We walked over to the railing near the beach and scanned the area, expecting to see a man building a sand castle.
What we saw was the Taj Mahal.
I kid you not—this sculpture was so big that the man building it looked like a midget next to it. He could barely reach the top of the Taj’s tower to finish it off. In fact, he was standing on a big cooler to do it.
We thanked the ice cream man for his time and headed over to meet the richest man in town.
The closer we got to it, the more incredible Jardine’s sand sculpture was. The thing was the size of a small house, but it was the details that were really amazing.
I’d seen pictures of the Taj Mahal—a tomb built by an emperor for his lady love. A lot of people say it’s the most beautiful building ever built.
Jardine had done it proud, down to the lakes and gardens that surround the building. The lakes even had water in them! He must have lined them with something so the water wouldn’t drain out.
Fascinating. I wondered about the mind of this man. It was obviously brilliant and talented, but was it also the mind of a criminal?
“Mr. Jardine?” I said.
“Yes?”
“I’m Frank Hardy, and this is my brother, Joe. We’re Junior Chamber of Commerce members in our home town, Bayport, and we’re doing a piece for the September edition of our high school paper….”
“Oh, you want to interview me, huh?” he said, squinting up at us.
He had to be seventy years old, but Carl Jardine was still in good shape. He wore a beach hat, bathing suit, and flip-flops, and his skin was tanned and leathery. This guy had spent a lot of time in the sun. But he had a pretty good build for an older guy.
“All right, why not?” he said. “That’s pretty good, tracking me down on the beach like this. I like initiative. Key to success!”
SUSPECT PROFILE
Name: Carl Jardine
Hometown: Asbury Park, New Jersey
Physical description: Age 72, 6′2″, 200 lbs., gray hair, leathery skin, well-preserved older man.
Occupation: Retired. Or is he …?
Background: Grew up in Asbury Park, moved to Ocean Point as a young man. Bought first taffy stand at twenty-three. Now owns dozens of properties and businesses. No one knows what he does with all his money, except to buy more businesses. Could his empire have a shaky foundation? One that needs shoring up with illegal schemes?
Suspicious behavior: Mostly circumstantial. He fits the profile, spends lots of time on the beach, and wouldn’t blink at throwing away tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry just to bring in more customers to his many, many businesses.
Suspected of: Seeding the sand with stolen jewelry. Lying about it.
Possible motives: Money, money, and more money. Some folks can never have enough.
He kept working as he spoke. I don’t know what he thought he was doing; his Taj Mahal looked pretty perfect as it was.
“This is incredible!” Joe said, meaning the sculpture.
“Did it all myself,” Jardine said. “I do everything myself. Only way to get something done right!”
“I understand you’re the richest man in Ocean Point?” I said, trying to steer the conversation around to our case.
“I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t go counting other people’s money.”
“You don’t need to count it if you’re throwing it away—or burying it in the sand.” Joe muttered the last part under his breath. But it wasn’t quiet enough for my taste.
But if Jardine had heard him, he didn’t let on. “I’ve done pretty well, though. Got quite a few businesses going, but they mostly run themselves at this point. I collect the checks and put them in the bank. I’m seventy-two years old—I’ve got more important things to do than work in an office.”
He scraped a bit of extra sand off one of the Taj’s walls.
“How did you get started in business?” I asked him.
“My first venture was a little saltwater taffy store on the boardwalk,” he said. “I’ve still got that place. Rented it out to a Russian fella.” He fell silent, and started inspecting his work for any stray grains of sand.
“So, you were saying…?” I prompted him.
“Well, saltwater taffy was big in those days. We didn’t have fast-food places on our boardwalk back then, or ice cream shops. I was one of the first attractions. I had a couple dozen taffy places all up and down the shore. Now I’ve got lots of other businesses as well.”
“Would you say you have any enemies in town?” I asked.
“Enemies? Well, I guess you don’t buy up half a town without running into some opposition. To win those kinds of battles you have to be strong.” He laughed. “Put that in your article! Tell them I’m retired now, doing what I love. I’ve done over fifty of the world’s great buildings in sand, and I’ve got lots more to go before I sleep. And tell your readers I’m a man at peace with myself. I wish everyone the best, and I just want to be left alone.”
I could appreciate that, but we had a job to do. There was no way we could leave him alone—not when he fit our suspect profile better than anyone else we’d come across.
We’d gotten as far as we could with the teen reporter jive. It was time to level.
“I’ll be honest with you, sir,” I said. “We’re actually looking into the jewelry store robberies that happened here recently.”
“You’re… not really interviewing me for an article?” He seemed disappointed.
“Not for our school paper, no,” I admitted. “You see, sir, we figure that whoever’s been scattering the stolen jewelry on the beach for people to find, they must not have much need for the cash that jewelry could bring.”
“Ah,” he said. “Someone like me, eh?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You think I robbed those stores and buried thousands of dollars in jewelry to create a tourist boom, out of which people like me would make millions. Is that right?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Let me tell you something, young fellows,” he said, stopping work for the first time since we’d arrived. “I understand your theory. I can see that you’ve given it some thought. But you’ve got the wrong culprit. I have so much money that I have no need to make more. I already have more than I could spend in a lifetime. I’m a happy man. So if you’ll please leave me alone, I’d like to get back to work.”
Oh, well. At least he thought it was a good theory.
“Sir, one more thing,” I said. “You’ve been around here a long time, and you know a lot of people. Who do you think is behind it?”
Jardine knitted his bushy eyebrows. “I think,” he said, “that your theory is fundamentally sound. But you need to adjust your sights lower—to a level of wealth lower than my own, but not at the bottom of the ladder, if you know what I mean. Go find a list of the members of the Chamber of Commerce or something. That ought to get you started.”
“How many people do you think are on that list?” Joe asked.
“Dozens, I should imagine.”
“Frank, how are we ever going to interview them all? We’ve only got a few days to figure this out before we have to go home.”
“You might as well forget it, then,” Jardine said, turning back to his work. “You’ll never find the ones behind it. To catch them, you’d have to monitor this beach day and night!”
I pulled Frank aside for a moment. “We could do that, right?” I said. “It would save us our hotel bill if we camped out on the beach.”
“Forget it,” Jardine said. He must have overheard me. “There’s no camping allowed in Ocean Point. The boardwalk lights go off at 3 A.M., and it’s dark as pitch out here after that, especially when there’s a new moon, like tonight. How would you even see anyone in the dark?”
He turned back to his Taj Mahal, and Joe and I looked at one another excitedly. Carl Jardine was right—it would be dark as pitch. But what he didn’t know was that, courtesy of ATAC, we had a night vision telescope! The richest man in Ocean Point had given us our next plan of action: an all-night stakeout on the beach.
13. Stakeout!
We went back to our hotel and tried to get a couple hours of sleep before dinner. We were going to be up all night, after all, and we didn’t want to fall asleep on the job.
When we woke up, it was around 6 P.M., and we were both hungry. We got dressed, packed all our overnight essentials in a backpack, and headed downstairs to get some dinner.
We were waiting for our food to come and going over the case when I spotted the two blondes from the beach. They were in jeans and tank tops now, but they were still unmistakable.
I just hoped they didn’t see us. I’d left my shades in the room, figuring I wouldn’t need them overnight on the beach. But I hadn’t figured on this. The last thing I wanted was them seeing me with two black eyes.
“Yoo-hoo! Frank!”
Ugh. Too late.
They came right over to our table and sat down with us. The girl next to Frank nudged up really close to him—so close that he moved in toward the wall of the booth a little, edging away from her out of sheer embarrassment.
The girl on my side of the table didn’t move in on me at all. Instead, she leaned over the table toward Frank.
The one across the table gave me a look. “Eeeuw!” she squealed. “Look at your eyes!”
Her friend next to me took a close look. “Omigosh, you look like a—”
“I know, a raccoon,” I said.
“Right!”
“That lifeguard socked you pretty good,” the girl across the table said.
“Hey, I didn’t know it was coming,” I said, defending myself.
It would have been nice of Frank to say something right about then, but he was so shy in the presence of these two girls that he never opened his mouth.
“You should have decked him,” the girl next to me said.
“Yeah,” the other agreed.
“You really wimped out.”
I was about to argue with her, but just then our food arrived.
“So, Frank, what are you doing tonight?” the girl next to him asked.
“Um, Joe?” Frank looked at me pleadingly. Obviously, he didn’t know what to say.
“We’re, uh… spending the evening with our parents,” I said.
Talk about wimping out. But it worked.
“Your parents? Ick. Sounds totally boring. We’re going clubbing.”
“Really?” I said. “Have a nice time.”
“Oh, we will,” said the girl across from me. “I don’t know about you, though.”
Finally, they got up and left, and we were able to eat our meal in peace.
“Do me a favor, Frank,” I said, “next time we’re on a case, try to stay away from romantic entanglements.”
“Romantic entanglements?”
“Whatever, just steer clear, okay?”
I guess I was being a little hard on him. After all, it was me who introduced us to the girls, not him. Still. How frustrating was this?
“Come on,” Frank said as we pushed away our dessert plates. “Let’s go nail us a criminal.”
***
By eight o’clock the beach was deserted, except for one or two couples strolling hand in hand as the sun went down.
Frank and I both agreed that no one would be planting jewelry on the beach in broad daylight. We also agreed that the most likely time would be after 3 A.M., when the boardwalk lights would go off, plunging the beach into almost total darkness.
We had a long time to wait. We probably didn’t need to be out here yet, but we didn’t want to miss anything if it happened earlier than we thought.
We took up positions under the boardwalk, and Frank fished out the night vision scope from the backpack.
“Okay,” he said as he snapped it open and scanned the empty beach. “Bring it on.”
“Well?” I asked. “What do you see?”
“Just a few drunks… some couples making out… there’s a guy fishing… uh, a bunch of seagulls… a homeless guy…”
“All right, all right, never mind. Just tell me when you see something interesting.”
Frank smiled at me. “You’ll get your turn, little brother. Just be patient.”
I hate when he calls me “little brother.” He’s only eleven months older than me, you know. And I look older and more mature.
Anyway, hours went by. I was sorry I hadn’t brought my MP3 player to pass the time. Ten o’clock, eleven, midnight, one… and still two hours to go before prime time! This was truly going to rank among the most boring nights of my life—especially if our criminal didn’t show up.
At three o’clock all the lights went out. Suddenly, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It took all of about ten minutes before I could make out Frank, still staring through the scope at the beach.
“Am I going to get a turn, or are you just going to hog that thing?” I asked.
“Here,” he said, giving it to me. “If you’re going to keep on nagging me about it…”
“We’re supposed to share,” I reminded him. “They only gave us one of these.”
That got him. He sat down and lapsed into silence. The only sound now was that of the waves crashing in. The spot we’d chosen for our stakeout looked out on the stretch of beach where the first ring had been found. Most of the jewelry had been dug up within view of our position. The town pier was on our left, maybe fifty yards away.
I was looking that way, peering through the scope, when I thought I saw something move.
Maybe it was just a homeless guy, prowling for crabs to eat or a place to sleep.
Or maybe not.
I nudged Frank. “Under the pier,” I whispered. “Something moving.”
“Let’s go check it out,” he said. Still staring through the scope, I emerged from our hiding place and headed toward the pier with Frank on my right, holding on to my arm because he couldn’t see where he was going.
Suddenly he let out a grunt, and I felt him let go of my arm.
“What the—?”
Then I felt something hard come down on the back of my head. As I crumpled to the sand, all I could see were stars.
Neck-Deep in Trouble
Joe was down—I could see that much.
I was down too, but not out.
I struggled to my feet and swung.
Within seconds, my right fist plowed into something soft.
“Ooof!”
A massive shape in front of me doubled over, and I kicked hard at it.
Then I was jumped from behind—by not one, but two guys. The second got his hands around my throat.
I tried to wrestle the second guy off me, but he wouldn’t budge.
Meanwhile, the guy I’d brought down before was slowly recovering. He got to me before I could get free of his friend, and socked me so hard in the stomach that I thought I was going to lose my dinner.
I sank to the ground and felt a series of hard kicks delivered to my kidneys. I tried to protect my face and to make the rest of me as small a target as possible. It hurt—but I could sense my attackers getting tired. And it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.
“Tie them up!” the other man said. Rope was wound around my hands, and the guy was busy tying them behind my back when I heard a loud “Oof!” and he let go.
“Get away from my brother, screwball!”
Joe was back in the fight!
My hands were now tied too tightly for me to help. The two other assailants quickly ganged up on Joe. I heard a loud crack, and then Joe yelling, “Ow! My eye!”
He has the worst luck sometimes. Another minute or two and Joe was lying beside me on the ground, getting his hands tied in the same style as mine.
“Should I bash their heads in?” one of them asked the other.
“Nah,” one of his companions answered. “No marks, remember? Now go over behind that piling and get the shovel.”
I tried to place their voices, but they weren’t familiar. As for their faces, there was no way to make them out in the pitch darkness. Not without our night scope, and who knew where that had fallen?
“Shovel?” the first guy repeated. He didn’t sound too bright. “We gonna bury something?”
“Yeah, lamebrain. We’re gonna bury these two—alive.”
I could see now where things were heading, and it wasn’t anyplace good. From the sound of the waves hitting, we were right near the waterline. And it was low tide. If they buried us here—and they were already digging the hole—all traces of digging would be wiped out by the rising tide before the sun came up. No one would ever find us until the day—years from now, maybe—when a hurricane or nor’ easter rearranged the beach and made the dead rise.
Once the hole was deep enough, we were both thrown in alive, and they started to shovel the sand back in. When they were done, only our heads were above the sand.
Whoever was doing this wanted us to suffer before we died. Hmmm … we must have been annoying somebody pretty badly. To me it meant that our investigation was coming close. Too close for a bad guy’s comfort.
And mine, too, actually. The water didn’t look too great from this vantage point.
“Who are you?” I asked the men who’d accosted us. “Why are you doing this?”
I didn’t think I’d get an answer, but it was worth a try—especially since at least one of them didn’t seem too bright.
“None of your business,” the answer came back from the darkness.
“Who hired you?”
“What makes you think somebody hired us?” the voice said. “Maybe we’re just doing this for fun.”
“Fun? You think this is fun?” Joe raged.
“Sure! I can just picture you two as the tide comes up. You’ll drown real slow… if the dogs and vultures don’t get you first! Hahahaha!”
“Hahahaha!” came the echoing laugh of one of his companions. They sounded like hyenas.
“Wait,” I said calmly. “Whatever you’re being paid, we can double it.”
“Oh, I doubt it. I doubt it very much. We’re going to make a killing on this one! Hahahaha!”
“Hahahaha!”
“Come on, guys—let’s leave these two alone. They’ve got a lot of thinking to do… about how curiosity killed the cat! Hahahaha!”
“Hahahaha!”
The laughter was driving me nuts.
Within seconds they were gone, taking their shovel—our only hope of escape— with them.
For a few moments there was dead silence.
Then Joe spoke up. “My nose itches.”
There was no sense in telling him to scratch it. This sand was hard packed. We weren’t going to just slip out like we would from dry sand. And did I mention we were tied, hands and feet? Not good.
“How’s the rest of you?” I asked.
“I got punched in the eye again.”
“Oh, no.”
“Same one the cow kicked.”
“Ouch.”
“Oh, well. At least now I won’t have to worry about how it looks.”
There was another long silence.
Then: “Does this remind you of anything?” Joe asked.
“Yeah. Farmer Pressman’s grain bin.”
“Ding-ding-ding! Yes, that’s right, for one hundred dollars!”
“Only now we’re buried much deeper,” I added helpfully. “And we have no gizmos to help us.”
“And our hands aren’t free, let alone our legs.”
“So, we’re history, right?”
“Wrong!” I said. “Don’t give up, Joe. I’ll think of something.”
I think he believed me. Joe has a lot of faith in my mental powers. But right at that moment, I myself didn’t have much faith in them. In fact, I didn’t have a clue.
Miracles from on High
We were buried up to our necks, about six feet from the waterline, and the waves kept breaking closer and closer to our heads. I was having flashbacks to our grain bin rendezvous. I hadn’t really wanted a repeat performance so soon.
“I just want to say, Frank, that it’s been awesome having you for a brother.”
I don’t know what made me say that. Of course we were going to get out of this. Frank was going to think of something at the last minute, and it would all be okay.
But Frank didn’t look too happy. He was busy spitting out the salt water he’d just swallowed. High tide was fast approaching.
And so was something else.
“Frank, look!”
The way we were buried, I could see the light easier than Frank could. But we could both hear the sound of the engine. It was coming straight for us.
“What is it?” I asked.
He squinted his eyes to protect them from the glare of the light. “Can’t see what kind of vehicle it is… but it must be one of those machines that rake up the garbage at night.”
Frank and I both screamed as loudly as we could, hoping to get the attention of the driver. The light seemed to turn our way and get brighter. The machine kept coming, and the engine was now drowning out both the surf and our screams.
“We’re saved!” Frank kept shouting like an idiot. “We’re saved!”
I wasn’t so sure. It was pitch dark out here, and in spite of the headlights, the driver might not see our heads poking out of the sand. He might just mistake our heads for plastic garbage bags or something, and rake them up into the jaws of his machine.
Our cries for help became screams of terror as the “grim reaper” descended on us.
There was no way the driver could possibly hear us over the roar of the vehicle’s engine.
Then, at the last second, there was a shriek of brakes. The metal monster came to a stop about three feet from our heads.
As if that weren’t enough, a big wave chose that very moment to crash over us. When it retreated, we were left gasping and coughing.
Help came in the form of a beautiful dark angel’s face, bending over mine.
“Whoa!” the angel said. “What the… What are you two doing here?”
Good question.
“It’s a long story,” Frank said. “But we haven’t got much time. Could you please just dig us out first?”
“Um, yeah, sure,” the angel said. “You’re lucky I’ve got a shovel in there.”
She went over to her tractor and came back with one. She started digging Frank out while I had to chill, holding my breath whenever the waves came crashing over me. Pretty soon Frank was able to use his arms to haul himself out. Then the two of them came over to dig me up.
Her name was Naomi, she told us—Naomi Thompson. She was wearing sweats, and her hair was done in cornrows. She was the one who embossed the advertisements in the sand, using her tractor and its nifty rear attachment to make those amazing drawings.
“You’re lucky I spotted you,” she said. “I just happened to be circling back around, or I wouldn’t have had my lights pointed so close to the water.”
“Well, thanks for saving us,” Frank said.
“No problem. Are you gonna tell me how you wound up like that?”
“Sure,” I said. “How about we tell you all about it over lunch tomorrow?”
She gave me a look. “I’ve heard that line before. How ’bout you tell me first, and then we decide about lunch?”
So we told her everything we knew. She’s been out on the beach every night; if anybody’d been out there, scattering jewelry in the sand for tourists to find, Naomi might have seen him—or her.
But no. Apparently, it had been pretty quiet. “I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff poking out of the sand since I started working here,” she said. “That’s why I bring the shovel with me. But I’ve never seen anything as weird as two guys’ heads.”
We borrowed her shovel and filled the two holes back up. That way, in case anyone came by the next day to check on us, they wouldn’t know we’d escaped.
“Well now,” I said to Naomi when we were done. “What about our lunch date?”
“Um, Joe,” Frank said quickly. “Let me remind you about something.”
“Huh?”
“Whoever tried to kill us—at this point, they think we’re dead.”
“Yeah? So?”
“If we want them to keep thinking that, we can’t go around in broad daylight, taking girls out to lunch in restaurants.”
“Sorry, Naomi,” I said, realizing he was right.
“That’s okay. Maybe after your eyes heal up.”
Ouch. Forgot about those.
She got back into the driver’s seat. “Gotta get back to work.”
“Where can we find you?” I asked.
“Me? I’m out here every night, from 3 A.M. to 5 A.M. Princess of Darkness, that’s me.” She revved up the engine and put the tractor in gear. Soon she was just a spot of light retreating up the beach.
“So,” I said. “We’re ghosts, huh? Cool.”
“Yeah,” Frank said with a smile. “You know, for a ghost, I feel pretty alive.”
“Me too. Thanks to Naomi.”
Frank looked up at the stars. “Yeah, good thing she came by, or we’d probably be sunk.” He paused for a moment. “Great night, huh?”
I looked up at the sky. And suddenly, something hit me. Hard. Smack in the forehead.
“What the—?”
A Bump on the Head
I heard something smack Joe on the head, and an instant later, his cry of pain.
“Ow!”
I turned around, ready to drop-kick whoever was attacking us.
But there was no one there at all!
Something had knocked Joe in the head. There was no doubt about that. He was on his knees, holding his forehead.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
“Dang, that hurts!”
“Are you bleeding?”
He checked. “I don’t think so—but I’m gonna have a lump the size of a—”
He broke off and reached down for something that was lying in the sand. “Hey, Frank—check this out. This must be what hit me!”
He held it up, and I took it from him. It was a heavy gold bracelet—the kind that locks together and looks like you could attach a heavy chain to it.
But where had it come from?
We were down by the water—too far from the boardwalk or the pier for someone to have thrown it. And there was no one near us on the beach, at least as far as we could see in this darkness just before dawn. Besides, to make such an impact, that bracelet had to have come from a really far distance….
Then we heard it—the drone of an engine high above us. I looked up, and there it was: the red blinking lights of an airplane.
Suddenly, all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle began to come together in my mind.
So that was how the pieces of jewelry were finding their way onto the beach!
“Joe,” I said, “who do we know around here that has a plane?”
“Bump,” he said, feeling the one on his forehead. “Bump Rankowski.”
“Exactly. He’s got a whole fleet of planes, he said. He employs pilots to fly them up and down the beach during the day. But what if he paid those pilots extra, in cash, to do a little night work—say at 3 or 4 A.M., digging a couple of holes on the beach?”
“Could be,” Joe agreed. “And he’s got motive, too, Frank—more tourists on the beach means more advertising business, right?”
“Not to mention the real motive—that, as the mayor, he’d benefit from a big rise in tourism. It would make him very popular with the local business owners—except, of course, the ones he’s been robbing!”
“We’ve gotta nail this guy,” Joe said, gritting his teeth and rubbing the swelling bump on his noggin.
Was this about catching a criminal, or about nailing the guy who kept beating Joe up? I couldn’t tell, but I figured I’d hit the ball into his court for a change.
“So how are you planning to nail Bump?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“You’re so eager to get him in cuffs, how are you going to do it? You’ve got to have proof remember?”
Joe frowned, and rubbed his forehead. “Isn’t this proof enough?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah. I guess not.”
I suddenly found myself yawning. It dawned on me that we’d been up all night. It had been a long day, to say the least.
“Why don’t we sleep on it, Joe?”
“Sleep?”
“Yeah, sleep—remember it? I, for one, happen to think better when I’m not dog tired. Besides, Bump—if he’s our guy—thinks we’re dead, right? If we want him to keep thinking that, we’d better get out of sight before sunrise.”
“We’re going to have to show our faces eventually,” Joe said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But not until we’ve got a plan.”
Joe here. So we snuck back to our hotel room without anyone seeing us. It wasn’t hard—at 5 A.M. there aren’t many people out and about. Bump would probably still be out at the airport.
I got a bag of ice from the machine in the hallway and put it on my face, which was hurting all over.
Frank was out cold and snoring, but I was so tired that I managed to fall asleep anyway.
He had set the alarm for 10 A.M. Five hours isn’t much, but I felt a whole lot better when I woke up, I can tell you that.
Frank went down the hall and got us some breakfast from the vending machines.
Donuts and tarts, mmm mmm. Now that’s my kinda breakfast!
We sat out on beds, eating and trying to come up with a plan of action.
“We’ve got to be sure it’s him first,” Frank said, munching on a frosted donut.
“You’re not sure? I’m sure!”
“I’m pretty sure. But I don’t want us to take down somebody and then find out that they’re innocent. That would compromise ATAC.”
“All right. So what should we do next?” I asked.
“Well, I think we should do an Internet search—see if it tells us anything.”
“Okay. Only we didn’t bring a laptop. What do you want to do? Go to Bump’s office and ask him if we can borrow his computer?”
I was being sarcastic, obviously. But Frank gets oblivious sometimes, especially when he’s hatching a plan.
“I was thinking more of the local library,” he said.
“What if somebody spots us there?”
“We’ll have to take that chance.”
“Let’s say it is him, Frank—then what?”
“Hmmm…” Frank massaged his eyes with his palms for a minute, then came up with an idea. “He goes up in his plane at night, right? What if we stow away and go with him?”
A big smile spread over my face at the thought. Beautiful. We catch him in the act—a couple of ghosts come back to life!
“Okay then,” Frank said, obviously noting my approval. “Compromise: We’ll do both: Internet search and stow away.”
“Deal.”
We finished eating and headed over to the library. It was just across the street from city hall, so we had to be careful. There was no sign of Bump Rankowski, thank goodness, but those two guys who jumped us on the beach might have been around somewhere.
We didn’t know what they looked like, but they must have known our faces.
Of course they wouldn’t be looking for us, because they thought we were dead.
First time death was in our favor.
Inside, we went right over to a bank of computers, well-hidden from general view behind a row of bookshelves. Frank sat down and did a search for Bump Rankowski. A bunch of stuff came up—about his businesses, his first mayoral campaign, his winning a flying contest….
“He’s running for reelection in the fall,” Frank pointed out.
“So?”
“So, if he wants to get reelected—and he sure seems to like the job—he might be tempted to start a tourist ‘gold rush,’ right?”
“Totally. I’m convinced, Frank. It’s him. Let’s get out of here and take care of business.”
“Wait a second. Cool your jets, Joe. There’s no proof in here—not enough to go on.”
“But Frank—”
“We’ve got to have more than this,” he insisted.
Then it hit me. “Hey, remember he said Bump wasn’t always his name?”
“Right! Now what was it…? Adam? Something with an A…”
I suddenly remembered. “Arnold!”
“That’s it!”
Frank keyed in Arnold Rankowski, and a moment later we hit the jackpot. There was an article from the Sea Bright Gazette, dated 1984, all about the arrest of one Arnold Rankowski on charges of petty thievery—from a jewelry store!
“Paydirt!” Frank said, and printed out the article.
There were more, too—our boy Arnold had three more minor offenses to his name.
No wonder he’d changed it!
“So here’s our case,” Frank said, gathering all the printouts together. “Three felony arrests along with two misdemeanors. Suspended sentence for the first felony, community service for the second, three months in Rahway State Prison for the third. Nothing since 1985.”
“How did he ever become mayor?” I said. “Wouldn’t somebody have dragged out his past during the campaign and used it against him?”
Frank did some more searching.
“Hang on,” he finally said. “November 7, 1992. Front page of the Ocean Point Gazette: ‘Rankowski Wins in Squeaker.’” He scrolled down and continued reading: “‘Arnold “Bump” Rankowski was elected mayor yesterday with 52 percent of the votes counted. Steve Lyons conceded defeat at 10 P.M. Most observers agreed that Rankowski’s heroic efforts last week in spotting and putting out a potentially devastating fire at the amusement pier helped erase the negative effects of his somewhat shady past.’”
“I’ll bet he set that fire himself,” I said.
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Frank agreed. “Bump seems to have a way of manipulating events to suit himself.”
“I’ll bet he robbed those three jewelry stores, Frank,” I said. “He figured he’d drop the loot on the beach, create a gold rush, and get reelected by a landslide!”
“And Joe, think about this—as mayor, he could have waltzed into police headquarters at any time and pulled the codes for the jewelry stores’ alarm systems off the police computer!”
“Huh?”
“Stores with alarm systems hooked in to police and fire headquarters have to provide them with the codes to disable the system.”
“Ah, I get it,” I said.
“I think we’re getting a pretty clear picture of Bump Rankowski,” Frank said as he got up.
“That slimeball. Let’s not forget, he tried to have us killed when he realized we were close to cracking the case!”
We had our man, all right. All we had to do now was catch him red-handed. Tonight was the night—and I could hardly wait.
Up in the Air
We called a cab to come get us at our hotel and bring us to the Ocean Point Airport. I took the precaution of calling one from Atlantic City. Sure, it was expensive, but there was no way we could be sure the local cab owners weren’t FOB: Friends of Bump.
The airport closed at 11 P.M. I was fairly sure Bump wouldn’t be doing his treasure dumping before then. Trudging through the terminal building with a big sack of jewelry would be pretty hard for anyone to miss.
Besides, it had been nearly 4 A.M. when Joe got smacked on the head by that bracelet. My bet was that Bump didn’t show up till well after 2 A.M.
Joe and I waited in the darkness across the road from the terminal until everyone had left for the night, and most of the lights had been turned off. Then we ran across the road and hopped the chain-link fence that separated the terminal from the runway.
It was easy to find Bump’s plane—those shark teeth and eyes stood out even in the semidarkness. You could even make out that the plane was bright red. It almost glowed in the moonlight.
We had to do this all in a hurry. At any moment a car passing by on the road might shine its headlights right at us—or an airport employee we hadn’t accounted for might decide to check the planes out.
Anything could happen.
So we jogged over to Bump’s pride and joy. The canopy was locked—no problem, though. I fished out my pocketknife and jimmied it. Sure, the destroyed lock might make Bump suspicious when he saw it, but if our plan worked, he’d be behind bars before he had a chance to notice.
We quietly raised the canopy and climbed inside. Only after we’d shut it behind us did we feel we could relax.
At least for now.
“Got the camera?” Joe asked.
I patted the pocket of my windbreaker. The cheap disposable camera ATAC had given us was there, ready and primed for action.
“Got the night scope? You found it after we got dug out, right?”
I took it out and gave it to Joe, and he started scanning the airport on the other side of the clear plastic canopy.
“What’s the use of doing that?” I asked him. “We’ll see the headlights when Bump parks his car.”
“And what if someone drops him off down the road, and he walks the rest of the way and ends up taking us by surprise?”
I didn’t think it was too likely, but I agreed that Joe had a point.
Still, as the hours wore on and there was no sign of Bump Rankowski, it started to get boring—and tiring.
We were still sleep-deprived, and we had to keep nudging one another to stay awake, especially once it got past 2 A.M.
When 4 A.M. came and went, Joe began to get really antsy. “He’s not coming. It’s not him. We’ve got this all wrong, Frank.”
“What?”
“It’s somebody else—one of our other suspects. That lifeguard, Chucky Whatzizname. Or the tattoo guy, Ricardo. Or one of the Russian guys.”
“Joe…”
“I don’t want to waste our time waiting for a guy who’s not coming.”
“Okay, wait a minute,” I said. “First, I’ll remind you that you’re the one who was so convinced it was Bump, from the minute you got hit with that bracelet. Second, someone’s dropping jewelry out of a plane. Bump has a plane—in fact, he owns a fleet of them. He’s got motive, opportunity, and means.”
“All right, but now I think I was wrong. He’s still not here, right? What time is it?”
“Five minutes later than the last time you asked.”
“Come on, wise guy. What time?”
“Four ten.”
“And still no Bump. I rest my case.”
Wouldn’t you know it, just then a pair of headlights came into view down the road, swinging right toward the airport.
When the car pulled into the lot and stopped, it was time to hunker down and get ready. We settled ourselves behind the rear seats of the plane, completely hidden from view.
The canopy opened, and Bump’s sizeable figure appeared in silhouette. I could hear him breathing hard as he settled himself into the pilot’s seat and closed the canopy over his head. “That’s funny,” he mumbled. “Coulda sworn I locked it…. Oh, well.”
Joe and I looked at each other. We were trying hard not to make a sound. We couldn’t see Bump, but we could hear him going through his checklist, humming a happy little tune as he went.
That scum, I thought. He thinks he’s killed a couple of kids, and that makes him want to burst into song!
I knew Joe felt like jumping him then and there, so I put my hand on his arm, reminding him that we had to wait until we had the evidence we needed.
Bump got the engine going and nosed the Cessna onto the runway. Soon we were airborne—but not without a struggle. With me and Joe on board, the plane was about 300 pounds heavier than Bump realized, and he had to give it a bit more lift than he thought.
“What the—?” I heard him grunt. “What’s wrong with this thing?”
After a minute, he’d figured out how to get us up to a safe altitude. He circled around, no doubt heading for the beach.
Two minutes later we heard the pilot’s side canopy window open. Then there was the jingling of the sack of jewels he was carrying with him.
“Now!” Joe mouthed.
I sprang up, camera in hand, and fired off three pictures before Bump knew what hit him.
“What the—? HEY!” He dropped the bag and tried to hide his face. The plane yawed and pitched crazily, and Bump had to grab the controls—which kept him from going after us.
“Who’s that?” he shouted. “Who’s that back there?”
But we weren’t back there anymore. Leapfrogging the seats, we were now right behind him.
“You!” he gasped.
“Sorry we’re not dead,” Joe said.
With that, he grabbed Bump’s left arm, twisting it behind his back. Bump’s right hand came off the controls, and I grabbed it—but only until his foot lashed out and caught me in the head.
I let go, reeling backward, and the plane did a full, sickening rollover. Joe almost wound up going out the open window.
And Bump had time to recover his wits.
He backed into Joe, trying to force him out the window, while flailing at me with his feet.
The plane was still rolling over, and it was all I could do to steady myself. Finally I twisted around and sat on Bump’s outstretched legs.
My back was toward him, but now I could grab the throttle and try to steady the plane. I mean, there was no point in catching Bump if we all wound up dead in a plane crash, was there?
Maybe we should have thought this through a little better. But then, this was the fun part. Joe was dangling out the window, but Bump was too busy choking me to push him the rest of the way out.
I elbowed Bump in the ribs until he let go, then swung back around, dodging a punch on the way.
Joe had managed to fall back into the plane, and Bump was climbing over the seats, headed for the rear. I kept hold of the throttle while Joe faced him down.
“It’s two against one, Mayor,” Joe said, balling his fists and slowly closing in for the finish. “I think you should give up.”
Bump reached down behind the backseat—right where we’d been crouching down in the dark—and drew out a big, fat pistol.
“Maybe this evens things up,” he said, pointing it right at Joe’s face.
Defying Gravity
It was a little too dark, and I was a little too distracted, to tell exactly what kind of pistol was staring me down. Believe me when I tell you, though, that it was plenty big enough to blow my head off.
Especially from three feet away, which is where Bump was standing.
Frank was busy with the controls, but if he didn’t do something fast, it wouldn’t matter if we crashed or not.
But what was he supposed to do? If he made a move, it was the big bang, and good-bye, Joe Hardy!
“So,” Frank said to Bump, “you’re going to shoot us?”
“Only if I have to,” Bump answered, wiping the blood off his mouth. “I’d rather not mess up my plane. I’d much prefer it if you boys would jump. You know, I thought you two had washed away with the tide.”
“We got lucky,” I said.
Bump laughed. “Right. Well, I guess your luck has just run out.” He cocked the gun. “Now, are you gonna make me shoot you? Or are you gonna cooperate?”
We didn’t answer. I was pinned down and couldn’t risk moving, and Frank was steering the plane.
“Out that window will do,” Bump said, pointing to it with one hand while the other held the gun right at me.
“You first,” he said to Frank.
I saw Frank’s eyes shift, and I knew what he was thinking. A quick jerk on the throttle, and maybe it would throw Bump off balance enough for us to overpower him. But there was no guarantee of success. And if he messed up, I was dead.
“And no funny business,” Bump said quickly, “or your brother gets a big fat bullet in the head.”
Obviously, he’d read Frank’s mind, same as I had. “Slowly, now,” Bump told him. “Not one false move. Hands off the controls.”
Frank did as he was told. He gave me a long look, then climbed out the window.
Headfirst.
Nice acting, bro. Nice.
I could see him clinging to the wing. The plane, dragged by his weight, started to bank to the left.
“Now you,” Bump said to me. “Turn around and start moving.”
I followed Frank out the window, and I didn’t try jumping Bump. I didn’t know how we were going to get out of this alive. All I knew was, I trusted my brother and his convoluted brain. I had faith that Frank, as always, had a plan.
“So long, boys!” Bump yelled before closing the window behind us. He grabbed the controls, but he was still fighting our weight, which was now dragging the plane to one side.
“Quick!” Frank yelled to me. “We’ve got to get to the center. Climb on top of the fuselage.”
I followed his instructions. It was hard to hold on—the plane had to be going eighty miles an hour, and we were at least a thousand feet up.
The wind was so powerful it pushed me back along the top of the plane. I slid until I hit the tail—which was right between my legs.
OW!!
I winced in pain. Could it be worse?
At least I wasn’t going to fall off from this position. I guess.
Now I saw Frank, sliding back toward me. His right foot hit me square in the head.
Right into my black eyes.
OW!!
Yeah. It could be worse. At least now we were both firmly attached to the plane, with good footholds and handholds.
Just in time, too, because Bump had realized we were there and was trying his best to shake us off.
He was doing rollovers.
We held on with sheer muscle power, fighting gravity, until Bump had to right the plane or risk crashing.
In fact, now that Frank and I were firmly attached to the tail section, the whole plane was dragging—so much so that it might tip upward and stall out at any moment.
Frank looked back at me.
“What do we do now?” I asked him.
“Look behind you!” he yelled.
I did—and there, trailing behind us, was a big, long banner. EAT AT RON’S LOBSTER SHACK, it said.
“How did that get there?” I shouted.
“One of us must have hit the release button by accident! Joe—it’s our way out of this!”
“What?”
“Climb out on the banner!”
“Are you crazy?”
“We’ll make it into a parachute!”
“A parachute?”
“Aunt Trudy, Joe! Remember? Bottom left corner, top right corner …”
Now I saw what he was getting at. It was a long shot, all right. But it just might work.
I waited for a moment when Bump wasn’t trying to shake us off. Then I eased myself around the tail, grabbed onto the banner, and swung myself off the plane.
Gradually, little by little, hand over hand, I let myself out toward the far end, while Frank followed behind me.
I watched as he took out his pocketknife and flipped it open.
“Ready?” he called to me.
I nodded.
“Grab your two corners!” he shouted. “And hold on!”
He cut the cord holding the banner to the plane, and with a sudden snap, we were floating free.
Plummeting free is more like it, really.
I spread my hands wide, trying to keep the banner as open as possible.
The tug on my arms was tremendous. Good thing I’d worked out before we left.
Across from me, Frank was grimacing as he held his corners. The veins in his neck looked like they were going to pop out.
The ocean was getting closer by the second. I could see it in the dawn’s early light.
We were right over the shore and drifting toward the beach. If we hit the sand at this speed, we were goners.
I looked up for a second, and I saw Bump’s plane spinning downward, out of control. The shock when we’d cut our weight loose must have made him stall out!
As we got closer to a deadly crash-landing, I stared at the beach below us. I was more terrified than I’d ever been in my life. Was this it? Were we really going to die like this? My whole life flashed before my eyes in a second. Dad, Mom, Aunt Trudy, all my friends … and most of all, Frank, who was going through the same thing, I’m sure.
BOOM!!
I heard the explosion—Bump and his plane hitting the water at 100 miles an hour.
Well, he got what he deserved, I thought. Small satisfaction, though. In about five seconds, we’d be as dead as he was.
I closed my eyes and braced for impact….
KATHUNK!!!
Am I dead?
My mouth was full of sand. So were my eyes. They stung.
I hurt all over.
But… if everything hurt, I couldn’t be dead, right?
“Joe, are you okay?” It was Frank’s voice.
He was alive too!
I spat a wad of sand out of my mouth. I still seemed to have all my teeth. This was good.
I tried to open my eyes. It took a while to get the sand out of them and actually see anything.
Finally, I saw Frank standing over me, covered with sand—but very much alive. I stood up—slowly, carefully—and stared at the mound of soft sand that had saved both me and Frank from certain death…. It was the Taj Mahal.
Carl Jardine’s amazing sand sculpture!
Funny.
Perfect.
His masterpiece was totaled, all right—but we were still whole. Which proves one thing: It’s lucky to be smart, but it’s even smarter to be lucky.
