I reached to get a place he’d missed, and that’s when I saw it. A few inches above his wrist—two perfect puncture marks. A snakebite.
“Vern! Did that snake get you yesterday?” I burst out.
“No. I just … got a mosquito bite or something.” Vern tried to jerk his sleeve back down. I grabbed his wrist to stop him.
“No way are those mosquito bites,” I said. “They’re too deep. And they’re too perfectly placed. That’s a snakebite. But it’s not red or puffy.”
“So there wasn’t any poison in the rattler’s fangs.” Joe grabbed Vern by the other arm.
“What are you doing?” Jordan exclaimed. The crowd let out a howl, reacting to something on the field.
“Vern’s the killer. That rattler was his. But he’d had the venom extracted,” I shouted over the noise. The facts were clicking into place almost too fast to process.
“That’s why you always had the Do not Disturb sign on your door,” cried Joe. “You didn’t want one of the cleaning people to find the snake before you were ready to stage your attack on yourself!”
“An attack that would throw suspicion off of you,” I added. “Come on. We’re taking you to security.”
Vern wrenched free. He ran in the only direction open to him—straight onto the field. Straight into the rush of charging bodies. Massive charging bodies.
14
Dead Meat
A referee was immediately after Vern. But Frank and I couldn’t chance him getting away. We plunged onto the field ourselves.
The players were so intent on the game they hadn’t noticed the interruption. I dodged left, but still managed to take a hit on my right side that sent me sprawling into the mix of grass and mud.
Cleats came pounding toward me. I covered my head with my hands and rolled. Then I was up again.
The game had staggered to a halt, but Vern was still running. The ref was still after him, and Frank and I had both picked up referee tails too. I put on as much speed as I could, my right knee begging me to just sit down.
Vern was so close. I could almost reach him. “Get him, Joe!” Frank yelled.
So I went low and rammed my shoulder into the back of Vern’s knees. And I was down again. But so was Vern.
A second later we were both surrounded by refs, players, and cameras. Lots and lots of cameras. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Vern and me up on the huge stadium screens.
“I have a message,” Vern screamed, turning toward the biggest cluster of cameras. “I have a message for America. For all you millions of people who were just entertained by the sight of people shoving meat into their faces. Meat is murder!”
Refs began to “escort” me, Frank, and Vern off the field. Vern dug his feet into the grass, making them work to move him. He kept screaming the whole time. “Do you know how much suffering goes into every hot dog? Every hamburger? Every chicken wing? The torture must stop! The murder must stop!”
The crowd went insane as we were hauled into the Cowboys’ locker room. Well, Vern was hauled. Frank and I walked. Most of them booed. But a few gave up cheers for Vern and his message.
We didn’t have to worry about getting Vern to the police. There were police right there in the locker room waiting for us. In case you’re wondering, running onto the field during the Super Bowl is illegal.
But not nearly as illegal as killing people. Frank and I convinced the police to check out Vern’s hotel room. There was evidence a rattler had been kept in a cage in the closet. There was also a planter of elephant ear in the bathroom. And a backup of the device that had made the shark go after Jordan’s board.
After they found all that, the police decided to let me and Frank go and concentrate on Vern’s crimes. “So the murder and murder attempts really were about hot dogs, in a weird way,” I said to Frank as we packed up our stuff.
“The evilness of hot dogs,” Frank agreed. “Vern knew if he won the contest, he’d get on TV in front of all the people watching the Super Bowl. That’s all he wanted. Airtime to tell everyone meat is murder.”
“He didn’t seem to care that much that murder is murder too,” I commented.
“Now, I expect you boys to eat properly,” Aunt Trudy said as she placed the lasagna on the table and sat down with the rest of the family. “I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was by your manners when I saw you on television.”
“We had to enter the contest. It was part of the deal when I won the tickets on the radio. And picnic rules weren’t in place,” I told her.
“I don’t know or care what that means,” she said.
“Picnic rules don’t allow for taking food apart or crushing it or dunking it in water during an eating competition,” Mom explained.
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Frank asked her.
I don’t know how he can be surprised at this point. Mom’s a research librarian, and she can come up with facts about pretty much any subject off the top of her head.
“No matter what the rules are, it’s still disgusting, and it looked as if you just weren’t raised right,” Aunt Trudy complained.
“Some people think of it as a sport, Aunt T,” I told her. “Just like football or anything else. It takes training, endurance—”
“Dumbheadedness,” Aunt Trudy cut me off. “And you know what’s even more dumbheadedness, those Vern Ferns.”
“I saw something more about them on the news this morning,” said Dad. “It’s amazing how fast a fan club formed for that boy.”
“That boy who’s a murderer,” Aunt Trudy shot back.
“His message about the way animals are treated before slaughter clearly made a big impression on some people,” Mom commented.
It was true. People were already wearing T-shirts and buttons with MEAT IS MURDER printed on them. Vern had gotten his message out there. And he’d sacrificed a lot to do it. He’d eaten meat, something he thought was deeply immoral. And he’d prepared it. We’d found out he was one of the cooks for the competition where David died.
Frank took a small bite of lasagna. Aunt Trudy smiled at him approvingly. I shook my head. “I still can’t believe you beat me in an eating contest. Everyone knows I’m the best eater in the family,” I said.
“I’m not surprised,” Mom told me.
“How can you say that?” I demanded. “When I’m your favorite!”
She smiled at me. “I love you both the same. But I’m not at all surprised he beat you, and I deserve all the credit.”
“Why you? He’s my son too,” said Dad.
“True,” she answered. “But I’m the one who named him Frank.”
It’s a good thing bad jokes can’t kill you, or Mom would have just taken out the entire Hardy family.
Feeding Frenzy Page 10