J.M.J.

Chapter XXI

Wednesday, May 12

Day Twelve

It was still the early hours of the morning when a group of people were sitting around a table in the break room of the Southport Police Department headquarters. Most of them were reading from copies of Tara Michaels' story or scanning the photographs that had been included, while those who had already read it were awaiting the others' verdict. The latter group consisted of Frank, Callie, and Sam, who had read the story as they drove to Southport to deliver it. The former group was made up of Fenton, Durant, three FBI agents, and a lawyer from the district attorney's office in Gresham.

"There can't be much doubt," Fenton commented as he set the papers down. "Tara did an excellent job collecting evidence about the political corruption and Rudger has provided us with amble evidence that Hodgefield had Tara killed because of it."

The lawyer, Jason Worthing, nodded. "Of course, it would be a much neater package if we could get this Rudger, too, but under the circumstances, I think it's more than enough, especially if Osmund's evidence as good as he thinks."

"Can't you look at it yet?" Callie asked.

"We're still ironing out the legalities there," Worthing told her. "There's no rush. Hodgefield isn't going anywhere, and when he's arrested, the district attorney will be more than ready to prosecute."

"Except the federal government is going to have first crack at him," spoke up one of the FBI agents, Kimberly Dau. "He's easily going to be looking life in prison on the political corruption charges alone."

It was no idle confidence behind those remarks. As it turned out, Tara Michaels' story was bigger than anyone had expected. It had been obvious from the start that she had dug up some scandal that Hodgefield wanted to keep quiet. The speculation had been that Hodgefield had had her killed, Black Rose had somehow found out about it, and then they had blackmailed Hodgefield so that they could operate in his town.

The truth was a little more complicated. Tara had learned that Hodgefield had had political ambitions for a long time. He had run for a position on city council in 1990, but had lost to a much more popular opponent. After that, Black Rose had approached him with a proposition: they would help him win a seat on city council and possibly, eventually, become mayor, not to mention giving him a large yearly sum of money, if he would do everything in his power to make Southport a safe place for the organization to operate. Hodgefield had jumped at the chance, and sure enough, he won the next election.

That was what had gotten Tara's attention. She thought it was strange that such an unpopular candidate could all the sudden pull in a win. Then, too, there had been rumors of dishonest tactics in the election, so Tara had set out to investigate. She hadn't been able to get access to courthouse records to see whether the election itself had been tampered with, but she did learn that several members of the campaign team for Hodgefield's opponent had been pressured, bullied, and bribed into underperforming and even, in one person's case, privately discouraging family members and friends from voting for his candidate. Tara was able to trace this back to a political club on her campus, which she then joined.

Through her undercover membership in the club, she learned that it was controlled by Black Rose and was probably being used to recruit college students into their ranks. Tara must have been a convincing actress, because she was taken into the confidence of the club's advisors and was able to gain access to their records of everything they had done to help get Hodgefield into office, as well as Hodgefield's approval of these plan and acceptance of them in exchange for vowing to prevent any investigation into Black Rose's activities in the area.

That was all the more information that Tara's report had given, but someone, presumably, a member of Black Rose had typed several more pages worth of explanation, as well as providing documents signed by Hodgefield and pictures.

Apparently, Tara had taken her story first to the local newspaper. The editor, Vincent Scheer, was hesitant to print a story like that at all until a police investigation had been done, and he outright refused to print it until he had gathered the facts for himself. Unfortunately, in gathering facts, he admitted to Hodgefield that a freelance reporter had given him all this information. Hodgefield had figured, and Black Rose had agreed, that such information could have only been obtained by someone working undercover. They did their own investigation and found that Tara had written the story. Hodgefield had written a memorandum, giving Black Rose his approval to "do whatever is necessary" to silence Tara. Black Rose then killed her and dumped the body out at sea.

From then onward, Black Rose had secured every election for Hodgefield, frequently threatening potential opponents from running at all, until he had been elected mayor. However, that was all Black Rose was doing for him. As Chief Osmund had suspected, they had soon switched their tactics to blackmailing Hodgefield rather than paying him.

Osmund had confided to Fenton and Durant that he had kept written records of every time he had witnessed Hodgefield prevent the former chief of police from calling in federal authorities. He had also done a lot of work and gathered circumstantial evidence connecting Hodgefield to Tara Michaels, which had never been enough on its own to warrant an arrest. However, with Osmund's recent discovery that Hodgefield also had a connection to Rudger, and the evidence he had gathered regarding who Rudger was, his case had really begun to solidify and he had felt certain that with a little more time, he could get the last few pieces of evidence he would need. Unfortunately, Hodgefield had gotten wind of it too soon. He had panicked at the idea of Black Rose finding out about his looming potential arrest, and so he decided to try to handle things on his own. He had found out that Osmund was planning on calling in Fenton Hardy to investigate the serial killer, and he had previously learned through Black Rose about the connection between the Beretta family and the Hardys. He had hired Allison Given and David Ferris and had bribed Kelly Alston to help him with his plot to discredit the chief of police. His plan had backfired on two scores. First, the Hardys were more competent investigators than he had anticipated, and second, Black Rose had found out about it all anyway. At any rate, Rudger had included all this information in the packet he had given Sam.

"There's just one thing I don't understand," Callie said. "Why would Rudger give all of this to the authorities? Isn't it just as incriminating for him as it is for Hodgefield?"

"He doesn't have to worry about that unless he gets caught," Frank pointed out. "He might be doing it for revenge because of Hodgefield's mishandling of this whole or maybe, it's exactly what he told Sam: that he doesn't any more use for Hodgefield and he thinks that helping Dad out here is going to cause Dad to turn a blind eye if their paths ever cross again. Black Rose might know how to deal with crooked politicians, but they don't know much about Dad."

"It's probably a little of both," Fenton said. "We'd better not waste any time. Let's not forget there's possibly a leak between this office and the press, who might very well warn Hodgefield."

"Right," Agent Dau agreed. "Let's go."

She was just standing up when there was a timid knock on the door and Officer Ewing looked in. "Um, lieutenant? Mayor Hodgefield is out here with a lawyer. He's demanding to get in that office. He says he's got every right to."

"Perfect," Agent Dau said. "This saves us a trip to City Hall."

The entire group headed down the hallway to the front desk, where Hodgefield was impatiently waiting with a smug-looking lawyer at his side. They both looked surprised when they saw a far larger group of people approaching them than they had expected.

"What is this, Durant?" Hodgefield demanded. "Who are all these people and what are they doing here?"

"Well," Durant replied, much less nervous than he had been in facing down the mayor the day before. "You already met Fenton Hardy, of course. This is Jason Worthing from the district attorney's office, and these are Agents Dau, Harmon, and Kerris from the FBI."

"Mayor Hodgefield," Agent Dau said as she stepped forward, "you're under arrest for political corruption, conspiracy to commit murder, and several counts of interfering with police investigations."

"What?" Hodgefield spluttered. His face was pale, but everyone had noticed that his face had become pale after he had been told that there FBI agents present, rather than merely when he had been informed of his arrest. "What are the charges?"

"You'd better give my client his rights," Hodgefield's lawyer interjected.

"Certainly," Dau replied and read them off.

"I advise you not to say anything until we've had a chance to talk in private," Hodgefield's lawyer warned his client.

"Oh, we've got a holding cell that will provide you with all the privacy you need," Durant said. "Come along, Hodgefield. You'll need to be booked before you can talk to you lawyer."

Durant and Agent Dau escorted Hodgefield, who was still spluttering and protesting incoherently, to a holding cell. Everyone else, except the lawyer, who didn't look very smug now, breathed a sigh of relief.

But Callie's relief didn't last long. "I'm glad this is over with, but what about the serial killer? It doesn't look like there was any connection between him and Hodgefield after all."

Fenton frowned. "No, I don't think there was."

"Then we're not any closer to finding Iola at all, and there's only one day left." Callie shivered. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Yes, of course. There are several angles we still need to look into," Fenton replied, but deep down, he knew that they didn't have anything definite enough to give them any real hope of solving the case within twenty-four hours.

"Is there anything we can do, Dad?" Frank asked.

Fenton thought for a moment. "You might find out why the Chronicle has never responded to our request to look through their archives."

HBHBHBHBHB

Joe was pacing up and down his room when the last phone call came. He had been doing little more than pacing ever since he got home from school. He hadn't even tried to do his homework. When his phone rang, he knew, even before he looked at the screen, who it was.

"Yes?" he said as he answered the phone.

"Well, well, Joe," the distorted voice replied. "Here we are: day twelve. I suppose you're feeling pretty anxious right now. I would, if I was as certain to lose are you. So I decided to show you what kindness really looks like. Iola wants to say good bye to you, so I'm going to let her."

The click that signaled that the voice distorting technology was being disabled rang in Joe's ears. Then Iola's voice came over the line:

"Joe? Are you there?"

"I…I'm here."

"Look, Joe, I still believe you can find me, but just in case, I want to know that this isn't your fault. My accident wasn't your fault. Nothing was your fault. You're the best thing in my life, and the only thing I regret is that I wasn't smart enough to figure that out sooner. And if this really is…the last time…" Iola's voice almost broke but she managed to carry on, "I'm not afraid. I don't want to die, but I'm not afraid to either. Daw…" Iola continued to talk, but it was suddenly muffled, and Joe couldn't make out what she was saying.

"Iola?" Joe asked. "Iola, are you there?"

The voice distorting technology kicked back in and the voice said, "Unfortunately, your girlfriend is too overcome with emotion to talk any longer. You'll have to say your good byes at the funeral. May 2, 1992."

The phone hung up with a click. Joe stared into space for several seconds. He felt sick to his stomach and there was such a huge lump in his throat that he couldn't breathe other than in ragged, shallow breaths. All at once, he raced out of his room and down the stairs.

Laura was at the foot of the stairs, about to come up. She noticed her son's expression. "What happened?"

"He called again," Joe said simply. "He let me talk to Iola again, too. Mom, there's less than twenty-four hours left. Why did Dad make me go to school this week instead of working on the case?"

"Probably because this sort of case is better left to professionals," Aunt Gertrude said, entering the room unexpectedly. "It's too dangerous for a boy your age. Why, you could be killed."

"And now, maybe because I've been sitting around doing nothing this week, Iola really will be." Joe shook his head. "No. If being safe means other people have to die, I don't want any part of it."

Laura took in a deep breath. "You're right, Joe. We were wrong. You'd better do what you need to."

Joe nodded and then jumped down the remaining couple of steps and practically bolted out the door.

"What are you doing, Laura?" Gertrude demanded. "Do you want him to be killed?"

"No, but I also don't want him to have to live with knowing that he didn't do everything he could. The boys aren't children anymore, and if they're willing to do the right thing, even if it's dangerous, I'm not going to stand in their way."

Author's note: I didn't quite get this one out as soon as I'd hoped. Sorry! I don't think it will take as long to get the next chapter out, but then again, I've got to get that one just right. It's part one of the climax, after all, what you guys have been waiting for all this time. The climax will cover three chapters, I think, and then a resolution chapter or maybe two. Most likely a long resolution chapter. So, yeah, we're down to probably just four chapters left, if you can believe it. Thank you for sticking with this thus far! And thank you especially to all my awesome reviewers!