Eye on Crime (4 page)

“I'm not too happy about this,” Chet said. “But I guess you guys are right. Just don't let anything happen to my sister or Callie.”

“Never have,” Joe said as he began to walk toward his van.

“And never will,” added Frank.

• • •

When Frank and Joe arrived at the police station, they headed straight for the second floor. They figured that Con would try to get the girls through booking as quickly as possible; except for not cuffing the girls, he seemed quite preoccupied with procedure in this case. Their instincts proved correct; Callie and Iola were halfway through the fingerprinting process just as Frank and Joe ascended the stairs.

“Joe! Frank!” Iola shouted when she spotted the brothers. Joe and Frank headed straight for the girls.

“Are you two all right?” Frank asked.

“Just peachy,” Callie said, rolling her eyes.

Joe looked all around, surveying the situation. He saw Con at his desk as the girls were being ushered through the process by a uniformed female officer they had never met before. The woman did not seem interested in the presence of the Hardys; she appeared to want to get the booking process and paperwork finished.

“What did they arrest you for?” Joe asked.

“Con said it was for—” Callie began to say. However, before she could finish her sentence, a stern “Enough” that was shouted from across the
room cut off her words. The four teens looked across the room and spotted Police Chief Collig. The Bayport police commander stormed across the room. Con, hearing the commotion, came hurrying after him.

“You two are prohibited from speaking to anybody but your parents and lawyers,” Collig said with a wag of his finger. He motioned to the officer with his head. “Split them up,” he said crisply. “Interrogation Two and Five.” The officer immediately ushered Iola and Callie away.

“What was that—what is this—all about?” Frank asked.

“This is about you two interfering with an investigation,” Collig replied.

“An investigation of what?” Joe asked with anger.

“Let it go for now,” Con said.

“I don't want these two anywhere near this case,” Collig said to Con. “Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” Con replied curtly.

Just then Chief Collig's assistant called to him from across the room. “Chief,” he said, holding up a phone receiver, “it's the mayor again.” Collig let out a heavy breath, turned and went to his office.

“Come on, Con,” Frank said when the chief was out of earshot. “What gives?”

“Collig is serious about this, guys,” Con said. “More so than usual. He doesn't want you two near this case.”

“What case?” Joe asked.

“Uh-uh, you won't find out from me.”

Joe and Frank both gave Con a pleading look.

“All I can do for you is promise to keep an eye on your friends,” Con said. “It'll have to be enough for now.”

“For now,” Joe said curtly.

“Thanks, Con,” Frank added, a bit more smoothly.

“I have to go check on them.” Con turned to head off toward where Callie and Iola had been led moments before.

Frank and Joe looked at each other and shook their heads.

“You watch?” Joe asked.

Frank nodded his head. “You snoop around for some clues.”

The brothers, who were frequent visitors to the Bayport Police Station, nonchalantly walked across the room to Con Riley's desk. Nobody looked up from what they were doing to question their presence there.

Joe leaned back against Con's desk, while Frank stationed himself a few feet away, his eyes glued to the hallway where the interrogation rooms were located. Joe yawned, stretched, and leaned back. On the desk were stacks of folders, a coffee cup, pencils, pens, and other clutter.

Con's not usually this messy, Joe thought. From where Joe was standing he was unable to see fully
the file folders and papers that were at the center of the desk.

That's probably what I want to read, Joe thought. It's what he's currently working on.

Joe moved his body along the desk, using one hip to shift a stack of files a bit to give him a clearer view of the papers he wanted a better look at. He spotted an arrest warrant sitting on top of a file folder. He couldn't make out what it said, though.

Joe stretched and yawned once more, and as he moved his arms behind his back, he swiped the folder and warrant to the floor. They landed on the opposite side of the desk from where he was standing.

“Clumsy me,” he said to nobody in particular. Joe circled the desk and moved the chair out of the way so he could get to the papers. The arrest warrant, he could now read, was for Callie Shaw and Iola Morton. Joe scanned the legal mumbo jumbo, looking for the reason the warrant was issued. His eyes went wide.

“Robbery?” he mumbled.

Joe was so perplexed by what he just read that he failed to hear his brother coughing.

“Joe” came a harsh whisper two seconds later, followed by what sounded like Frank going into a huge coughing fit. That caught the younger Hardy's attention. He immediately began to scoop
up the papers and folder he had pushed off the desk. As he began to stand up he chanced a quick glance at the top page inside the file. Again his eyes went wide with confusion.

“Just what do you think you're doing?” came a sudden loud and very disappointed-sounding voice.

Joe smiled as he put the file folder back on top of the desk. He straightened the papers, moved the coffee mug, and lined up some pencils.

“Uh, just helping you clean up some of this mess,” he said sheepishly, staring straight into the eyes of Con Riley.

Then he added with more confidence, “You just seem so busy and all, and I know how much you like a neat desk.” Joe walked around the desk to stand next to his brother. There was an awkward silence as Con just shook his head.

“I trusted you boys,” Con said sadly. “I told you to stay out of this.”

“Come on, Con,” Frank said. “We're the same guys you always have trusted and always can trust. But you can't expect us to sit on the sidelines when
our girlfriends have just been arrested for who knows what.”

Joe cleared his throat. At this point the only person standing there who didn't know why the girls had been arrested was Frank. Joe wanted to tell his brother what he had read, but he knew it was best not to let Con know what he had read inside the file folder.

“Anyway,” Con said, “I'm glad you're both still here. Saves me the trouble of having to round you up.”

“Round us up?” Frank asked. “Why, are you arresting us also?”

“No,” Con said with a shake of his head. “But the chief does want to ask you some questions.”

“About what?” Frank asked. Con pursed his lips and shook his head without saying a word.

“Before we settle down for a chat with the chief,” Joe said, “I need to use the bathroom.”

“Whatever,” Con replied.

Joe stepped past his brother. As he did so, he lightly elbowed Frank in the ribs.

“Oh,” Frank said. “I have to go, too.”

Con smirked at the brothers.

“Big breakfast,” Frank said, patting his stomach.

“Uh-huh,” Con said nodding his head. “Big breakfast. Sure, go ahead. Be quick and then meet me in Interrogation One.”

Frank and Joe headed for the bathroom. Once
they were inside, Joe held a finger to his lips, keeping Frank silent for a moment. He motioned to the stalls. The brothers swiftly peeked under each stall door to make sure nobody else was in the room. Satisfied that they were alone, Joe began to whisper.

“Do you think he suspected that we wanted to talk?” he said, knowing full well that they hadn't put anything over on Officer Riley.

Frank chuckled. “So what did you find out?”

“Two things, maybe related, maybe not. First, the girls were arrested for robbery.”

“Robbery,” Frank said, his voice rising above a whisper. Just then the door opened and a detective entered the bathroom. Joe remembered his name as Mike Dreher, a hard-nosed veteran who worked homicide cases.

“Boys,” the detective said as he went into a stall.

“Detective Dreher,” Joe said. Then he led Frank over to the row of sinks and turned on the water in two of them. He washed his hands, and Frank followed suit.

“What else?” Frank asked.

“Con's working the Jewelry Exchange case.”

“What does that have to do with the girls? The cops don't think Callie and Iola are involved with that, do they?”

Joe just shrugged his shoulders. The toilet flushed and Detective Dreher approached the
sinks. Frank and Joe dried their hands in silence and left the bathroom. They went to Interrogation Room One, where Con Riley was waiting for them.

“Have a seat, boys.” Con motioned to some chairs arrayed around an old wooden table. Frank and Joe both sat down. Con closed the door to the room partway.

“I am required to inform you that you are about to be officially questioned,” he said curtly.

“Why all the formality, Con?” Frank asked.

Con did not reply to the question. Instead he said, “Do you understand?”

“Sure,” Joe said. “If that's the way it's going to be. Should we have a lawyer present?”

“You have that right,” Con replied.

“But why waste time?” Chief Collig came barging into the interrogation room. He slammed the door shut behind him. “Unless you have something to hide?”

“What's to hide?” Joe asked angrily. “We're not the ones who arrested two girls and refuse to tell anybody why.”

“That's enough, Joe,” Frank said.

“You should listen to your brother,” Collig said. “He must have got all the brains in the family.”

“Chief, that was uncalled for,” Con said. “Look, boys, I can tell you that what we want to know may help your friends.”

“Or it may hurt them,” Joe said.

“Get this, Hardy,” the chief said. He pulled up
a chair, turned it around, and sat down facing the Hardys. He leaned in close to Joe. “Easy way or hard way? Answer the questions—easy. Hard is what we call obstructing justice.”

Joe stared directly into Collig's eyes. The chief had never made it a secret that he didn't like the brother detectives; he had always found them obtrusive and was perhaps sometimes embarrassed that they had solved cases that the Bayport Police Department had had trouble bringing to a close. But Joe didn't appreciate his belligerent approach and wasn't about to back down when the fate of his friends was at stake.

“Easy way,” Frank finally said, breaking the tension. “We're trusting you here, Con. Plus, we have nothing to hide.”

Chief Collig made a clucking sound and shook his head. He scooted his chair back a few inches from Joe.

“Good idea,” Con said. “Okay, we know you two are pretty close with Ms. Shaw and Ms. Morton. Do you have any knowledge of their whereabouts yesterday?”

Joe crossed his arms and just sat silently. After a moment Frank said, “They were at school. Had lunch with them as a matter of fact.”

“What about after school?” Collig asked meanly.

“Chief Collig,” Joe said, “the bad cop act is wearing thin.”

“Who said I was acting?”

“Excuse me,” Joe replied. “Overacting.”

“What my brother is trying to say is, we agree to cooperate, so how about everybody just playing nice.”

“Good idea, Frank,” Con said. “Anyway, back to the question: Do you know anything about their whereabouts after school?”

“They were with us at the Bayport Television Studio for a taping of the
Monty Mania
show.”

“I love that show,” Con said. “Did he hypnotize anybody?”

“As a matter of fact—” Frank began.

“Enough with the TV show already!” Collig boomed. “We know that show doesn't start taping until four o'clock. Were the two girls with you from after school until the show started?”

The Hardy brothers both hesitated.

“That answers that question,” Collig said.

“Okay,” Joe said. “No they weren't. They met us there at three forty-five.”

“Do you know where they were from the end of school—what is that, two-thirty?—until three forty-five?”

“They both wanted to change their clothes,” Frank said.

“That's all you know?” Collig asked.

“That's all we know about after school until they met us,” Frank said.

“What time did the show end?” Con asked.

“Taping ended around six-forty,” Frank said.

“And what happened after that?”

“We went to the Pizza Palace,” Joe said. He knew what question was coming next, but he was hoping it wouldn't get asked. “We had some dinner,” he added, trying to delay the inevitable.

“Did the ladies go with you?” Con asked.

“No,” Frank said softly. “No, they didn't.”

Chief Collig stood up and pushed his chair back under the table.

“Hmmm. Interesting,” he said. “Now the million-dollar question: When did you next see them?”

Joe let out a long breath. He glanced around the room. Frank looked at his own shoes.

“Need that one read back to you?” Collig chided.

“We saw Iola around eleven at her house,” Frank said. “Callie we didn't see until the next morning at school just before they were arrested.”

There was silence in the room for several heart-beats.

“Can we go now?”

“Sure, Joe, you can go,” Con said.

Frank and Joe got up from the table and headed for the door of the interrogation room.

“Oh, one more thing,” Collig said. “Any witnesses to where you two were after the show?”

“Chet Morton and Tony Prito and about half a dozen other people who came into the pizza
place,” Joe said. He didn't want to use his friends' names, but he knew it was inevitable.