A Will to Survive (4 page)

Frank finished reading and turned back to the first page. “Joe!” he gasped. “This was written just under two years ago. Parent's birthday is a week from yesterday—that's next Monday—and now Tanya is worried that the center may fail. What if Walter Parent is somehow reaching from beyond the grave to
make
it fail!”

“Come off it, Frank,” Joe scoffed. “Are you trying to tell me some ghost went downstairs last night and shoved around that stuffed elk?”

“Of course not. But ghosts can have help, you know,” Frank retorted, stung by his brother's sarcasm. “What if Parent arranged for someone to keep an eye on the center to make sure it stayed in tune with his ideas after he died?”

“I get it,” Joe said. “And if Tanya and her board strayed from the true path, Parent's watchdog—whoever he or she is—would be set to start a campaign of sabotage. That way, Parent's prediction about the center's failure would come true. It's possible, I guess, but it's pretty twisted.”

“From everything we've heard and read, Parent himself was a bit twisted,” Frank pointed out. “And what about his thing for puzzles? He loved
solving them, and he loved stumping other people with them. Well, there's a real puzzle to set for everybody. How can a man who's started an organization go on controlling it after he's dead?”

“With something like a delayed-action fuse,” Joe said. “Like that bomb they found in Europe a few weeks ago. It was from all the way back in World War II, but it was still dangerous.”

Callie appeared on the front steps. She spotted Frank and Joe and waved. Frank waved back and motioned for her to join them.

“I've been looking for you guys,” Callie said, settling down on the grass. “I tried to catch you after the seminar, but Bruce got to you first. Joe, everybody's talking about your run-in with Carl during the night.”

“What are they saying?” Joe asked warily.

“Some of them are wondering what Carl was doing downstairs at that hour, and some are wondering what
you
were doing downstairs at that hour,” Callie replied.

“Did you happen to speak to Sal?” Joe asked. “Funny thing—when I got up to get a glass of water, he was gone. I wouldn't mind knowing where he was.”

“Sorry, can't help you,” Callie said. “Why don't you ask him?”

“I will,” Joe said. “But I need to figure out how to do it without sounding too much like a detective and blowing our cover.”

“Do you think you'll get anywhere with this case?” Callie asked.

“We're already getting somewhere,” Frank replied. “The problem is, we're not quite sure where.” He told her about the hidden compartment in the exhibit room wall, the call from the television station, and the threat in Parent's last letter.

As she listened, Callie plucked a blade of grass and chewed on it. “Hmm,” she said, when Frank finished. “So you think maybe Parent asked somebody to see if the center carried out his wishes and to take steps if the answer was no. If you're right, there's an obvious suspect.”

Frank nodded. “I know. Bruce Rotan, Parent's right-hand man. In fact, if we're right about the reason for the harassment, and if it couldn't have been done by someone from outside the center, he looks like the
only
suspect. The interns are probably too young to have known Parent, and I don't see Tanya trying to wreck the center when she's put so much of herself into building it.”

“I don't like it,” Joe said, shaking his head. “It's
too
obvious. Besides, how could Parent have been so sure Bruce would go on working here?”

“Easy,” Callie said. “What if Parent told Tanya that he wanted Bruce to stay on? Suppose he even made it a requirement? It was his house and land, after all.”

“We can check that easily enough,” Frank said. “We'll ask Tanya. Callie, do you get along okay with
Bruce? Could you look for a chance to chat with him? Find out how he feels about the center's program, ask him what Walter Parent was like to work for, stuff like that.”

“I can handle that,” Callie said. “What are you planning to do next?”

“Work at getting to know the other guys,” Frank said. “One of them might have some link to Parent after all.”

“Or the sabotage might not have anything to do with Parent,” Joe pointed out. “We'd better not make up our minds too soon.”

From inside the mansion came the faint sound of a bell.

“Lunchtime,” Callie said, getting to her feet.

The Hardys followed her inside and downstairs to the dining room. The fixings for salads and sandwiches were arrayed on a table at one end of the room. A gray-haired woman in a white apron came from the kitchen with a basket of chips in each hand.

“Hi, Maureen,” Callie said. “I want you to meet my friends Frank and Joe. I talked them into joining the intern program. Maureen is the one who keeps the rest of us sane and well fed.”

“Go on with you,” Maureen said. Her cheeks turned pink. She looked over the table. “And here I am listening to your nonsense and forgetting to set out the vegetable sticks and dip!”

“Maureen's great,” Callie told Frank and Joe.
“Not only is she a good cook, she's always in an upbeat mood. It's hard to stay gloomy around her. And wait till you taste her peach cobbler!”

They filled plates and took them to the table. Sal sat by himself at one end. Joe took the chair next to him. Frank and Callie sat across from him.

“Hey,” Joe said. “You missed the excitement last night.”

“I heard about that,” Sal replied. “I don't know what you're going to think about this place. First you have to stop someone from braining me with a shovel. Then somebody jumps you in the middle of the night and tries to strangle you.”

“What happened?” Frank asked, laying a trap for Sal. “Were you so tired that you slept through all the hoo-ha?”

Sal didn't fall into it. “Not exactly,” he said. He hesitated, then went on. “The fact is, sometimes I wake up at night and the only way I can get back to sleep is to go down the hall and take a shower. That's what I did last night. With the water running, I didn't hear a thing. And then, as soon as I was done, I plopped back into bed and was out like a light.”

“It's funny I didn't hear the water running when I left the room to go downstairs,” Joe said with a casual tone in his voice.

“Well, maybe I had already turned the water off.” Sal glared at Joe.

“I'll have to try taking a shower the next time I
can't sleep,” Callie said as if to break the tension. “It sounds a lot easier than coming all the way down here for a glass of milk.”

After eating in silence for a full minute, Joe decided to try another tack.

“What brought you to Shorewood, Sal?” he asked. “How did you find out about it?”

“I've always been into nature,” Sal replied. “I've had pets and my own patch of garden since I was little. So when my uncle told me about this internship program, it seemed like a natural.”

“Your uncle?” Frank asked.

Sal tossed his head to get a stray lock of hair off his forehead. “Yeah, Uncle Pete. He's got a landscape business. He used to do a lot of work around this place for old Mr. Parent. That's how he came to clue me in to the program. You might say he knew about it before it even existed. When we got together at Thanksgiving and all, he'd talk about Parent's plans for the estate. Some of them were pretty wild, I can tell you.”

Frank remembered the wolf packs and the refuge for whales and nodded. “Does your uncle still do work around here?”

“Not much,” Sal replied. “I guess the people who took over after Mr. Parent died wanted to pick their own landscapers. Too bad. Uncle Pete does first-class work, and this was one of his biggest accounts.”

“Losing it must have been a blow,” Callie observed.

Sal shrugged. “A blow to his pride, sure. But he's not hurting for business, let me tell you. All these big new houses going up, they look like nothing without nice lawns and shrubs around them. And once you spend the bucks to put in lawns and shrubs, you don't trust their care to some kid down the block. You bring in a pro, like my uncle.”

Callie finished her salad and stood up. “I'll see you guys later,” she said. “I've got some errands to do.”

“Yeah, same here,” Sal said. He stacked his knife, fork, paper cup, and wadded-up napkin on his plate and carried them over to the trash.

“So, what do you think?” Joe asked Frank in an undertone.

“His uncle has a motive to resent the center,” Frank replied. “And Parent could have asked him to keep an eye on what happened here and make sure that it stayed in line with his plans. Maybe Sal's uncle urged Sal to become an intern so he would have someone on the inside.”

“I wonder if anybody heard the shower running in the middle of the night,” Joe said.

“So far we know two people who didn't,” Frank pointed out. “You and me. That doesn't prove anything, though. The bathroom is down the hall and around a corner from the bedrooms. Let's go find Tanya. I'd like to get her take on Sal's uncle Pete.”

Tanya was in her office. Frank asked his question.

A look of surprise crossed Tanya's face. “Sal is
Pete Talignani's nephew?” she said. “I had no idea. Not that it makes any difference.”

“According to Sal, it cost his uncle a lot of business when the center took over the estate,” Joe said. “Were there any hard feelings?”

“Oh, I don't think so,” Tanya replied. “Talignani is very good at what he does, but he's more accustomed to lawns and gardens than to wild habitats. He recognized that as quickly as we did.”

“So he wouldn't have any reason to want to undermine the work of the center?” Frank asked.

“I don't think so,” Tanya said. “Though to be frank, I can't imagine why anyone would want to undermine our work. We do so much good, and we do not harm anyone.”

“Yesterday you mentioned some protests from neighbors,” Joe said.

Tanya dismissed the protesters with a wave of her hand. “One never has unanimous approval for anything,” she said. “I have even had letters complaining that the presence of stuffed animal specimens in our dioramas is an insult to the dignity of nonhuman species. I send them a polite note thanking them for their suggestions and think no more about it.”

“Do you still have these letters?” Frank asked. “One of the writers might be upset or unbalanced enough to do something. We should check this out.”

“I'll hunt them up and put them aside for you,” Tanya promised.

“Oh, another thing,” Joe said. “Whose idea was it for Bruce to stay on as your assistant?”

“Mine,” Tanya replied, sounding surprised. “It seemed an obvious move. Why?”

“Parent didn't will him to you?” Frank pursued. “Tell you to be sure to keep him on, or something like that?”

Tanya shook her head decisively. “Not at all. If anything, I believe he was becoming distinctly cool to Bruce toward the end. Not that that means anything. Walter had more than his share of whims.”

In the hallway, a buzzer sounded.

“We're opening for the afternoon,” Tanya said. “Is there anything else? I have some calls to make.”

“No, that's it for now,” Frank said. He and Joe left her office. As they started down the corridor toward the entrance hall, they heard a confused murmur that turned into shouts and screams.

“Come on,” Joe said, breaking into a run.

Frank followed his brother in the direction of the exhibit rooms. As they crossed the entrance hall, half a dozen people came bursting out of the first exhibit room. They were coughing and holding their hands over their faces. One of them was Wendy.

“What is it?” Frank asked her urgently. “What happened?”

Gasping, Wendy did not answer. Weakly, she waved her hand in the direction of the doorway.

Frank and Joe forced their way through the small
crowd and dashed through the first exhibit room to the entrance to the second.

From the doorway, Frank looked around urgently. Was one of the trash baskets in flames? Had a pipe broken and caused a flood? Was there a poisonous snake under one of the display cases?

Nothing seemed wrong. Relieved, Frank took a deep breath. Immediately, he felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. The room reeked with the gut-wrenching stench of skunk.

“Yuck!
Let's get out of here!” Joe pressed his cupped hands over his nose and mouth. It didn't help. The terrible smell seeped through his tightly closed fingers.

He and Frank ran back to the entrance hall. Wendy had thrown open the large front doors. The visitors she had been guiding, wide-eyed and pale, were outside on the lawn. Two little groups were already hurrying in the direction of the public parking lot.

“Our attendance figures are going to drop through the basement this afternoon,” Frank muttered.

“Maybe that's the idea,” Joe replied. The air flowing in the doors felt sweet and fresh. He took a deep breath. Mistake—a change in the breeze
brought him a new wave of skunk smell from behind him.

“What on earth—” Bruce came rushing down the hall from the office wing. Tanya was close behind him.

Bruce dashed into the exhibit rooms and immediately ran out again. “Where's Carl?” he demanded, choking. “We're going to need his help.”

“He's on his way,” Tanya replied. “I gave him an urgent beep on the way out of my office.”

As she spoke, Joe spotted the khaki-clad caretaker striding across the lawn toward the house. He hurried up the steps and took a sniff. “Had a little visitor, did we? How did the critter get inside?”

“We'll worry about that later,” Bruce said. “Get the windows open in there and see about setting up some fans.”