Trouble in Warp Space (12 page)

“I can’t believe they shut us down,” Ramon Torres said. “We were doing good work.”

“Money talks, Ramon,” Reid replied. “Don’t think it was anything else.”

Jerri Bell stood up, her hands fiddling nervously
with a large ring of keys. “I can’t believe that you’re thinking about yourselves when poor Matt is in the hospital!” she said. “He could have been killed.”

“I was nearly killed, too, remember?” Peck Wilson said. “Maybe shutting down for a while is the best thing to do. Maybe we’ll have better luck if we make a fresh start.”

Jerri looked as though she might burst into tears. Claudia walked over to her and gave her a hug. Both of them sat down on the large sectional sofa in the middle of the room. Iola, Chet, and the Mortons took seats nearby. The other members of the crew drifted into small groups and talked quietly among themselves.

“I’m sure Matt will be all right,” Claudia said to Jerri.

“He . . . he just looked so scared when they took him away,” Jerri said. “I felt so helpless.” Her fingers continued to fiddle with the key ring as she spoke.

The Spacefleet insignia on the ring caught Iola’s attention. “That’s a nice key ring,” she said, trying to get Jerri’s mind off the accident. “Do you think I could get one like it as a souvenir?”

“This?” Jerri said. “It’s not mine. Matt pressed it into my hand before they took him away. He said I should keep it until he got out of the hospital. At least, that’s what I think he said. He was pretty delirious at the time.”

“Wait a minute,” Claudia said. “Matt gave you
that?
Can I look at it?”

Jerri nodded and handed the key ring to Claudia. The ring had keys of various shapes and sizes attached to a central Spacefleet insignia. Claudia’s brow knitted together as she studied it.

“What’s wrong?” Frank asked.

“This is one of the limited-edition key rings,” Claudia said. “Only the people who were onboard when the show was greenlighted got one. Matt
wasn’t
one of those people. Even Jerri didn’t join the cast soon enough to get one.”

“Then how’d Matt get it?” Joe asked.

“Maybe it’s one of the things that went missing from the set,” Frank said. “I wonder if Stiller knows anything about it. It might help the show if he did.”

“But Matt’s in the hospital,” Jerri said, wiping a tear away. “You can’t ask him.”

“We wouldn’t have to,” Joe said, catching on to Frank’s plan. “If you’ll lend us that key ring, we can check out his apartment. He might have been doing some investigating on his own.”

“Then we might know if that electrical shock Stiller got was really an accident, or if someone meant to hurt him,” Frank said. “We might even discover what he was trying to tell you.”

“Well, okay,” Jerri said. “So long as you get the keys back to me before morning. Matt might want them tomorrow, if he’s feeling better.”

“No problem,” Joe said. He took the keys and headed for the door.

“Sorry we can’t stay,” Frank said to Claudia. “I just hope we’ll have good news the next time we see you.”

“I hope so, too,” Claudia said.

•  •  •  

A quick check of the phone book turned up an address for Matt Stiller. He lived in an apartment close to the studio. The blanket of clouds made the evening almost as dark as night by the time Frank parked the van in front of Stiller’s building.

“Won’t the police have Stiller’s place sealed off?” Chet asked as they went to find the apartment.

“The police think that Stiller’s getting shocked was an accident,” Frank said. “They’d have no reason to seal the apartment.”

In short order they found the right door, opened it, and stepped inside. The floor of the apartment was covered with papers, clothes, and other personal items.

“What a mess!” Iola said. “How can he live like this?”

“This is no normal mess,” Frank said. “Someone’s ransacked the place.”

Joe pointed to the window. “And there he is!”

Sure enough, a fleeting shadow moved across the surface of Stiller’s first-floor window. Joe and Frank dashed toward the window and threw it open.

As they peered out into the darkness, they caught a brief glimpse of a figure disappearing into the lush landscaping.

Joe pounded his fist on the window. “No way we could find him,” he said.

“Could you see who it was?” Chet asked.

Frank shook his head. “No, he was much too far away, but this confirms that something rotten is going on with the show. It’s too big a coincidence that Stiller’s apartment should be broken into otherwise.”

“Do you think he got what he was looking for?” Iola asked.

“No way to tell,” Joe replied. “We’ll just have to look around a bit and see what we turn up.”

Papers littered the floor of the efficiency apartment. The drawers of the dresser had been turned out and the clothes scattered. The closets had been rifled, too, and their contents spilled. A smashed computer lay atop the other items, but everything else seemed intact. Among the refuse was a large number of
Warp Space
souvenirs.

“Look at all this stuff!” Joe said. “It looks like a retail store.”

“I’ve never seen some of these items before,” Iola said, “and I checked up on
Warp Space
collectibles before we came to the shoot.”

Frank poked amid the action figures, T-shirts, script pages, badges, toys, and other paraphernalia. “This stuff must have cost Stiller a bundle,” he said. “Or . . .”

“Or Matt Stiller was responsible for the thefts around the lot,” Joe said, finishing Frank’s idea.

“It makes sense,” Frank said. “In his position as gofer, he’d have access to most parts of the soundstage and offices. We were told that a lot of promotional items, like the toys, kept disappearing from the studio.”

“And he’d know where they were working, and where it would be ‘safe’ to steal stuff from,” said Iola.

Frank nodded. “The question is, why did he take all this?”

“There are a lot of online auction printouts here,” Iola said, holding up a sheaf of computer paper. “I’d say he was researching the market.”

“So Stiller was stealing the stuff to sell online,” Chet said. “What a creep. I’m almost happy that he’s in the hospital.”

“Stiller being a thief doesn’t answer all our questions, though,” Frank said. “For instance, why did he cause the accidents?”

“Maybe to cover up his other crimes,” Joe suggested. “Take a look at this.” He handed Frank a small star-shaped insignia pin. “Isn’t this the medal that was missing from the Slayer from Sirius costume?”

“Yeah,” Chet said. “That’s the one they had to replace when I took over for Peck Wilson. You think Stiller knocked Peck out just to steal it?”

“And set the fire to cover it up,” Frank said.

Iola rummaged through the papers some more. “Here’s some script pages from that same day,” she said.

Joe began searching, too. “And here’s some correspondence to other collectors,” he said. “Stiller was using a pseudonym for his inquiries, but apparently he thought that the value of his collection would go up if the show went off the air.”

“Rarity does affect price,” Frank said. “If the show went out of production, they’d stop making collectibles. Therefore, everything associated with
Warp Space
would become more valuable.”

“That is so
cold,
” Iola said.

“Here’s the clincher,” Joe said, picking up a fallen trophy from the floor. “It’s for a kung fu tournament. I’d say the alien we fought on the soundstage was really Stiller wearing the mask he stole from Pekar.”

“Where’s the mask, though?” Frank asked. “I don’t see it here.”

“Maybe the burglar took it,” Chet suggested.

“But why take only that one item rather than the computer, or something more valuable?” Iola asked.

“This place is a treasure trove of valuable
Warp Space
collectibles, if a thief was looking to cash in,” Chet added.

“Maybe he didn’t know what the
Warp Space
stuff was worth,” Joe said. “Or maybe we interrupted him, and he didn’t have time to take anything more.”

Frank shook his head. “No. If he’d found what he wanted, he wouldn’t have waited around to be discovered. He must have been looking for something specific and didn’t find it—at least not quickly. Why rifle the apartment otherwise?”

“So, what the burglar wanted might still be here somewhere,” Iola said.

“The only way to find out,” Joe said, “is to keep looking.”

“Do you think he smashed the computer to conceal evidence?” Chet asked.

“Probably,” Frank said. “But we have no way of recovering whatever was on the hard drive. I’m afraid we’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

So the four of them rooted through the items strewn about the apartment, looking for any clues to the burglar’s identity or objective. After three-quarters of an hour, Iola turned something up at the bottom of a pile of papers.

“There are some e-mails here to Stiller,” she said. “Whoever wrote them seems to be encouraging Stiller to cause trouble on the set. They’re filled with rants about rich, spoiled actors who deserve whatever trouble they get.”

Joe looked at the paper. “The return address is a Yipmail account. That makes it harder.”

“Why?” Chet asked.

“Because the service is free,” Joe said, “and you can access it from any computer. It’s a perfect way to send anonymous e-mail. I’ve heard of con artists setting up dozens of phony accounts in as many different names to bilk their marks.”

“Stiller was using a Yipmail account, too,” Iola said.

“So that’s a dead end,” Frank said.

“I’d assume that the writer might be one of the cast or crew,” Joe said. “Certainly Stiller didn’t try
to electrocute himself, and I doubt he could have been behind
all
the other problems.”

“It seems like a lot of mayhem for one guy to cause,” Chet agreed.

Joe jangled Stiller’s key ring, running his fingers through the various-size keys. “Hey,” he said, “what if Stiller had another place to stash his stolen goods?”

“Like, where, Joe?” Iola asked.

Joe held up a single key from the ring. It had a bright red plastic haft with the number 878 printed on it in white letters. “What’s this look like to you?” he asked.

“The locker key from a bus or train station,” Chet said. “But that could be anywhere.”

“I don’t think so,” Frank said, “he’d want a locker that would be convenient to use.”

“The studio lot!” Iola said. “There are lockers there. I’ve seen them near the cafeteria.”

Frank nodded. “That would be logical. Stiller could stash items there to take home later.”

“Or he could store them there if they were too hot to smuggle out of the studio,” Chet added. “Like when the guards were alerted last night.”

“I think we need to look inside that locker,” Joe said.

By eight-thirty the Hardys and Mortons had returned to the studio. Because their prize gave
them the studio trailer for the rest of the week, they had no trouble with the guards at the gate. A gentle rain had begun to fall, and the lot was quiet and dark, save for a single light in the production building. The guard told them that Sandy was working late.

Since
Warp Space
had been shut down, the cafeteria was deserted. It didn’t take the teens long to find locker 878 in a row outside the building. The locker was about the size of a large breadbox, big enough for about two backpacks. Joe fitted the key into the lock, and opened the metal door.

Inside lay the blue alien mask, a sheaf of stolen script pages, and a number of other, small
Warp Space
trinkets. One in particular caught the detectives’ attention.

“A Spacefleet pager!” Iola said. “I’ve read about these. They’re very rare.”

“It would probably fetch big bucks on the collectibles market,” Chet said.

“It might fetch us more than that,” Frank said. “It might be the key to this mystery.”

“How?” Chet and Iola asked simultaneously.

“Look at these script pages,” Joe said, rifling through them. “They’re all dated today.”

“That and the tight security last night means that everything Stiller took recently—within the last twenty-four hours—should still be in here,” Frank said.

“Like the mask,” Iola said.

“Stiller never got the chance to take them home because he nearly got electrocuted,” Chet added.

“Right,” said Joe. “Unless the rifling of Stiller’s apartment is just coincidence—”

“And I’m beginning to think that
nothing
in this case is coincidence,” Frank put in.

“The burglar who rifled through Stiller’s apartment must have known Stiller wouldn’t be there,” Joe continued. “The intruder could even be the same person who tried to kill Stiller. Since the burglar didn’t find what he was looking for, it’s possible what he wanted is in this locker. That’s our best lead, anyway.”

“It can’t be the pages,” Frank said, continuing his brother’s thought, “and it’s probably not the mask. Stan Pekar can make more of those.”

“Which leaves the pager,” Chet said. “But even if it’s valuable as a collector’s item, why would that be so important? Why would someone try to electrocute Stiller for it?”

“It might not be the pager,” Joe said, “but what’s in the pager’s memory.” He pressed the recall button and a number popped up. “Do you have our cell phone, Frank?”

Frank nodded and pulled the phone out. He dialed the number and switched the phone to its speaker function.

“You’ve reached the office of David August, senior
producer at Monumental Broadcasting,” said a voice on the other end of the line. “If you’re a hotshot with a deal that can’t wait, leave your name and number, we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Beep!
”

Frank switched the phone off.

“So, it’s sabotage by a competitor,” Chet said. “Somebody here is working for Monumental Broadcasting.”

“
Warp Space
is a new show,” Joe said. “It can’t be that much of a threat to another network. Despite its cult following, the show’s ratings aren’t great.”