Frank walked around the room, pushing up on each ceiling tile. “I don’t see anything, Joe,” he said. “We should check out Victoria’s office. We’re running out of time.”
Joe agreed. He pointed at a framed print on the wall behind Sokal’s desk. “That is the only nice thing in here,” he said.
Frank glanced at it as he climbed into the ceiling to head for Victoria’s office. The painting showed a man in medieval clothes with a longbow drawing a bead on a young boy. The boy stood next to a tree and had an apple on his head. Neither of the two seemed to be happy about the situation.
“The legend of William Tell,” Frank noted.
The two brothers dropped easily into Victoria Huntington’s office.
“That’s the guy who decided to show off by shooting an apple off his son’s head, right?” Joe asked.
“He wasn’t showing off,” Frank said, scanning Victoria’s office. “He was a hero in Switzerland seven hundred years ago. Switzerland was at war with Austria. And the Austrian king, Albert I, had this steward named Gessler.”
“Steward?”
“The dude who’s in charge of the king’s official affairs,” Frank said.
“Oh,” Joe said, trying to open a closet next to Victoria’s filing cabinets.
“But get this,” Frank said. “Gessler ordered everyone to salute his hat. Not him, just his lousy hat.”
“No way!”
“Yup. When Tell refused, Gessler made Tell’s son put an apple on his head and then he told Tell to shoot it off.”
“What a nightmare.”
“What a shot,” Frank said.
“Bingo!” Joe said after he opened the closet door!
“What did you find?” Frank asked.
“A fencing outfit, a couple of sabers, a foil, an épée, and, behind these shoes, some very complicated electronics,” Joe replied.
Together, he and Frank pulled out the tangle of wires and circuit boards.
Frank spread everything out on the desk. “Iola’s accident was no accident,” he said.
“Victoria rigged it?”
“I’ll say,” Frank answered. “The wires from the foils and vests are supposed to go through these circuits that draw very little current.”
“What did she change?”
“She bypassed the boards all together. Iola was basically plugged straight into the wall outlet of the gym.”
“So when Callie touched her, she got zapped.”
“Big time,” Frank said.
Joe let out a whistle. “I’d say Victoria has it in for Montreux. She did this to make the director look bad and then hid the stuff in the ceiling of Montreux’s office. If anyone found it, they’d think Montreux was trying to cover something up.”
“Makes sense to me,” Frank said. “We have our saboteur.”
Joe watched as Frank’s eyes went wide with alarm. “What?” he whispered.
“I think I heard a key in the door,” Frank said.
Joe spun toward the office door. The knob was turning slowly. “Hide!”
There was nowhere to go. Frank tried the closet, but it was full of stuff.
Joe pulled the office chair out, prepared to dive under the desk.
The door swung open. Victoria’s jaw dropped in surprise. “What are you doing in here?” she cried.
Frank held his hands up in attempt to calm her. Joe stepped away from the desk.
In a flash Victoria’s expression switched from surprise to rage. She darted to the closet, reached in, and pulled out a foil.
The blade whipped through the air as Victoria turned to face the Hardys. “I said, What do you think you’re doing?”
“We caught you,” Joe said.
“Quiet, Joe,” Frank said.
Victoria didn’t seem to understand.
Frank didn’t want to make her any madder. “We can explain this,” he said. He tried not to let his eyes focus on the mess of wires on the desk but couldn’t help himself.
Victoria saw what he was looking at, and her expression changed again.
“Are you trying to set me up? Is that it?” she screamed.
Joe took a step toward Victoria as she rushed at him, her foil extended. Before either brother could react, the tip of the foil pierced Joe’s side.
Victoria jumped back.
Joe still had his hands up. He stared down at the side of his sweatshirt where a spot of blood bloomed.
7 Emergency Alarm
* * *
Victoria dropped the foil, which clattered to the floor.
“You stabbed me.” Joe’s eyes were wide with disbelief.
“I… I didn’t mean to,” Victoria said, her voice quavering. “You walked into my foil.” She sank to her knees.
Frank kicked the foil across the room and settled at Joe’s side. He lifted his brother’s sweatshirt gently. “You’ve got about a three-inch cut under your ribs,” Frank said.
“Oh, no. Oh, no,” Victoria said. “This couldn’t have happened. The point is blunt on a foil.” She leaned forward to get a look but winced and sat back down on the carpet.
“It happened,” Frank snapped. He focused on Joe. “The cut isn’t deep at all, he said to Joe. Frank had a T-shirt on under his fleece pullover, and he took that off, using it as a compress to stop the bleeding.
“Hey! What did I miss?”
Frank glanced up to see Rachel Baden at the door.
“Oh, my gosh!” she said. “Joe’s hurt!” She rushed into the room.
“What are you doing here?” Joe moaned.
“I followed Victoria from the gym,” Rachel said. “Oh, man. If only I’d gotten here a minute earlier, I would’ve seen everything!”
“Try not to be too disappointed,” Joe said sarcastically. He sat up gingerly and, with Frank’s help, settled into a wooden chair.
“Make yourself useful,” Frank said. “Call an ambulance.”
“And the police, right?” Rachel asked as she picked up the phone on the desk.
Frank stared at Victoria. She seemed truly upset by what she’d done to Joe. But he was a witness. She’d stabbed him on purpose. “Yeah, call the police, too,” he said.
Victoria suddenly stood up and went for the foil.
Figuring she planned to attack and make an escape, Frank leaped to his feet. He started for her, hoping he could disarm her with a karate kick before she could do any more damage.
Victoria picked up the sword, and as she was about to wheel and face him, Frank settled into his stance. His muscles tensed. He prepared to deliver an arm-breaking side kick.
Victoria turned and held up a hand palm out, asking Frank to stay cool.
“Look,” she said, deliberately handing the foil to Frank. “The end is sharp. Someone filed it to a point.”
Flank studied the end of the sword. Sure enough, the metal safety button had been filed off. It was now sharp and deadly.
“You didn’t do this?” Frank asked.
“No! Absolutely not,” Victoria said. “This wasn’t my fault. I wanted to give you guys a scare, sure, for breaking into my office. But all my weapons have buttons. I had no idea I could actually hurt your brother.”
Rachel had finished her call to the police and hung up the phone. She got to Victoria’s closet before Frank could.
“That’s a nice story and all,” Rachel said. “I doubt it’s true, though.” She pulled the weapons from the closet one by one and handed them to Frank. “All these are as sharp as razors.”
“Yikes! I guess I was lucky,” Joe said. “If she’d slashed me with a saber, my guts would be all over the floor.”
“But I didn’t do that,” Victoria protested. “Don’t you see, somebody else must’ve broken in here and filed the blades. They wanted to make me injure someone.”
Two paramedics and a police officer came running into the office, followed by Geneve Montreux and Coach Sokal.
“What’s this?” Sokal asked, noticing the electronics on Victoria’s desk.
“That’s proof,” Joe said as the paramedics dressed his wound.
Frank explained the story to the police officer, starting with how the sabotaged fencing equipment had shocked Iola and ending with Victoria’s stabbing Joe with the sharpened foil.
“That’s not true!” Victoria shouted. “None of it’s true.”
“You’ll get a chance to tell your side,” the officer said. “At the station.”
Sokal paced the room, looking at Victoria with scorn. “You betrayed me,” he said. “I brought you back after Geneve dismissed you. Now this is what you do?”
“That’s not all,” Joe said. He then explained about the rest of the fencing rig hidden in the ceiling of Montreux’s office.
Sokal volunteered to retrieve the stuff. When he returned and dumped it on Victoria’s desk, Frank explained his theory.
“We think she was about to set up Geneve Montreux,” Frank said. “Make it seem like she was trying to cover up evidence about the accident.”
“This is insane!” Victoria shouted.
“No,” Montreux said bitterly. “You, young lady, are the one who seems to have lost it.”
The paramedics were ready to take Joe to the hospital, so everyone cleared out of the room. The officer strung crime-scene tape across the door until more officers could come to pick up the evidence. Sokal and Montreux, trailed by Rachel Baden, headed to Montreux’s office. “Do you think either of you could have prevented this?” Frank heard her asking.
Frank followed Joe and the paramedics down the hall for a moment. He tapped his brother on the shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” he said.
After lingering in the hall until it was empty and quiet, Frank quietly padded back to Victoria’s office.
If she filed her weapons to sharp points, then where is the file? he wondered.
Ducking under the yellow tape, he entered her office and shut the door most of the way behind him.
He went through each desk drawer. Nothing. On the floor of the closet he zeroed in on the several pairs of shoes he had seen before.
When he picked up a white tennis shoe, something tumbled out to the floor.
A diamond-hardened file.
Frank picked it up. Pulling the D-ring from his pocket, he compared the ridges on the file to the marks on the metal. “A perfect match,” he muttered. “That means Victoria damaged the D-ring, too.”
* * *
Twenty minutes later Frank tracked Joe down in the hospital. Mrs. Hardy was already in his room, watching as a doctor stitched up his side.
“Frank, I thought I told you two to be careful,” Mrs. Hardy complained.
“I was careful,” Frank said. “It was Joe who decided to challenge someone armed with a three-foot sword.”
Mrs. Hardy held her face in her hands. “Oh, I can’t believe it,” she said. “Wait until your father hears about this one.”
“Just tell him we closed another case,” Joe said. “That’s all he needs to know.”
“So all those accidents at the training center were caused by one person?” Mrs. Hardy asked.
“We think so,” Frank said.
“This young woman, Victoria Huntington,” Joe added. “She had it in for the director, Geneve Montreux.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Well, it’s over,” Joe said. “We can all relax.”
Frank wasn’t so sure, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
“All done,” the doctor said, standing up.
“How many stitches?” Joe asked.
The doctor laughed. “That’s what everyone wants to know. Nine on the inside and a few more than that on the outside.”
“Excellent!” Joe said.
Mrs. Hardy cringed. “I don’t think it’s something to be so happy about.”
“He’ll be fine, Mrs. Hardy,” the doctor said. “He’s had a tetanus shot, and we also want to put him on IV antibiotics tonight to prevent infection. He can go home tomorrow.”
Joe fiddled with the electric bed controls, tilting himself up higher. “Thanks, doc.”
The doctor left, and a nurse and an orderly came in. While the nurse set up the rolling IV hanger, the orderly unpacked Joe’s lunch.
A gray piece of something that looked sort of the right shape to be meatloaf swam in some grease next to yellowish carrots and a watery cup of chocolate pudding.
“Smells like burned rubber,” Joe said, holding his stomach.
“Don’t look at me,” the orderly said. “I just deliver the stuff.”
Mrs. Hardy picked up her purse. “I’ll go get something for you,” she said. “How about a large pizza?”
“Mom, that would be perfect,” Joe said. “And get one for Frank, too.”
Laura Hardy laughed. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
After the nurse and orderly left, Frank set a chair next to Joe’s bed and clicked on the television.
He found the twelve o’clock news. “Check it out, Joe,” he said. “We’re the top story.”
“Cool.”
The brothers watched as the news anchor went through the events of the past two days. Behind her, on a superimposed screen, the station showed shots of Iola’s injury, followed by footage of Victoria Huntington being led into the Bayport police station by two officers.
“I’m getting word right now that a press conference has been called at the Olympic Combat Sports Training Facility,” the anchor said. “Let’s go there live.”
The picture switched to a full-screen shot of Geneve Montreux standing behind a podium in the training center’s crowded press room.
“I’ve called you all here today to explain the things that have gone on over the past two days,” Montreux said. She continued on, in a tired voice, to review the events.
“I’d like to thank Frank and Joe Hardy personally,” she continued. “They were instrumental in helping us find out who was behind the incidents here.”
Joe held his hands up and high-fived Frank. “Sweet!”
“And finally,” Montreux said. “The United States Olympic Committee met a few minutes ago and asked that I resign my position as director of the Combat Sports Training Facility.”
“Pretty severe,” Frank said.
Montreux paused and tugged at the cuff of her jacket. “I want to emphasize that I did not intentionally cover up any of the incidents here. But in the interest of helping the training center get off to a new start, I have agreed to resign. Coach Sokal, the coach of the junior teams, will take over as director immediately.”
As Montreux stepped back from the podium, Sokal came forward, a big grin on his face.
“I don’t have that much to add right now,” he said. “I plan to make a few initial changes to get this behind us and make the training center a safe, fun place to visit. I hope we’ll see you all here soon.”
Frank switched off the TV and leaned back in his chair, letting it hit the wall next to Joe’s bed.
A series of loud beeps shot out of Joe’s electronic monitor.
“What in the…” Frank jumped up from his chair.
Green and red lights flashed on and off next to Joe like an overloaded supercomputer.
Two nurses sprinted in.
Joe looked up at his brother. “Frank, am I dying?”
8 William Telltale Clues
* * *
A nurse pushed Frank to the side roughly. “Let me get next to him,” she said.
Joe had his hand on his heart. “I think I’m okay,” he said. “Really.”
The second nurse pushed a button on the vital signs monitor. The lights and noise stopped.
“Of course you’re all right, sweetie,” she said.
The first nurse had her hands on her hips. “Your brother here leaned on the emergency call button,” she said
“Sorry,” Frank said.
The nurse put one hand on Frank’s shoulder and turned him toward the wall behind Joe’s bed. With the other hand she pointed to a bl
ue button surrounded by a red light. “See that button?” she said.
Frank nodded.
“Stay far away from it.”
Joe and the second nurse laughed as Frank took his scolding.
As the two nurses left, Callie and Iola came in.
“Hey, how’d you know I was here?” Joe asked.
“Your mom called from a pizza place,” Iola said, sitting down in a chair on the opposite side of the bed from Frank and Callie. “She said I should come tickle you in your side.” Iola threatened Joe, holding her hands up and wiggling her fingers.
“No, stay away,” Joe said. “Ouch!” He held his side. “And don’t make me laugh either.”
“Oh, all right,” Iola said. “I’ll be totally serious.”
“Impossible,” Callie said.
“Like Victoria being innocent,” Frank added.
Iola’s eyes shifted from Frank to Joe. “You mean…”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Joe said. “Victoria Huntington fixed it so you would get a nice shock when Callie scored a touch.”
“Why me?” Iola asked.
“I don’t think she picked you,” Frank said. “Whoever put on that fencing vest was going to get fried.”
“She wanted to embarrass Montreux,” Joe said.
Frank pulled the D-ring and metal file from his pocket. “And I found this file in Victoria’s office after everyone left,” he said, filling the girls in on the rope incident.
“And look at this,” Joe said, taking the D-ring from Frank. “See how the metal has turned bluish close to the clamp?”
Frank nodded.
“Metal does that when you heat it with a blowtorch or something.”
“You think Victoria tried to weaken the metal by heating it?” Callie asked.
“She must not have been sure the file thing would work,” Joe said.
“There’s only one thing that bothers me,” Frank said. “Who fired those arrows at me.”
Callie’s eyes went wide. “Someone shot at you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now,” Frank said. “It was last night, about half an hour after Iola got shocked.”
“Well, it wasn’t Victoria Huntington,” Iola said.
Training for Trouble Page 5