“Now let’s take a look at your actions. No, I’m not accusing you of setting yourself up, Jason. Boy...that would be the crime twist of the century wouldn’t it? I’ll just ignore that glare and middle digit, Jason. There are two key things here though that would have to affect the execution of the crime. Can you remember exactly when your mindset changed from being with your cousins until 2:00 p.m. or so, as was the original plan, right, to ‘this is ridiculous, I don’t want to sit around wasting two hours watching Vic’s Little League practice, I’m leaving to go home’? And once you had made the decision to leave, why weren’t you on your cell phone, calling your mom or me, or even Mrs. Encino to let her know you were leaving?”
Looking thoughtful, Jason said, “You know, I had forgotten about the cell phone thing. Again, you bring up a good point. I should have been on my cell phone calling people when I decided to leave the park. But it wasn’t working, again, thanks to my cousin. He asked if he could use it to make a calculation to finish the scoring on our batting game—like it would have mattered as he always had things rigged so he would win. That time he generously offered to play against both Kyle and myself—two against one—like the odds were in our favor! When he handed the phone back to me, it was ‘off’ and acted as if the battery was dead. So I couldn’t use it to call anyone. And he doesn’t have a cell phone.”
Daniel said, as he nodded his head up and down, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he used it to send a signal to the kidnappers before he disabled it.”
“Daniel, as far as me wanting to leave, everything changed after Vic announced that he had Little League practice. One of his friends came by and asked Vic if he was getting ready for practice while we were playing his hitting game. At least when we were playing the game, there was something to do. After that I was facing two and a half hours of boredom, watching him practice. And there was Vic telling me, ‘You don’t mind watching our practice for a couple of hours until Mom gets back, do you?’ He has this voice that just gets to me for some reason. I was sure he knew all along that he had the practice. That was just another way for him to act superior to me and put me in my place. It was like he was saying that he was the better athlete so why wouldn’t I want to watch the great Victor Encino practice baseball with his team. And then he had broken my cell phone. By then I just wanted out!”
“So Victor Encino baited you, didn’t he? He seemed to know just how to push your buttons and get you riled up.”
“I guess you are right, Daniel.”
“Ever since I’ve known you, you have talked about how you two just can’t get along. It is so unusual for you, because I never see this behavior with our other friends and acquaintances. And I just have to think that he must have riled you up on purpose. By the way, why did you go to the park that day?”
“Victor and his mom called up and asked me if I would. I didn’t want to go but Mom made me because she insists on maintaining good family relations with the Encinos.”
“Jason, can’t you see it? You were set up by Victor. I don’t know why or what possible link he could have had to your kidnappers, but it’s the only explanation that makes any sense!”
“I hear what you are saying, but as much as I dislike Victor, he still is just a thirteen-year-old kid. It’s hard to believe that he was part of the kidnapping team. I’m sure that the police came to the same conclusion.”
“But think about the Sherlock Holmes quote, Jason. We have eliminated everyone else!”
“It seems obvious now that we need to pay a visit to my favorite second cousin. There has got to be something he knows that we don’t, or a link somehow to the kidnappers through him.”
* * *
It was past 4:30 p.m. and Jason needed to be home by five o’clock. His parents wanted to go out to dinner and then see a movie. Daniel’s parents were having friends over for dinner and they had two kids almost the same age as Daniel, so both boys were looking forward to pleasant evenings with no detective work.
But tomorrow it would be back to work. Daniel and Jason decided that they would meet at Daniel’s house first, and then bike over to visit Victor Encino sometime after 9:30 a.m.
CHAPTER 34
WHAT VICTOR KNEW
(Saturday Morning)
Jason didn’t think his parents would let him go over to the Encino house because he knew his mom, Edith, was still upset that Janet Encino had left Jason alone with her two kids at the park. But he was determined to get some answers out of Victor, so told them he was going over to Daniel’s house, which was true—to a point. Then at Daniel’s house, just as they were leaving, they told Mrs. Holmes that they were going to visit Jason’s cousin, Victor. Not really knowing the history between Victor and Jason, she figured that this would be a normal kid get-together. And besides, they both said they would be back by lunchtime.
When Jason and Daniel arrived at the Encino doorstep, a little before 10:00 a.m., Jason knocked on the door. It took about a minute before the door opened and there stood Victor. Immediately he said, “Jason, why are you here? My mom is out right now.”
“We didn’t come to see your mom. We came to see you. Let us in!”
Reluctantly, Victor stepped aside and Jason and Daniel entered. “What do you want?” Victor demanded in a gruff voice. (Was there possibly some guilt mixed into his reaction?)
Staring directly at his cousin, Jason asked, “I want to know why you set me up that day at the park, Vic.”
“What do you mean?” Vic said in a pouting voice.
“I think you know exactly what I mean. You made a point of making sure that I had to go to the park with you that morning, even though you knew you had Little League practice. Then you baited me until I got angry and left to walk home. Before that, you somehow disabled my cell phone while you were supposedly adding up our scores for your crummy game. Because you did that, I couldn’t call anybody. Then do you know what happened to me?”
“You got taken for a ride and some, uh, what did he call it, attitude adjustment.”
Jason was so infuriated by that remark that without thinking, he punched Victor square in the jaw and knocked him completely to the floor. “You little bastard!” he shouted. “I was put through five days of torture, not ‘attitude adjustment.’ My family and friends were put through five days of pain and suffering too, not knowing what had happened to me. If you don’t tell me exactly what happened and why you did it, I’m going to beat you to a bloody pulp!”
He stooped down and grabbed Victor by the shirt and started to pick him up. “Please don’t hurt me anymore,” Victor cried out. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.”
Jason dropped him back on the floor and ordered, “Get up! Sit down in that chair and start talking!”
With fear in his eyes, Victor got up slowly and backed himself into one of the dining table chairs. There was a little rivulet of blood at the side of his mouth. “You really hurt me,” he whined. “My mouth is bleeding.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, you little punk!” Jason said in a very mean sounding voice.
Daniel, who had been watching this whole scene with his mouth wide open in astonishment, decided to intervene. He put his hands on Jason’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes as he said, “Jason, my friend, let’s turn things down a notch. Why don’t you get a glass of water for your poor cousin?” In an undertone he said, “Jason that was so awesome! From now on you are Jason ‘The Kid’ Hunter! I’ll watch our friend here.”
Mutely, Jason shook his head in agreement and then headed toward the back of the unit. He was looking for the kitchen but instead ended up in the bathroom. As soon as he went in the bathroom, a chill ran up his spine. At first he couldn’t figure out why and then it hit him, This bathroom looks exactly like the one in which I took a shower the last day of my captivity. Stunned he kept looking around and asked himself in disbelief, It couldn’t be, could it?
Jason found a paper cup and filled it with water. Then he went back into the dining area whe
re Victor and Daniel were sitting. He slammed the cup down on the table by Victor as he said, “Here’s your water. Now give!”
“I didn’t know things were going to turn out like they did. It all started out with a bet and a dare between me and my cousin,” Victor began. “One day we were talking about mind-control. I was saying that a baseball player should be able to control his mind if he wanted to play at the top level. Frank, my cousin said, ‘I think the best players can control other people’s minds. Like the batter sending this thought to the pitcher, Toss it right over the plate.’ Then he challenged me by saying, ‘Do you think you could do mind control on someone else? I don’t believe you can!’ Of course this got me mad because I know one day I will be a great baseball player.
“Frank went on, ‘Since you say you can, I challenge you to do mind control on someone a little older than you and someone you don’t get along with, so it will even be more fun if you can do it. I know, what about your cousin Jason? The one I hear you complaining about whenever you two have to do something together. I will give you four chances to do mind control on Jason. Each chance would have to be at a different location in town that I pick. In each case you have to figure out a way to make him leave what you are doing together and walk away back to his house. Now you can’t just insult him or tell him to go home. He has to think it’s his idea! Understand?’ Well, the bet was twenty dollars for me if I could mind-control you. If I couldn’t I had to clean his kitchen for two weeks.
“So we worked out four possible plans. The first one was in City Park and as it turned out, it was successful. The others were at a movie theater and at another park. As it was getting closer to the actual times I had to do the mind control, Frank had raised the stakes. ‘Now, are you sure that you don’t get along very well with Jason?’ When I assured him I didn’t, he said, ‘Tell you what, if you can disable his cell phone while at the same time contacting me that Jason is coming, me and my friend will give him a little attitude adjustment...you know, rough him up just a little so the next time you get together, he won’t be so uppity to you. However, if you say anything about it to anyone, you will probably get put in juvenile hall. If anyone, especially a cop, asks about it, just say you forgot you had Little League practice. You’re a kid. You’re expected to forget things and make mistakes.’
“Frank showed me how to disable any common cell phone by opening the battery compartment and then inserting a tiny piece of scotch tape inside, which I was to keep on a fingernail. All I had to do was put the tape over some of the metal contacts between the battery and the phone itself and it would seem as if the battery went dead. Before I did this, I was to dial Frank’s cell number and immediately hang up. While you thought I was adding up the score to our game, I was actually doing that to your phone,” Victor confessed.
“So, now we know how the kidnappers were able to pinpoint my location in the park when I started to walk out,” Jason sighed. “That and the twenty pieces of silver paid to my cousin Judas here.”
“I didn’t know it was a trick to kidnap you! I really didn’t,” Victor said in a shaky voice, on the verge of tears. “When I talked to Frank the next time I saw him, which was Wednesday, he said, ‘If you ever say a word to anyone about this, you will be sent to juvenile hall and then prison for a very, very long time! The only baseball team you will ever play on will be the San Quentin Lifers. But don’t worry too much. Your cousin, Jason, will soon be free again. Maybe a little worse for the wear, but he will survive. And you will be off the hook at that point unless you tell anyone.’ ”
“This is unbelievable!” Daniel exclaimed. “I’m going out and buying the complete works of Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“Tell us more about this cousin Frank of yours, Victor. Where does he live? How old is he? What does he do for a living? The works!” Jason demanded.
“His name is Frank Encino. He is my cousin from my father’s side of the family. He’s in his early twenties and he works odd jobs—most of the time for our Great Uncle Fabian Ricardo. He lives right next door in the other unit of our duplex with his roommate, Rudy Ruggiero. Rudy is a part-time student and he also works at the public library.”
“Does he by any chance own a van?” Jason continued.
“Yes, he does. It is usually kept in the garage, but sometimes he uses it for gardening jobs or odd jobs he does for Mr. Ricardo.”
Jason continued, “Tell us about the other duplex unit. Is it pretty much like this one?”
“It pretty much is. This duplex was built by my grandfather, Victor Encino, back in the 1950s. My father told me that the places look almost identical inside because Grandfather bought everything in bulk when he was building it. The back unit also has a basement room that this unit doesn’t have. Apparently Grandfather was afraid that an atom bomb was going to fall here sometime and so he started building that basement as a shelter room.”
Daniel and Jason looked at each other in astonishment, silently asking each other, It couldn’t be this easy could it?
“Is your cousin Frank home right now or does he work on Saturdays?” Jason asked.
“Yeah, he works most Saturdays. You can tell by whether the van is in the garage.”
“All right, Victor,” Jason said, still using his mean voice. “This is what I want you to do. You need to go to your room, shut the door, and stay there all day. Do not go out of that room for anything! Do you understand?”
“Yes, just leave me alone!” Victor whined as he scurried up to his room and slammed the door shut.
Once Victor was out of sight, Jason turned and said, “Daniel, I’ve got to get into the unit next door and check out that basement. If it is where I was held, we have everything we need to close out this case and bring in the police! Obviously I don’t want to be seen since they know me. But they don’t know you. Can you go out there and see if there is a van in the garage? I’ll wait here.”
“Okay, Jason, I’ll go check.”
Daniel went outside and down the driveway to where there were two small garages. They each had an old fashioned-type folding door that had little glass windows in them. Not knowing which one belonged to the other unit, Daniel peered inside both and they were empty.
He went back to the front unit and after entering, announced to Jason, “They both appear to be empty.”
“Good, the odds are better now. It looks like Frank Encino is gone, which means that just his roommate Rudy might be home. What we need is for you to create a diversion. Something to get him out of the house or focused on something inside. While that is going on, I will sneak inside and look in the basement. You’ll have to keep him busy for at least ten minutes in order to give me enough time to sneak in and get out again.”
Shaking his head, Daniel said, “Jason, you don’t need to take this risk. I think we have enough information now to get the police involved. For the first time we actually have an explanation as to the how and where your kidnapping was arranged. That alone should get their attention. Plus, what we figured out about the ransom timeline and now we have the real crime, the safe deposit box theft.”
“Unfortunately, the problem is that our one witness right now is Victor and you know how reliable he is. Plus, I went and slugged him to get him to talk so the police aren’t going to give his confession a lot of credibility without more solid evidence.
“Daniel, we are so close to the end of this case! I can feel it. Now we need the clinching evidence. If that basement room is the one, there is bound to be forensic evidence, plus my own eyewitness account from when I was held captive. You got me into this so don’t back down now!”
“All right, Jason, I’ll do my best. What can we use for the diversion?”
“I have an idea,” Jason said. “Let’s grab their trash can and spill it all over the driveway and street. Then you go knock on the door and tell Rudy you were biking down the street and nearly fell off your bike avoiding it. Bring him outside and show him the mess and then offer to help him clean everything u
p. Say you are a Boy Scout or something, working on an environmental merit badge. Then ask him if you can have a glass of water. That will get you inside and in the kitchen. Keep talking to him until you finish the water. I will phone you on your cell when I have snuck back outside. Then just pretend it is your parents and leave.”
“That’s pretty threadbare for a scheme, but it should work,” Daniel agreed.
“Come, Holmes, come! The game is afoot!” Jason imitated good old Sherlock.
CHAPTER 35.
KNOW THINE ENEMIES
(Saturday)
Jason and Daniel silently removed both garbage cans that were sitting at the end of the driveway and took them out to the street. They then tossed everything out, creating quite a mess. When they were done, Jason went and hid behind some bushes that were near the front door to the back unit of the duplex, while Daniel went up to the front door and rang the doorbell.
About a minute later, the door opened and Daniel stood facing Rudy. Gulping, Daniel sized up Rudy to be about six feet tall, a little heavy set, with thick eyebrows and lips, which gave him sort of a brutish look when combined with his dark, matted hair and at least two days growth of beard. “What do you want?” Rudy demanded in a surly voice. “I’m not interested in buying anything.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Daniel said in his most polite voice, “but I think your garbage cans have spilled onto the street. It’s quite a mess out there and I had to come to a screeching halt on my bicycle to avoid hitting it.”
The Kidnapping Page 18
