Gold Medal Murder (5 page)

She pulled three small gold badges from her bag, each in the shape of the Olympic torch.

“These will get you in pretty much anywhere, so you've got free reign to check out the competitions, the backstage areas, the locker rooms, everything.”

“Thanks!” we all said at the same time.

“Thank you!” said Lexi. “I feel so much better already, just knowing you're here.”

There was something in her voice that made me worried. I put down my fork, the last piece of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Chocolate Pie” still on it.

“Has something happened?” My spidey senses were tingling.

Lexi looked around the restaurant for a moment, making sure no one was within earshot. Then she pulled something else out of her bag.

“This afternoon someone hid all these crazy snake robots in Scott's house to try and freak us out. And I found this in my locker yesterday,” she half-whispered.

She handed me a long, dead rose. I unfolded the piece of paper that was tied to it. It was a photo of Lexi, ripped out of a magazine and torn in half in the process. On it had been scrawled four lines:

ROSES ARE RED
,

VIOLETS ARE BLUE.

THIS ROSE IS DEAD
,

SOON YOU WILL BE TOO
.

It took hours for everything to calm down, even after the “snakes” were removed. After Frank, Alex Smothers, Vijay, Lexi, and her dad all left, Lee, Scott, and I began to clean the house. And this wasn't just a light dusting and vacuuming job. This was hours of work. Scott wasn't just neat—he was a total neat freak. Aunt Trudy would have loved him. By the time we were done, I thought I was going to pass out from the smell of bleach.

But finally we were alone, just Scott and I. Cleaning seemed to calm Scott down, and he was able to sit down for a little while. He brought out two glasses of raspberry seltzer water—his only “treat” while in training—and of course, two coasters to put them on. Then we got down to business.

“I need to know your schedule for the next few days—down to the minute.”

“That's pretty easy,” he said. “Up at five, eat and shower by five thirty, then in the gym until noon. Then it's over to the Olympic Village, either for publicity stuff, team training, or more footage for the documentary. Then I'm back here at six, dinner by seven, bed by eight.”

As Scott broke down the day, I wrote it all up. It sounded like keeping track of him was going to be easy.

“And that's it?” I said.

“Well, I'll probably take a few breaks to see Lexi. And there is an Olympic gala next week that I'll have to go to. Oh, and I think Lee has me scheduled for a few nighttime press gigs. I might be hosting
Saturday Night Live via
satellite, did you hear?”

“So… that's your schedule, except when it isn't your schedule at all?”

“Right.”

“And you're not sure exactly when any of these other things will be?”

“Right.”

Maybe I had spoken too soon.

“Hey, you know what's weird?” said Scott, looking at me strangely.

“What?” I couldn't help but be excited—had he noticed something amid the snake incident that would clue us in to who had done it?

“You and that Frank guy—you look weirdly similar. I mean, if you worked at it, you could even be brothers.”

I felt my stomach sink. I knew this idea of one of us going undercover was ridiculous. There was no way anyone could see the two of us and not realize Frank and I were brothers. I laughed to cover up my nervousness.

“Yeah, that's weird all right. Hey, so… ATAC told me that you've been getting hate mail, right? Why don't we look at that now. Maybe we'll find a clue.”

I needed a change of subject, fast. Thankfully, Scott didn't seem to care. He walked out of the room and came back lugging a giant cardboard box. He gently set it on the table in front of us. It was filled to the brim with letters, postcards, and random sheets of paper.

“Wow, all of this, huh?”

“Oh, this is just the last month or two. I bring it down to a storage facility every once in a while.”

“And all of it's hate mail?”

“Yep. I keep the fan mail separate. Thankfully, there's more of that then there is of this junk. This I try not to think about too much.”

I couldn't believe the number of letters in the box. I pulled out a random handful. Some were typed, others handwritten, in everything from crayonlike scrawl to neat, penmanship-class perfect script. I even saw one that was the classic ransom note, made of letters cut out from magazines.

“Has it always been like this?” I asked.

“Well, I've been getting threats ever since I first started competing at the world level, when I was fifteen. But it's gotten worse since my laptop was stolen a few months ago. Whoever did it put my address and phone number up on the Internet, and ever since then, the amount of mail I've gotten has tripled. I moved and changed my number, and that made it better for a while. But last week I got this.”

He reached into the box and pulled out a DVD. He turned on his giant sixty-four-inch flat screen television and slipped in the disc. There was a burst of static and then an image appeared on the screen. First it was Scott training. Then it was him sitting in a café. Then it was him in his kitchen. In his car. The images just kept coming, one after another, all eerily silent. I could tell by his haircut and the house that they were all recent. The final scene was of Scott, in his bed, asleep. The screen went black, and then a message appeared in white text.
I'M WATCHING YOU. DROP OUT OF THE OLYMPICS, OR ELSE
.

“After I watched that, I called you guys.”

I was silent for a moment. This was some scary stuff—way worse than any hate mail could ever be, for sure. And it was my job to figure out who this sociopath was.

“Whoever did this has some pretty complete access to your life, Scott. We need to make a list of who could
have gotten this footage. Who has keys to your house?”

Scott shook his head.

“Uh-uh. No way someone I knew would do this, man. These are my friends we're talking about.”

“Someone did it. And whoever it was was able to get into your house while you were asleep. This is serious, Scott. We need to make a list of potential suspects.”

“It's not possible!”

Scott was on his feet now, pacing. This was getting him upset, I could tell, and that was the last thing I wanted. Whoever was doing this was trying to rattle him before the Olympics, to make him lose. I needed to get the information from him and keep him calm.

“Scott, they might not know they were helping this person. Maybe their keys were stolen, or they let in someone they thought was supposed to be in the house, or something. But the list of people who have access to your house is the only starting point we have.”

Scott stopped pacing.

“Okay. Well… there's Lee, of course. But he wants me to win more than I want me to win. And Lexi—but it isn't her, I can tell you that. That's about it, really. There was a cleaning service, but I fired them. I found I did it better myself.”

He cleaned this whole house by himself, every day? He really was crazy. I thought having a maid would be, like, the best part of being rich.

I made a note to look into Lee and Lexi some more. But I had to agree with Scott, neither seemed likely.

“How about any enemies?”

Scott made a face.

“I'll take that as a yes. Who is he?”

“She. Elisa von Meter. She was my manager until last year. That's when Lee went from being my coach to being my coach
and
manager. Since then, it seems like Elisa has made her living off of doing interviews about what a terrible person I am. Now she's announced she's writing some ‘tell-all' celebrity biography of me.”

This sounded familiar. I felt like there was more to this story, but I couldn't remember what I had read about it. I made a note to follow up on it later.

“Why did you fire her?”

“We had some… personal issues, and I had to let her go last year.” Scott wouldn't look me in the eye when he said it. There was definitely more to this story.

“Personal issues?”

“Yeah. You know—just, stuff.”

It was clear I was going to have to do some digging into this on my own. I got her address and phone number from Scott.

“Anyone else you'd put on the enemy list?”

“Jeez… half the swimmers at the Olympics? I mean, no offense to them, but I'm the guy to beat. They're all after me.”

“Then why only half?”

“The other half are women. They don't really care how I do.” He laughed. “Look, I have to get to bed; tomorrow's a long day. There's going to be a big photo op at the Olympic Arena with all the other American athletes, and then individual press stuff. And I still have to get in all my training. So is that enough for now?”

I looked at my list. Lee, Lexi, and Elisa. Three names. It wasn't a lot to go on, but it would do for the moment.

“Sure,” I said, and gathered up my stuff to head back to the hotel room ATAC had gotten me. “See you in the morning.”

The Olympic Arena was an amazing building set right in the heart of downtown LA. It was really a whole complex of stadiums, pools, and tracks, all built beneath a giant glass roof. It looked sort of like a green house, except instead of a simple peaked roof, the glass ceiling here was in the shape of the Olympic torch itself.

As Scott and I walked through the main doors, heads turned. We'd already been plagued by autograph seekers for the length of the short walk from the car to the door. Now it was the professionals—journalists and paparazzi.

“Scott! Hey Scott!”

“Over here, Scott!”

“Can I ask you a few questions, Mr. Trevor?”

“Are you ready to break the record for the most Olympic gold medals won by an individual athlete?”

At that last question, Scott turned to the reporter and gave a goofy grin and a big thumbs-up. Tomorrow, that picture would be all over the newspapers.

I've always thought I was in pretty good shape. Being a superspy and all, I get a lot of exercise. But this place was filled with… with giants and amazons and freakishly strong-looking men and women! Often you could tell their sport just by looking at them. Legs like steel pillars? Track. Biceps bigger than my head? Discus. Doing a stretch that seemed to simultaneously dislocate their hips, neck, legs, and spine? Gymnastics.

Frank was there as well. I caught his eye and he nodded, but that was it. With Scott already a little suspicious, it seemed best not to spend too much time near him. We just went our own ways, each subtly keeping an eye on Scott. Not that I thought that anything could happen to him here, in the middle of all these people, but still—better safe than sorry.

For about an hour, all of the athletes “trained” in front of the cameras. Scott would dive in the water, swim a little ways, get a dozen or so photos taken, and then repeat the whole thing. All around the stadium, other athletes were doing the same thing, so that the papers and TV crews would have some good shots for the coming days of competition. Finally, all of the athletes
changed into their official Team USA jumpsuits, which were white with red and blue piping around the wrists, necks, and ankles. Then they got together in front of the pillar that would eventually hold the Olympic torch, which was fittingly shaped like the Statue of Liberty. This was the final group photo. After this, it would be time for some real training.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” came on, and everyone in the auditorium stood with their hands over their hearts as the television cameras rolled. Suddenly, the sound cut out. There was a high-pitched feedback explosion, and then Scott's voice came rolling out of the speakers.

“This whole thing is a joke. I could whip any of those other athletes. And don't even get me started on my teammates—lazy, good-for-nothing.”

For the first few seconds, people were frozen. But as Scott's voice droned on, insulting the Olympics and his team, people started gasping, laughing, and shouting. Loudest of all was Scott himself.

“What the? I never said any of that! Someone turn this off!”

Worst of all, the television cameras were all still rolling. I knew what the headlines of tomorrow's papers were going to be. This was a public relations nightmare. Even though it sounded like Scott's voice, I couldn't believe he would say all of these things. Something wasn't right, and I had to put a stop to it.

I ran to the audio booth from which the sound was being projected. There was no one in it. I looked over all the equipment. Finally, I spotted a blinking green light on what I guessed to be a CD player. I jammed the eject button, and Scott's voice finally cut out. I grabbed the CD. I wanted to take a closer look at it.

I heard someone behind me. As I turned around, a voice called out.

“Joe Hardy! I thought that was you.”

“Whoa! Sweet ride, Nance.” Joe let out a long whistle.

He was right—her car was hot! It was a pimped out sky blue convertible hybrid! I'd never seen anything like it.

“This is not standard issue,” said Joe, exploring the electronics along the dashboard.

“Nope,” said Nancy. “This is a specialty model. One of a kind, thanks to these two.” She pointed to Bess and George.

“You guys did this?” said Joe. “I love a girl who knows her way around an engine!” He wiggled his eyebrows at Bess, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

“All right, enough flirting,” I said. “Get in the back. The last thing we need is for you and I to be seen together!”
If a picture of the two of us together got out, my cover would be blown. ATAC would not like that. And there were media types all over the place. Thankfully, they'd been a bit too busy covering Scott's exit from the Olympic Arena to pay any attention to us, but still, I didn't want to take any chances. He'd shot out of there faster than I'd ever seen him go, and given his world records, that was saying a lot.