, I gotta finish my book report on Shakespeare by tomorrow," his friend replied in near panic. "I haven't written a single word!"
Joe started. "Is Morgan in your class, too?"
Biff stopped in his tracks and turned his head to look at him. "No. The other Bailey. See you tomorrow, Joe." With a wave, he disappeared among the crowd.
Joe paused for a second to digest this new information before he continued his walk. Frank was at the bottom of the steps, a preoccupied look on his face. He didn't see Joe until the latter stood in front of him.
"Have you seen Callie?" Frank asked.
"Nope," Joe replied. "Isn't she at the infirmary the whole day?"
"She's not there anymore." His expression may looked impassive, but the way he was pacing like a caged tiger belied his calm demeanor. "Her car's still here." He pointed toward the direction of the parking lot, where they could clearly see the green car next to their van.
Then Dana bounded down the steps with her backpack on her shoulders, her face flushed. "Hi. Sorry to keep you waiting," she said. "I got caught up with a chem experiment."
"Let's wait for Callie by the van," Frank suggested.
They almost approached the parking lot when a girl's scream pierced the air, followed by the growl of a car engine gunning down the road and tires squealing as the car sped away. Joe caught a glimpse of a familiar gray Dodge barreling out of the school compound.
People began rushing to the parking lot. Fearing the worst, Frank and Joe pushed their way between the crowd until they saw Callie lying on the side of the road and looking lifeless.