Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Chapter 9 - Realisation and Betrayal.

Once thing was certain, if Jimmy Harris was involved, kidnapping Joe wasn’t his idea. He was a gambler, a small time thief, but he certainly wasn’t a kidnapper. The only thing we could figure was that possibly, he took the car, impersonated a police officer, and took Joe.

This meant that he had him now.

But where? We needed help, so I rang the apartment.

“Hey Frank,” Biff Hooper’s voice, like everything else about the man, was larger than life. Frank felt himself moving his ear slightly back from the earpiece of his phone.

“Hey Biff, listen I need a favour….” He proceeded to outline everything that he and his father had managed to find out. Fenton Hardy had called in every favour he could and had managed to get a list of all Jimmy Harris’s known friends and former business contacts.

“So basically I’m gonna email the list over to you….” Frank continued, but Biff interrupted him.

…”and you want us to go and check them all out, right?”

“Right,” Frank agreed, “or at least any that you can. And Biff, go easy on these people, huh? I know you all want to find out where Joe is but we have to play this one softly-softly, OK?”

Biff Hooper couldn’t help smiling at the authoritative tone of Frank’s voice. “Okay, DAD” he mocked, and then added more seriously, “Don’t worry Frank, we won’t mess this up, any of us.”

Frank was about to say thanks when he heard muffled voices coming from down the phone-line and then a soft feminine voice came on the line.

“Frank, I need to talk to you about something.” It was Callie.

“Hey Cal , what’s up?” Frank didn’t miss the controlled, almost neutral tone of his girlfriend’s voice.

“Frank, there’s something I think you should know, but first, has your Dad been talking to Sam Radley?”

“Dad’s not here,” Frank explained in a puzzled tone .”So I don’t know, but I have to call him now, so I’ll see then. Why? What has Sam Radley got to do with all this?”

Callie sighed audibly and bit her bottom lip. She wished Frank were in front of her instead of down a phone line, it would make it much easier to gauge his reactions to what she was about to say. However, he wasn’t, and she had to tell him.

“Frank I think that Fenton Radley might be mixed up in this somehow.” She paused, waiting for Frank’s reply.

“What do you mean INVOLVED…I don’t understand Callie, where did you get this idea from?”

And so Callie explained what Mrs. Hardy had told her earlier, adding, “I think your Mom believes he might somehow be involved too, although I don’t think she wants to admit it, you know?”

Callie expected Frank to immediately deny, to say that she was silly, that it was a ludicrous idea, maybe even to be annoyed with her, but he said nothing beyond “Callie, I have to go, I’ll call you back.”

At this stage I was in an Internet café typing up the list that Dad had given me of all of Jimmy Harris’s known associates to email to Phil.

I couldn’t help thinking about what Callie had told me. I mean, it was totally bizarre; how could Callie believe that this man who spent so much time with Joe and me would want to kidnap him? He was like a brother or at least a close cousin; we spent summers together, taught him how to play baseball, and he was one of us.

But then as we got older I guess we drifted apart; I mean I hadn’t spoken to him in over three years.

I remembered Joe telling me how he’d met him in a coffee shop one morning, and how well he was looking, and that he had been asking after Callie and me. This meant that he was in the area.

But no! It was a ridiculous idea, like something out of a bad murder novel, you know, where the leading character is stalked by his best friend who suddenly hates him for some bizarre reason….

Still, Callie wouldn’t have told me unless she had a pretty strong feeling, and Mom, well Mom is rarely wrong about anything.

And suddenly I felt sick. I hate when something gets inside my head like that, especially where Joe’s concerned, because it becomes harder and harder to be rational; I start envisioning all sorts of scenarios, even though nothing’s been proved.

Emotionally involved, that’s the psychological term for it, isn’t it? My brother was missing for a day and a half, and my girlfriend tells me that she thinks that someone who was almost like family to me might have something to do with it. I guess that’s about as emotionally involved as you can get, isn’t it?

I spent the rest of the afternoon visiting pawn shops, bars and betting shops. It seems that Jimmy Harris had a large circle of friends and after a couple of hours I was none the wiser and down a lot of twenty-dollar bills!

Nothing, yet again I found nothing. I was tired and sick and so worried that it was starting to take over every other emotion. Maybe that’s why I snapped, or maybe I’d just had enough. It was the last bar on my list, and they said that they didn’t know him, but I knew they were lying to me, so I grabbed the bar man by the collar and threatened to drag him over the counter unless he told me the truth.

Not a very typical Frank Hardy move, I’ll admit, and possibly not one to be recommended to others, but you know what? It worked. Not only did he admit that he knew Jimmy, but he also admitted that Jimmy was in an argument a week previously and that he’d thrown him and the other man out. And not only that, he also told me that they had a security camera over the front door and that I could look at the tapes if I liked.

We went through to a very dark room, furnished entirely in black and red, and there, sitting on a couch in front of a large, very expensive television, I felt my last reserves of strength drain away.

Fenton Radley arguing with Jimmy Harris. Oh it was a dark night and the picture was blurred, but it was him. You don’t spend half your childhood with someone and not be able to recognize them a few years later.

Fenton Radley, Dad’s godchild, his name sake, our best friend, the boy we played football with, the only other person that I ever really trusted when I was younger, because I thought of him as family.

Except that family shouldn’t betray you, should they?