J.M.J.
Author's note: Thank you for reading! Thanks especially to all of you who are reviewing! The next chapter will be up tomorrow. God bless!
August 26 – Saturday
"I don't like the idea of trespassing," Dave Gregory was saying as he guided his horse along the narrow trail. "Out in this part of the country, it's pretty important to maintain trust between neighbors."
"Do you know the Stanleys very well?" Fenton asked.
"No, I only know the name," Dave replied. "I wouldn't even know them if I saw them. I grew up farther north than this, so I don't know very many people around here. Which is why I really hope that I don't get introduced to them by them catching me trespassing on their property. I'm just glad that I was able to convince Pete to stay home."
If Fenton was any judge of character, he would guess that trespassing wasn't the only concern the younger man had. When Fenton had called him, asking him for a favor, Dave had been willing to help, but his willingness had cooled somewhat when he heard the circumstances. Fenton and Jack needed to borrow some horses to ride into the building that they had seen from the air and check out Roger Stanley's story. His first question was whether Stanley's parents had been asked for permission to go on their property, and Fenton had admitted that they wanted to make the trip secretly, so that there would be no possibility of news of it accidentally leaking out. Fenton could tell that Dave had seen through that in an instant. He understood that the real reason was that Fenton had his doubts about Stanley and his parents. Maybe he didn't like his neighbors having suspicion cast on them or maybe he trusted Fenton's judgment, but either way, despite blaming his misgivings on the trespassing, Fenton could see that the young man had other doubts about the investigation. Whatever his concerns were, Dave had insisted that he would come along to tend to the horses while Fenton and Jack investigated. Dave's brother, Pete, had wanted to come as well, but Dave had been adamant that he would not. If Dave had not forbidden it, Fenton would have.
"What are you hoping to find, anyway?" Dave asked as they continued riding on.
"Maily evidence that Reese was held in this building that we saw," Fenton replied. "There may also be a clue to Dallas Ermington's whereabouts."
Dave didn't answer, and Fenton had a feeling that he thought this was grasping at straws.
"What's bothering you?" Fenton asked. "It's more than just the trespassing, isn't it?"
"Maybe," Dave admitted. "Doesn't this whole thing seem kind of strange to you?"
"What do you mean?" It was more of a test than anything. Fenton did think the situation was suspicious and he knew exactly how, but he wanted to know how much his companion had guessed.
Dave rubbed his chin. "This guy recognized the two of you and happened to have information relevant to your case, some very dramatic information. Not only that, but he's an old friend of Brock Garret. That's too many coincidences."
"What do you think that means?" Fenton asked.
"I think it means this could be a set-up."
"Why did you come if you thought that?"
Dave shifted himself in the saddle. "I said if you needed any help, I'd be willing to help. I figured if you were going to walk into a set-up, you might need someone extra along."
Fenton let it go at that. He didn't want to give the impression that he was suspicious of Dave. He had already proven himself the day that they had rescued Reese and captured his would-be executioners. Moreover, Nancy clearly trusted him, and Fenton had learned to have a great respect for Nancy's insights into people. However, he wasn't a trained detective, and so he would naturally see things differently than Fenton. That is, he should have, but this time, he didn't. His assessment of the situation was virtually the same as Fenton's, which only confirmed it further in Fenton's mind that this entire thing was too obvious. There could be no doubt that it was a set-up of some kind. It was too obvious to fool even someone who wasn't naturally suspicious of such things; and it was supposed to be meant to trick a detective. Whoever had organized it was either incompetent or they had some further game to play by intentionally making Fenton suspicious. If this was Ermington's gang, it couldn't be the former, but Fenton couldn't see what anyone would have to gain from the latter.
They reached the building not long after that. It was a sort of open barn, with a solid wall only on its northern side. The other walls were open, although fences and gates had been built inside.
"It's a covered corral," Dave explained. "There must have been a road in here at some point, and they'd sort and load the cattle here."
"It doesn't look like it's been used in a while," Jack commented, noting the sagging gates.
"Long enough that the road is overgrown." Fenton nodded toward an opening in the trees that was wide enough for a truck, but there were so many bushes and saplings growing there that it was impassible now. "That doesn't make this a very prime spot to hold a prisoner. They would have had to walk him in or bring him on horseback."
"Provided there was ever a prisoner here in the first place," Jack commented.
Fenton frowned and looked around before he dismounted his horse. "It doesn't look like anyone else is around. Let's see what someone wants us to find."
Dave stayed with the horses to make sure no one attempted to scare them away or steal them, while Fenton and Jack went to look around inside the corral. Before they went inside, Fenton peered into the rafters to see whether there was a possibility of a trap from that direction, however unlikely that possibility was. Once they were inside, there wasn't much to see. The gates weren't solid enough to hide anything behind them and the floor was only fine, dry dirt. The only place where anything could be concealed was on the northern wall, where there was a sort of platform about three feet high, two wide, and two long. Fenton went to see if the top came up by any chance.
The wooden square at the top of the platform was no longer attached, and from the ease with which Fenton was able to open it, he guessed that it had been opened recently. Several items were inside, as if they were in a box. Fenton pulled out a notebook and a small bag.
"Interesting assortment of planted clues," Jack commented. "I suppose that notebook has a detailed account of everything we want to know and only what we want to know."
Fenton flipped it open. "It's all in Spanish."
"You read Spanish, don't you?" Jack asked.
Fenton nodded, already deciphering the handwritten notes. "It's a log," he explained after a couple of minutes. "It's recording mileage, sales, people who were talked to."
"What kind of sales?"
"Saltwater taffy."
"Saltwater taffy?" Jack repeated incredulously. "I didn't realize that that was illegal."
"Ordinarily it's not, except when it's a code word for opioids laced with fentanyl." Fenton clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "At least, that was the code that the cartel I was investigating used."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Jack protested. "We're nowhere close to the southern border. What would drug smugglers from Mexico be doing here?"
"We don't know for sure that they were here," Fenton reminded him. "Don't forget that someone may only want us to think that they were. Let's see what else we've got here."
He opened the little bag carefully. It was about the size of a wallet and made of burlap. There was a USB drive, a man's ring, and a pocketknife inside. The USB had no markings to indicate what was on it, so it would have to wait until they had access to a computer. The ring and the pocketknife both meant more to Fenton. He recognized the ring immediately. The cartel used rings like that—three separate bands twisted together—to identify more important members of the gang, but Fenton hardly looked at it. His attention was attracted to the pocketknife lying on his palm. He stared at it fixedly for a long time.
"What is it?" Jack asked.
"It's Frank's knife." Fenton took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "I think these things are all we're here for. Let's get back into town."
HBNDHBNDHB
Katina had been acting more aloof the last two days. She didn't run away, but she did seem more nervous than she had before, and she didn't let any of the boys get close to her. She didn't laugh or smile at them, although she was still interested in learning new words and practicing the ones she had already learned. When she didn't show up for lunch, the boys were starting to get a little worried.
"We must have blown it the other day," Joe commented ruefully. "I wonder what someone did to her to upset her so much."
"I don't think I want to know," Biff replied. "It must have been terrible."
"In any case, we'd better see if we can find her," Frank said. "She's survived by herself long enough that she'll probably be okay, but we should make sure."
They split into parties of two to spread out and search for the girl. Frank and Joe went together, Phil and Biff were the second party, and Tony and Chet were the third. Tony and Chet headed north, toward the two hills. They hadn't gone far before they heard a strange sound.
"Shh!" Chet held a finger to his mouth as he paused. "Do you hear that?"
Tony had also stopped walking. "It sounds like a girl crying. I guess Katina didn't go too far after all."
"But what do we do now?" Chet asked.
Tony hesitated. "We'd better make sure she's not hurt or anything. If she isn't, then maybe we'd be better off just letting her be."
"Unless she wants someone to talk to."
"Yeah, but she'd want someone she trusts and who understands here. Both of those rule us out."
The boys were nervous as they followed the sound, and a few moments later, they found Katina curled up next to the trunk of a palm tree, sobbing. In spite of her tears, she must have heard them coming, because she sat up and grabbed a rock with one hand while she was trying to wipe her tears away with the other. The boys paused uncertainly.
"She doesn't look hurt," Chet said. "Which is more than I can say for how we'll look if we get in range of that rock."
"Right," Tony agreed. He nodded to the girl. "It's okay, Katina. If…If you want to be by yourself, we'll leave you alone."
Katina, of course, couldn't clarify what, if anything, she wanted from her fellow castaways. She only watched as they headed back toward the cabin.
It wasn't hard to round up the other boys, since they hadn't had long to get very far on their search. They listened to Chet and Tony's brief account silently.
"I wish we had some way of knowing what the problem is," Joe commented when they had finished.
"It doesn't take too much imagination to figure it out," Tony replied. "I mean, she's obviously got some bad memories that we accidently brought back to her and she doesn't have anyone to talk to about it."
"Right, but none of that helps us figure out what to do," Frank said. "If we could just talk to her, it would make things easier, but you can't learn an entire language overnight, and we're a little limited on what words we can teach each other."
There was no easy solution to the problem, and so all they could do was wait and hope that Katina would come to trust them again on her own.
HBNDHBNDHB
Saturdays were often the only days when Carson could catch up on his work load, and he spent more of them than he liked in his office. He did like having the quiet with no phones ringing, no appointments, and no one coming in. Occasionally, people would see him come in and try to follow him to get a free consultation on whatever legal problem was troubling them, but he had learned to lock the door when he was there on Saturdays. That was why he was startled when he heard the front door of the office opening. He reached for a paperweight sitting on his desk and then went to open the door to his private office a crack and see who it was.
"Nancy?" he said, recognizing the intruder as his daughter. He opened the door wider. "What are you doing here?"
"Hi, Dad," Nancy greeted him. "I hope you don't mind me coming in here. I need to talk to you." She grinned. "Just as long as you don't charge me your weekend rate."
"I can probably make an exception this time," Carson teased her back. "But don't tell anybody."
He led the way into his inner office and Nancy followed, tucking her key to the office door into her purse as she went. Carson sometimes asked her to pick up things from his office on weekends or after hours when he was out of town, so he had given her a key. They sat down in the inner office, and Carson waited for Nancy to start.
"It's about the case," Nancy said without preamble.
Carson nodded. He didn't need it explained what case it was; there was only one case these days. "Have you learned anything?"
"No. Dallas just seems to have vanished, unless the federal investigators know where she is, which is possible." Nancy paused. "In any case, she must be in a different country."
"No doubt. She would have been caught by now if she was still in the U.S.," Carson agreed. "You know, there's only so much you can do to find her, Nancy. It's the federal investigators who have the resources to even attempt a worldwide manhunt, and they're not sharing those resources with you any more than they are Fenton."
"I know, and that's part of what's been bothering me all along," Nancy replied. "I mean, they don't have to tell me anything. I'm just an amateur detective. But Mr. Hardy has worked with the FBI many times before. Why wouldn't they trust him?"
"Maybe they just think he's too personally involved. I can guarantee you that if I was in his place, I wouldn't be thinking my clearest."
"That could be part of it. It probably is, but I don't think it's all of it." Nancy leaned forward in her earnestness. "Since I haven't been able to learn anything about where Dallas is, I've been trying to learn more about her personally. I found something that could begin to explain things."
Carson also leaned forward slightly, sensing his daughter's excitement. Whatever she had found, it was big.
"The official story is that she's been running this crime organization in Hawaii for years, right? That she was responsible for the murders of Dylan and Annie Larson. That she seduced Brock Garret and got him into show business to bribe him into sticking with her. She couldn't have done any of those things."
"Why not?"
"Because she didn't exist then."
"What?"
Nancy sat up straight again. "I've tried everything I can think of to check into, but I can't find any record of her since before seven years ago. I've checked every record that publicly available. Nothing. I've even listened to every interview I could find with Brock, and he never so much as alludes to having a benefactress who helped up until one interview seven years ago. It sounded like a slip then, which given that he has never publicly acknowledged her would make sense. But the timing lines up exactly with when all her legal records suddenly popped into existence. Which makes me think maybe it wasn't really a slip. Maybe it was intentional."
"What are you getting at?" Carson asked, although he was already starting to guess.
"At this point, it's safe to say that Dallas is using a fake name, right?" Nancy said.
"It sounds that way," Carson agreed.
"What if that's not the only thing about her that's fake? What if her entire role in this is fake?"
"Just spell it out, Nancy."
Nancy took in a deep breath. "What if Dallas isn't actually behind any of this? What if she's just been set up to take the fall, if a fall needs to be taken? The real leader of this gang might have arranged for it to protect himself. Or she might have been set up for some other reason that I can't guess right now. Or there's another possibility. We already know that Reese is in the Witness Protection Program. What if he's not the only person in this case that the government has set up with a new identity?"
"I doubt that the government would let her continue to be part of the program and be a criminal boss," Carson pointed out. He grinned slightly. "They usually put people in a completely different profession than they had before."
"I didn't mean that," Nancy said. "The government could have planted her in organization to get evidence about it. She could be an undercover agent. If they already have an investigation going on, it would explain why they wouldn't any outsiders interfering. It could also explain how she disappeared."
"You mean, she didn't flee the country," Carson said, mulling this idea over in his mind. "She might have been discovered by the gang and disposed of."
"Or when everything started breaking open, she might have come out of cover," Nancy replied.
"But if she was an agent, why would she have been in charge of the whole operation?" Carson objected.
"That's a good question. If she worked her way up that much, she should have had plenty of evidence and could have wrapped the case up a long time ago. I don't know. But there's clearly something going on beyond what meets the eye, and the FBI doesn't want any outsiders involved."
They both thought over the possibilities for several minutes, finding all the theories lacking in one way or another.
Finally, Carson cleared his throat. "There's one thing about this that really doesn't make sense. Brock Garret would know the whole story about Dallas, but he seemed perfectly willing to tell his entire story and the FBI didn't immediately bottle him up. Why?"
"Maybe we could find out from him," Nancy suggested.
Carson checked his watch. It was late enough that it would be a reasonable time in Hawaii to call. He reached for his phone and placed the call to Lieutenant Hikialani. He put it on speaker so that Nancy could hear.
"Hello, Mr. Drew," Hikialani said as he answered. "How are things going?"
"If I'd called an hour ago, I'd tell you everything was fine," Carson told him. "Now I'm not so sure. Nancy and I have some questions for Brock Garret."
"So do I," Hikialani replied. "Unfortunately, it doesn't look like either of us are going to have a chance to ask them. Garret was cleared of all charges and released first thing this morning."
"Where did he go?" Carson asked. "Maybe we can still track him down."
"It's a long way to get where he's gone," Hikialani replied. "I just got back from responding to a traffic accident. I don't usually get called to those, you know, but this one involved a yellow Camaro that went over a cliff and burned."
Carson and Nancy glanced at each other.
"You mean, Garret's dead?" Carson asked.
"Somebody is. We're still working on identifying the victim. I'll let you know what we find out. But it was his car, and there are people who would probably like to see him dead, so it seems most likely that he was the driver."
"All right. Let us know what you find." Carson ended the call and sighed. "Apparently, we were a little late coming up with this theory."
HBNDHBNDHB
"I thought there might be some good fingerprints on this notebook," Fenton commented as he finished trying to dust the notebook. He doubted that there would be any that he wasn't meant to find, but he thought he'd try anyway. As it turned out, he didn't find any.
He was making this final part of the investigation in the kitchen of Dave Gregory's house, with Jack helping him. Dave was still out tending to the horses, but his younger brother was eagerly watching everything Fenton did, seeing only the excitement of having a real detective working in his house and none of the tragedy that was involved in the case. Fenton's very first impulse had been to be annoyed with the boy, but then he realized how much his attitude was like Frank and Joe's would have been when they were his age.
It turned out that Dave also had a younger sister named Stacy. She was fourteen or fifteen and was also watching the investigation, although she was keeping her distance more than Pete. Apparently, she was more shy than her brother. During the ride, Dave had told Fenton and Jack that his parents had passed away several years before, and an aunt had been his younger siblings' guardian until Dave was old enough and had a stable enough livelihood to take over the role.
"What would you do if there were prints?" Pete asked eagerly.
"I'd have to send them into the FBI."
"The FBI?" Pete protested. "But those are the guys who are trying to keep you from investigating!"
"They're also the guys with the fingerprint database, so if you want to identify prints, you have to go to them," Fenton said.
Pete made a disappointed face at this, but he evidently accepted the explanation, because he turned his attention elsewhere immediately. "What about that USB drive? What's on it?"
"I was just about to check that."
Fenton pulled a laptop out of a bag that he had brought. This was the spare laptop that he kept for situations like this. In his line of work, USB drives with unknown contents were more likely than normal to contain viruses. Plugging them into his regular work laptop could be disastrous, so he kept one with him that had nothing saved to it so that a virus would be no great loss.
He inserted the USB and found that there was a single file on it. It was a very large mp3 file, and Fenton clicked on it a little uncertainly. It started out with some unidentifiable white noise. Then after about thirty seconds, voices began to be audible, as if the speakers had just moved into range of the microphone.
"It's all done. There are no witnesses now." The male voice was gruff and felt familiar, but Fenton couldn't place it just yet.
The next voice was also male and laced with annoyance. "That would be a miracle, the way this was mishandled."
"It wasn't our fault," a third male voice whined. Fenton recognized this one immediately.
"What is this?" he muttered.
"You'd better hope not," the second voice retorted. "You know I need proof before I pay out. Where are the pictures?"
Jack's eyes widened and he reached over to press pause.
"What are you doing?" Fenton asked.
"I think maybe I'd better listen to this first," Jack said, keeping his hand over the touchpad so that Fenton couldn't start the audio again until he had thought about it.
"I'm already guessing what this is, Jack. I have to know."
"Okay," Jack conceded. He nodded at the two teenagers. "But maybe we'd better do it when we're alone."
"Hey, what is?" Pete protested. "I want to hear!"
"Let's leave them alone, Pete," Stacy interjected. "Let's go see if we can find Dave."
"Thank you," Jack told her. "And please, all three of you stay out there until we call you."
Pete still protested a little that he wanted to hear, but he must have realized that the men were serious that this recording wasn't for others' ears, because he did follow his sister outside. Then the two men looked down at the laptop again. Neither one of them made any move to press play.
"Are you sure you want to hear this?" Jack asked. "If you'd rather, I can listen with headphones."
Fenton tried to steady his shaky breathing. "No, like I said, I need to do this. You're the one who doesn't really need to."
Jack nodded slowly. "All right. Let's get this over with."
Fenton pressed play and the recording started again. The voices were slightly fuzzy, as if they had been recorded over a phone line.
"We don't have pictures," explained the voice that Fenton had recognized. It was Coswell's, the captain of the Pearl Diver. The other man must have been Dain. Only the man they were speaking to was unfamiliar to Fenton.
"Why not?"
"Things didn't quite go the way we expected. Those kids put up a fight."
"You should have expected that. If any of you had taken the time to realize that you were dealing with the Hardy boys, then you would have realized they weren't going to make this easy on you. But you succeeded, didn't you?"
"Of course we did. They're at the bottom of the ocean right now."
"But you don't have any proof?"
"You have our word for it. If that's not good enough for you, it will be for the police."
"Don't be stupid. You'd be arrested, too."
"You think they'd want a couple of nobodies like us enough that they wouldn't make a deal with us to get you? If our customers don't pay us, we might as well take our chances with the law."
"You'd never get that far." The other voice was calm, clearly unconcerned by the threats. "You'll swear they're dead?"
"Absolutely. They're all drowned."
"Why didn't you shoot them? That would have been less risky."
"I didn't want to mop that much blood off the deck." Coswell chuckled, but he sounded nervous. "Besides, I've done this before. There's no chance any of them could have gotten away."
The recording was cut off there. Fenton sank into one of the kitchen chairs, his face pale to the lips.
