Skin and Bones (10 page)

“Where will we be parking?” Frank asked.

“There's a parking area outside the entrance for visitors' cars and tour buses,” Deb said.

“Let's not park in the lot,” Frank suggested. “It might be better if Cody's car wasn't sitting empty in the parking area—just in case.”

The two-lane road curled around deep canyons and up through Mount Tamalpais State Park. At times
Frank felt as if they were riding along the edge of the world.

Then they seemed to plunge into darkness as the road wound through a dark wilderness of trees and brush.

Finally Cody pulled off the road into a secluded grove of eucalyptus trees and parked the car. “We're a couple of miles from the Muir Woods entrance,” he said. “I park here when I come up to mountain bike.”

They all strapped on their backpacks. Cody and Frank pulled on sweatshirts. Joe and Deb tied theirs around their waists. Then they started up the road to Muir Woods.

It took them about half an hour to reach the park entrance. As they approached the visitor center, Frank felt a chill. Cody was right, he told himself. It is cooler in the redwoods.

They bought tickets and headed into the forest. “Take a look at this,” Joe called to Frank. “It's amazing.”

He stood next to an exhibit that was a slice of a tree trunk standing on its side like a wheel. The wood was divided into hundreds of rings. A chart showed how the rings helped define the age of the tree.

Frank was impatient to get moving, so he hustled the others on to the dirt path into the woods. The trees seemed to reach beyond their sight. When
Frank looked up, all he could see were hundreds of huge red-brown trunks. The branches with their green needles didn't start until way above them, and they seemed to form a far-off roof. He could just barely make out small patches of blue-white sky.

There was a group of young schoolchildren ahead on the main path. Otherwise, there were just a few visitors, scattered in twos and threes.

Occasionally they came across an enormous trunk that had fallen across the path. A small sign told them when the tree had fallen, how old it was, and that it would be left alone, as part of the natural evolution of the forest.

“This place is kind of spooky,” Joe whispered. “I feel like I've gone back in time. Like I'm going to suddenly see a T. rex. Or a pterodactyl's going to make a surprise landing.”

It was very quiet. The forest was so ancient, so mysterious, that everyone spoke in low voices.

Frank checked the map the courier had drawn for him. “It's up that way,” he said, pointing. “That's where the delivery guy picked up the package with the anteater claw.”

Frank led Joe, Deb, and Cody on to the upper path for a couple hundred yards. An older woman passed
them going in the opposite direction. No one else was on their path.

Finally Frank stopped. “Okay, we have to leave the path here. Let's do it so no one sees us.”

They glanced around. There was no one in sight. Quickly they stepped off the path through a dense carpet of ferns and into a very dark, secluded area of the forest.

At last they came to the tree that the courier had drawn on the map. “This has to be it,” Frank whispered. “This is where the courier picked up the package.”

Using their flashlights and sticks to brush away the undergrowth, they scanned the area for clues—anything that might lead them to the person who had sent the anteater claw.

But they found nothing. Joe looked up. The forest was so dense in this area that he could see only one tiny patch of sky. A gray-blue veil of fog twisted down through the opening. He could hear occasional crackling noises and faint swishes and scurries. A chill across his shoulders sent his body into a shudder. He untied the sweatshirt and pulled it over his head.

As he looked around, the huge tree trunks made him feel as if he were gazing into a funhouse mirror that had reduced his size.

Joe concentrated his gaze on the ground off to the right. It was different from the forest floor where they stood.

He took a few steps in that direction. The ferns were bent and lying flat on the ground. Fallen tree bark was splintered and smashed. Occasional spots of dirt were stomped. It looked almost as if someone had forged a crude path.

Joe hurried along, following the trail of trampled plants and redwood chips. His breath caught in his throat when he saw blurry impressions in the dirt that might have been footprints.

He moved faster, casting his flashlight beam ahead. Behind him, he heard the others begin to follow.

There was no sound in front of him. Not even the scampering and slithering noises he had heard before. Just the stillness of the forest.

His eyes fixed intently on the flashlight beam, which bounced ahead of him with every footfall. Then something jarred the continuous dark picture of dirt and ferns and chips of redwood bark.

Something very pale glinted at the left edge of the flashlight beam. Joe stopped suddenly and realized he'd been holding his breath. As he took in a gulp of air, he turned the flashlight. He aimed it to capture the ghostly vision.

A thin stream of fog wove in and out of the tree trunks, and it almost seemed to blur Joe's vision as he stared at the pale object. He squinted to get a clearer picture.

As the fog drifted away, Joe's breath caught again. Resting on rust-colored shards of bark was a human skull.

13 A Werewolf Warning

As Joe stared at the human skull, a large brown spider slithered out of one of the eye sockets.

“Looks like something out of the shop, Cody,” Deb added, standing next to Joe.

“Let's take a look,” Cody said, moving ahead.

“Wait!” Frank ordered. “It could be a kind of trap.” He swung his flashlight around, but they saw nothing but tree trunks and ferns. “It's probably not a setup,” Frank added. “But let's be careful, just in case.”

“You three stay here and keep your lights burning,” Joe said. “I'll check it out.”

Cautiously, he moved toward the skull. He took each step very carefully, tapping the ground with his toe first, then setting down his whole foot. When he
got to the skull, he prodded it—very gently—with a stick.

The skull rolled on to its side, and another spider skittered out between two teeth. Finally Joe knelt beside the skull and rolled it a couple of times with the stick. The others joined him then, kneeling on the redwood bark chips.

“I don't see any marks or tattoos on the skull,” Cody said. “Of course, you can remove marks pretty easily from bone. Most bones have a few knicks and dings in them anyway, so shaving off a mark is no big deal.” He carefully wrapped the skull in a rag and put it in his backpack.

“Do we know where we are?” Joe asked, looking around. “We've come pretty far off the park trail.”

Frank got out the Muir Woods map and laid it next to the map drawn by the courier. “We're about here, I think,” he concluded, pointing to the Muir Woods map.

“You're right on, Frank,” Cody said. “In fact, we're not far from a trail that leads to the beach. Dad used to take me fishing down there.”

“I want to keep going this way,” Joe said. “Okay, it's not a path exactly, but someone's been through here—maybe someone who dropped the skull.”

The trail led deeper into the forest about sixty yards, and then the air changed. The heavy dank
smell of wood and forest undergrowth gave way to the crisper air of ocean and fog.

Joe, Frank, Deb, and Cody followed the makeshift trail until they arrived at the edge of a bluff fringed with a wide stand of cypress trees. At last they could put away their flashlights. A steep path led down to a strip of beach.

“Hey, that's not my beach,” Cody said, gazing down from the edge of the bluff. The ocean rolled in around several enormous rocks to a small strip of sand. The rocks served as a windbreak, protecting the small inlet.

“We've come this far,” Joe said, “I'm not stopping now.” He began the steep descent down the bluff. Frank, Deb, and Cody followed.

When they reached the bottom of the bluff, they came to a wire fence. “This probably means this is private property,” Deb pointed out.

“Maybe,” Joe said. “Maybe not.”

“What's this?” Frank asked, stopping suddenly. He reached through the fence. Something had blown up against the other side and was stuck. It looked like a piece of fabric, about six inches square. But Frank was pretty sure it was something much more exotic.

“Cody, you have to see this,” Deb said.

Gingerly Frank peeled the thin scrap off the wire
and pulled it through to his side of the fence. It was tan with a light pink pattern like patchwork. “Snake-skin?” he asked.

“It sure is,” Cody said. “Probably an Argentine pink aboma,” he added. “A pretty strange find out here.”

“Why?” Joe asked.

“They're not native to California,” Cody said.

“So how did it get here?” Frank wondered. “Come on, let's get closer.” He was over the fence in seconds and walking toward a large rocky bluff.

The others followed quickly. They continued walking along the fence, but on the ocean side. As they neared the bluff, Frank stopped, gesturing for the others to be quiet. “Listen,” he whispered. He could hear noises from around the bluff. There were no voices, just a few thuds and slamming noises.

His heart tripping in anticipation, Frank led the others around the bluff. When he reached the point where he could see the other side, he stopped again, holding the others back.

A large speedboat bobbed in the water, tied to a pier next to a small boatshack. As they watched, someone carried a wooden box from the shack onto the boat and disappeared belowdecks.

Using rocks and scrubgrass as shields, Frank, Joe,
Deb, and Cody crept toward the shack. But before they could reach it, the boat zoomed away.

Joe led the way to the shack. The door was padlocked. One window was locked, the other warped tightly shut. After a few minutes Frank and Joe pried it open, using sheer strength and Sergeant Chang's screwdriver.

A faint smell hit them immediately. It was the sweet sickening smell of meat that was old and going bad. It wasn't strong enough to make them gag, but it hung in the air, mingling with the fog that stole in through the window.

“There have been specimens stored in here,” Cody said in a low voice.

“We get stuff sometimes from overseas that isn't cleaned well before it's sent,” Deb told the Hardys. “This smell reminds me of that.”

“Wood shavings—excelsior,” Joe said, picking up a few shreds off the floor.

“Some countries still use this for packing. We get it sometimes with bones,” Deb told him.

“Look, here's something,” Deb cried out from the corner. She shone her flashlight on a piece of paper. It was shaped like a triangle, with two cut edges bordered in navy blue and one ragged edge.

Frank peeled the scrap of paper off the floor and
held it under his light beam. “It looks like a corner torn off some kind of label,” he said.

“There's something on it,” Deb pointed out. “A lowercase
g
and a number two.”

“B-two-g,” Joe said in a whisper. “The code at the mailing station,” he said to Frank.

“Let's get back to town,” Frank said. He was shot through with adrenaline. He felt as if he were straining to look at something from far away and if he could just get closer, he would see it clearly.

The four climbed out the window and retraced their steps down the beach and over the wire fence.

“We can catch Redwood Creek Trail over this way,” Cody said. “It'll get us to the car quicker.”

It took them half an hour, but they finally reached Cody's SUV, still parked safely in the eucalyptus grove.

Back in town, they picked up sandwiches for lunch, and then headed over to Skin & Bones.

There was a faint odor from the fumigation but not enough to bother anyone. They ate quickly, and it was two o'clock when they finished. Cody and Deb took the skull to the lab to clean it to see if they could find any identifying marks.

Joe got on the phone to check with Cody's network to see whether anyone knew anything about the boatshack,
b2g,
or a missing human skull.

Frank booted up the computer in Cody's office to check online public records that would tell him who owned the beach property they had found.

No one made a connection that helped the case.

About three o'clock Dave knocked on the shop door, and Joe let him in. Cody and Deb came down, and they all gathered in the kitchen of Cody's flat.

“Man, it is great to get Mike Brando back behind bars, isn't it?” Dave said. “That weasel.”

“Yeah, but someone else has to be helping him,” Cody reminded Dave. He was interrupted by a loud tapping on the door of Skin & Bones. Deb let in a frantic Jennifer Payton.

“Cody!” Jennifer called up the stairs. “Where are you guys? I need you desperately. You've got to come over to help me finish getting set up. The dress rehearsal's in less than two hours.”

“Remember, Cody,” Frank whispered to his friend, “we're going to check her out while we're over there. Don't let her know how you feel—or even that you know about her buying your building or her plans for the future of this area.”

“What's going on?” Dave asked. “Don't tell me you suspect Jennifer Payton of something.”

“Cody, where
are
you?” Jennifer called again.

“Later,” Cody said to Dave. “It's showtime.”

Cody led the Hardys and Dave down to the shop. “Jennifer, I'm sorry,” he said. “We're on our way.”

“Okay,” she said, hurrying back to the door. “Don't forget your costumes.”

“Costumes?” Dave repeated. “Is this for the charity fund-raiser? Do you have room for me?”

“We always have room for more volunteers,” Jennifer said without turning around.