The Hidden Valley Mystery

by Susan Ioannou

  CHAPTER 9 – Early

  Once Mike and Gunnar had crossed the footbridge, they sat on a large rock in the river bank to catch their breath.

  “So, Einstein, your theory was right,” Mike slapped Gunnar’s knee.

  “Of course,” Gunnar chuckled, and elbowed him back.

  “Now you can make lots of money collecting lost balls from the woods. Just look after 8:00 at night.”

  “Sure,” Gunnar nodded. “But what I really want is to find out what those men were carrying.”

  Mike straightened. He raised his right arm, and flexed the muscle. “Yeah,” he grunted, “It sure looked heavy, like maybe some sort of machinery.”

  “Maybe a printing press?” Gunnar suggested. “That would explain the fake $100 bills I found under the tree.”

  Mike dropped his arm. He thought of the presses in Theo Lazo’s shop. They were metal monsters, too sprawling and heavy for even two or three men to lift. “No way,” he laughed. “You’d need a forklift to move something that big!”

  “Unless,” Gunnar thought for a moment, “they could use something smaller.”

  “Right!” Mike exclaimed. “Maybe they took it in sections to avoid suspicion. No factory would deliver a big printing press to somebody’s house, even if it was a mansion. That would give it away.”

  “Who’s talking about a proper delivery?” Gunnar picked up a small stone from the bank. He took aim at a leaf floating along on the current. “We’re dealing here with crooks. The press was probably stolen.”

  Mike picked up a pebble to throw too. “Well, if they took the machinery apart, they could file off any serial numbers too.”

  “Do all that in a five-minute robbery?” Gunnar laughed and punched Mike’s shoulder. “Get real. Anyway, whatever they’re doing, it looks pretty fishy. Otherwise, why would they be sneaking around at 6:00 A.M.?” Gunnar threw his stone. It splashed into the leaf and sank.

  “Bull’s eye!” Mike tossed his own pebble into the air.

  Gunnar clasped his arms around his knees. He gazed across the river.

  “Well?” Mike swivelled to face him, “What’s next?”

  “Breakfast!” Gunnar jumped up. “Come to my house, and I’ll feed you a bowl of home made muesli.”

  Mike licked his lips. “You bet.”

  Two hours later, with the taste of honeyed oatmeal and raisins still on his tongue, Mike dashed into the kitchen. His mother, decked out in her green polka-dot dress, sat at the small table. As she rummaged through her black purse, her hands shook.

  “Mom, why are you up so early?” Mike asked.

  Mrs. Steriou peered into her purse. “I am going to church,” she muttered, “when I find my subway token.”

  “Where’s Dad?” Mike asked. “Won’t he drive you?”

  “Here it is!” Mrs. Steriou exclaimed, holding up the little silver disk. She snapped her purse shut, and frowned at Mike. “While you were finding golf balls with Gunnar, Papa got a phone call from Theo Lazo. Something about moving machinery, to get the shop ready for new work tomorrow. He had to help.”

  “Really?” Mike’s eyes widened. Theo Lazo had said nothing like that to him. What was up?

  “Your poor Papa,” Mrs. Steriou fretted. “Awake before dawn again. He works so hard all week. Sunday is his only day to sleep late. Except for those new neighbours. Bad people, with bad friends.”

  Mike laid his hand on her shoulder. He hated to see her upset. “What happened, Mom?”

  “Before even 6:00 A.M., a man came in an old van. He started honking and honking. Such a lazybones. Why couldn’t he act like a civilized person and knock, quietly, at their door? His honking woke Mrs. Mallo too.”

  “A van?” Mike leaned closer. “What colour, Mom?”

  “I don’t know, Michael,” she replied. “By the time your Papa climbed from bed to yell out the window, it was screeching down the street.” She fiddled with the handle of her purse. “I wish those awful people would move away. They leave beer bottles on the lawn. And late at night they play the radio loud. Often I hear yelling, and a dog barking. It’s good your bedroom is at the back of the house. At least they don’t wake you like your poor Papa.”

  “Forget about them, Mom,” Mike tried to calm her. “‘Tell you what. I’ll take the subway with you, and get off at Theo Lazo’s shop. That printing equipment is pretty heavy. I bet he and Dad could use a hand.”

  Mrs. Steriou brightened. “You’re a good boy, Mike.” She smiled, and stood up.

  Before she could kiss him, he darted to open the door.

  CHAPTER 10 – Break-in

  “Mike! It is good to see you,” Theo Lazo bellowed from the back of the printing shop. He wiped his brow. “Right now, we sure can use a strong pair of hands like yours. Isn’t that so, Georgio?” He slapped Mr. Steriou on the back.

  Mike stared. Paper and film were strewn everywhere. Behind the counter, yanked to the floor, his uncle’s desk drawers spilled out files, pencils, invoices, rubber bands. The light table tilted against the filing cabinet, its black stool upside down. At the back of the shop, Theo Lazo and Mr. Steriou leaned against a large metal printing press.

  “What happened?” Mike rustled his way through the papers on the floor.

  “A break in.” His father shook his head. “Stupid people. They make such a mess, for what?” He threw his hands in the air. “There’s nothing here to take. Theo Lazo keeps no cash in the shop on weekends.”

  “The robbers wouldn’t know that,” Mike said. He once saw his father hide the restaurant cash overnight in an old sugar sac in the storeroom.

  “The police detective said maybe they wanted some parts—like this one.” Theo Lazo lifted a loosened chunk of machinery from the biggest press.

  Mike stared at its spiked gears. “Is that a counter of some kind?” he asked.

  “Yes, Mike. I use it for printing business cheques and invoices, when each one must be stamped with a different serial number.”

  “Like money?” Mike asked. Maybe his theory about the counterfeiters was right. Maybe they were stealing a printing press in pieces.

  Theo Lazo laughed. “Mike, my little shop is not The Royal Canadian Mint. I told the police detective that too. I explained to him how my big presses are too old. Their parts don’t fit into the modern, fancy machines the big printing plants use today. That’s why I bought the computer equipment. As I explained to your papa, I had to get more up to date. I need some high technologies—that ‘desktop publishing’—in my business.”

  Mike’s face fell. So much for his theory. He stared as Theo Lazo’s big, blackened hands wedged the part back into place and tightened it with a screwdriver. “So that’s why the robber stopped....” Mike muttered.

  “Hey,” Mr. Steriou stepped closer. He raised Mike’s chin with his fist and looked into his son’s eyes. “Why you so interested anyway?”

  “Gee, Dad, I work with Theo Lazo. So, I care,” Mike stammered. “And speaking of work, I’d better start cleaning up these papers, or we won’t even get home by supper time.”

  * * * * *

  It was past 8:00 before the men sat around the Steriou’s small kitchen table.

  “Have more baklava, Theo Lazo.” Mrs. Steriou passed the dessert plate to her uncle.

  “Thank you, my dear Effie, but I am full, right up to here,” Theo Lazo pointed to his chin. “Besides, it is late. I must get home to your Thea Elenie. Give the last piece of baklava to Mike. I know how much his big appetite enjoys your good cooking.” He nodded across the table. “Besides, he earned it, working like a Trojan horse to clean up the shop today.”

  “Sure, he works hard.” Mr. Steriou slapped Mike’s shoulder. “He’s my son!”

  “And mine too!” Mrs. Steriou smiled and opened her arms toward Mike.

  Oh no, Mike cringed, was she going to hug him in front of Theo Lazo? Luckily, he heard a familiar knock at the side door. “I’ll get it!” he cried, and jumped free of his mother’s grasp. “That’s probabl
y Gunnar or Freddy.” Saved again!

  In the dark driveway stood Gunnar and Tuan. “Hi, guys,” Mike greeted them. “Where’s Freddy?”

  Gunnar grinned. “Take a guess.”

  Closing his eyes, with clasped hands Tuan twirled around. “He’s with his darling Maria, of course. Out for an evening stroll. We saw them down near Gunnar’s house.”

  Mike slumped through the door, disappointed. He had plenty to tell his friends, but lately Freddy wasn’t around so much. He missed their good times hanging out together.

  “We’ve got company inside.” Mike pointed toward the backyard. “Let’s talk behind the garage.” There he’d also be safe from his mother’s hugs.

  Through the shadows, down to the back corner they slipped. Hidden from the neighbouring yards by Mr. Steriou’s high-fenced grape vines, they hunched on the old wooden bench behind the garage.

  “Have I got news for you!” Mike blurted. Quickly he described the break in at the printing shop.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Tuan.

  Gunnar let out a slow whistle. “That sure ties in with the counterfeit $100 bills and what happened tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Mike asked. “What did I miss?”

  “Plenty.” Gunnar’s face reddened with excitement.

  “Yeah,” Tuan echoed, “plenty!”

  CHAPTER 11 – A Prisoner

  Mike leaned closer and stared through the shadows at Gunnar and Tuan. “You went to the mansion again?”

  Both boys nodded.

  Gunnar glanced from the grape vines, to the garage wall, then back to Mike. He lowered his voice. “Tuan phoned me this afternoon.” He looked at his friend.

  Tuan bent forward. “I wanted to read my new computer book. But with all my brothers home on Sundays, it’s too noisy in the apartment. So I sneaked away to Dead Man’s Cliff and slid into my hideout.”

  Mike shivered. He still remembered his nasty tumble down that cliff.

  Tuan winked at Mike and continued, “I was only up to page 7, when I heard faint barking from far away. North of the golf course woods, where the river turns into the hidden valley, I could see two tiny figures chasing another along the bank. They caught up, and knocked him to the ground. Then they dragged him into the woods, in the direction of the mansion.”

  “A prisoner!” Mike cried in disbelief.

  “Sh!” Gunnar covered Mike’s mouth. He craned over the grape vines, then poked his head around the garage corner. No one was there. He crouched back down and bent closer. “It sure looks that way,” he muttered. “We already checked it out.”

  “Yeah,” Tuan added. “I was running home, when I bumped into Gunnar coming back from Freddy’s. I told him what I had seen. He filled me in on the rest.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mike clutched his arm. “This is serious stuff. You guys better be careful, nosing around that mansion on your own.”

  “You’re right,” said Gunnar, flattening his back against the garage wall. He looked from side to side, then continued in a whisper. “But you weren’t home.”

  “And we didn’t want to call Freddy away from his girlfriend,” Tuan giggled. “Besides, he’s a blabbermouth.”

  “Anyway,” Gunnar pulled up his knees, “we waited till after 8:00 P.M. I figured that was our best chance for getting close to the mansion. When I hunt late for lost golf balls, I almost never hear the dogs bark.”

  “Where did you get binoculars?” Mike asked.

  “We didn’t need them,” Gunnar replied. “With the dogs out of the way, we sneaked along through the woods, right up to the gravel road.”

  “By then it was getting dark,” Tuan added. “On our stomachs we wriggled along the hedge up the circular driveway.”

  Mike sucked in his breath. “And—?”

  Gunnar craned to one side, then the other. Nothing moved in the shadows. He faced Mike and whispered, “On the main floor, lights turned on in a couple of rooms. We waited, but the curtains stayed closed.”

  Tuan broke in, “Then we wiggled around to the back. We could see the basement windows. The ones nearest us were dark.”

  Gunnar went on, “We worked along the basement wall. In the middle, we found one window half open. We stopped. We could hear a low sort of humming, click, and rustle, and also men’s voices. I listened hard, but over the noise, I couldn’t make out what they said.”

  “Meanwhile,” Tuan continued the story, “I kept crawling. The next three windows were bright, but covered by blinds. I wriggled to the far corner. The last window wasn’t as dark. I peeked in.”

  “And?” Mike asked, breathless.

  Tuan leaned closer. “I couldn’t see much. A door stood part way open to another bright room—”

  “—The room the men in?” Mike interrupted.

  “Probably.” Gunnar locked his knuckles together. He took a deep breath.

  Mike tensed. “And what was in the last window?”

  “A body,” said Tuan.

  Mike stiffened.

  “Lying with his back to us, on a camp bed,” Gunnar explained.

  “Dead?” Mike’s eyes widened.

  “It was dim,” Gunnar answered. “All I know is he didn’t move.”

  “Tuan, was that the guy you saw the others chase?”

  Tuan shrugged. “It happened too far away.”

  “But,” Mike sputtered, “if this guy’s dead, or even a prisoner, shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “That’s what I thought,” Tuan said.

  “What if he’s one of them, just taking a nap?” Gunnar argued.

  Mike’s body relaxed. He hoped Gunnar was right.

  Gunnar tapped Mike’s hand. “Besides, we can’t prove anything—yet. Suppose we call the police, and we’re wrong. They could charge us with mischief, or even trespassing. Wouldn’t our parents love that!”

  Mike flopped back against the garage wall. He pictured his mother weeping and hanging onto his shirttail, as the police snapped handcuffs on his wrists and dragged him away. His mother got upset so easily. He’d noticed at supper how his dad and Theo Lazo said as little as possible about the break-in. Instead they went on and on about how hard he worked at the printing shop, and what a big help he was, till his mother’s worried frown dissolved in a flush of pride.

  “We have to gather more proof,” Gunnar insisted.

  “And be very careful.” Mike ground his fists together. “Guys like that don’t fool around. I know.” He described the printing shop break-in again, in more detail.

  Gunnar whistled. “Boy, those robbers really turned the place upside down.”

  “Do you think they’re linked with the guys at the mansion?” Tuan asked.

  Mike shrugged.

  Gunnar frowned. “Either way, we have to be cautious.” He nudged Tuan to get up. “We’ll keep in close touch.”

  Mike scrambled up too and walked through the backyard beside them. “Theo Lazo will tell me what the police find out. If there are any counterfeiters, we’ll know.”

  Following his friends, Mike turned down the narrow driveway. Ahead of them, across the street, an old grey van had parked outside the new neighbours’ house. In the passenger seat, a shadow lurched. “Grrruff!” it gave a deep bark.

  Mike stared at the licence plate: Z429PJ. “Tuan!” he gulped, grabbing his friend’s shoulder. “That’s the van that nearly ran you over.”

  CHAPTER 12 – Overheard

  The three boys stared at the grey van.

  “You’re right,” Gunnar exclaimed. “If Tuan hadn’t been so fast on his feet, he’d be wearing permanent tread marks—or worse.”

  “That rotten, old—” Tuan exclaimed, and dashed into the street, his long T-shirt puffing behind him.

  “Tuan, wait!” Mike shouted.

  Gunnar grabbed Mike’s arm. They peered through the darkness after their friend.

  “Grrruff! Gruff!” Across the van’s front seat bounded a large black dog. As Tuan ran up, out the partly open window, the dog thrust its snout.
White flashed. Snarling and pawing the glass, it looked much bigger than their daring friend.

  “Yikes!” Tuan jumped back. He turned, darted back across the street, and rejoined them. “Gee, Mike, nice neighbours,” he cracked.

  “They’re new,” Mike muttered, “and they drive my mom crazy. Beer bottles on the lawn, and honking their horn at 5:00 A.M. She was even afraid they’d punch her when she asked them to unblock our driveway.”

  “Did you say 5:00 A.M.?” Gunnar grabbed Mike’s arm.

  “I think that’s what my mom said,” Mike replied. “Or something really early. Why?”

  Gunnar tugged Mike and Tuan back into the shadows along the house. He lowered his voice. “Think about it,” he tapped Mike’s forehead. “A van, dogs, early morning trips, nasty characters....”

  “Come off it,” Mike blurted. “It’s just co-incidence. These can’t be the same people we saw at the mansion. That stuff can’t happen here.”

  “Why not?” Gunnar asked.

  Tuan nodded. “Where I was born, all sorts of strange things went on. Who wants to run to school, with bullets whizzing past your ears? Who wants to escape to sea in an overcrowded rowboat? But those things happened to me, before my family got safely to Canada.”

  “That’s rough, alright.” Mike shook his head. “But still we need proof what these guys are up to.”

  Gunnar elbowed him. “Maybe we’ll get some right now.” He pointed across the street. “Two men just came out on the porch. I’ll get a closer look at the stacks of boxes they’re carrying.”

  Before Mike and Tuan could stop him, Gunnar sauntered down the driveway. He strolled across the street, to the rear of the van. As he stepped up onto the far sidewalk, the large black dog leapt to the passenger side of the front seat. “Grrruff! Gruff!” Mike heard it bark and thump its paws against the glass as Gunnar passed.