Ghost of a Chance (13 page)

“Yep, that's him,” Frank said. “I told Joe—if anyone would know, it would be you. Thanks a lot.”

“Sassy, I've got a question for you,” Joe said. “What if I found something that looked like it might have a connection with Jumper Herman. My first impulse would be to have Ernesto Roland take a look at it. But it sounds like he might be out of commission for a while. Is there anyone else around here that could authenticate an item?”

“You're looking at her,” Sassy said, shrugging her shoulders.

“Of course,” Joe said.

“I've collected some pretty interesting things myself,” Sassy said. “Have you found something? Tell me about it. Tell me everything.” She pulled her purple clipboard from the huge black bag hanging from her shoulder.

“No, no,” Joe said, holding up his hands. “I don't have anything yet, but I'll let you know.”

“Well, when that happens …” Sassy wrote a few lines on a piece of paper. “Be sure I'm the first to know.” She handed Joe the paper with her address and telephone number written on it.

The Hardys started to move away, and Sassy called after them. “By the way, I haven't seen Hank today, but if I do, I'll tell him you're looking for him.”

“No, don't do that,” Frank said quickly. “I want to surprise him. Let's keep it our secret.”

Before she walked away, Sassy nodded and put a finger in front of her mouth, indicating that she would keep quiet.

“I have an idea,” Frank said. “Come on.” He led Joe over to the makeup trailer. Frank reminded the makeup artist, Hilda, that he had been there before with Cleo. “I wanted to show my brother that cool software you have that alters facial images,” he said.

“No problem,” Hilda said. “The program's always open. Just don't mess with any of my files. I'm going to pick up some lunch. Lock up if you
leave before I get back. Everyone's kind of nervous, what with all the peculiar incidents around here.”

As soon as Hilda left, Frank scanned in the photo of the shaggy-haired extra. Then he used the computer to “erase” the big beard and shaggy hair.

“So now we have a clean palette,” Joe said, staring at the picture. All they saw was a bald head shape, eyes, and a nose. Frank added a fringe of pale hair and a jagged scar down the cheek. “Yes!” he said. “It's the man I talked to yesterday. They could definitely be the same person in two disguises.”

Frank stared at the name he'd written on the bottom of the photo: Hank Jeamer. In the distance, he saw another photograph hanging on the wall.

Joe followed his gaze. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Whoa, could it possibly be?” He darted across the room and took down the photo of Jumper Herman. Frank scanned Jumper's image into the computer. Then he told the computer to age the image twenty-five years. It was the balding Hank Jeamer with the fringe of hair. Frank drew a scar on the cheek and the transformation was complete.

The shaggy-haired Hank Jeamer and the balding man with the scar and Jumper Herman could all be the same man!

Frank looked over at Joe, who was rapidly jotting letters on a notepad. “It's an anagram,” Joe said, showing the notes to Frank. “If you scramble
Hank Jeamer
you get
Jake Herman
—Jumper's real name!”

Frank and Joe looked at the three faces on the computer screen, then at the anagram puzzle Joe had solved. “Jumper!” Joe said. “Still alive!”

“Still taking chances,” Frank added. “Still fooling everyone, still taunting the authorities.”

“An extra on the movie about himself,” Joe said. “It's perfect. From everything we've heard, it's exactly something this guy would do.”

Frank printed the images he had concocted. Then he deleted all the work he had done in the computer. Joe hung the photo of Jumper Herman back on the wall and then headed out to meet Gene and Lloyd for lunch.

The wranglers were waiting for them. They had been dismissed for the day and were eager to go up the mountain to look for clues. Over sandwiches, the Hardys shared their suspicions with the wranglers. Gene and Lloyd were excited by the possibility that Jumper was alive and hanging out on the set of
Dropped into Danger
. They all agreed that they should go back up to the cabin where the puma had led them the night before—perhaps the cabin where the famous Jumper Herman now lived.

“Let's stop by Terry's first,” Frank said as the four piled into one of the wrangler trucks. “I want to ask him about the ghost illusion in Cleo's trailer.”

The inn was quiet. It was midday, and no one was in the lobby except a lone desk clerk reading a magazine. Frank led the others up the stairway and down the hall to Terry's room.

As they neared the door, they heard voices shouting. Frank turned to the others and held up his hand, urging the others to be still.

“I swear I haven't told anyone,” they heard Terry say from the other side of the door. “I promised I'd keep it a secret and I will. So stop bugging me about it.”

“I can't help it,” the other voice wailed. “ Nothing kills a career faster than being branded as trouble on a film. If anyone finds out we planned the whole thing, I'll never work again.”

Frank's jaw dropped as he heard the second person speak. The voice was unmistakably that of Cleo Alexander.

“I mean it,” Frank heard Cleo say from behind Terry's door. “I trusted you with this whole scheme. If you rat me out, I'll never forgive you. If I go down, you go with me.”

“Relax, Cleo,” Terry said, his voice lower. Frank and Gene leaned toward the door. “No one's going to find out.”

The conversation stopped. Frank waited a minute, then knocked on the door.

Terry opened the door. His face was flushed as red as his T-shirt. Frank wondered whether that was because of anger or embarrassment at seeing the group at the door.

“Well, look who's here,” Terry said. “You guys should have called first. I'd have ordered up some
snacks or something.” He stood in the doorway, not budging.

“We've been out here for a few minutes,” Joe told him.

“Ernesto was arrested,” Terry said, not responding to Joe's statement. “I tried to set something up for us with him. He's out on bail now, and he'd be happy to look at the things you found in the well if you're still interested.”

“We'll talk about Ernesto later,” Frank said. “Look, Terry, we know Cleo's in there. We heard you shouting at each other.”

“Well, come on in then,” Terry said with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “Join the party.”

Cleo was sitting on the sofa in front of the large bay window. She wore a yellow jumpsuit and her Olympic windbreaker. “Hi, fellas,” she said with a small smile. “I guess if I want to keep a secret, I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.”

“We came over because we have a lot to tell you, Terry,” Joe said. “But first we need some answers. And you've got to be straight with us.”

Terry frowned at Cleo, then turned back to the wranglers and gave them a crooked smile. “I think I know where you're going with this. Go ahead—ask.”

“Where were you yesterday morning?” Frank asked.

Terry sighed and uttered one word: “Busted.”

“I'm dead,” Cleo said. “My career is over.”

“Terry!” Gene said. “Are you saying—”

“Cleo's RV … the ghost of Jumper floating down the hall,” Terry said, nodding his head. “A pretty good illusion, considering the small space I had to work with.”

“But how could you do that to Cleo?” Lloyd asked. “You know how nervous she's been with all the threats and everything.”

“Get real, man. It was
her
idea,” Terry said.

“He's telling the truth,” Cleo said with a sigh.

“I was tired of everybody laughing at me when I told them someone that looked like Jumper was hanging around,” she said. “I talked Terry into creating the illusion.”

“Then she invited you there, Frank, so you could be a witness,” Terry said. “Neither one of us counted on you being such a great detective. It took you just a few minutes to figure the whole thing out. I've been waiting for you to ask me about it.”

“What about the problems with her flying stunt?” Joe asked. “Did you two plot that, too?”

“Absolutely not,” Terry said firmly. His dark eyes flashed with anger. “Someone sabotaged that stunt—it could have been a disaster. And I'm not leaving until I find out who did it.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Frank said. The others nodded in agreement. “And we might just have a suspect for you.”

The Hardys and the wranglers all talked at once, telling Terry and Cleo what they'd discovered.

“Whoa, this is huge,” Cleo said. “You have to take me up to that cabin with you. If I can help solve this, I'll have enough publicity to carry me for a year.”

“Look, we can't all go,” Frank said. “We'll scare him off.”

“Well, you're not leaving me out,” Terry said. “I'd even offer my car, but it won't seat us all.”

“We can take my studio car,” Cleo offered. “It's a luxury sedan. Plenty of room. But I go, too.”

“What'd I tell you,” Terry said. “She's got the guts of a stuntwoman.”

“It's probably a good idea not to take one of the wrangler trucks,” Frank said. “If Jumper, or Hank, or whoever it is spotted it, he'd know immediately who was coming.”

There was no way the wranglers could leave Terry or Cleo behind, so they all climbed into the young star's sleek car and started up the mountain, with Terry driving.

Joe's navigation skills were so attuned that he steered Terry onto the old road that they had seen leading away from the back of the cabin. There were no other vehicles around, but they parked about twenty yards from the cabin, just in case.

They grabbed cables and ropes from Terry's
trunk. Gene and Lloyd were armed with their tranquilizer guns. Joe led them up the road.

The smell of wood smoke hung in the air, but there was none coming from the chimney. It was about three-thirty, and the sun suddenly shot from around a cloud for the first time that day. The clearing around the cabin was suddenly painted with light and shadows chasing back and forth.

When they reached the cabin, Joe paused for a moment, listening for any sound from inside the building. He heard nothing. His senses on high alert, he quickened his pace and headed toward the front window. The others followed closely behind.

Joe crouched beneath the window, then slowly raised his head and peered inside. Elvis was lolling on his high-bunk perch, lapping his paw. There was no sign of the cabin's owner.

Joe turned to the others to report what he'd seen. Something fluttering in his side vision captured his attention. “Uh-oh,” he said when he spied the piece of paper tacked to the front door. “Come on, Frank,” he said. “The rest of you stay here.” Gene and Lloyd pulled out their tranquilizer guns, just in case.

Joe and Frank crept to the door. With a feeling of total letdown, Joe yanked the paper off the door and read the message aloud: “ ‘You're Too Late.'”

When he pulled off the paper, the cabin door creaked open. Elvis looked up for a moment, but then went back to his bath. “The disguises are gone,” Joe said, seeing the empty corner where the trunk of costumes and accessories had been.

“Except for that one,” Frank pointed out.

The Bigfoot costume was draped as if it were sitting in the chair. On its lap was a letter from Jumper Herman. Joe sank down to a stool and read the letter:

“ ‘Gentlemen, I've finally overstayed my welcome in this glorious part of the world,'” Joe read. “ ‘You two hotshots are about to blow my cover and I'm bugging out before that happens. After my plane crashed a quarter of a century ago, I lost part of my treasure. I have been here since, gathering up the missing items. Although the movie was a flattering idea, it was also an enormous imposition. It increased the risk that others would find my missing treasure before I did.'”

In the letter Jumper went on to say that he did his best to discourage the project by disguising himself as himself in his younger days and appearing as a “ghost.”

“He could really pull that off,” Frank said. “As the extra cast member Hank Jeamer, he had complete access to the sets and locations.”

“ ‘I substituted my mountain lion, Elvis, for
yours and took your splendid puma,'” Joe read on. “ ‘Of course, I had to case the wranglers' house and barn area Monday night in preparation for the catnapping. I apologize for knocking out the young wrangler in the process.'” Frank rubbed the back of his head as he remembered the blow he had received.

Jumper went on to assure the reader that Omar had been well cared for because he loved pumas and would never endanger one. He also said that he followed the Hardys and Terry when they checked out his original shack.