Crime in the Cards by Franklin W. Dixon

Author:Franklin W. Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2001-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

9 Networking

At the last instant Joe leaped off his bike. He flew over the spinning tires and landed on the rider of the ATV. The rider’s breathwooshedout as both he and Joe fell to the ground.Frank kept skidding toward the ATV. Desperate, he leaned over the handlebars and spun his bike on the front wheel. The rear of the bike whipped around and hit the four-wheeler. The collision threw Frank over his handlebars.

The elder Hardy tucked into a forward roll, hoping to blunt the impact as he crashed. He landed hard on Joe and the ATV rider, cracking his elbow on the rider’s helmet. The three of them tumbled down the side of the pond, stopping two feet before the water’s edge. Riderless, the ATV rolled down into the pond and sputtered to a stop.

Joe and Frank lay stunned for a moment. The ATV rider groaned.

“Are you okay?” Joe finally asked.

“Yeah,” Frank replied. He felt woozy, but the spots had begun to clear from his eyes. “How about you?”

“I’ve been better,” Joe said. “At least we caught the guy we were after.”

Frank and Joe disentangled themselves from the rider and rolled slowly to either side. “Do you think he’s all right?” Frank asked.

Joe dragged himself into a sitting position. At the same time, the rider groaned again. “He’s alive, at least,” Joe said.

Despite the pain in his elbow, Frank sat up. The rider sat up as well.

“Are you guys crazy?” asked a muffled voice from inside the helmet. “Man, does my head hurt!” He pulled the helmet off and set it on the grass beside him. The face under the helmet belonged to Gerry Wise.

Frank’s and Joe’s hearts sank. They’d caught the wrong man.

As the bad news sank in, lights from a police cruiser appeared on the far side of the pond. A voice coming over a loudspeaker said:

“All of you, stay right where you are!”

Joe and Frank knew the Bayport Police Headquarters well. They’d been there many times while working on cases. Usually, though, they came as visitors, not suspects.

The brothers sat in a holding area while the police worked out the details of what had happened. Finally, their friend Officer Con Riley came over to see them.

“Well,” he said, “this is a bigger mess than you’re usually in.” Con often lent them a sympathetic ear when they were working on a case.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Frank said, rubbing his sore elbow.

Con shook his head disapprovingly. “Right now I think the best idea would be for you boys to go home and get some rest.”

“We’re not being charged with anything?” Joe asked, a trace of surprise in his voice.

“Luckily for you, no,” Con said. “Gerry Wise lives in the Magus Hills subdivision. His father built that entire tract of houses. Gerry has a right to use the recreational space as he sees fit. That use maynotinclude racing around on a four-wheeler in the pitch-dark with his friends—but that’s a matter for the neighborhood association. Probably, they’ll fine him and make him clean up the damage.

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