An hour later, they reconvened at Jonny's hotel room. Jonny sat on his bed, his laptop open and powered on. Joe and Frank stood behind him, staring at the progress on the tiny screen.
There were three windows open on the computer screen. In the first window, Race Bannon's worried face stared back at them. In the second, Fenton Hardy stared at them.
The final window contained information about a file transfer and a status bar that was creeping slowly up to a hundred percent.
"Phil wasn't happy to be hearing from me, Jonny. It may be a public university, but the amount of red tape we had to wade through was pretty tough for such a short timeframe," Race explained over the computer communication link. "If it weren't for him and Mr. Hardy's combined efforts, we would have nothing."
"Mr. Bannon is right," Fenton continued. "Even with my contacts in the FBI, we both got pushback like you wouldn't believe. The files coming over the wire to you now are certified to come directly from the mainframe that Mr. Granger told you about. Of course the only footage that the investigating authorities are concerned with is of the murder itself, but we went for forty-eight hours of data. Phil's people held onto a copy of that we asked for and are analyzing it now as a favor to Race."
"Thank you, Race," Jonny replied solemnly as he watched the status bar complete its journey on the screen.
"Don't thank me yet," Race replied harshly. "It's killing me that we can't get to you right now. The local weather services here state that we should be clear for takeoff in another twelve hours. You shouldn't investigate this alone - there's way too much danger in this situation if whoever did this was able to frame your father for this."
Jonny sighed. "Joe and Frank are experienced investigators. As long as we stick together, we can make headway on this. I can get our mainframe at home analyzing this data and I am pretty sure each of us is more than willing to bring in the police on this."
He looked up at both Frank and Joe, all the while holding his breath. They had readily agreed to help him earlier but after being attacked on campus, Jonny wondered if they would still back him up.
"I trust my sons' judgment on this," Fenton stated. "Boys, how about it?"
To say Joe was surprised was an understatement. He exchanged a glance with Frank and in turn his brother nodded, gesturing towards the computer. Okay, here goes.
Joe cleared his throat and plunged in. "Dad, we have the resources here to see this through. Every minute we delay means this cover-up gets even more solid. We will keep an eye on Jonny and as he said, we will call the cops when we get the information we need."
On the computer screen, his father smiled back at them grimly. "I'm glad to see that my previous discussion with you two was understood. I have to go. Take care and please be careful."
And with that, Fenton Hardy's image on the computer screen disappeared.
Jonny smiled. "Thanks, Joe. Race, see you when you get here."
Race Bannon smiled. "We'll be there ASAP. Be careful, Jonny."
Race's image on the computer screen disappeared, leaving only the one window on the screen showing the completed transfer of files.
Joe turned to Frank and Jonny. "How about if I get us a couple of pizzas while you guys start into that footage?"
Frank nodded. "Hurry back. With forty-eight hours of video footage, we're going to need all the help we can get."
As they worked through the next few hours, they accumulated a pile of empty pizza boxes in one corner along with a handful of empty soda cans.
Frank and Joe stared intently at the laptop stationed on the bed while Jonny stretched and walked around.
"You guys have a lot of patience for this sort of thing," Jonny groused. "All I have seen so far is students and teachers filing in and out of that lab. Not exactly riveting or revealing. I was sure we would see something out of the ordinary by now."
"Maybe, maybe not," Joe conceded. "There has to be something we are missing."
Jonny finally stopped in his tracks. "I have an idea."
He walked back over to the laptop and typed in a few commands. "Let me bring up the video of the murder. You two haven't seen it yet first hand yet."
Once the video came on the screen, Frank and Joe watched it intently while Jonny inwardly cringed. He remembered the sequence of events all too well from when the agents showed it to him in his fathers hospital room.
Frank stared at the video for a few moments before he exclaimed. "Wait a minute! Jonny, could you isolate this video and put it side by side with some of the footage from an hour before this?"
"Sure," Jonny replied. He leaned back over the laptop, typing in commands furiously until he brought up the video feed in question. "You saw something, Frank?"
"I think so," Frank muttered as he leaned closer to the screen. "Since there was nothing out of the ordinary movement-wise - yes, I've got it! Check the timestamps on the murder video versus the regular footage."
Both Joe and Jonny leaned in close as each video feed played out its respective timeframe. Jonny's eyes widened as he realized what Frank was trying to point out. "The timestamps are the same!"
"None of the other footage is like this," Joe declared. "Someone deliberately replaced the regular footage with the murder footage."
"Mr. Granger has a lot to answer for," Frank stated as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Frank, what are you doing?" Jonny asked.
"Calling the police on this, like we promised our fathers."
Joe watched Jonny tense up at the declaration. "Hold on, Frank. Jonny, what is it?"
Jonny glared at Joe. "This isn't enough to go to them with - they'll just accuse us of changing the footage."
Frank thought about what he said for a moment before putting his phone back into his pocket. Jonny had a point - but there was something else that could be checked to confirm his suspicions. He stalked forward to the laptop and put in commands of his own.
In response to his efforts, both video feeds disappeared, replaced on the screen with the network source data for each feed.
Jonny watched his efforts and nodded appreciably. "You are checking the source addresses, aren't you?"
"Yes."
Frank checked quickly and realized the source addresses for both feeds were not the same. If the video had all come from the same source, the addresses should have matched. He snatched up a notepad from a nearby nightstand and quickly scrawled down the address from the murder footage. "Now all we need is a way to trace this address."
Jonny stepped forward and plucked the paper out of Frank's hands. "Allow me - I should be able to cross reference it with the school's network using our tracing software."
"But what if this was done outside of the school?" Joe asked.
"Highly unlikely," Jonny replied as he sat down on the bed and moved the laptop to his lap. "As I said before, the firewalls are numerous on the inside. Besides, Mr. Granger said that the security mainframe was a dedicated one, remember? That ratchets up the difficulty level getting to it from outside the school network."
Jonny set to work, bringing up the software from a network connection to the mainframe at the Quest compound. It was a few minutes before the software finished its task, offering up the information he was looking for. He powered off his laptop and stood quickly. "The address from the murder footage comes from the security building on campus. Let's go."
Frank nodded as he grabbed for his phone. "We'll go, but now we have enough for that phone call. Joe, you drive. Let's hurry."
