Down in the basement, the Hardys found Phil sitting in front of an oversize computer monitor. “Guys, check out the shots I got.”
Frank and Joe gathered around the monitor. “What is all this stuff?” Joe asked. He marveled at the jumble of electronics and the tangle of wires.
“This,” Phil answered, pointing to a machine that looked like a double-size VCR, “is a digital effects recorder. I can freeze one frame at a time on your video with this.”
“We already tried that with our VCR,” Joe said. “The picture was too blurry.”
“Right,” Phil answered. “This machine digitizes the image.”
“Digitizes it?” Joe asked.
“Yeah,” Frank said. “It means it stores the picture as numbers.”
“Like one of those kids’ coloring books that says, Everywhere you see the number one, color in blue; where you see number two, put in green . . .’ like that?” Joe asked.
“Exactly,” Phil said. “Then I transfer the digitized image to a compact disk and ask the computer to fill in the right numbers where some are missing. So everywhere the computer sees numbers that correspond to blue, it adds a little more blue until I tell it to stop, and so on.”
“Got it,” Joe said. “Turn on the show.”
Phil punched in some numbers on a keyboard, telling the CD-ROM to search for a certain image on the disk. The machine buzzed for a second, then a picture popped up on the computer screen.
At first, the picture was no better than it had been on the Hardys’ VCR. Gradually, though, the image became clearer as the computer added more detail.
“Nice!” Joe exclaimed. The picture showed the black sedan charging down the street twenty or thirty yards ahead of the Hardys in their mother’s car. But now the license plate was clearly visible.
Phil printed the image.
“Did you find any frames with good pictures of the guys in the car?” Joe asked.
“Nope,” Phil replied. “We never see anything more than the backs of their heads.” Phil handed Frank the printed page. He picked up another stack of papers. “I already printed the pictures of those maps you guys filmed.”
Frank spread the papers out on Phil’s workbench. With the pages in the right order, an almost complete map of Bayport was made. “What do you make of it?” he asked Phil.
Phil rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “The red lines are definitely the electrical and phone lines—”
“And these green lines that come from the power plant west of town,” Frank added, “must be the gas lines.”
Phil nodded. “Where are the waterworks?”
“Here.” Joe placed a finger on some black circles close to the bay. “This is the sewage treatment plant.”
“So the blue lines are fresh water going out, and the brown lines are sewage going back to be treated.”
“And the yellow?” Joe asked. “Somebody was pretty interested in them.” There weren’t as many yellow lines as those of the other colors, but whoever had been studying the maps at Ron’s Salvage had traced over a lot of them with an orange highlighter to make them stand out clearly.
The three stared at the map, concentrating.
They all jumped when the sound of Phil’s new doorbell broke the silence. “Stand away from the doors, please,” the voice commanded loudly.
Phil glanced at the Hardys, then up at the double cellar doors. “Who’s there?” he called.
A crack of sunlight shot in as someone tried to pull the doors up and open.
“I said, who’s there?” Phil shouted.
The doors slammed shut.
“Open them,” Frank whispered. He and Joe quietly padded to positions next to the steps so they could see out when the doors were opened. When Frank signaled, Phil pushed a button.
The doors slowly pushed open.
No one was there—just a wide square of cloudless blue sky.
Frank pointed up.
Joe nodded, his jaw set. They’d have to go up. He started up the stairs slowly.
After three or four steps, his head was high enough for him to see out into Phil’s backyard. It was empty.
He took a few more cautious steps up. “Must’ve been some neighborhood kid goofing on us,” he said.
Joe took another step, and it was as if a thick rope had been noosed around his neck. He brought his hands up—he couldn’t breathe! He tried to say Frank’s name, but nothing came out.
He saw the sky, the blue darkening at the edges. Then he felt himself being lifted, then dropped, on the soft grass of Phil’s lawn.
From down in the basement, Frank had seen a dark figure rise up from behind one of the open doors. A thick arm had snaked around Joe’s neck, and then Joe had disappeared from view.
Frank rushed up the steps. “Meredith!” he said. “Let him go!”
The big ex-con had Joe down on the lawn, holding one arm pinned behind his back.
Frank had revenge in his eyes as he started for Meredith.
“I’ll break it,” Meredith shouted. He pushed up on Joe’s arm and Joe groaned. “Come any closer, and I’ll do it!”
Frank stayed back. “What do you want, Meredith?”
“I had a visit from the cops this morning,” the big man said. “Seems somebody accused me of robbing Bayport Savings.”
Joe spit out some grass. “You’re going back to jail, Meredith.”
Meredith pulled on the arm some more.
“I did my time,” the ex-con said. “I got a real job now, and I’m not gonna let two punks like you mess it up.”
“If you don’t let my brother go, assault will be added to the robbery charges,” Frank said.
Meredith’s face twisted in anger. “I’m telling you I’m clean,” he shouted. “This is a warning—get off my case!” He glanced around. “Are those sirens? Who called the cops?”
“I did,” Phil said as he came up from the basement.
Meredith jumped up, releasing Joe. He bolted for the street.
In a flash Frank was after him. With his sprinter’s speed, Frank caught up to Meredith quickly. He was about to make a diving tackle, when Meredith vanished from view.
What? was all Frank had time to think before he went flying head over heels. He almost did a full flip in midair before landing flat on his back.
It was all the ex-con needed. He leaped into the white pickup and floored it, sending up a purple cloud of burned rubber.
Frank jumped up and ran to the curb, but all he could do was watch as the truck disappeared around the corner. Frank’s temples pounded with rage as he realized what had just happened. Meredith had suddenly dropped to the ground as they ran, causing Frank to trip over the man. “I can’t believe I fell for such an amateur trick,” he muttered to himself.
Joe and Phil jogged up to him then.
“He got away,” Frank told them. “But the truck he was driving said Ron’s Salvage Yard on the side.”
“He also left this behind,” Joe said. He held out a wallet. “Take a look inside.”
Frank took the wallet and opened it. He pulled out six crisp, new one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Hold them up to the sun,” Phil said.
Frank fanned the bills out like playing cards and held them up. “So much for his story about being innocent,” he said. Not one of the bills had the yellow, micro-coded strip. They were all fake.
Frank pocketed the wallet before the police arrived a few seconds later. He, Joe, and Phil took turns explaining what had happened.
“You okay?” one of the officers asked Joe.
Joe lifted his arm, stretching his shoulder. “I’m fine,” he said. “But Meredith’s not going to be when I catch up to him.”
“Listen,” the officer said, pointing his pen at Joe. “You leave him to us, understand?”
Joe didn’t say anything.
A call came over the officer’s walkie-talkie. After a short exchange, he nodded and put it back on his belt. “Con Riley wants to see you two at the stat
ion,” he said. “You can either ride with me or follow in your van.”
Joe figured they must be in trouble for something, though he couldn’t figure what. “We’ll follow,” he said glumly.
At the station, an office led the Hardys into an empty interrogation room. “Officer Riley will be in to see you in a few minutes,” he said, shutting the door as he left.
The Hardys sat at a steel table. “So what was Meredith doing with counterfeit hundreds?” Joe asked in a low voice.
“I don’t know,” Frank whispered.
“I’ll bet he got them from Sylvia. They’re exactly like the bills she had, and that would make them accomplices, just like I said.”
Frank was about to take the wallet out and look at the cash when Con Riley came in, pushing a cart with a TV and VCR. He also had two cans of soda, which he handed to the Hardys.
“Here,” he said. “Have a drink.”
“Thanks,” Frank and Joe said in unison.
Con sat down across from the Hardys. “Bring that tape with you?” he asked.
“Even better,” Joe said, pulling a folded paper from his jeans pocket. “This picture shows the plate number perfectly.”
Con took the photo. “Great. I’ll look it up on the computer.” He took a videotape and put it in the player. “Now here’s my part of the deal.”
“The surveillance tape from the bank?” Joe asked.
“Yup. Here’s the shot of the parking lot.”
Con and the Hardys watched the grainy black-and-white film. White numbers in the lower right hand corner counted off the seconds as the camera slowly panned back and forth across the lot.
“It’s quick,” Con said. “Watch closely. There!” He pointed to the screen.
Frank and Joe watched a man enter the picture from the bottom of the frame, his back to the camera. A few seconds later the camera panned away.
“That’s all you got?” Joe asked.
“Keep watching,” Con said. “You’d expect to see him again when the camera turns back, but . . .”
They watched in silence as the camera panned back across the parking lot. The man was gone.
“It’s like he went up in thin air,” Con said. “One second he’s walking along, three seconds later he’s nowhere to be found.” He shrugged. “That’s it.” He stopped the tape and started to get up.
“Nuts!” Joe said. “You can’t tell from that if it’s Bart Meredith or someone else.”
Con settled back in his chair.
“I heard you had another run-in with him. I told you we’d take care of talking to him.”
“He found us,” Frank said. “He had a charming way of trying to convince us that he’s innocent.”
“He is innocent,” Con said.
Joe pounded his fists on the table and stood up. “Are you kidding me?”
Con shook his head. “He’s got an alibi. He was at work, waxing the floors of the courthouse, when the robbery happened.”
“He works in the courthouse?” Joe asked in disbelief.
“He’s a janitor for the company that cleans all the city buildings,” Con said. “They say he’s a great employee.”
“What about the fact that I saw him driving a truck from Ron’s Salvage?” Frank asked. “The two guys who tried to rob First City have something to do with that junkyard. When we followed them they led us into that auto compactor on purpose, and Meredith is definitely connected to them. We just don’t know how.”
Con’s expression changed. “He was driving Ron Quick’s truck, you said? A white pickup?”
Frank nodded.
Con looked worried. “Ron Quick’s wife called a little while ago. She said her husband’s been missing for two days.”
8 Biff Calls the Plays
* * *
Frank’s eyebrows shot up. “Two days? She didn’t call until now?”
“She said he sometimes works so hard that he sleeps on a cot at the scrapyard,” Con said. “When he didn’t call, she went over there. She says there’s a new lock on the gate. She couldn’t get in.”
“He’s either working with Meredith or in big trouble,” Joe said.
Con got up. “We’ll find out soon,” he said. “We sent a cruiser over to see what’s going on.” He left to go punch the plate number into the computer.
Another officer came in while the Hardys waited. She plopped a stack of books, each as thick as a dictionary, down on the table. “Con says you got a look at one of the guys who tried to break into First City,” she said to Joe. “Flip through these mug books. See what you can see.”
Joe’s shoulders sagged. “Sure,” he said. When the officer left, he shoved half the books over to Frank. “Look for a dude with a buzz cut,” he said, remembering the man he’d seen get out of the black sedan and peek into the First City bank window. “Dark hair, square chin, thick neck, like a wrestler.”
For the next fifteen minutes, the Hardys flipped through pages and pages of mug shots. Every minute or so, Frank would turn his book toward Joe and ask, “Is this the guy?”
Joe would shake his head. “No, look for bigger eyes,” he’d instruct. Or, “Watch for a nose that looks like it’s been busted a couple of times.”
Finally Con came back in, holding a computer printout. “Any luck?” he asked.
“No,” Joe said, closing a book. “Plenty of ugly mugs in here, though. What’d you get?”
“Got a hit on that plate,” Con said. “The car’s registered to Speedy Rent-a-Car. I called and they said they rented that car yesterday morning to a guy named . . .” Con glanced at the printout. “A guy named Earl Galatin.”
“Cool,” Joe said. “You get an address?”
Con smiled apologetically. “We’re already checking it out,” he said. “Chief Collig says, ‘Thanks for the information, but stay clear of the investigation from now on.’ ”
“Figures,” Joe said. He pushed his chair back from the table. “Let’s get out of here, Frank. Chief Collig wants us to go home and bake cookies or something.”
The door to the interrogation room opened and the officer stuck her head back in. “No news, Con,” she said. “Unit fifteen just got back from Ron’s Salvage. They didn’t find anything—no evidence of foul play.”
Con nodded. “Thanks.”
“Wait,” Frank said. He’d suddenly remembered what Sylvia van Loveren had said about people photocopying currency. “Did they say anything about the copy machine in the office?”
The officer got a funny look on her face. “Yeah, they did. Mrs. Quick said her husband was having money troubles, but almost the only thing in his office was a brand-new copy machine that must’ve cost like around fifty grand. How’d you know?”
Frank shrugged. He didn’t want to say too much until he had things figured out. “We saw it yesterday. Seemed a little strange to us, too.”
The officer left and Joe started to get up to go. As Frank stood, he flipped through one more page of the mug book.
“Hold on,” he said, pushing the book over to Joe. “How about him?”
Joe leaned forward, studying the photo. “That’s him,” he said. “That’s the guy I saw.”
Con looked at the photograph in silence.
“Who is he?” Frank asked.
Con let out a deep breath. “You might be right about Bart Meredith after all,” he said. “That’s Eddie Racine. He was Meredith’s cellmate in prison. Got out a few weeks ago.”
The Hardys looked at each other. “I knew it,” Joe said. “No way Meredith had an alibi for the robbery.”
Frank pointed a finger at Joe. “So, Eddie Racine was in the car, and Meredith robbed Bayport Savings . . . but who was the driver of the black car? It must be this Earl Galatin guy, right?”
“Don’t forget Sylvia van Loveren,” Joe said. “It had to be her giving them inside information.” He looked up at Con. “I’d say we’re about to close another case.”
Frank wasn’t so sure. He had six fake bills in his pock
et from Meredith, and there was the copy machine. Why would bank robbers be involved in counterfeiting?
Con suddenly turned back toward the door. Frank and Joe heard the same thing he did—lots of commotion outside.
An officer burst into the room. “Con!” he shouted. “Come on! The alarm’s going off at Empire Federal!”
Con sprinted out. “Which branch?” he called.
The Hardys heard the other officer’s answer. “Out on Ridge Road.” Then the voices were lost under the clamor of slamming car doors and gunning engines.
No discussion was needed. “I’ll drive,” Frank said as the brothers rushed to the van to join in the chase.
Frank bounced the van over the curb and into the street in hot pursuit of three or four police cruisers.
“They’re taking Smith Street north,” Joe said. “That must be the quickest way to Ridge.”
Passenger cars up ahead pulled over to let the police cruisers fly past. The Hardys followed before the opening in traffic closed.
“I could use blocking like this in football games,” Joe joked.
“You’d get a lot more yards if you didn’t trip over your own shoelaces,” Frank teased. He cut the wheel hard to the left, keeping a safe distance as the screaming cruisers up ahead pitched single file onto Ridge and roared up the street.
Frank’s tone got serious. “Answer the phone,” he said.
“What?”
“The phone, it’s ringing.”
“Oops, didn’t hear it.” Joe flipped open the cell phone. “Yes?” he said loudly, his finger in his free ear to block out the sirens.
“Joe, it’s Biff. You got to get over here, man.”
“We’re kind of in the middle of something,” Joe shouted.
Biff’s voice sounded urgent. “I’m downtown,” he said. “At the sub shop. There’s a freaky-looking guy across the street, and I’m positive he’s casing out Empire Federal.”
“Are you sure?”
“Joe, I’m not imagining things. You’ve got to get over here. I called the cops, but they blew me off.”
“Hang tight,” Joe said, flipping the phone closed.
“Turn around,” he said to Frank.
“What’re you talking about? We’re almost there.”
The Crisscross Crime Page 5
