J.M.J.

Chapter XII

Monday, May 3

Day Three

Joe was grateful that school had been cancelled that day. It was one less day that he would have to insist that he couldn't possibly sit in class, plus it meant that his friends wouldn't be in school either and they could all continue to help. Frank had decided to skip his college classes for that day, at least, and possibly for the rest of the week, if necessary, telling his professors that an emergency had come up.

The entire Hardy household was up early that morning. Aunt Gertrude insisted that everyone eat breakfast, although all Joe could do was stare at his plate. There wasn't much more interest in food from the other Hardys.

All at once they heard the front door open and someone coming hurrying in. They looked up in surprise to see Sam Radley standing in the doorway of the dining room.

"Is something wrong, Sam?" Fenton half stood up, instantly fearing some bad news.

"No," Sam said quickly. "I've just got something to show you." He handed a sheet of paper to Fenton. It was ordinary computer paper, but it had newsprint printed onto it. One items were circled. "I found a scan on the Internet of the December 12, 1993 edition of the Southport Chronicle," he explained. "One of the items is interesting. I thought you'd want to take a look at it."

Frank and Joe crowded around to see over their father's shoulder as he read the circled item. Laura and Gertrude would have, as well, but there wasn't room past the boys.

"A missing person," Fenton said. The significance was not lost on anyone. "A young woman of nineteen who disappeared on her way home from work the night before. The date doesn't quite match."

"She worked at a restaurant that was open till midnight," Sam pointed out, "so she disappeared in the early hours of December 12."

"Was the case ever solved?" Laura asked.

"That's the first thing I checked on," Sam said. "I called Durant and he had to check on it. He called back just fifteen minutes ago. No, they never caught the guy."

"Then it's got to be the same guy," Joe said. "That's why he gave us this case as the clue. The Southport police must have a lot of information on him."

"Durant's getting me everything they have," Sam told him.

"What was the poor girl's name?" Aunt Gertrude asked.

"The article says she was Tara Michaels," Fenton replied.

"Hold on," Frank interjected. "I agree, the cases are similar, and it could be the same guy, but we don't know that for sure. The current killer could have just given us that date as red herring. Then, too, it would be almost too much of a coincidence, but he could mean something else entirely that happened on that day."

"Frank's right," Fenton agreed. "It's not going to do us any good to jump to conclusions. I would say that this is definitely worth following up on, but we can't take anything for granted."

Sam nodded. "Right. I'll keep working at this. How about clue number three? Have you gotten it yet?"

"Not yet," Joe replied. "Maybe he's not actually going to send us another clue. Who knows? A messed-up guy like this might change the rules at any moment." He bit his lip, thinking of other and more dire changes the kidnapper might have in mind."

"If he calls again, we're ready to trace the call to its point of origin," Fenton said. "The police are on stand-by to go there immediately when the call comes through."

"In the meantime, let's see what we can find out about Tara Michaels on our own," Sam suggested.

HBHBHBHBHB

Laura was hard at work at the housework. It didn't really need done, but she needed something to distract her. Not that it really worked much. Instead of sitting and worrying about the case, she found herself dusting and sweeping and vacuuming while worrying about the case. It was, perhaps, a little bit better than the alternative.

Even though she was married to one of the most successful detectives in the country and her sons were both promising detectives in their own right, she herself was not a detective. She took an interest in her husband's and sons' cases—it would have been impossible not to—but she herself had no desire to engage in a battle of wits with criminals or spend all her free time in stakeouts and pouring over data and research.

Yet, at times like these, she couldn't help wishing she had taken time to learn more about it. Even Gertrude, who was generally opposed to her brother's choice of careers, was holed up in her bedroom, no doubt researching the Tara Michaels case or perhaps following up on an idea of her own. She was a Hardy, after all, and she couldn't resist trying her hand at solving mysteries at times. But mystery wasn't in Laura's DNA, like it was for the rest of her family, and now all she could do was worry and pray and try to distract herself.

There was no part of this mystery that wasn't concerning. First, there was Iola and what she must be going through, if she was even still alive. Laura wouldn't have dared suggest that doubt to anyone else in the family, but she couldn't help thinking it all the same. The kidnapper had refused so far to offer any proof that Iola was still alive, and so why would he keep a prisoner if he wasn't going to use it to his advantage? Even if everything worked out and Iola was rescued, she would have a hard time putting the experience behind her.

Then there was Fenton and the boys. A criminal like this was bound to be dangerous. The Hardys had faced dangerous criminals before. Fenton, in particular, had probably faced more dangerous ones than this. But even the Hardy luck couldn't hold out forever. What if this was the case when it finally ran out?

And apart from the physical dangers, Laura could scarcely bear the thought of her sons coming into contact with a person like this killer. She remembered in high school, she had briefly taken a macabre interest in serial killers and had read several books about them. At the time, the chill the subject had given her had been thrilling, in a way. Then she had met Fenton, who had already begun solving mysteries. She could see how deeply murders of any kind affected him, and she had begun to realize with a shock of horror the depths of evil that killers of any kind were responsible for, but even more so those who killed for no reason other than a perverse pleasure. It almost made her feel dirty just knowing about it. She knew she couldn't protect her sons' innocence in this matter forever. For them, Tara Michaels was a piece of the puzzle that they felt badly about, but they could set it all to rights. To Laura, it was a tragedy whether the killer escaped justice for the rest of his life or not, for nothing could change the fact that a woman's life had been ended violently and that everything she could have been and done was lost forever. Frank and Joe would realize that about the victims of the crimes they investigated eventually, but Laura wished she could put it off as long as possible, until they were older and better able to grapple with it.

Laura shook herself and realized that she had been standing with the mop in the bucket, lost in thought, for probably the last five minutes. Had she mopped the entire floor or not? She had been so consumed in her thoughts that she honestly couldn't remember. Either way, her method of distracting herself was obviously not working. Perhaps if she made a run to the grocery store instead…Yes, that might work. She might run into somebody she knew and they could talk about something, anything, else.

Her mind made up, she picked up the mop bucket and took it out the back door to dump it. When she turned around to come back in, she saw an envelope taped to the door with Frank and Joe's names written on it.

Laura reached for the paper, but she stopped herself just in time. She had a feeling that this was today's clue, and none of the detectives on the case would be too impressed if she took a chance on ruining any fingerprints that might be on it, although she doubted there were any. Instead, she called for her husband and sons. They came running, and Aunt Gertrude wasn't far behind them.

"Look." Laura pointed at the envelope. "Do you think it's another clue?"

"Only one way to find out." Joe reached for it, but Fenton stopped him.

"Hold on. Let's dust for prints, first," he said.

Frank hurried off to retrieve a fingerprint kit. Fenton carefully applied the fine powder, but no prints appeared.

"I thought as much, but it's never a good idea to assume," Fenton commented. "We'll also dust the contents and the inside of the envelope, just in case."

Joe impatiently grabbed the envelope. He would have torn it open, but he knew he couldn't destroy the evidence inside. Instead, he took out his pocketknife and carefully slit the top open. Inside was a single sheet of paper with a date printed on it: August 28, 1975.

"Another date," he commented. "And it couldn't possibly be the date of another one of this guy's kills. I mean, if it was, he'd have to be about sixty years old."

"That doesn't necessarily mean it couldn't be," Fenton told him. "It would be a little unlikely for a serial killer to last so long without giving it up, though."

"Maybe it's something else," Frank suggested. "Let's see if we can get a copy of that date's newspaper."
This proved more difficult. While the paper had been scanned to microfilm, the Southport Chronicle informed the Hardys that it would take a couple of days to process their request and have the files emailed to them.

Joe sighed in impatience. "Well, what are we going to do now? We can't just sit around for a few days."

"That's true," Fenton agreed. "Why don't we head over to Southport tomorrow? We might be able to find out more about the Tara Michaels case, and if that fails we can always investigate the other victims some more. As Frank said before, these 'clues' could be nothing more than a wild goose chase, anyway."

Frank and Joe agreed to that, but it still left the rest of the day to do something. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be much to do. The Hardys feverishly continued researching the Tara Michaels case, but they didn't seem to learn anything new beyond that she had been a college student majoring in journalism and her disappearance had, apparently, been an isolated event, as there had been no other disappearances or murders around the same time. The day dragged by with a wretched monotony that comes when one feels that they are wasting time but can't do anything to change it.

HBHBHBHBHB

By this point, Phil was almost physically aching to be alone for a couple of hours or so. Between everything with the Berettas and Allison and now Iola getting kidnapped and being worried about school on top of it all, it just suddenly was too much to be expected to go back to a noisy dorm at night and listen to his roommate talk his ear off. That was why he was sitting on a bench behind his dorm building that evening despite the chill and the fact that he had forgotten to bring a jacket. He could have simply gone in and gotten one, but somehow that sounded worse than shivering right now. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, enjoying the quiet.

That is, he would have enjoyed the quiet if it had been permitted to continue. He had barely been sitting there five minutes before a rowdy bunch of boys came out the back door. Among them was Phil's roommate, Evan Sherman.

"Hey, roomie!" he called, waving at him. "We're going to a party. Wanna come?"

A college party was the literal last thing Phil wanted to do right now—or any time, for that matter—but he managed to politely say, "Uh, not tonight. Thanks."

"Ah, come on," Evan insisted. "It'll be fun. There'll be food and girls and drinks and we even heard a rumor there might be a guy bringing some weed."

"Yeah, I think I'll pass," Phil told him, thinking that with every item on the list he was less interested in going than he had been before.

"What are you? Some kind of square?" another boy asked.

"The quintessential square," Phil replied. "Just ask Evan."

Evan shook his head. "He's not kidding, guys. Almost a whole semester as roommates, and I haven't even gotten him to do a single fun thing. For that matter, I'm lucky if he even talks to me."

"You wanna trade roommates?" one of the other boys asked jokingly. "You wouldn't mind a quiet roommate if you'd ever been stuck with the one I have. He's been driving me crazy. At least, he was. He didn't come in last night. First night I got any sleep, let me tell you."

"You mean Rhett?" Evan asked. "He's a lot of fun. A little weird sometimes, but who isn't?"

Phil kept to himself so much that he didn't know a lot of the boys in the dorm, but the name Rhett did sound familiar. It only took a minute or so to remember that that was the name of the oddly off-putting young man who had been so insistent on helping with Allison's groceries.

"Yeah," the other boy was continuing. "He's supposed to be coming to the party tonight. I'm sure he'll have plenty to say about where he's been. So, how about it, Mr. Quintessential Square? You coming or not?"

"Not," Phil replied, muttering under his breath, "Especially if that weirdo is there."

"Your loss," Evan said. "You're not going to have a single fun memory from college."

"Yeah, 'cause getting busted for underage drinking is so much fun," Phil retorted.

Evan raised an eyebrow. "You've seriously never drank before?"

"I'm not telling," Phil replied, partly because the answer was no, he hadn't, and he didn't want all these guys continuing to goad him. It wasn't that they'd succeed—Phil was good at resisting peer pressure; that was how he was able to honestly say that he had never drank before. It was more that he just wanted them to go away as soon as possible.

They were apparently eager to get to their party, because they quickly gave it up. As soon as their voices had died away, Phil breathed a sigh of relief and closed his eyes again. If it just wasn't so chilly out here, he could have fallen asleep. The thought did cross his mind that with Evan gone, his room would be empty, but he had been in the dorms long enough to know that someone would probably come barging in and refuse to leave.

It wasn't long again before someone else approaching the dorm from the rear. This time, it was a lone person in a hoody with the hood pulled up so that they were completely unrecognizable. Phil opened one eye to watch the person suspiciously, wondering if they would stop to talk.

The person was still a dozen yards from the door when they spotted Phil. They stiffened and then abruptly turned on their heel and started fast-walking away. That seemed strange to Phil, and with all the mysterious events going on, he thought he had better check it out, even if it would wreck his solitude.

He stood up and called, "Hey, you!"

The person ignored him and kept walking, so Phil started half-jogging to try to catch up to them. The person glanced over their shoulder and then started off in a dead-run. Thoroughly suspicious now, Phil started chasing them.

The suspect had a good head-start on Phil and probably would have gotten away cleanly if they hadn't dropped something as they ran. They went on a few more steps before realizing and then paused and turned. Phil put on a little more speed, seeing his chance to catch the stranger. The person evidently decided that the object wasn't worth it and continuing running.

Phil drew to a halt next to the object. He panted a couple of times, thinking that he would never catch the suspect now. Honestly, he wasn't even sure what this "suspect" might have done.

He turned on the flashlight on his phone and shone it on the object on the ground. He let out a long breath as he took it in. It was a knife and there was blood on the blade.

Author's note: More clues, but what do they mean? I don't think it's too spoilerish to say that some of you are pretty close on what that first date means. Now, how does that fit in with the second? And what about this knife that Phil found? Somehow, I think you'd probably rather read the answers to those questions in the story itself than in an author's note. ;) I did want to comment on how I've written Laura here. There's a trend among fanfiction writers to make her a detective, too, which is fine and even makes sense. But she was never a detective in the books, and I think it also makes sense that she could have her own interests, apart from detective work. After all, everyone who is near and dear to me has interests that aren't particularly fascinating to me and not all of them find my interests all that interesting. Anyway, thank you for reading! Thank you especially to everyone who has left reviews! It really means a lot to me. I get so excited every time I get a notification that someone has reviewed one of my stories! Thank you! And God bless!