Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Joe didn’t have time to think about his reaction, he went on habit and instinct. Without hesitation, he shoved Vanessa hard – as hard as he was able – to one side, and at the same time, flung himself to the opposite side of the roadway. The momentum of his leap nearly vaulted him over a line of low-growing flowery shrubs which lined the drive.

He rolled to a stop on the ground and lay there, panting with exertion, staring up at the sky as he tried to catch his breath. He heard the Mercedes’ tires squeal as the heavy car tore around a corner, and then the engine gunned, and the sounds receded as the vehicle moved farther away.

“Vanessa?” Joe pushed himself to a sitting position and looked around to locate his girlfriend. Spotting her, he slowly got to his feet and walked over to where she was sitting. “You okay?”

Half-sprawled in a patch of grass, Vanessa now sat up, rubbing one elbow. An expression of consternation suffused her face, and she extended the arm cautiously, twisting it, evidently trying to see her elbow. Joe knelt beside her and gently took hold of her arm.

“Let’s see it, babe.” He inspected the area carefully. “Sorry I didn’t have time to do that better,” he apologized. “I figured speed was better than finesse, right then!” To his relief, his girlfriend didn’t appear to be seriously hurt, or even much damaged. She had a nice wide scrape on her elbow, and some dirt smudges on her face, but other than that, Vanessa looked pretty good. Joe gazed after the departed Mercedes, a scowl contorting his features. “Those creeps! They could have killed us!”

“But they didn’t, thanks to you,” Vanessa reminded him with a grateful smile. She leaned to kiss his cheek gently. “Thank you, Joe.” Using Joe as a prop, she scrambled to her feet. “Let’s go up and get cleaned up fast. We have to be on duty at the seminar soon, remember? Maybe we can report this to someone there.”

Joe nodded, momentarily abstracted. He was trying to recall everything he could about that Mercedes, but he hadn’t gotten much chance to get a very good look at it; he’d been trying to avoid it, not get a make on it! He could feel fury building inside him; it wasn’t so much that the occupants of the car had tried to hit him that made him irate; it was the danger that Vanessa had been in! If there was anything he could do to ID it, he would try. But for now….

“Okay babe, I’m with you. You sure you’re okay to walk?” Joe put a solicitous arm around Vanessa as they walked back into the hotel and headed for the bank of elevators.

“C’mon into our room; we’ve got first aid stuff;” Joe invited, once they reached their floor. “And you can’t see to fix up that elbow, anyway!” He ushered Vanessa into the boys’ room and seated her carefully. “You just sit tight, and ol’ Doc Hardy’ll have you fixed up in no time!”

Vanessa snickered. “And just where did you get your medical degree, Dr. Hardy?” she quizzed him. “Did you send for it by mail?”

Joe huffed good-naturedly and made a face at her as he fetched the first-aid supplies that Frank always packed whenever they traveled. Wetting a washcloth in the bathroom, he gently cleaned the scrapes, then applied antiseptic ointment and a wide adhesive bandage. He added a couple of pieces of medical tape for good measure, then checked it over carefully, smiling at his handiwork. “There. All done. How does it feel?”

“It feels fine, Dr. Hardy,” she smiled, and kissed his cheek. “You do good work, mail-order degree or not!” She kissed him again. “My hero,” she murmured, “you saved my life, you know! Thank you for saving me!”

“Thank you – for not getting hurt too bad!” Joe replied, returning the kiss with enthusiasm.

“We’d better get downstairs,” Vanessa murmured, when she was allowed to breathe again.

Joe grimaced, but had to concede that Vanessa was right. Reluctantly, he took her hand and led the way to the door. When they emerged, still holding hands, they were more than a little surprised to nearly bump into the large form of Detective Ekela!

“Detective! I’m surprised to see you up here – is something wrong?” Joe asked, disturbed.

“No, nothing,” Ekela replied. He regarded the young couple for a few moments, then continued, “I was hoping for a few words with your father before the afternoon session begins, young Joe, but I’m afraid I forgot his room number. Would he be available, do you think?”

“I really don’t know,” Joe admitted. “The last time I saw him, he was downstairs – but that was before lunch! His room’s right there.” He indicated his father’s room, adding “You can check and see, or leave a message for him at the desk.”

“Thanks, I’ll probably do that,” the big detective nodded, and turned to make his way down the hall towards the elevators.

“I’m going to change really quickly, Joe; I’ve got grass stains in places there shouldn’t be,” Vanessa informed her boyfriend, when they were alone again. “Wait for me, I’ll just be a few minutes!”

“Okay babe, but make it snappy; I don’t want to get in Dutch with Dad for being late!” Joe leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, prepared to wait indefinitely.

*****

Kona Police Captain Aaron Masukoko walked slowly and quietly into the hotel, but his easy pace was belied by the angry flashing of his dark eyes as he moved towards the front desk. Not a large man, merely average in size, the Captain still managed to look threatening as he advanced; his expression was deadly as he made his quiet way toward the slightly smaller man who stood behind the front desk.

The desk clerk watched his approach and swallowed nervously, wondering if he ought to summon hotel security – and then the captain pulled out his badge and held it out.

“Do you know,” he said, in a voice that simply reeked with veiled threat, “what has happened to my car?”

“Your car?” The guest clerk’s voice squeaked, and he cleared his throat carefully before speaking again. “Your car…sir?”

“My car,” Masukoko informed him, still in that deadly-calm voice. “My brand-new, silver Mercedes Benz, shipped just two days ago from the dealership in Honolulu. My car, that I bought with nearly twelve years’ worth of savings. With work – and blood, sweat and tears. My CAR, young man, which was parked by your valet parking attendants, and is now missing!” The Captain leaned forward on the desk and stared deeply into the alarmed eyes of the clerk. “I think we should do something about this, shouldn’t we?”

Again the man swallowed nervously. “But…but you’re the police,” he ventured, “Y-you—”

“That’s right,” Masukoko interjected. “I'm the police and my car was taken. It seems the only thing I can do, now, is shake down the entire hotel and talk to every guest here about where they were and who might have seen my car drive away – without me in it. And then I'm going to have to take all of your parking valets in for questioning, because obviously one of them has to be behind it and I wouldn't want to miss anyone—"

“W-wait,” the young man stammered. “Wait. Please. Let me get the manager.”

He disappeared like a frightened rabbit through the door behind him, leaving the irate Captain Masukoko steaming. A few minutes later, he returned, with another man right behind him.

Great, thought Masukoko. A malihini!

“Can I help you, Captain?” The manager tried to sound both attentive and soothing, but it was difficult with Masukoko’s glare boring into him!

“I certainly hope so!” he growled, and proceeded to explain once more about his brand-new silver Mercedes, which had gone missing from the lot, and how he intended to question everyone in the hotel to find it.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but there’s no way I can allow that; we can’t have our guests disrupted like that!” The manager tried a glare of his own. It didn’t match Masukoko’s, but it was a fair imitation.

“May I remind you that I’M a guest here as well, and I’VE been disrupted?!” the police captain barked. “And I suspect that I’ll have to involve all my police colleagues too, to help me find my missing car – and that will probably disrupt THEM. It may even make them unhappy. Police officers don’t like being unhappy.”

The manager paled visibly. “Captain, I’m sure we can work something out…”

“For starters, do you have surveillance cameras on the parking lot?” Masukoko snapped. When the manager nodded, he continued: “So isn’t there a chance that the car was seen being driven off the lot, and wouldn’t it be much easier to just let me see the surveillance tapes…than to go to all the TROUBLE and HASSLE of bothering all the guests?” he finished sweetly.

“Of—of course it would,” the manager stammered. “Why didn’t you just ask to see the tapes in the first place, Captain?”

Masukoko smiled ferally. “Because my way usually gets more results!”

“You always get results, Captain.” A new voice inserted itself into the conversation.

Captain Masukoko whirled about, and his sharp features relaxed into a smile. “Aloha, Lt. McCullough.”

“What’s going on?” Dylan McCullough inquired curiously. “You sounded upset.”

The Captain explained, for the third time, and was just enlisting McCullough’s aid in looking at the surveillance tapes when the Lieutenant smiled over his shoulder and nodded to someone. Turning again, Masukoko beheld a young blonde couple approaching, holding hands.

“Did I just hear you say you were looking for a silver Mercedes?” Joe asked. “Excuse me for the interruption – but we were almost run over by one, a little while ago!”

Dylan performed hasty introductions, and then Masukoko eyed Joe and Vanessa expectantly. “Let’s hear about what happened to you,” he demanded.

“We were crossing the parking lot, and a silver Mercedes nearly ran us down,” Joe said again. He lifted Vanessa’s arm. “We had to dive into the shrubbery to get out of the way – and got scraped up…see?”

“What else did you see?” the captain asked grumpily. “Anything that would ID the driver?”

“No – sorry,” Joe admitted. “We were too busy jumping out of the way to see much else.”

Masukoko turned his attention back to Lt. McCullough. “Are we going to see those tapes or not?”

“Let’s go,” Dylan assented.

“We could go with you,” Joe offered. “And show you what little I saw—”

“No thanks, Joe; we can manage,” McCullough brushed the offer aside. The two officers departed, following the still-shaken guest clerk.

Joe stared after them, slightly nettled. He’d wanted to see the tapes, so that he could identify the creep or creeps who had tried to run them down – so he could clobber them!

“Come on, Joe; we need to get back to the seminar,” Vanessa reminded him, tugging at his arm.

Reluctantly conceding that she was right, Joe followed, still feeling somewhat put out. When they reached the meeting room, however, they were intercepted by Chief Pauahi of Hilo.

“Joe, have you happened to see Lt. McCullough lately? His captain in Honolulu is trying to get hold of him.”

“I just saw him,” Joe replied. “He’s with Captain Masukoko, looking at security tapes. His car was stolen out of the hotel lot!”

‘McCullough’s was?”

“No, Captain Masukoko’s!”

“Oh no,” Pauahi groaned.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s the fourth car stolen like that in two weeks,” the police chief explained. “It’s beginning to look like we have a nice car-theft ring on our hands!”

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.