Free High-Speed Showdown by Franklin W. Dixon Page B

it’s over.”
    A bright yellow boat powered by three big outboards entered the channel, slowed almost to a stop, and eased into the slip next to Dennis’s. Once the boat was tied up, the driver, a woman in a bright yellow jumpsuit, leaped onto the dock and called, “Hey, Dennis, did you hear? We took first in our class.”
    â€œThat’s great, Margot,” Dennis called back. “Since you don’t have to race tomorrow, you can take the day off and come cheer me on.”
    â€œIt’s a date,” Margot replied.
    Joe turned to Frank and said, “I wonder . . . ”
    â€œMe too,” Frank said. “Let’s find out.”
    They walked over to Margot, who was talking to her throttleman about their run that afternoon. She looked up. The Hardys introduced themselves and congratulated her and her partner. Then Joe asked, “Before you went out this afternoon, did you happen to notice anybody hanging around Dennis’s boat?”
    Margot frowned. “Not to notice, no. Pavel was over there, fine-tuning the engines,” she said. She turned to her throttleman. “How about you, Bob?”
    Bob was a guy in his twenties, with a long, narrow face and a lock of dark hair that fell down over his forehead. “Hmm,” he said. “You know, now that you mention it, I did. I noticed her going along, looking over the boats, just rubbernecking, you know? Then when she got to Adelita, shestopped and walked out alongside. She looked like she wanted to climb aboard and see how it felt to be at the helm.”
    â€œDid she go aboard?” Frank asked, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice.
    â€œI can’t say,” Bob replied. “Sorry. I got busy with something else and stopped watching her. Cute kid, but way too young for me.”
    Joe asked, “What did she look like?”
    Bob said, “I don’t know . . . brown hair is all I really noticed. Oh . . . and she was wearing a T-shirt with a slogan on it in big letters. Something about saving the sea.”

10 Connie Stonewalls
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    â€œBrown hair and an ecology T-shirt?” Joe said, as he and Frank walked quickly toward the head of the dock. “Come on, give me a break—of course it was Connie!”
    â€œAll I’m saying is, we don’t know for sure,” Frank replied. “We didn’t see her by Dennis’s boat. We don’t know what she was wearing. And if somebody wanted to undermine what she and her group are doing, what better way than to get some girl in a shirt with some kind of environmental message to go around acting suspiciously?”
    â€œDoubtful, if you ask me,” Joe grumbled. “We practically caught her and Angelo red-handed this morning, and now we have a witness who sawsomebody just like her casing a boat that was sabotaged. Isn’t that enough?”
    Frank sighed. “Enough to question her, sure,” he said. “But not to accuse her. For that, we need proof.”
    As they crossed the street, Frank noticed a big white van parked at the curb in front of the Waterside Inn. “Look, Joe,” he said. “There’s a crew from World Sports Today here. They must be planning to do a segment on the races.”
    â€œYeah, and look who’s hoping to get equal time,” Joe replied.
    Just ahead were Connie, a tanned man in a blue blazer holding a microphone, and a three-person camera crew. A little half circle of spectators watched and listened. Frank and Joe joined them.
    â€œÂ . . . crazy enough to hold a sports car race in a public park,” Connie was saying. “But this is the same thing. These boats go over a hundred miles an hour, spewing exhaust fumes and spreading oil slicks across the whole bay. They call it sport. I call it pollution.”
    Some of the spectators started to boo. In response, others cheered. As arguments started among them, the announcer handed