“Exactly,” said Mr. Acton.
Ben leaned in for a closer look, and he had to admit that the designs on the thing were pretty cool. They’d been done with fancy sewing and embroidery, and there were all sorts of little flags and symbols and shapes, even some animals. Plus a two-headed eagle up at the top. And it looked like there were tiny pearls and maybe even some diamonds and bits of gold worked into the pictures.
Mr. Acton said, “I know this won’t mean much to you, but this tells me that Captain Oakes was a thirty-second degree Mason—which back in his day may have been even more significant than it is today. It all probably looks a little strange, maybe even kind of silly. But there’s no mystery about any of this. A Masonic lodge is really just a bunch of guys who keep telling each other that they can do more than they’re already doing, and be better people than they already are. And if the brothers in your lodge keep voting for you to advance through the different degrees, and they eventually move you up to the highest—the thirty-second degree—it means they all agree that you’re a really good person in just about every way they can think of. So, hats off to Captain Oakes! And the workmanship on this apron is really something—it’d probably fetch a pretty penny on eBay!”
He lifted the apron gently by its top corners, and when he did, Ben saw something drop to the floor. It was a sheet of vellum, a perfect square about six inches across—with writing on it.
Robert picked it up, but didn’t read it. He handed it to Jill’s dad and said, “This is for you.”
Ben watched Mr. Acton’s eyes as he read the message. His lips moved slightly as he did, and then he read it aloud.
“ ‘Dear Brother:
My trusted friends have brought you these gifts as a token of my respect.
Please offer them every assistance within your power.
With everlasting thanks,
Captain Duncan Oakes’ ”
It was quiet for a long moment. Mr. Acton wasn’t getting weepy or anything, but Ben could tell he was deeply moved.
Robert broke the silence.
“So, I get all the rigamarole about the degrees, and I like the fancy stuff he gave you and everything, but was it really so important for you to open this up instead of us? Why did he want it to happen like this?”
Mr. Acton set down the vellum sheet and folded his hands on the table. He looked from face to face, and Ben had never heard anyone speak so solemnly.
“Captain Oakes wanted it this way because now this is a matter between him and me, directly. I am bound to keep all of his secrets until the day I die, and all of your secrets too. I am bound by my sacred honor as a Freemason and a man to do all I can to help him, and he has asked me to do just one thing—to help you in every way I can. From this moment forward, I’m ready to march in your army, and all I need are my orders. So, who’s in charge here?”
Jill spoke right up. “We’re all working together, but if you put it like that, it’s Ben, Daddy. Ben’s in charge.”
Ben was shocked. He started to blush, and almost contradicted her. But just as quickly the thought came, Well, technically, she’s right. Mr. Keane gave me the gold coin, so that’s where the chain of command starts.
Out loud, he said, “Jill just means that I was the first one to begin working on all this. We really try to make decisions as a team, but I definitely think you should be the chief business officer. In the last couple days we started a new battle with Glennley—outside the school. And it’s way beyond what any of us know about. But our lawyer can explain it.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You kids have your own lawyer?”
Ben nodded. “His name is Harold Chamden.”
Mr. Acton smiled. “Harry and I are good friends. Should I give him a call?”
Ben said, “The sooner the better.”
“Great, can’t wait!”
Mr. Acton’s face was flushed, and he jumped up and hurried around the table, shaking everyone’s hand. When he got to Jill, he gave her a big hug.
“I’m awfully proud of you, Jillie!” Sensing her embarrassment, he quickly added, “And all of you—amazing stuff! Whew!” He got out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then pulled off his suit coat and went to the window. He pushed it up about ten inches, then put his face into the fresh air and took a few deep breaths.
“Whooh, that’s better! Hot in here, don’t you think?” Glancing outside, he said, “Looks like somebody’s ride home is here.”
Ben walked to the window, and what he saw was a surprise.
“See the man in that truck, Mr. Acton? That is Jerroald Lyman. For the past few days he hasn’t seemed very interested in us, but I guess our meeting here must have made him curious.”
Jill’s dad took a long hard look, then muttered, “So, that fella thinks he’s going to spy on me now, is that it?”
Ben smiled grimly. “Welcome to the Keepers of the School.”
CHAPTER 19
Race Day
“Have a wonderful race, sweetheart, and I’ll see you at the trophy presentation!”
“What? Oh . . . right.” Ben grinned at her. “Thanks, Mom.”
He got out of the car and hoisted his duffel bag onto one shoulder and his book bag onto the other.
Having his own boat had changed the Saturday routine. Instead of taking him directly to the sailing club at half past noon, his mom had driven him to Parson’s Marina at ten thirty. That way, he’d have time to eat an early lunch with his dad, then launch his boat from the storage lockers at the marina beach. And from there he would have to sail it south to the beach at the club so he could sign in and go through the equipment check.
His mom didn’t drive off until Kevin had buzzed him through the gate by the security shed.
Like I’m six years old or something!
He quickly felt bad for thinking that. It was good to have a mom who wanted to be sure you were safe. Good . . . but still annoying.
She hadn’t said anything, but Ben could tell his mom didn’t like the new race-day arrangement. It meant she had to hand him over to his dad earlier than the time in their agreement.
Like she’s being cheated out of two-and-a-half precious hours with wonderful me!
Then he felt bad for thinking that, too. Saturday was house-switching day, and it always bothered his mom even more than it bothered him—or his dad. The whole separation thing wasn’t getting any easier.
He went to the window of the security shed.
“Hi, Kevin. I’m taking my new boat out in about an hour, so I’ll need the key to the storage shed. You gonna be here awhile? Or should I take the key now?”
“Better take it now. Got a big provisioning job this afternoon—a lot of deliveries coming, and I promised the owner I’d check all the receipts.” Kevin nodded toward the concrete pier just beyond the gas dock. “That’s the boat—and she’s a real beauty.”
Ben looked, and Kevin was right. The mast shot up seventy-five or eighty feet above the waterline. The largest sailboats at Parson’s were usually forty or forty-five feet long. This one was bigger.
“Wow! Is that a Beneteau?”
“Nope, it’s a Jeanneau 57, only a few years old. And it’s got all the bells and whistles—bow thrusters, self-furling headsail and genoa, twin helms—a real pip. And the fella who brought her in last Saturday? He sailed it here and docked it single-handed—laid it in that berth like droppin’ a slice of bread into a toaster!”
Ben was gawking now—the hull had such clean, graceful lines. This yacht made the Tempus Fugit look like a toy.
“Have you been onboard?” he asked Kevin.
“Me?” He chuckled. “Nope, but ask your dad. Yesterday about sunset he got the grand tour from the owner himself. It’s that same fella your girlfriend asked me about, the man who was looking to buy your dad’s boat a couple weeks ago.”
Ben had trouble making his mouth work. “Who?”
“Tall skinny guy,” said Kevin, “doesn’t smile much. But he’s real generous wi
th his tips, I’ll say that much. Says if I help him get squared away to sail for the Bahamas by Monday, there’ll be two hundred bucks in it for me! Anyway, here’s the key.”
“The what?” said Ben. His ears weren’t working either.
“The key,” Kevin repeated, “to the storage shed.”
“Right—thanks.” He took the key and started to turn away, still replaying what Kevin had said. He stopped quickly. “That girl you mentioned? She’s not my girlfriend.”
Kevin winked at him. “Well, she oughta be!”
Ben didn’t react to that—he barely heard it. He was already hurrying onto the floating pier, out toward the Tempus Fugit.
He was trying to pull the facts from what Kevin had said, get them straight in his mind. He was also trying to remember to breathe. And not walk off the pier into the water.
Fact one: That huge French sailboat? The owner was Jerroald Lyman—he recalled Jill had said Lyman was rich and owned a big boat. She’d learned that at the same time she figured out Lyman worked for the Glennley Group.
Fact two: His dad had been on board that boat with Lyman! Ben wasn’t sure what that meant, but it creeped him out anyway. First, that sleazy real estate guy talking with his mom, and now this? It might be just a coincidence—but Ben had stopped believing in coincidences. If Glennley was involved, it was happening for a purpose—a bad one.
Fact three: Lyman was planning to sail away, to leave Edgeport on Monday—this Monday! Ben couldn’t make sense of that. But if Kevin was right, then that meant Lyman was sure that his work here would be done by Monday. Monday!
Fact four: That boat had arrived in Edgeport last Friday . . . and it had been sailed single-handed! But that meant . . .
Ben dropped his duffel and pack onto the walkway and ran back to the security shed.
“Hey, Kevin, was it the owner who sailed that boat in here on Friday?”
“Nope, it was a short stocky guy. But you shoulda seen him setting the bumpers alongside as the boat eased to—that little fella can move!”
Ben said, “Thanks.”
He turned and walked slowly back to the things he’d dropped.
Fact five: It was Wally who had sailed Lyman’s boat into port! He’d arrived on Friday—just in time to help Lyman shoot a secret video at school early Saturday morning . . . and then report for work on Monday as the new assistant janitor.
Ben stood over his duffel and backpack, but he didn’t pick them up. He took out his phone—once he got to his dad’s boat, there’d be no way to talk privately. And he had to tell Jill and Robert about this right now—so they couldn’t accuse him of working all on his own. And also so they could help him figure out what these facts meant—especially the part about leaving on Monday—the day after tomorrow!
What do Lyman and Wally know?
He lit up the screen on his phone.
They know something—that’s why they backed off at school this week.
He clicked to the menu.
What is it? What’s coming?
He was ready to push the talk button. But he didn’t.
Did Lyman and Wally find something else in the art supplies room—I’m sure they searched in there after I left on Tuesday . . . .
He clicked to the picture gallery on his phone and looked at every single photo he’d taken in the supplies room.
What am I missing?
And then he saw it, right there on his phone.
But it wasn’t a photo.
It was a number, the numeral 1, right there next to the voice memo app.
Because when he’d been in that supplies room Tuesday after school, he had heard Lyman and Wally arguing in the janitor’s room, heard their voices right through the wall.
And he’d done something about that, something smart.
He had made a recording.
CHAPTER 20
Garbled
“Hey, sailor! All set for the race?”
“What? Oh, yeah—I’m psyched!”
His dad stood at the stove cooking up spaghetti for lunch. As Ben edged through the boat’s tiny galley, he had to be careful that his duffel bag didn’t knock the empty sauce jar off the counter.
“You know, we could use the car to tow your boat over to the club, and you could launch it there.”
“Thanks . . . ,” Ben said slowly, “but I’d rather sail it over.”
“Okay, then. Food’ll be ready in about twenty minutes—should leave plenty of time to get you onto the water by noon or so.”
“Sounds great, Dad. Thanks.”
Ben walked calmly to his tiny cabin at the bow of the boat and softly closed the door, but his mind was running so fast he almost couldn’t stand it.
With shaky hands he pulled out his phone and punched up the summary screen for Voice Memo 1.
Date: June 1
Time: 3:44 p.m.
He already knew that.
But the next bit was a surprise.
Duration: 47 seconds
Can that be right?
It had felt like he’d stood there with his phone pressed against that wall for at least five minutes . . . before that brass coffin lid had clanged to the floor.
He plugged earbuds into his phone, and pushed play.
Nothing sounded clear, but it certainly seemed like two different voices—and of course that meant Lyman’s and Wally’s. And the vibe coming through that wall from the janitor’s workshop made him pretty sure that this wasn’t a friendly chat—it was an argument. With yelling.
But the sound quality was terrible. It was sort of like both men were talking underwater, or maybe had their mouths stuffed with marshmallows. Only one sound was sharp and clear—the huge bong at the end.
There was also a steady high-pitched hum . . . and a low buzzing rumble, too. And the volume level kept rising and falling—it was like being at his grandparents’ place in Maine and listening to a Red Sox game on an AM radio station.
He’d watched enough cop shows to know that there were ways to start with bad sound and make it better, to clean it up—but he didn’t happen to have the FBI crime lab to help him out.
I wonder what Robert would do?
Ben was not happy with that thought.
He took an instant inventory, and then changed his question.
I’ve got my laptop, an iPad, a good set of earphones, a strong Wi-Fi connection, and about twenty minutes—how can I fix this lousy voice memo?
That simple question helped, and a course of action snapped into focus.
First, Ben clicked back to the menu screen on his phone, highlighted “Voice Memo 1,” and then e-mailed it—to himself.
He sat at his desk, pulled his laptop from his backpack, and opened it up. It took thirty seconds to start, and then another ten seconds for his e-mail program to load. During that time he found his good earphones in his desk and plugged them into the computer. He clicked “Get Messages” . . .
Yes!
He had a new e-mail from himself, with an audio attachment: “Voice Memo 1.” So now the memo was just like any other sound file on his computer!
He dragged the memo file out of the e-mail and dropped it onto the iTunes icon. Instantly, the memo began playing through his headphones. The sound quality wasn’t really better—he just heard more clearly how awful it was.
But he’d used iTunes a lot, and he knew how to change the way a song sounded—which seemed worth a try.
First he selected the memo in the iTunes list, then clicked on “File,” then “Get Info,” which opened up a window on his screen. And in that window, he clicked on the “Options” button. There was a slider button to change the loudness of the memo, so he bumped it up—making it louder couldn’t hurt, right?
Fortunately, he remembered the huge bong at the end, and he used the “Stop Time” setting to cut off the final two seconds of the memo.
But what he really wanted to use were the “Equalizer Preset” choices. He clicked open the list, and selected “Spoken Wo
rd.”
Then he listened to the memo again—without the big clang at the end this time.
It wasn’t any clearer.
Hmm . . . research!
He opened an Internet browser window and typed in “fixing a bad recording.” A lot of garbage showed up, but about ten items down from the top, something caught his eye—an iPad app called Gottahearit.
Ben reached into his pack again and pulled out the iPad. He knew how to use the App Store, and thanks to Robert’s planning, the Keepers already had an account that was linked to their credit card at Edgeport Bank and Trust.
A quick search in the App Store brought up the info about Gottahearit. It was a sound filtering program, with lots of ways to choose specific parts of a recording and either cut them out, or make them louder and clearer. And at a price of $4.99, it was certainly worth a shot. He clicked “Purchase,” entered the account password, and in fifteen seconds the new app appeared on the screen in his hands.
It took him a few minutes to locate the e-mail he’d sent himself, import the voice memo into iTunes on the iPad, and then move it from iTunes to the new application.
But once the memo was there in the Gottahearit window, everything became much simpler. The whole forty-five seconds of audio was laid out across the screen as a picture of the sound waves. It looked like a little mountain range, with lots of peaks and valleys.
And all he had to do was go through the recording and pick which kinds of sounds to keep, and which kinds to block. He identified Lyman’s voice waves and Wally’s voice waves, and put them onto the “Keep” list. He identified the high hum waves, and the low buzz waves, and put them onto the “Zap” list. Then he pushed a button to even out the volume level, and two other buttons labeled “enhance voice tones” and “Filter Noise.”
After five minutes he was able to hear some words—kind of.
And he was able to get an idea what the men had been arguing about—kind of.
But it was still garbled.
He got out a notecard, and as the memo played, he wrote down the words and phrases he could hear—kind of.