J.M.J.
Author's note: Thank you for reading and reviewing! The next chapter will be up tomorrow. God bless!
August 24 – Thursday
Callie was seriously considering dropping her math class. The professor was bad enough, but after the way she had poured out more of her story than she wanted to share to Casey the other day, she felt like she would die of embarrassment if she had to see him again. However, by the time the next class period came, Callie hadn't made up her mind yet, so she decided she had better go. She was about five minutes early; she thought that it might be better if she was right on time so she could make sure not to sit next to Casey, but she didn't want to risk Dr. Weirmarten being angry about her being late.
Casey had already arrived before Callie, but he hadn't sat down yet. He was talking in a low voice to another male student, whose name Callie thought was Reggie. Callie hesitated a moment, but she thought Casey would probably sit in the same place as the class before. If this college was anything like her old one, then people would be fiercely protective of their spots and almost always sit in the same place. Callie picked a different spot, in the back of the room. She was disappointed when Casey came and sat right next to her.
"How are you doing?" he asked her, sounding so concerned that Callie felt bad for trying to avoid him.
"I'm okay," she said. "Look, about a couple days ago…"
Casey waved it off. "Don't worry about it. You needed someone to talk to, and I was there. Honestly, that's not something you should be going through alone."
Callie smiled at him. At least if she had to embarrass herself, it was in front of someone nice.
HBNDHBNDHB
It was almost the end of August. It had been over two months, Iola thought dolefully as she sat on the end of the one of docks in Barmet Bay. It was the one where the Hardys had their boathouse. Frank and Joe had a little motorboat, but the Sleuth hadn't been used since the last time they took it out. As much as Iola hated it, she was starting to think that they really wouldn't be back to take it out again.
She had thought long and hard about the conversation she had had with Mr. Hardy, when he had caught her trying to break into his file cabinet. She had tried with every ounce of her being, but she couldn't argue against the points he had made. They knew for certain on the testimony of several people that the boys had been put on that boat and that the boat had put out into the ocean. The orders had been clear that the boys were to be killed, not merely taken prisoner. The men who had taken them were just hired to dispose of them, a role which they had carried before. There was no reason they would have disobeyed those orders and kept the boys, and there was nowhere they could have taken them even if they had done so for some reason. So there was really no possibility that the boys were being held somewhere. The only chance was that they had escaped, but they were on a boat. There was nowhere to escape to. They could have tried swimming, of course. Iola could imagine them doing so. But those men would have been smart enough to take them somewhere far from shore. There was no way they could have made it.
Most convincing of all was that Mr. Hardy believed it. Iola couldn't even make a guess how many missing persons cases he had handled. If he thought there was even the slightest chance, nothing would stop him from searching every inch of the world to find those boys. Even now, when he didn't believe the boys were still alive, he was sparing nothing to search for their killers. It wasn't as if he wanted to believe that, either. If there was any hope to cling to, Iola was sure Mr. Hardy would be holding on.
Yet, it had seemed so important to keep on hoping, as if simply hoping that the boys were still alive would make it true. Or maybe it was that she felt like she was betraying them by giving up hope. Or maybe it was just because she couldn't bear the idea that they might really be dead.
Maybe she had only been hoping for selfish reasons, because she didn't want to deal with the hard reality that the others had already accepted. That had backfired on her, because now she was having to grapple with the same reality alone. How could she go to anyone for sympathy when she had offered them so little when they had been in the same position as she was now?
Iola took her phone from her pocket and opened her contacts list. She swiped one of them to make a call. While it was still connecting, she pressed the speaker option and held the phone in her lap as she waited. It wasn't a long wait. It didn't even try to ring; it just went straight to voicemail.
Hello. You've reached Joe Hardy. I'm not available to take your call right now, but if you'll leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
It was such a business-like message. It didn't capture Joe's personality at all. Or maybe it did. His parents wouldn't have let him have anything that would potentially be a problem if, say, someone was calling him about business, and Joe had a high regard for his parents' advice. Besides, Joe wasn't all jokes and banter. He knew when he needed to be serious.
These thoughts passed through Iola's mind as she waited while the automated voice gave the instructions to leave a message. Then the beep sounded.
"Hi, Joe," Iola said. "I know there's probably no way you'll ever hear this message, even if…even if you're still alive. Everyone says you're not. I don't want to believe it, but…You have no idea how much I want to talk to you. How much I miss you. That's why I'm doing this, I guess; so I can pretend I'm talking to you. I hope you wouldn't be disappointed if you knew about it. It is kind of sad and pathetic, isn't it? I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't even know what to believe anymore. It seems the most reasonable to believe what everyone is saying. That you're…you're…But I can never really believe that. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore, except one thing, and I wish I would have told you while I had the chance. I love you, Joe. I'll always love you."
HBNDHBNDHB
Frank dug a long line in the sand down at the beach with a stick in his right hand. The other castaways, including Katina, were down at the other end of the beach, about a hundred yards away. Without a tape measure or even a yardstick, the best they could do was approximate.
"This will be the finish line," Frank explained. "We don't have timers, so instead of a penalty, a false start will be a disqualification. Everybody ready?" There were various affirmations from the other castaways, and so Frank stepped away from the line and raised his good arm. "On your mark…Get set…Go!" He brought his arm down as he said the final word, and the other five boys started running across the racecourse.
Frank didn't want to play favorites by cheering on any one of his companions, but they couldn't have a race without someone cheering, so he just shouted general things like "Come on! Faster!" None of them had been sure whether Katina understood what they were planning to do or not, but once the race was started, there could be no doubt that she understood. She began clapping and jumping up and down and shouting in her own language. She even ran after the boys, although they far outpaced her.
It wasn't any particular special day that they were celebrating. The boys had simply decided that they needed something to boost morale, and so having some races sounded like a good way to do it. After the running race, they planned on having a wheelbarrow race and a three-legged race, followed by a potato toss. It would be just like the sort of festivities they had back home in Bayport around the Fourth of July, except they were missing the sack race. They didn't have any sacks, and they didn't want to waste Katina's tapa to make them. Another small difference was that Bayport usually had a water balloon toss instead of potatoes, but the boys certainly didn't have any water balloons at their disposal.
For the good of the entire group and to keep peace with Joe, who was still overprotective of him, Frank had agreed to not even attempt to take part in the games and races and risk injuring his arm further. He didn't think that he had rebroken it after all, but it wasn't worth arguing with Joe over it, especially now that they had managed to cut back on their arguments. Besides that, this way, he could fill the necessary role of judge, although it wasn't all that necessary in the first race, as Joe clearly came in first.
"No fair," Chet huffed as he came in last place. He was in much better shape than he had been when they arrived on the island, but he hadn't exactly been training for a hundred-yard-dash. "This was Joe's event in track, and besides that, he and Biff were the only ones who actually did track this last year."
"We'll beat them in the next race, Chet," Tony told him. "The wheelbarrow race is more about skill than speed, anyhow. Come on. You and me can be a team."
"Okay, but you can be the wheelbarrow."
"That's fine," Tony agreed.
He got down on his hands and knees and Chet grabbed his legs like they were the handles of a wheelbarrow. The two of them practiced moving around for a few minutes. Katina shrieked with laughter to watch them, but when Biff offered to be a team with her, she shrank away.
"Looks like we'll only have two teams for this," Phil said. "Joe and Biff can be a team, and I'll just watch. That hundred-yard dash just about did me in anyway."
Joe took the role of the wheelbarrow, and both teams went back to the starting line, which was much closer for this event. Frank called out the start, and the race began. It turned out that Tony was right, as Biff tried running much too fast for Joe to keep up, and they wound up tripping in a heap, costing them valuable time and eliciting more laughter from Katina. Tony and Chet crossed the finish line well before their competitors.
The next event was the three-legged race, in which each team of two would stand next to each other and tie their inside ankles together. They would then have to move as one to race to the finish line. Chet and Phil decided to be a team this time, and they tied their ankles with a piece of sturdy vine. Apparently, Katina found this much less amusing. She watched in consternation, and when the boys used gestures to ask if she wanted to participate, she shook her head furiously.
"This isn't going to be much fun to only have two teams again," Biff complained. "Everyone needs both arms in the wheelbarrow race, but in the three-legged race…" He glanced hopefully at Frank.
"I don't know about this," Joe said hesitantly.
"Aw, come on," Biff insisted. "It's been six weeks. That's all the longer you normally have to wear a cast."
"That's the key word: normally," Joe replied. "This isn't exactly a normal situation."
"I'm game to try," Frank said. "I'm not really worried about falling on sand like this."
"Let's take a vote," Chet suggested. "Should we let Frank take the chance or not? All in favor?"
Everyone raised his hand except for Joe.
"Oh, fine," Joe conceded. "But Frank and I have to be partners. I don't trust the rest of you guys."
That left Tony and Biff to be a team, and they were soon all ready at the starting line. They didn't have a starter, and they didn't think Katina would be willing to fulfil the role, even if they could get her to understand what they wanted. They had to be content to let Frank still call out the start. Any advantage that that might have given him and Joe was canceled out by Joe refusing to go very quickly.
"Come on, Joe! We're going to finish dead last at this rate!" Frank protested.
"Better that than…" Joe let the rest of his sentence trail off in a grumble.
Tony and Biff tripped, but Joe was holding Frank back so much that the Hardys didn't even pass them before they were able to get up and keep going. Chet and Phil came in first, followed by Tony and Biff, and finally the Hardys.
"That's the last time I team up with you," Frank told Joe. He said it teasingly to mask the annoyance he was feeling.
"Hey, guys," Biff broke in, pointing toward where Katina had last been standing. She was gone. "What do you think upset her so much?" Biff asked.
"I don't think she liked us tying our ankles together," Joe said, grateful for the change of subject.
"Yeah, but why would that bother her?" Chet asked.
"It might bother her if she's been tied up before," Frank commented.
HBNDHBNDHB
Jack yawned as he and Fenton waited for the waitress to bring their orders. It was usually a small, quiet restaurant in Butte, but tonight it was fairly crowded. In the last couple days, the detectives hadn't learned anything. They had tried to speak with Brock's mother, but all they learned was that the woman had moved and no one seemed sure where she had gone.
"Brock's story doesn't match his father's," Fenton commented.
"I noticed that," Jack agreed.
"Brock says he's paid for everything for his father for years, his father says Brock never lifted a finger to help him," Fenton said even though it wasn't necessary. "One of them still isn't telling the truth."
"Is it that important?" Jack asked.
"It could be, if Brock's the one who's lying. If he's lying about that, he might be lying about other things."
"I don't understand anything about him or this Ermington woman," Jack said. "I just don't see how it all fits together."
Fenton nodded. "We are still missing some pieces."
Conversation lagged again. Both men were tired and discouraged. Jack had no intention of leaving as long as he could be any help to Fenton, but he was tired from being away from home so long. Most of all, he was tired of trying to sort through this seemingly insoluble puzzle. Oh, it wasn't really that puzzling. They knew Dallas Ermington was behind it all, that she had done it because she was trying to protect the criminal empire she had built up while remaining in the shadows. They just didn't know where she was. She wasn't in Montana. Jack had felt sure of that from the start, and every day that they spent in this place, he was more convinced.
Fenton had been guessing that he was grasping at straws this entire time. This Ermington woman was clearly smart enough to stay out of the spotlight. She would be smart enough to know to leave the country instead of coming back to the same place where she had had some of her operations, a place where she couldn't help knowing that law enforcement was aware of. It had just been a wild desperation that had convinced Fenton he needed to run this down. For all the time and energy he had put into it, he was no closer to catching his sons' murderer.
His fist tightened around a napkin, crumpling it, as his thoughts passed from detective work to the real heart of this case. By all accounts, disposing of some witnesses had meant nothing to that Ermington woman. Fenton wished he was naïve enough to think that he could make her learn to regret it, but he knew he couldn't. A woman like that could make herself very comfortable in jail. She might prefer to be free, but her punishment wouldn't be a crippling blow to her operations. She wouldn't get the death penalty, certainly. Her known crimes had been committed in Hawaii, and there was no death penalty there. That might have been one of the reasons she had chosen to work out of that state. But even if she could get a death sentence or if she wasn't captured alive, that wouldn't begin to pay for what she had done. No, there was no justice in this world that could cover that.
Fenton was only brought out of his reverie by a man approaching the table. Instinctively, Fenton put his hand closer to his concealed holster as he looked up at the stranger. The man was about thirty-five with a hairline that was already receding and a tired look about him. His clothes were smudged with dirt like a man's who did manual labor, but his hands were clean and uncalloused. He kept clasping and unclasping them, apparently unsure how to hold them to look the most natural.
"Can we help you?" Fenton asked him.
"I recognized you from your picture. It's been in the news lately. You're Fenton Hardy, aren't you?"
"Yes," Fenton replied, but he offered no further information or even a question.
"I might have some information for you. Can I sit down?"
Fenton gestured toward the chair, and the man sat in it. Fenton also introduced Jack Wayne at the same time.
"My name's Roger Stanley," the man explained. "I used to know Brock Garret, back when he lived in Beaver Spring. We both grew up there. We were in the same class in school."
"Were you friends?" Fenton asked.
"We knew each other," Stanley repeated. "We weren't really friends. We weren't enemies, either. I never liked him, but I did feel sorry for him. He didn't have much of a home, with either of his parents. But once he took off for Hollywood, I figured I wouldn't be hearing from him again."
"I take it you did hear from him since then," Fenton said.
"Yeah, a few years after he left. He called me and asked me if I still lived in Beaver Spring. I didn't. I'd moved to Butte by then, but I still have family there, and so I still go there fairly often. When I told him that, he asked me to do him a favor. It was a very strange favor, but he managed to convince me to do it."
"What was it?"
"He wanted me to keep an eye out for any strangers in Beaver Spring. I don't know if you've ever been there before, but they don't get a lot of strangers. He had me turn into a regular spy, taking pictures of them and sending them to him. I kept it up for a few months, and then I gave it up. I didn't understand why I was doing it and it was starting to make me uncomfortable."
Fenton and Jack glanced at one another.
"I think we might know what that was about," Fenton said. "Brock says he was trying to determine whether the criminals had gotten involved with were frequenting Beaver Spring."
"Were they?" Stanley asked. "Actually, never mind. It doesn't matter. What I really wanted to tell you is about something more recent."
"What is it?" Fenton asked, a little suspicious of whether this conversation was going to yield anything or not.
Stanley hesitated. "I don't want to get anyone in trouble, including myself. I have a wife and some kids. I don't want anything to happen to them."
Fenton glanced around. "I don't see anyone paying attention, and I don't think it likely that this table would be bugged. If you have something to say, I won't let anyone know where I heard it from."
"Then you'll probably get in trouble. Oh, well, you're a detective. They'll expect you to know how to get to information you shouldn't have."
"Maybe you'd better just go ahead and explain."
"Okay. Does the name Kelso mean anything to you?"
Fenton stiffened, recognizing the name that the Witness Protection Program had given to Reese. "Maybe. Where did you hear it?"
"I thought it was probably connected. About the middle of July—the night of the seventeenth, to be exact—I was at my parents' place in Beaver Spring, helping my dad work some cattle. We were out late that night, and it was getting dark. We had to drive back to the house, and we found this man stumbling down the road. When he saw us, he tried to run, but it wasn't hard to catch up to him. He didn't look like he'd eaten a decent meal in weeks. We managed to convince him that we weren't going to hurt him, and he let us take him home. All he'd tell us was that his name was Kelso and that we should call the U.S. Marshals."
"This was on July 17, you say?" Fenton asked. This matched up fairly well with Carson and Don's incident in Hawaii, when they were questioned about Reese's whereabouts. They had been captured on the sixteenth, but it was possible that Reese might have made his escape and remained at large for a few days before getting caught again. "Did you call a marshal?"
"Of course. We wanted to call the regular police, too, but Kelso wouldn't let us. We figured it must be all right. I mean, he wasn't trying to prevent us from calling any law enforcement or anything like that. Some marshals showed up, much too soon, I thought, but Kelso thought they were legitimate and went with them. About forty-five minutes later, some more marshals showed up."
"The real marshals," Fenton guessed.
"I'm not sure," Stanley admitted. "At least one group was fake, maybe both. All I know is that the second group wasn't happy that Kelso wasn't there anymore. They told us not to say a word about any of this to anyone, or we'd wind up in serious legal trouble. I wasn't sure what to do, so after they left, I called the marshals again and told them everything that happened. They took the report, told me not to say anything to anyone, and that they'd be in touch if they needed anything else. I don't know if that was the right thing to do."
"You did the right thing," Fenton assured, "although how many people have you told about this?"
"I haven't said a word about it since then, and my parents haven't either. I can guarantee that."
"But you're telling us about it now. What made you decide to do that?"
"I've been following this whole story about Brock. It broke open just about the same time this happened, so I've been wondering if they were connected. When I saw you here, I figured I was probably right. I don't like this kind of thing going on in a quiet place like Beaver Spring, and I don't like law enforcement acting like they're covering something up. But you're not going to cover anything up. You want these people to pay."
Fenton gave no indication what he thought about that comment. "Is that all?"
"That's all I know," Stanley replied.
Fenton nodded slowly. "One more thing. Where exactly do your parents live?"
"Are you going to check it out?"
"Possibly."
Stanley took his phone out and pulled up Google Maps. Fenton noted that his phone's lock screen was a picture of a woman with three children ranging from about five to twelve years old. Stanley showed him the exact spot and then sent him a pin of it. After that, he stood up and left the restaurant.
Fenton and Jack watched him go, and waited until he was outside to make any comment.
"That was a random stroke of luck," Jack said.
"Yeah." Fenton scratched his chin. "A little too random. But we'll have to check it out."