The Crisscross Crime (6 page)

Frank held the glass close. “Joe, you've got to see this. There are tiny words written on old Ben's collar. It says, ‘United States of America.' ”

“It takes amazing engraving to make words that small,” Sylvia said. “Here.” She took the bill back and held it up to the light. “Here's the last thing.”

Frank looked at the spot where Sylvia's thumb was pointing, an inch or so to the right of the portrait. There, imbedded in the paper of the bill, was a yellow ribbon only about a sixteenth of an inch wide. On it, tiny letters spelled out “USA 100,” followed by a little American flag.

“That ribbon is on twenties and fifties, too,”
Sylvia said. “It's called micro-coding, and it's woven right into the paper.” She turned to Joe. “You know where the paper comes from, smart guy?”

Joe shook his head.

“Canada. In fact, the government stores the micro-coded paper right here in Bayport before they ship it out to the mints. Pretty neat, huh?”

Joe dismissed Sylvia with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, totally neat,” he said sarcastically. “Thanks for the lesson, but now it's time for lunch.” He started for the door.

Frank apologized for Joe's rudeness. “We'll let you know when we learn something new,” he said, following his brother out.

Joe was already sitting in the driver's seat when Frank got to the van. “You think she's telling the truth, don't you, Frank?” he asked.

Frank handed Joe the keys. “Why would she trip the alarm if she was involved in the robbery? It's not logical.”

“It is if she knew the cops would be delayed because of the false alarm at First City,” Joe countered.

Frank didn't have an answer to that.

“We should keep an eye on her,” Joe said. “Meanwhile, let's grab a sandwich and then get over to Phil's.”

After a quick lunch at home, the Hardys
jumped back into the van. As they backed out of the driveway, Joe noticed a white pickup truck parked against the curb a block away. What neither Hardy noticed, when Joe put the van in drive and took off down the street, was the pickup truck that pulled away from the curb and followed them.

Ten minutes later Joe pulled the van up in front of Phil's house. A couple of times along the way he'd seen a pickup truck a few cars behind them. Now he checked the side mirrors. He didn't see the truck anymore.

“What's up?” Frank asked as he got out of the van.

Joe glanced up and down the street. “Nothing,” he said. He joined his brother on the sidewalk. “I thought somebody might be following us. Just getting paranoid, I guess.”

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 station,” 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.”