Mystery in San Francisco Page 5

  Henry looked at the clock. “It’s late,” he said. “We’d better get moving.”

  They dressed quickly.

  “I wonder if Kate’s still sleeping,” Violet said.

  In the main cabin, Jessie had the answer. “She isn’t here.”

  They went outside on the deck to look for her. She wasn’t there, either. In the distance, a patch of yellow shone through the drifting fog.

  Violet squinted through the haze. “Look!” she said. “It’s the woman in the yellow slicker.”

  “And she’s on Joe Martin’s boat!” Jessie added.

  Benny nodded. “It’s Kate,” he said. “She’s in on this with Joe Martin.”

  “Let’s go,” Henry urged. “We’ll see what she’s up to.”

  They hurried inside, grabbed their jackets, dashed back outside, and hopped onto the dock. Then they raced along the walkway to Charlie’s and Joe’s pier.

  The red-haired woman was gone!

  “We should tell Charlie about Kate,” Benny said.

  “Tell him what?” Henry asked.

  “That she and Joe Martin and that strange man are causing all the trouble,” Benny answered.

  “But we don’t know for sure, Benny,” Jessie said.

  “Charlie would never believe us,” Henry added.

  “I don’t even believe it,” Violet said.

  “Yoo-hoo!” someone called.

  It was Kate. She hurried toward them.

  “She’s not wearing the yellow slicker,” Violet observed.

  “Maybe we didn’t see her on Joe’s boat,” Violet said. “Maybe we didn’t see anyone. Maybe it was a trick of the fog.”

  Kate came up beside them. She was carrying a shopping bag. “I bought sourdough bread — a San Francisco specialty — for our breakfast,” she said. “And lots of good snacks for later.”

  From his boat, Charlie called, “Are you landlubbers ready to set sail?”

  “What’s a landlubber?” Benny whispered.

  Henry answered, “Someone who lives on the land and doesn’t know much about the sea.”

  Benny chuckled. “That’s us.”

  Kate led the parade to the boat. Waiting his turn to board, Henry saw something glistening on the dock. He leaned over and picked it up. It was a piece of broken glass.

  “Come on, Henry,” Charlie urged him. “The fish are waiting.”

  Henry set the glass fragment on top of a barrel where no one would step on it. Then he hopped aboard.

  “Is the radio fixed?” Violet asked. She didn’t want to be stuck out in the water again.

  “Fixed,” Charlie said. “Everything’s shipshape.” Charlie backed the Chum away from the dock. “This is going to be a good day. I can feel it in my bones.”

  The Aldens hoped he was right.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Fish That Got Away

  It was a perfect day — even more beautiful than the day before had been. The sea was calm. The sky was bright. The fishing was good.

  It was difficult to think about trouble on a day like this.

  “You were right,” Benny said to Charlie. “This is a very good day.”

  Even the birds knew it. They hovered over the boat, squawking. Benny and Violet tore bits of bread from the large loaf Kate had brought and tossed them to the gulls. The birds dipped and dived, snatching up the tidbits.

  They were having such a good time that when Charlie said “Let’s haul in the nets,” they were disappointed.

  “Are we going in already?” Benny asked.

  Kate smiled. “No, Benny,” she said. “But the nets are full. We’ll empty them into the well and cast them out again.”

  Kate and the Aldens helped reel in the nets. Charlie whistled as they worked. Fish jumped and splashed. Many of them escaped to slip back into the cold waters.

  “They’re getting away!” Violet said.

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie told her. “We have plenty to spare.”

  And then the nets were up out of the water.

  Empty!

  Charlie’s mouth dropped open. Kate gasped. The Aldens stared in disbelief. But it was true. Except for the few fish that had gotten tangled, the nets were empty. Charlie ran his hands along the netting. He punched his fist through one large rip after another.

  “This can’t be,” Kate said. “I checked those nets myself.”

  Charlie was too angry to speak. He turned the boat around and headed for shore. Kate and the Aldens kept silent, too.

  Ashore, the word spread quickly. Before long, Vito Marino stormed onto the dock. “Is it true?” he demanded. “Did you come in empty, Charlie?”

  Charlie looked at him long and hard. Then he turned away without answering.

  “It’s true,” Kate said.

  “This is the last straw,” Vito said. “I’m sorry, Charlie, but I can’t depend on you.”

  Joe Martin’s boat eased up to the dock. “What’s going on?” he asked as he threw a line over a post. Kate told him.

  Joe hopped onto the deck beside Charlie. “Oh, Charlie, what bad luck.” He turned to Vito. “I had a very good day. Maybe I could help out until Charlie gets back on his feet.”

  He ushered Vito onto his boat for a look at the catch.

  Vito shook Joe’s hand. “It’s a deal, Joe,” he said. “I’ll buy your fish.”

  Charlie watched them silently with narrowed eyes.

  “Don’t let this get you down, Charlie,” Kate said. “Come on. Let’s repair the nets.”

  Charlie waved her away. “It’s no use,” he said. “I’m finished.” With hunched shoulders and slow steps, he headed off the pier.

  “Let’s go after him,” Benny murmured. “We can tell him what we know.”

  Henry held him back. “We have to think about this first.”

  Kate came up beside them. “I’m going after Charlie,” she told him. “Will you be all right?”

  Jessie nodded. “We’ll be fine. You go ahead.” Kate trotted away.

  “Joe and Kate,” Benny said. “They’re the ones.”

  Violet looked sad. “I can’t believe Kate has anything to do with this.”

  “She could have cut the nets this morning, “ Henry said.

  “Or last night,” Jessie said. “She might have been the person we heard.”

  Henry nodded. “She had plenty of chances. She could have siphoned the gas and cut the radio wire, too.”

  Jessie agreed. “No one would suspect anything if they saw her on Charlie’s boat.”

  “If she is working with Joe, it would all make sense,” Henry said. “Joe wanted Vito’s business; she helped him get it.”

  “But what about Tony?” Violet asked. “He said he’d give anything to get Vito’s business. And don’t forget Vito and that strange man. Maybe they were planning all this last night in the restaurant kitchen.”

  Benny nodded. “All of them — they’re all in on it.”

  “We have to tell Charlie,” Jessie said.

  Henry shook his head. “He’ll never believe us — not without proof.”

  “Well, then, let’s get some,” Benny suggested.

  “We’ll start right here,” Henry said. He began walking along Charlie’s and Joe’s dock. “Look for anything strange,” he directed the others. “Anything that looks out of place.”

  Jessie and Violet stepped onto Charlie’s Chum. They poked in boxes and peered under seats. On the pier, Henry moved alongside the boat, his eyes downcast. He found nothing but the glass fragment he had seen that morning.

  Across from him, Benny examined Joe’s side of the dock. “There’s nothing here,” Benny said at last. Then he noticed something inside a coil of rope. “Oh, wait.” He pulled the rope aside. “Forget it,” he said. “It’s just an old lantern like the one we use when we go camping.”

  “Let’s walk along the wharf,” Jessie suggested. “We might find some clue there.” But they found nothing.

  Finally Henry said, “Proof or no proof,
I think we have to tell Charlie what we think.”

  “But you said he won’t believe us,” Violet reminded him.

  “Well have to convince him,” Henry said.

  “Maybe he can put the puzzle together,” Jessie added.

  Thinking Charlie might have returned to the boat, they doubled back. He wasn’t there.

  “Let’s go get some lunch. We can talk more about what we know,” Henry said. They decided to go to Pier 39.

  When they were nearly there, they stopped short. Ahead of them, at the pier entrance, two men stood talking.

  One of the men was Charlie. The other was the mysterious man! The Aldens ducked around a corner so Charlie wouldn’t see them.

  “What could Charlie be talking to that man about?” Benny wondered aloud.

  “Maybe he found out the man has something to do with all the trouble,” Violet suggested, “and he’s telling him to stop.”

  “That’s possible,” Henry said.

  “It’s also possible that Charlie is part of the problem,” Jessie said.

  “Charlie?” Violet sounded surprised. “But most of the bad things have been happening to him.”

  No one could deny that.

  “Well, one thing is sure,” Henry said. “We can’t tell Charlie what we suspect. Not now. Not until we know more.”

  “We’ll keep looking for proof after we eat,” Jessie said.

  They ordered pizza in one of the many pier restaurants. Waiting for their order, each Alden was silent, thinking.

  “I wonder where Tony was,” Jessie said at last.

  “When?” Henry asked.

  “Just now when we came back to shore.”

  “He’s probably still out fishing,” Violet suggested.

  “But every other time there was trouble, he was there,” Jessie reminded them. “Joe, Vito, Tony — they were all there.”

  Benny’s eyes widened. “Maybe he cut the nets, and he didn’t want to be around when Charlie found out.”

  “But if he did it to get Vito’s business, he’d want to be there when Vito came along,” Jessie said.

  “That’s right,” Violet said. “Joe was there, so he got the business.”

  The pizza arrived. For a while, they were too busy eating to talk. When they had nearly finished, Henry said, “We should stop thinking and talking about the trouble on the wharf.”

  “Why?” Benny wanted to know.

  “You can think about something too hard,” Henry explained. “Sometimes, if you put a problem in the back of your mind, the answer just . . . pops up.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Benny said. “It’s there all the time, but you can’t see it.”

  They all thought Henry might be right.

  “But if we don’t talk about the mystery,” Benny said, “what should we talk about?”

  “About the things we still want to see,” Henry answered. He pulled the rolled guidebook from his back pocket. “There are so many interesting places in San Francisco. We’ve only been to a few.”

  “Golden Gate Park is something we should see,” Jessie said.

  Henry agreed. “That’s one I’ve marked. Especially the Academy of Sciences. There’s a planetarium there and an aquarium.”

  “More fish?” Benny said. “Haven’t we seen enough of those?”

  “They have a Touch Tide Pool, Benny, where you can actually hold starfish and sea urchins.” He opened the book and read aloud from it.

  “The Japanese Tea Gardens sound interesting,” Violet said.

  “We could spend the whole day in the park,” Jessie said. “There’s so much to see. We’ll make a list and give it to Uncle Andy,” she decided.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Catch of the Day

  When they returned to the docks, the Aldens met Kate.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “Your aunt phoned. She and your uncle will be late. They don’t expect to get here until dinnertime. I wish I had time to take you sightseeing, but with Charlie and all . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “We’ll find plenty to do,” Jessie assured her.

  “How is Charlie?” Henry asked.

  Kate shrugged. “He wanted to be alone,” she said. Her green eyes were sad.

  “Alone?” Benny repeated. “But we just saw him with — ”

  Jessie gave him a poke.

  “It’s not at all like him,” Kate continued. “I’m going to find him now and try to talk to him. See you later,” she said, and started away.

  Kate could not be involved in the trouble. She was too nice, too concerned about other people. The person they had seen in Chinatown, Sausalito, and on Joe Martin’s boat wasn’t Kate. Violet was sure of it.

  “She didn’t do it,” Violet murmured.

  Benny didn’t like to see Violet upset. To make her feel better, he said, “If Kate did do it, she probably had a really good reason.”

  But it didn’t work. “You all think she’s guilty,” Violet said. “And now you think Charlie’s in on it, too.”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Jessie said. “We’re just trying to figure it out.”

  Henry put an arm around Violet’s shoulders. “We hope Kate and Charlie have nothing to do with all this,” he said. “We hope nobody we know is involved.”

  “Yes,” Jessie added. “Joe and Tony — they’re good people, too. It’s hard to believe either of them could be guilty.”

  Even Violet had to agree that was true.

  “If we knew more about the mysterious man,” Henry said, “we might be able to solve this puzzle.”

  They decided to look for the man.

  “What will we do if we find him?” Benny asked.

  “We’ll decide that when the time comes,” Jessie answered.

  The time never came. They looked all over the piers, but they could not find the mysterious man.

  Just before sunset, they gathered on the wharf. Charlie was himself again, friendly and positive. He and Kate were repairing the torn nets.

  The Aldens wondered if his good mood might have had something to do with his meeting with the mysterious man earlier in the day.

  Tony Gregor was helping Kate and Charlie. If he had cut the nets, why would he help repair them? Henry wondered.

  “Has anyone seen Joe?” Tony asked.

  Charlie shrugged. “Not since he brought in his catch.”

  “Perfect timing, too,” Kate added, “with Vito ready to buy.”

  “Here comes Joe,” Benny said.

  Joe Martin sauntered toward them, a big smile on his face.

  Looking at him, the Aldens thought it was hard to believe that he had anything to do with the trouble on the wharf. He had helped Tony rescue his boat; he had brought the Aldens to shore when they were stranded; and he had returned to the Chum with fuel. And, even today, when he sold Vito his catch, he had said, “Maybe I could help out until Charlie gets back on his feet.” That didn’t sound like a man who was trying to steal Charlie’s business.

  “Hey, there,” Joe said. “This looks like a party.”

  “It’s a repair-the-torn-net party,” Charlie said. “Want to help?”

  Joe’s smile faded. “Wish I could,” he said, “but I have some work of my own.” He went down the dock to his boat and disappeared inside. A few minutes later, he was back. “Charlie, do you have a lantern I could borrow? It’s getting too dark to work without one, and I can’t find mine.”

  Benny remembered the lantern in the coil of rope. He said, “But we saw — ”

  Henry remembered the lantern, too. “I’ll get you a light,” he interrupted, and dashed away.

  “Do you know where my lantern is?” Charlie called after Henry.

  “Don’t worry, Charlie,” Benny said. “He’ll find a light.”

  Henry was back in a flash, carrying a lantern.

  “That’s not my lantern,” Charlie said.

  “I think Joe knows who owns it,” Henry said. He held up a piece of broken glass.

>   “And I think he knows who owns this, too.” He turned the lantern to reveal a hole the shape of the broken glass.

  Joe’s smile froze. “I . . . uh . . . ”

  “We heard glass breaking out on the dock last night,” Violet said.

  Charlie glared at Joe. “So you were the one who ripped these nets.”

  Joe backed away. “No, no. Not me. I didn’t do it.”

  “And you siphoned off our fuel and broke the radio,” Kate said.

  “No, listen,” Joe pleaded. “I didn’t do any of those things. I did break my lantern. I came back here last night to check on my boat. I tripped over something and the lantern fell.”

  Jessie said, “But you said you couldn’t find your lantern.”

  Joe seemed to be searching for a reply. Finally he said, “I . . . uh . . . I was embarrassed. What kind of fisherman breaks his lantern?”

  “A greedy fisherman.” The words came from behind them.

  The Aldens whirled around.

  The voice belonged to Kate!

  That couldn’t be. Kate was beside them. Yet the faces were the same; the red hair was the same. But this woman wore a yellow slicker.

  “Two Kates!” Benny exclaimed.

  Kate was no less surprised. “Kim!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

  The other woman said, “Before I tell you that, let me introduce Sam Goodall.” She gestured toward the man beside her.

  The mysterious man!

  “He’s an investigator,” Kim continued.

  Sam Goodall stepped forward. “Some of the fishermen hired me to find out who was causing the trouble on the wharf,” he explained. “I suspected you, Joe, from the beginning, but I could never find the proof.” He turned to the Aldens. “The lantern is just what I needed to close this case, and I have you kids to thank for that.”

  Joe Martin raised his arms into the air. “All right,” he said. “I did it. I didn’t mean to ruin anyone’s business. I just wanted to show that I could be as good as the other fishermen. But how could I compete with men like Charlie and Tony?”

  “It takes years of practice,” Kate told him. “You’ve only just started.”

  Sam Goodall glanced at Charlie and Tony. “What do you want to do about this?”

  “Joe should pay for what he’s done,” Tony said.