Frank pulled up in front of the house and parked the van.  His father’s car wasn’t home yet and he was curious about that.  Had he started on another case?  And if so, what kind was it and would he ask the brothers for help?  He hoped so.

Like his younger brother, curiosity was in his blood!

Ever since they had been about twelve and thirteen years old, their father had been enlisting their help on occasion while working on a case.  Of course, when they were younger, the ‘help’ they had given him was a lot different from what he sometimes demanded now. That made the dark-haired teen proud; their father wouldn’t have given them more responsibility unless he knew they could handle it or had wanted it.  And they did, on both counts.

Glancing across at their neighbor’s house, Frank didn’t see any sign of his brother, and figured Joe must have finished the oil change and was probably in the house.

Either in the kitchen or his room, the older boy mused as he lazily made his way into the house.  He grinned, thinking of the look on his brother’s face when he told him the news!

Frank was so excited himself, he was almost bursting!

* * *

Fenton pulled his sedan into an empty parking spot outside the gates of the Public Storage warehouse. The single story building was broken down into compartments, and each compartment was marked by its own bright-orange overhead door.

All 'tenants' were required to furnish their own locks, although the internal alarm system was provided for by the storage company.

Joe followed his father as they headed towards one of the large garage-type doors at the end of the block.  He looked around, and waited patiently as his father disabled the alarm for their compartment, and then crouched down to unlock the padlock on the door.

Fenton pulled up on the handle as he stood, and the large door easily slid up, groaning loudly as it did.

“Could use some oil,” Joe observed as he followed his father into the dark, musty-smelling room.

The detective nodded as he moved towards the light switch.  Within moments the large room was bathed in a soft glow.

Joe was familiar with the storage room, as he and Frank had helped their father move the old file boxes out of their house for the last two years running.

“What are we looking for?” the teen asked as he saw his father heading towards the stack of banker boxes that he kept some of his older files in.

“A file from about eight years ago,” Fenton said, already starting to move the boxes to get to the one he needed.  “A jogger found a body in Manning Park this morning - it’s been there for a while. Actually their dog found it, to be more correct,” he added distractedly.

Joe watched his father and nodded. The older Hardy was pulling the lid off the bottom box, and within moments had retrieved a manila file from it.

“Collig asked you to help?” the blond teen ventured as he watched his father open the file and then scowl down at its contents.

“The vic was carrying one of my cards,” Fenton said by way of explanation, and then looked at his son with a strange expression on his face.

“What?” Joe said, self-consciously, after a couple of moments.  His father was still looking at him….

Fenton shook his head as if erasing a thought and then smiled. “Sorry,” he apologized, “lost in thought for a moment.”

“Ah,” Joe said, accepting the answer, and then glancing around the room, asked, “anything else you need or are we done here?”

The detective put the lid back on the box, restacked the others on top of it and then nodded to his son.  “We are now.  Let’s go home.”

The drive back was a lot more subdued than the drive there.  Joe tried to talk to his father, but gave up after the investigator was too distracted for conversation.

Finally he said, “So what was the case about?”

“Hmmm?” Fenton said and then, pulling himself from his thoughts, he glanced over at the piercing blue eyes watching him.  “I’m sorry Joe.  I was just thinking about something.”

The teen grinned.  “Now I know where Frank gets it from!”

The detective chuckled and shook his head.  “Anyway, what were you asking?”

“I was just wondering what the case was about,” Joe repeated.

“Oh that,” Fenton said, making his tone sound lighter than he felt, “Nothing too exciting, actually.  A rash of B & E’s from about eight years ago.”

“Oh,” the teen said - break and entries.  “So who was the victim?”

“They seemed pretty random actually—" the detective started, but his son cut him off.

“No, I meant the body in the park. You said it had your card.”

“Ooh him…” Fenton sighed.  He had thought his son had been asking about the victims of the burglaries.  “An informant gave me information that led to him; went by the misnomer ‘Tex’.  Unfortunately, before we had much of a chance to talk, we got interrupted.  I never heard from him again.”

“So he was murdered,” Joe speculated, and his father nodded.

“Apparently,” he admitted.  “I had my suspicions about that but was never able to substantiate them one way or another…until now.”

“Why not?” Joe pressed, “The case went cold?”

His father never said anything for a few moments, and then keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead of him, he just said quietly, “I stopped investigating.”

* * *

Frank was just finishing a banana when he heard his father’s car pull up in the driveway, and glancing through the kitchen window, he was surprised to see Joe getting out of the passenger side.

His brother had a strange look on his face, and his father was carrying a file.

“Hey,” he greeted them when they came into the kitchen a few moments later, “I saw your note - thanks.”

Fenton gave his older son a quick smile and then said, “Your mother’s gone to New York?”  He put the file down on the counter, opened the cupboard and grabbed the can of coffee grounds.

“Yeah,” Frank said, “Mom said to tell you she’ll call later - she’s staying at Aunt Gertrude’s.” 

Their father’s older unmarried sister kept an apartment in New York City, although she traveled a lot in her job.  For the last two years, she’d been working as a fund raiser for a couple different environmental protection agencies.  And was, right now, hosting a convention in Brussels until the end of the month.

Gertrude had given her brother an extra key for the apartment, and told him to use it whenever he was in the city - him, Laura or the boys.  And they took her up on that offer, quite frequently and sometimes unexpectedly.

“Did she say why?” Fenton pressed as Joe opened the fridge door and grabbed yogurt to tide him over until supper.

“Not directly,” Frank admitted, “But it has to do with something she read in a horse magazine.  It was an article written by someone she used to know.”  He paused and then added, “And it has to do with Uncle Paul.”

Fenton, in the process of making a fresh pot of coffee, stopped, turned around and looked at his older son sharply.  “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Frank nodded, “It was written by some lady named Gwynne Smart.”

Fenton actually paled, and both his sons looked at him in concern.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Joe asked, trading a glance with his brother.

The investigator exhaled loudly and then nodded.  “Yes.  That’s just a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“You knew her too?” Frank pressed, his curiosity about this woman increasing even more now because of his father’s reaction.

“Not very well,” Fenton admitted as he pursed his lips and frowned, “Certainly not as well as your mother did…”  He looked at Frank, finding it a bit too painful to look at Joe for a moment - his younger son was too eerie a reminder of Laura’s younger brother.  “Gwynne used to be your Uncle Paul’s girlfriend….”

* * *

Laura Hardy got out of the taxi and looked up at the building.  She sighed; this was going to be hard. The blond woman had not seen her brother’s girlfriend in 22 years - not since the day of Paul’s funeral.

And even then, their last words had been bitter and painful.

“This is your fault!” the seventeen-year-old had screamed at Laura Scott, her grief looking for an outlet of blame.  “You killed him!”

Laura recoiled and shook her head, her own voice trembling.  “I-I loved him!  He was my brother - I would have died for him!”

“Then why is he dead? You were his big sister - you were supposed to protect him!” Gwynne screamed.  Around them the voices of the other mourners had gone quiet; too stunned to do anything but gawk.

Fenton moved to intervene, but Laura pulled away from his coaxing grip and turned on the other girl, her voice cold and quiet, holding a new level of contempt that shocked even her.  “Go away, Gwynne.  Go away and stay away.”

She turned to leave but was stopped by the anguished cry:  “I loved him, Laura!!”

Without turning around, her pain spoke the words that would haunt her for the next two decades.  “But he never loved you.”  And then she walked away.

“I’m so sorry, Gwynne,” Laura whispered as she brushed away a tear and prepared to see that girl, now a woman, for the first time in so long.  “I should have never said that.”

Steeling her nerve, the blond woman opened the front door and walked inside.