Bingo.
The chat rooms were packed. Everybody was typing in their theories on the skateboard assaults. Some blamed terrorists. Others thought it was the work of motocross bikers. But nobody suggested anything that made any sense.
I was about to give up when something caught my eye.
It was one little message, posted among all the oddball conspiracy theories.
It said, “I told you this was going to happen. I warned you.”
It was posted by 4567TME—the same person who had posted the strange warning to “Xtreme sports nuts.”
I knew it! That message I read yesterday was a threat!
I scanned the rest of the chat list, scrolling down to see if 4567TME had posted anything else.
Nothing—just that one message.
But what a message.
Joe stepped out of the bathroom drying his hair with a towel.
“Joe. Come look at this,” I said.
Joe leaned over the laptop and read the message. “We have to tell the police,” he said. “Maybe they can trace the source of the message through the Web site.”
“Not if the message was bounced there,” I said. “It could take days, even weeks, to track it down.”
“We don’t have that much time. The games start tomorrow.”
“I know,” I said, reaching for my cell phone and dialing 411. I asked for the number of Ollie’s Skate Shop.
“What are you doing?” said Joe.
I shushed him, then dialed the number. It rang.
“Yeah? What do you want?” Ollie’s gruff voice snarled over the line.
“What are your store hours?” I asked.
“Noon to ten.”
“Noon?” I said. “That seems pretty late to open a store.”
“Who asked you?” he snapped back. “It’s my store and I’ll do whatever I want.” He hung up.
I looked at Joe. “Ollie doesn’t open his store until noon,” I explained. “Which means he wasn’t working this morning. He could have been at the park.”
Joe brought up another piece of evidence. “The paramedic said the pellet gun was fired from several hundred feet away. So it wasn’t one of the skateboarders who did it. They were all hanging around the ramps.”
“But Eddie Mundy was buying a hot dog,” I pointed out. “The vendors are several hundred feet away.”
Joe shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Eddie looked pretty bummed out when you told him about Jeb. I really think Ollie is the prime suspect here.”
I had to agree. “He’s bitter about his career. He hates the Big Air Games. He dreams up ways to sabotage skateboards.”
“And he has a gun under his counter,” Joe added.
“Ding, ding, ding!” I said. “It looks like we have a winner, folks.”
“Definitely,” Joe agreed. “Ollie’s our man. So what do we do now? Are we ready to turn him in?”
I shook my head. “We still don’t have enough evidence to convict the guy.”
Joe groaned. “You and your evidence.” He flopped down on his bed. “So what do you suggest, Mr. Law and Order?”
“I think we should pay Ollie another visit,” I said. “Let’s see how he’s taking the news about the skateboard attacks.”
Five minutes later we left the hotel and walked the three blocks to Ollie’s street.
Joe was getting more excited with every step.
“We have to nail that guy,” he said under his breath. “He’s so guilty I can smell it.”
I think Joe was looking forward to some sort of big showdown—the kind you see in the movies. Ollie certainly had what it takes to be a big-screen villain. Even with his cane and his limp, he’d probably put up a good fight.
Be prepared for anything, I told myself.
Even so, I was totally shocked when Joe and I turned the corner.
Ollie’s shop was surrounded by police cars and fenced off with yellow tape. The place was crawling with cops. Behind them an ambulance flashed its lights and blared its siren, then drove off down the street.
Joe and I pushed our way up to the police line. “What’s going on? What happened?” Joe asked the officers.
Nobody would talk.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” said someone behind us.
Joe and I spun around.
It was Maxwell Monroe, the reporter from the Philadelphia Freedom Press.
“Ollie’s been murdered,” he said.
9 Who Is Mr. X?
Ollie? Murdered?
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Our prime suspect had just become the latest victim.
“How did it happen?” Frank asked the reporter.
“He was poisoned,” Max told us. “I overheard the cops talking. They think someone slipped something into Ollie’s coffee. They’re sending a sample off to the lab to be tested.”
Ollie? Murdered? I kept thinking. Who would want to murder Ollie?
Then I remembered the way he snapped at those customers in his shop last night. Ollie may have owned the best skateboard shop in Philly, but he certainly seemed to have a lot of enemies. According to Jeb, everybody hated the guy.
But did they hate him enough to kill him?
Max raised his camera and snapped more shots of the crime scene. “Mr. X strikes again,” he said.
“Who’s Mr. X?” I asked.
“Haven’t you seen the evening edition of the Freedom Press?”
“No. It’s only two o’clock now.”
“We went to press early today. Had to beat the other papers with our scoop,” Max explained. “Anyway, the cover story is by yours truly. Photos, exclusive interviews … all mine! Even Mr. X was my idea.”
“Phantom of the Big Air Games,” Frank muttered.
Max looked at Frank. “Yeah, I came up with that, but … I thought you hadn’t seen the evening edition yet.”
Frank pointed to the crime scene. Lying in the doorway of Ollie’s shop was a crumpled copy of the Freedom Press. The headline read, WHO IS MR. X? PHANTOM OF THE BIG AIR GAMES ATTACKS XTREME ATHLETES IN PARK.
“Mr. X Xtreme sports. Get it?” said Max.
“We get it,” I said.
“Better yet, buy it,” the reporter added. “My editor-in-chief is hoping to double, even triple, our circulation with this story.”
“We’ll grab a copy on our way back to the hotel,” Frank promised.
“Aw, heck. Officer! Excuse me!” Max yelled and waved to a police officer in front of Ollie’s shop. “Toss me that newspaper! There, on the ground!”
The officer glanced down at the rumpled paper in the doorway. “Sorry, sir!” he shouted back. “It’s evidence!”
“Evidence,” Max muttered to us. “It’s the biggest story of my career, and that joker calls it evidence. Can you believe it? He’s probably just too cheap to buy his own copy! Evidence, my foot.”
I shot a glance at Frank and twirled a finger at my temple.
What a fruit loop.
“Mr. Monroe. You said Ollie was poisoned,” my brother said, trying to change the subject. “Did you see his body before they put him in the ambulance?”
“You bet I did,” answered the reporter, patting his camera. “Got it all on film. He was already dead when they loaded him in. I wanted to get a shot of his face, but he was covered up by the time I got here. I did get a good shot of his cane lying next to him on the stretcher, though.”
“How did you hear about it?” Frank asked.
“I didn’t. I was on my way here to talk to Ollie. He called and left a message at my office. Said he wanted to talk to me about Mr. X. I show up here just as they’re dragging him off to the morgue.”
“When did Ollie leave you a message?” Frank asked.
“About a half hour ago,” Max told him. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Hey, kid, you should be a reporter. You ask a lot of questions.”
Frank smiled nervously. “Well, sir, I’m thinking of studying journalism when I go to college.”
Frank kicked my leg and kept smiling.
“You look like a good kid,” said Max. “But here’s a little advice. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Study a whole bunch of subjects. I mean, look at this Ollie guy here. He used to be a big skateboard star. It was his whole life. Then he busted up his leg real bad. Turned into a bitter old man, from what I hear.”
“Who do you think killed him?” Frank asked. “And why?”
The reporter rubbed his jaw and shrugged. “My professional opinion? I think Mr. X is just some nutcase looking for attention. When you look at the different victims, the possible motives … it just doesn’t make sense.”
You can say that again, I thought.
“Come on, Joe,” said my brother. “Let’s grab some lunch.”
“Sounds good, man. I’m starved.”
Frank reached over and shook hands with the reporter. “It was good to talk to you, Mr. Monroe. Thanks for the advice.”
“No problem, kid,” said Max, turning back to the crime scene.
Frank and I walked around the corner and found a little Chinese restaurant. We went inside and were quickly seated at a small table under a giant menu on the wall.
After the waitress took our order, I leaned forward and whispered to Frank, “What did I tell you about Max Monroe? The guy is a nutcase. But he’s right about Mr. X. Mr. X is a nutcase, too. Because Max 15 Mr. X There’s even an X in his name!”
“Slow down, Joe,” Frank said. “I really don’t think Max Monroe is crazy. An interesting character, yes. But crazy, no. I think he’s telling the truth about getting a message from Ollie and showing up here after the guy was dead. If he had killed Ollie himself, you can be sure he would have taken some pictures of Ollie’s face.”
Good point, I thought.
“Ollie wanted to talk to a reporter,” Frank continued. “He knew something.”
“About the Big Air Games?” I asked.
Frank shook his head. “Don’t you get it? Ollie knew the identity of Mr. X. And I bet it was something in Max’s article that made him figure it out. That’s why he called the newspaper.”
I had to admit, it made sense.
“We have to get a copy of that paper,” I said.
The waitress brought us our order. Frank and I wolfed down our chicken lo mein and moo shu shrimp as fast as we could. We were dying to get a look at the newspaper, but the waitress took forever bringing us our check.
Finally we paid and headed back toward the hotel. We stopped at a newsstand along the way and bought the evening edition of the Philadelphia Freedom Press.
I studied the pictures on the front page.
There was a shot of Gongado Lopez being carried on a stretcher; a picture of Jenna, Frank, and me leaning over Jeb Green on the half-pipe; and another one of that paramedic, Carter Bean, giving a thumbs-up through the rear window of the ambulance.
“Dude! We made the front page!” I said.
“Come on,” said Frank, pushing me along. “We can read it back at the hotel.”
A few minutes later we were crossing the lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel, weaving our way through the swarming crowd of skateboarders and bikers and other athletes. We walked up to the bald-headed receptionist and asked him if we’d gotten any messages.
He sighed and turned around to check. If possible, he looked even more tired than he had yesterday. “Yes, indeed you do,” he said, handing Frank a small pile of envelopes.
Frank thanked the man but didn’t examine the envelopes until we were alone in the elevator. “Let’s see. What do we have here? Ah. The first one’s for you. Very pretty.”
He handed me an envelope. My name was handwritten in large swirling letters in hot-pink ink. I opened it and read it out loud.
“Hey, Joe. Thanks for visiting Jeb in the hospital and giving him the flowers. He really appreciated it. He left me a message saying he really liked you guys and was sending you something you might want to see. I don’t know what. Anyway, I have an athletes’ dinner to go to tonight. Then I plan to crash early. Tomorrow’s the big day! See you at the games. Jenna.”
“What?” said Frank. “She signed it just ‘Jenna’? Not ‘Love, Jenna’ or ‘Yours forever, Jenna’?”
“None of your business,” I said, smiling to myself.
We got out of the elevator, went to our hotel room, and flopped ourselves down on one of the beds. I started to read the Mr. X article while Frank opened the second envelope.
“Check this out,” said Frank, holding up two plastic-coated badges. “The ATAC team sent us press passes to the games. According to our ID badges, we work for a teen magazine called Shredder.”
“Cool.”
Frank opened the third envelope. It was bigger than the others and stuffed with newspaper clippings.
“What are those?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. Oh wait, here’s a note. It’s from Jeb.” He read it out loud. “‘Hi, Frank. Yo, Joe. Thanks for the visit. My mom dropped by right after you left. Get this: She brought all my old scrapbooks for me to look through while I’m getting better. As a kid, I started saving any article I could find about skateboarding. So here I am, flipping through the scrapbooks, and I stumble on some articles about—guess who? Our friend Ollie Peterson. I figured you might want to check them out, so I’m having Mom drop this off at your hotel. Hope you find what you’re looking for, dudes. Peace. Jeb.’”
Frank pulled out some of the news clippings and spread them across the bed.
“It was really cool of Jeb to send these,” I said. “Too bad we don’t need them anymore.”
“You never know,” said Frank, sifting through the pile. “There might be a valuable clue buried in here.”
“He’s dead, Frank. You can scratch him off the suspect list.”
“Well, Dad once told me that the best way to catch a killer is to investigate the victim. There’s usually some sort of link between the two. Murder is hardly ever random.”
“Okay, then. Keep looking,” I said, turning back to my paper. “And I’ll keep reading about Mr. X.”
Frank looked up. “See anything interesting?”
I shrugged. “Nothing we didn’t already know,” I said. “But the photo captions are pretty funny. Listen to this one. Under the picture of us leaning over Jeb, it says, ‘Xtreme shock: Freaked-out teens comfort skateboard star and pellet victim Jebediah Green.’”
“‘Freaked-out teens’?”
“Yeah. And listen to this. Under that thumbs-up picture of the ambulance guy, it says, ‘The Real Hero of the Games: EMT paramedic Carter Bean saves lives and wins hearts of today’s troubled youth.’”
“‘Troubled youth’? Give me a break,” said Frank. “Maybe you’re right about that reporter. He is a nut case.”
I started to read some more but suddenly remembered something. “Didn’t we get a fourth envelope?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Frank. “Where did it go?” He looked underneath the news clippings about Ollie. “Here it is. Nice stationery.”
He opened it up and read it.
“What is it?”
Frank didn’t say anything. He just stared at the note with a stunned look on his face.
“Frank?”
I reached out and took the paper from him. Then I read it.
The message was three simple lines, neatly typed in capital letters.
STOP ASKING QUESTIONS
AND STAY AWAY FROM THE GAMES
IF YOU WANT TO LIVE.
Pretty uncreative for a threatening note. But effective.
10 Let the Games Begin
As soon as I woke up the next morning, I started getting nervous.
The Big Air Games were about to begin. A crazed killer was on the loose—assaulting, shooting, and poisoning people in the extreme sports world. And we’d received a threat. The mission known as “Extreme Danger” had turned out to be just that.
“Joe! Wake up!” I said, shaking my
brother in his bed. “We have a criminal to catch. Come on!”
Joe and I were running out of time—and out of suspects. The newspapers were asking, “Who is Mr. X?” And we didn’t have a clue.
“I’m up, I’m up,” said Joe, still half asleep. “Where’s the bad guy? Let me at him.”
“I’m guessing he’ll be at the Big Air Games,” I said. “And so will we. Get moving.”
We showered, dressed, and headed down to the lobby. The hotel had arranged a big continental breakfast for the Big Air guests. All the athletes and fans were there, reading the morning paper and talking about Mr. X.
I glanced down at a copy of the Freedom Press on one of the tables. The headline read, MR. X STRIKES AGAIN: EX-SKATEBOARD STAR POISONED!
There were old pictures of Ollie in the prime of his youth—and a new photo of his dead body covered in a sheet right outside his shop.
Joe went to grab us some bagels and juice. I sat down and started to read. A public statement from the police confirmed the presence of poison in the victim’s coffee. But Max Monroe’s article didn’t say anything about Ollie trying to contact the newspaper before he was killed.
“More bad news, huh?” Jenna Cho stood by the table, holding a large glass of juice and a fresh fruit plate. “Mind if I join you?” she asked.
“Have a seat,” I said. “Joe is getting us bagels. So I guess you heard about Ollie.”
Jenna nodded grimly. “It’s so twisted. I mean, the guy was totally obnoxious, but he didn’t deserve to be killed.”
Joe returned with a big tray in his hands—and a big smile on his face. “Jenna! What’s up? Ready for the games?”
“You kidding? I’m ready to win,” said Jenna. “The women’s freestyle event is this afternoon.”
Joe sat down and looked her in the eye. “You know, there’s some serious stuff happening right now. I’m a little worried about you.”
“Well, I can’t quit now,” she said. “I’ve trained too long and too hard. And besides, I like taking risks. The day before yesterday I gave my room number to some strange boy in the lobby.”
Joe looked shocked. “What strange boy? Who is he?”
“She’s talking about you, Einstein,” I said without looking up from my newspaper.
Extreme Danger Page 6
