Eye on Crime

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “So that solves that mystery,” Fenton said. “Now, from what you kids said about Callie and Iola’s experience, the boys probably won’t recall enough to be of any help. They’ll probably be pretty out of it until tomorrow.”

  “In that case,” Mrs. Hardy said, “everybody should go on home and get some sleep. You do have school tomorrow.”

  “Sleep?” Iola asked, agitated. “Who’s going to get any sleep after all of this?”

  “I’m always good for a night’s sleep,” Tony offered with a smile.

  “Come on,” Chet said, “I’ll give everybody a ride home.”

  • • •

  The next morning Frank and Joe were a little sluggish getting out of bed.

  “I feel like a big wad of cotton is where my brain used to be,” Frank said.

  “I’m a bit out of it also,” Joe replied.

  The brothers washed up and got ready for school in silence. They had a quick breakfast and were out the door without so much as a “good morning” to their parents. They got in the van and drove to the school, saying nothing to each other.

  Several blocks away from the school, Frank finally perked up a little bit. A black sedan accelerated past them on the passenger side of the van. Then, just as the car pulled ahead of the van, it swerved to the side and screeched to a halt perpendicular to the Hardy vehicle. Frank slammed down hard on the brakes, and the van slid to a stop just a few feet away from the sedan.

  “What’s going on!” Joe yelled out his window. Then he caught sight of a familiar man getting out of the car. “Zybysko,” Joe said. He reached for his door handle and got out of the van, not bothering to close the door. Frank followed suit. In seconds the two brothers stood in front of their van, ready for action.

  Zybysko hung back a moment until he was joined by Spicolli. Then they approached the Hardys.

  “Look,” Frank said, “enough is enough. We don’t have time for this. We’re just a couple of kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Can’t we all just be friends?” Joe asked. “We could give you some fashion tips.”

  “Oh, that helped,” Frank said. The two thugs came right up to Frank and Joe. Spicolli grabbed Joe’s shirt collar.

  “Hey, let him go,” Frank said as he grabbed his brother’s attacker’s arm. Zybysko grabbed Frank and pushed him up against the van.

  Instinct took over in both teens. Joe thrust his arms forward and up between his assailant’s arms applying fast pressure to the man’s elbow joints. The thug let go. Joe took the opportunity to drive his shoulder into the man’s midsection.

  Frank grabbed Zybysko’s wrist and twisted, forcing the thug to release his hold on his neck. Then Frank used his leverage to force the larger man to the ground. When Zybysko’s face reached Frank’s midsection, Frank kicked him. The force of the blow started a trickle of blood from the thug’s tan nose.

  Free of their attackers, Frank and Joe scrambled for the van. But just as Joe climbed into the passenger seat, Spicolli grabbed him. Joe kicked his legs and connected with his attacker’s shoulder. Spicolli let go, and Joe pulled his door shut.

  “Hit it, Frank!” Frank threw the van into reverse and gunned the engine. The van was half-way down the block before the thugs even reached their car. Frank twisted the steering wheel. The van spun one hundred eighty degrees. Then Frank switched gears, hit the gas, and sped away.

  “Should we report the incident?” Frank asked.

  “What’s to report? That we easily escaped two inept bad guys for the second time? Why bother?”

  “Yeah, it was easy, wasn’t it,” Frank agreed. Joe laughed.

  After that, the rest of the day was pleasantly quiet. Frank and Joe met with their friends during lunch, but had little insight to offer about their activities from the prior night.

  “We’ll just have to see if anything develops,” Frank said, picking over the cafeteria’s special of the day.

  “And if something doesn’t happen soon to give us a break in this case,” Joe added, “we’ll start looking for another way to clear you two.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Iola said.

  “We know we can count on you,” Callie added.

  School wrapped up for the day, and Frank and Joe headed for the locker room. It was the first day of baseball season, and Bayport High School’s first challenge was to host the defending state champions, Shoreham High.

  The mood in the locker room was cheerful as the players psyched themselves up to take on their rivals. Everyone dressed quickly and headed out to the field to stretch and warm up. Frank was scheduled to pitch the opening-day game, so he headed to the pitcher’s mound to get a feel for the diamond. Joe stepped up to the plate with a bat in his hand.

  “Throw some warm-up pitches,” he hollered to Frank. “I’ll use them for batting practice while we wait for Coach Tarkanian.”

  Frank threw some pitches. The first ones were soft and straight as he loosened his muscles, so Joe put those balls into orbit. Then Frank got serious. He threw his patented Hardy Heater, smoking the fastball past his brother.

  “There you go, bro,” Joe said. “Looking good.”

  After a few more pitches and swings, some strikes and some hits, the brothers headed for the dugout.

  The entire team gathered together. As they high-fived and whooped it up a bit, the Shoreham team took to the field to warm up.

  “I wonder where Coach Tark is,” Joe said.

  “He was in his office talking to somebody,” a teammate said. “The blinds were pulled so I couldn’t see who. But the coach didn’t sound happy.”

  “Ah, probably nothing,” Frank said, trying to keep his teammates loose. Then Frank turned to the team’s catcher to discuss the pitch signs and strategy.

  “Frank, Joe,” a voice boomed suddenly. The players all looked at the dugout entrance, which was filled by the form of their coach.

  “Yes, Coach,” Frank said.

  “You two get on over to the locker room. Somebody there to see you.”

  “What’s up?” Joe asked. “The game’s going to start soon.”

  “I know,” the coach replied. “You two are scrubbed for the day.”

  “Scrubbed?” Michael Shannon, the team’s catcher, echoed. “Frank’s our number-one pitcher!”

  “Yeah,” came the complaints of the other players. “And Joe . . .”

  Coach Tarkanian silenced his team with a steely glare.

  “Why are we scrubbed?” Frank asked. “It couldn’t be because of bad grades. We’re both good students.”

  “It isn’t grades,” Coach Tarkanian said. “Just go.” The coach turned to the other players. “Novick,” he said to the team’s number-two starting pitcher, “get to the bullpen and get warmed up. Gitenstein, you’ll take Joe’s spot.”

  The team once more muttered their protests, but the discussion was closed. Frank and Joe left the dugout and headed for the locker room. Both were bewildered and very upset. When they reached the locker room, Officer Con Riley was waiting for them.

  “Con?” Joe asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Has there been a break in the jewelry case?” Frank asked.

  “In a way,” Con said sadly. “Look, I hate to do this, but, Frank and Joe Hardy, you are both under arrest.”

  14 Frank and Joe Go to Jail

  * * *

  “Oh, now this seems familiar,” Joe said.

  “It’s not as if we didn’t expect it.”

  “What was that, Frank?” Con asked.

  “I think we’ll go with the right to remain silent for now,” Frank replied.

  Riley read the brothers their Miranda Rights.

  “You are being arrested for robbing Bayport Midtown Furriers,” Con said. “Do you wish to make a confession at this time?”

  “Furriers? Not a jewelry store?” Frank was a little confused.

  “Uh, we do not wish to make any statements,” Joe said. Frank nodded his agreement.

  “Jus
t sticking to procedure,” Con said. He allowed them to change out of their uniforms.

  “Con,” Frank said as the man led them out to his patrol car, “thanks for doing this yourself. I mean it. I know you’ll stick by us.”

  Con smiled. “I’ll get you through booking as swiftly as possible. I’ve already arranged for your father to meet us at the station. It’s bending procedure, but I’m willing to take a risk for you two.”

  At the local precinct house, Con proved true to his word. The Hardy brothers were rushed through booking and led to an interrogation room. Con stayed with them the entire time. Soon Chief Collig, Fenton Hardy, and Brady Stelfreeze joined them.

  “Well, well,” Collig said with a smirk. “I’m a bit surprised, I have to admit.”

  “Glad to make your day,” Joe said.

  “Let’s just roll the evidence,” Collig said. “That should speed up a confession.”

  “I will note comments like that as coercion and duress,” Stelfreeze warned.

  Con went to a television console and pressed Play on the video machine. The screen lit up and displayed a scene taken from the Midtown Furriers’ security camera. It plainly showed Joe and Frank entering a side door of the furriers’ warehouse, finding some boxes of furs, and loading them into a truck through the loading-dock door.

  Frank leaned over to whisper to his brother. “The furs are a switch. But they didn’t take much effort to alter the tape.”

  “What was that?” Chief Collig asked. Frank did not reply. “Suit yourself,” Collig said. “Anyway, we don’t need a confession.”

  “We plan to show how that tape is faulty evidence,” Stelfreeze said. “We will show that it has been tampered with.”

  “Oh, we don’t plan to hang this all on the tape,” Collig said. “Con?”

  Con Riley threw a plastic bag on the table in plain sight of everyone gathered there. Inside was a ragged swatch of fur.

  “We got a search warrant for your van, based on the tape. We searched it while you were in school. We found this under the passenger seat.”

  “We’ve been set up!” Joe yelled.

  “Simmer down,” Stelfreeze instructed him. Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

  “Yeah?” Collig shouted. A uniformed officer opened the door and poked his head inside the interrogation room.

  “I have papers signed by Judge Bone, authorizing release on bail of Frank and Joe Hardy.”

  Brady Stelfreeze smiled.

  “When you hire the best, you get the best results,” Fenton Hardy said.

  Chief Collig shook his head with disappointment. “Get on out of here,” he said. “For now, anyway.”

  Joe and Frank stood up. Stelfreeze, their father, and Con Riley filed through the door and out of the room. Frank and Joe started to follow them.

  “Hey,” Collig said softly, “for what it’s worth, I don’t like being the bad cop right now. I hope you guys are being framed.”

  Frank and Joe nodded their heads and smiled.

  When they got outside, Fenton Hardy drove up in his sons’ van.

  “It was in impound,” he said. “Stelfreeze got it released.” Frank and Joe got in the van.

  “You want to drive?” Fenton asked Joe.

  “Nah, you go ahead,” he replied. “Hey, where’s your car?”

  “I came here with Stelfreeze. We’re going to meet him at our house for a strategy session. Maybe you two want to bring me up to speed.”

  Frank and Joe filled their father in on their involvement with what they referred to as the Monty Mania case. They walked him through their encounters with Monty, their interactions with Rojas and Wingfoot, their girlfriends’ involvement, and each of the theories they had put forward on the case.

  “Wow,” Fenton said, “that’s a busy handful of days. So what you believe is that this hypnotist is planting posthypnotic suggestions in his guests’ minds, while Ronald Johnson uses his control of the security company to pull off these robberies and frame somebody else.”

  “That’s pretty much it at this point,” Frank said. “Monty has people do stuff on stage that is easily morphed into the security camera footage. And Johnson set up each store’s security system, so he would have no problem bypassing it. Then to cover the scent of its being an inside job, he trips the alarms when he’s ready to make a getaway.”

  “But even if you run all of the videotapes through your computer and show how Johnson could have framed everybody, it still doesn’t prove anything. Especially now that some hard evidence has been found in your van.”

  “Yeah, how did that get in here?” Frank asked.

  “Probably when we were tussling with the thugs-of-the-week club,” Joe said. “I thought that whole tangle ended a bit too easily.”

  “Well, now we just have to catch Johnson in the act,” Frank said. “The missing goods have to be tracked right to his door.”

  “That’s a tall order, son,” Fenton said. “But if it can be done, you guys will do it.”

  • • •

  After a long night of legal strategizing, the brothers finally got to bed just before midnight.

  The next morning they decided to be late for school so they could check out Eye Spy Security. They figured a bold front-door approach would serve them best.

  “Put on a nice shirt and a tie,” Frank suggested as he and Joe got dressed.

  Joe winced. “I hate ties. Why a tie?”

  “It will give our appearance at the Eye Spy Security corporate offices a bit more legitimacy.”

  When they reached the office, they walked straight into the reception area.

  “May I help you?” asked a young woman sitting behind a desk.

  Joe smiled. He gave his brother an I’ll-handle-this look. “Yes, you certainly can,” he said as he approached the desk. “We represent a local group of investors who . . .”

  Frank tuned out his brother’s smooth talk, choosing instead to wander around the reception area. He made his way close to the entrance to the interior offices. Through a set of double glass doors, he saw a familiar face.

  “Bill,” he said as he opened the door. “How’s it going?”

  The security installation man Frank had met at the Bayport Jewelry Exchange gave the teen a puzzled look. Then a smile crossed his face.

  “Hey, kid,” he said. “It’s going well. What are you doing around here?”

  Frank walked up to the installation man.

  “All right, I’ll confess,” Frank whispered. “I’m here to learn how to foil Eye Spy’s latest security system.” Then he flashed the man a big smile.

  Bill laughed. “That’s a good one. But, hey, are you here looking for a job maybe? I could put in a word for you.”

  “It’s a tempting offer,” Frank said. “But I don’t know—installing alarms at jewelry stores every day? Sounds like it could get old.”

  “Hey, we don’t just do jewels. In fact, I’m headed out to do a repair at a fur warehouse.”

  Just then Bill’s beeper chimed. “I got to get this,” he said. Bill turned around and walked down the hallway.

  Frank looked around. He spotted an open office door and decided to peek inside. Nobody was in the office, so Frank made sure the coast was clear in the hall and then he walked over to the desk. On top was a stack of papers—bills, from what Frank could gather. The one on top was for Diamonds and Pearls Jewelers. Frank took a closer look and could see the impression of something handwritten reflected on the bill, as if it had been under a piece of paper on which somebody had written a note.

  Frank held the paper up to the light.

  “Next?” he read.

  Just then there was noise in the hallway. Frank put the paper down on the desk and walked into the hall.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” asked a man, whom Frank recognized as Ronald Johnson.

  “Uh, I’m looking to set up some security for my dad’s new art gallery,” Frank replied.

  “Art gallery, huh?” Johnson said,
approaching Frank. “Well, I’m Ronald Johnson, president here at Eye Spy Security. You’ve certainly come to the right place for all your security needs.”

  Frank shook Johnson’s extended hand.

  “Now, if you’ll just head on down the hall to the left, I’ll have one of our security experts show you some of our wonderful systems and set up an appointment to have one of our men survey the gallery.”

  “Great,” Frank said as he walked off in the direction in which Johnson had pointed. He had wanted to press the conversation with Johnson further, but he could tell that the man was not going to stand there and be questioned.

  After Frank was certain Johnson had left the hallway, he turned around and went back to the reception area. Joe was leaning against the receptionist’s desk, still smiling and talking. Frank tapped Joe on the shoulder.

  “Let’s get going,” he said. Joe hesitated. Frank gently pulled on his sleeve.

  “Well, thanks,” Joe said over his shoulder to the receptionist as Frank dragged him toward the exit. “I’ll keep all that in mind.”

  “Keep what in mind?” Frank asked as they got in the elevator.

  “Nothing,” Joe answered. “Just small talk.”

  Frank snorted and shook his head. “I had some small talk, too. With our main suspect.”

  “Wow,” Joe said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be. I didn’t get anything.”

  They exited the building and headed for the van. Suddenly, the normal sounds of downtown traffic were pierced by the squeal of grinding brakes.

  “Oh, great,” Joe said as he pointed at a black sedan. The car was cutting across three lanes of traffic to make a U-turn. “Here we go again.”

  15 Evasive Maneuvers

  * * *

  “When will these guys ever give up?” Frank moaned as he sprinted for the van. Joe headed out into the street and ran for the driver’s side of the vehicle. When both Hardys were in the van, Joe started the engine.

  He could see the sedan in the mirror.

  “They’re a few cars back,” Joe said. “Good thing there’s some traffic.” Joe saw a few inches of daylight between the two cars about to pass the van. He threw the van into gear and shot out into traffic just as the first car passed. In the other car the brakes were slammed on and the horn was pushed.