The Network Mystery
By Cassidy Montague
Chapter 4 "And You Thought They Couldn't Be Taught."
"Did you just hear that sound?" Vanessa asked Callie in a mock-awed tone as she read the message over her boyfriend's shoulder.
"Oh, yes, I heard it," Callie laughed as she leaned back into her seat and clicked her seatbelt shut. "It's a sound every person associated with the Hardys knows well."
"What?" Joe looked up from the message to peer at the two girls, especially the one beside him who started all the speculation. "What are you talking about?"
"The sound, Joe, the sound," Vanessa reminded him. "Baby, do you need your ears cleaned out again? A mystery just roared right into the station and if you quit paying attention it's going to smack you in the face. Again."
"Oh, ha, ha," Joe sat the message down on the console between seats and started the van. "You two are such comedienne's today, I'm surprised you haven't started your own road show."
Callie and Vanessa exchanged glances, laughing and Joe glowered, wondering what was going on between the two of them.
"You didn't hear the scuttlebutt, Hardy?" Callie leaned forward as far as the seatbelt allowed, which was just far enough to put her face right next to Joe's shoulder. "We're starting our own road show. We're just using you as our warm-up audience."
Joe shook his head as he steered out of the parking lot and headed toward the highway that would lead him out to where Callie lived. You owe me big, big brother, Joe thought as he listened to the two girls laughing. You owe me real big.
"So what do you think he wants?" Callie asked a few minutes later, unable to let the note go. Just as Joe suspected; she wanted in on another mystery!
"No idea," Joe shrugged. "Unless he knows that Frank saw him this morning and he wants to explain what he was doing. You know he doesn't like us getting involved in his little missions, I doubt he's just going to hand us a case. It's not his style."
Joe turned the steering wheel, sending the van down another street. He wanted to know the answer to that question too – namely, what the heck the Gray Man wanted with them. The man refused to treat he or Frank as adults so he doubted it was a case. Joe turned his attention to his driving and the neighborhood, mentally setting the note aside.
The streets on this block were lined with tall birch and oak trees, each of them standing straight and tall, slightly obscuring the houses behind them. An older section of Bayport, the houses in this neighborhood were built back in the fifties and were the homes of older families or second generation Bayport families. None of the houses were exactly huge but they would all have two or three bedrooms and sizable living rooms. Garages were detached and usually located behind the houses in back yards with long driveways leading past the house.
Callie lived in this neighborhood, in one of the slightly larger houses, meaning she had her own bedroom and bathroom and, if her parents had ever had another child, she would not have had to share her room. Joe knew, from many times spent in Callie's house, that the third bedroom was her mother's sewing room and her father's home office. They used the den downstairs as a dining room instead of an office.
"First stop, Shaw residence," Joe rang out. "You need help bringing anything into the house?"
"I'm good," Callie carried two bags she brought home from the sale. "Tell Frank to get better soon and to call me when he's feeling up to it."
"You betcha," Joe agreed amiably. He got out long enough to slam the sliding door shut behind her and waited until Callie was inside the house and flashed the lights twice to indicate everything was safe before he drove off again.
The road that led out to Vanessa's home ran along the coast of Barmet Bay, beginning at the waterfront and heading out of town. Located west of Bayport, with a cliff front on one side and a rolling hillside on the other, the road was no longer a favorite of travelers due to the opening of an Interstate that now ran past Bayport and toward nearby towns. Vanessa and her mother, Andrea, liked it that way, since it caused less traffic to go by their farmyard home.
Vanessa took the note off the console and looked at it, studying it with an intensity that caused her blue gray eyes to change to a more solid gray color. Joe grinned as he watched her out of the corner of his eyes, watching as she chewed on her bottom lip, idly twisting a lock of long blonde hair around a finger. Intriguing from the first day he met her, Joe liked her company even more now than he had that eventful few months previously when she came into his life.
"What?" Vanessa saw him watching her and she turned her attention to him.
"Nothing," Joe turned his attention back to the road. "Really, Van. I just like to watch you. You do this thing with your mouth and then your eyes…"
Vanessa paused a moment before she spoke. "A thing."
"Yeah," Joe grinned. "Your eyes go this really dark shade of gray when you concentrate. And when you're happy, really happy, they turn a brighter blue. I like to watch your eyes do that."
And just as he hoped, Vanessa's eyes went the brighter shade of blue and he smiled back at her.
"Are you saying my eyes are like one of those mood rings people used to wear all the time?" Vanessa blinked her eyelids at him.
"Nope," Joe said. "They're much more interesting than any old mood ring."
Vanessa settled back in her seat, the note propped on a knee.
"You aren't going to do something stupid like go by yourself if Frank is too sick to go, are you?" she asked Joe. "You could bring your father with you."
Joe shook his head. "No, I won't go on my own. Well, I would if it was anyone else but I don't exactly trust the Gray Man."
"Is that a mature response I detected from you?" Vanessa's eyes widened. "I'm stunned."
Joe laughed as he made the turn onto the one lane dirt road that led back to Van's house. He could already see the cars that belonged to Andrea and all of her associates, along with Van's broken down jeep. "Why don't I take a look at your jeep while I'm here?"
"You think you can fix it, be my guest," Vanessa agreed as she clicked her seat belt open. "Stupid thing won't start. I checked the battery."
"It may be something else," Joe said. He got out of the car and followed Vanessa up to where her jeep sat, the hood still propped open. Joe bent over the engine for a moment, wiggling wires and checking connections and hoses. A few minutes later he went around to the driver's side.
"Hand me your key a minute," Joe glanced up at his girlfriend. "Let me check something."
Dubiously, Vanessa dug into her pocket and pulled out the key to her jeep. Joe put the key into the ignition and turned it, listening.
"It's either your starter or your alternator," Joe said. "It won't cost too much to get it replaced. If you can get your mom to buy one I can probably change it out myself if you want."
"Nah, you have a case coming up," Vanessa wrapped her long arms around his shoulders, smiling. "Don't wanna distract the hero from his battle. I'll have Uncle Rick fix it."
Joe stood up so that he was standing just over his tall girlfriend and he smiled into her eyes. He wrapped his own arms around her and pulled her close, kissing her deeply. They were both quiet for a few minutes before they reluctantly parted from each other.
"I supposed I'd better get home and show the note to Frank," Joe sighed. "Call me later?"
"You betcha," Vanessa agreed as she took his hand into her own. "And you call me after you meet with the Gray Man. I want to know what's going on."
"I will," Joe agreed. They walked back to his van together and stood there for a few more minutes, kissing, before Joe climbed inside, started the ignition and with a last wave and a kiss of her hand through the open window, drove away.
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Joe found his brother laying on the sofa in the living room, snoring lightly, one hand thrown over his eyes and the other hanging off the edge of the sofa. On the nearby end table rested a box of tissues, a half-full glass of orange juice and a small medicine cabinet's worth of medications.
"Don't wake him!" Joe turned to see his mom standing behind him in the doorway leading into the hallway. She waved Joe closer. "He just went back to sleep a few minutes ago."
"How's he doing?" Joe asked. "Is he any better?"
Laura shrugged. "It won't get better in a single day, we both know that. Took your Aunt a week to shake this."
"She's older, ma," Joe peeked back at his brother. Frank hadn't moved at all. "He's young, he shakes things off fast."
"Perhaps but not in a few hours," Laura turned to go back into the kitchen. "Just let him sleep, Joe. It's what he needs right now."
Joe nodded and went down the hallway to his father's den. He knocked once at the half-open doorway and Fenton looked up at him from the newspaper spread across his desk.
"Hey, Pop," Joe exclaimed. "Enjoying your day off?"
"Sure," Fenton agreed heartily as he leaned back in his chair and swiveled back and forth. "Hard to know what to do with myself."
"Don't say that too loud, Dad, or mom will find something for you to do," Joe warned his father. Men had to stick together, didn't they?
Fenton grinned. "I was virtuous. I mowed the lawn, something I believe you boys are supposed to be doing?"
"OH, we do it," Joe agreed. "But we thought we'd like to prove your manhood again by conquering the lawn mower."
"Speaking of that lawn mower. How long has it been cantankerous like that?" Fenton peered out the window opposite where Joe stood, a satisfied smile on his face.
"Couple of years at least," Joe shrugged. "We've always gotten it to start so it wasn't a big deal. Still cuts the grass doesn't it?"
Fenton rocked his office chair back and forth, nodding. He swiveled around again, sending the chair into a full 360 before coming to a rest.
"You're making me dizzy," Joe laughed.
"So what's up?" Fenton asked him as he leaned forward again, propping both arms on the desk in front of him. Made of dark mahogany wood, it was large, substantial and heavy. Joe figured if they ever had another hurricane in town and the whole house blew away that desk would still be standing right here, in its spot. He loved this old desk, though. Fenton inherited the desk from Joe's grandfather who got it from Joe's great-grandfather and Joe hoped, one day, he would have it – if it didn't go to Frank as the older brother.
"Got a message," Joe said as he handed the note over to his father. Fenton read it, an eyebrow raising in surprise as he did.
"Look at this, son," Fenton motioned to the page of the paper in front of him. Joe turned the page so he could see it better and read an obituary for Arthur Gray. Joe blinked in surprise.
"That's… unexpected," Joe said.
"My," Fenton grinned. "You have such a way with words, my son. Teaching you lots in school, are they?"
"Hey, it's Saturday and I'm tired," Joe sat down in the nearest chair. "I got up early this morning, if you will recall."
"I got up even earlier," Fenton smirked modestly. "Virtuously too, I might add."
Joe snorted. "Right, Pop. And Mom had nothing to do with it."
"Of course not!" Fenton rocked again. "Now, back to this note, are you sure it's from the Gray Man?"
"Well," Joe shrugged. "I didn't see him put it in the van, if that's what you're talking about. Frank did see him earlier though, at the sale. Did he tell you?"
"Yeah, after I showed him this," Fenton motioned to the obituary. "Are you sure, though, that Frank really saw him? I mean, he's not feeling well."
"He's not hallucinating either," Joe said. "Seriously, Dad, we've learned to be cautious where the Gray Man is concerned. I'm not convinced we can trust him as far as either of us could throw him and never have been. But, then again, we have worked with him, reluctantly or not, and this might be important. It would be stupid to not follow it up."
"More stupid to not take precautions," Fenton reminded him. "And you know that Frank isn't going to be up to going."
"So you'll come with me," Joe shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "You're a Hardy too. Note doesn't specify which Hardys to bring. You can pinch hit for Frank."
Fenton picked at something imaginary on his desk as Joe leaned back in the leather chair in which he sat, stretching. He yawned widely.
"Fine," Fenton agreed a few minutes later. "But only because I don't want you to go alone."
"Of course," Joe agreed. "Of course."
"We'd probably better not tell Frank about this until it's done. It would be almost impossible to keep him down if he knew."
Joe laughed. "That's an understatement, Pop. Why not tell me the world is round while you're at it."
Fenton glared balefully then smiled again. "Because, my son," he remarked casually. "Sometimes I do have to allow you to work out the little things on your own. I know how hard it is for you, but you can do it."
"Ha, ha," Joe got to his feet. "It is…"
His words were cut off by a crash from the front room and, a moment later, as if in terror, a scream.
"NO!"