Witness to Murder Read online

  Frank spent the same waiting time mulling over the facts in Joe's case. But there were too many things he didn't know, too many pieces of the puzzle that he didn't have. He couldn't draw any conclusions.

  Fenton Hardy soon arrived, acting more like a worried father than a famous detective. He had asked the family lawyer to meet them at the station. The lawyer advised Joe to say nothing more about the accident and worked on getting Joe released quickly.

  Finally, the door to the interrogation room opened, and Fenton Hardy poked his head in. "Let's go, boys, Joe's out on bail. What do you say? Home?"

  "I can't go until I know Annie is all right," Joe said to his father.

  "I'll check on her and take her home if she needs a ride," Frank offered. "She's in no danger now, and she'll probably just want to rest."

  Joe started to protest, but his father interrupted. "That would be best, son. We need to talk." He turned to Frank. "The police have finished checking out the van. It's in the rear parking lot."

  . Reluctantly, Joe left with his father out the back door, and Frank went to search for Annie. He found her in the small waiting room near the front desk, where Officer Riley was standing and talking on the phone.

  Annie looked up. "Where's Joe?"

  "I'll take you home if you need a ride, Annie. Joe is going with our dad. She free?" Frank mouthed silently to Officer Riley through the open door.

  « The officer nodded, and Frank led Annie out to the van.

  After giving Frank her address, Annie said no more. She withdrew into herself and hunched her shoulders up close to her ears and pressed her body against the passenger door. Frank didn't exist for her.

  "Annie," Frank said finally as he swung the car around to head toward Annie's neighborhood. He wanted to talk about the accident, but he felt awkward. Annie had always tried so hard to avoid him. "If you and Phil were struggling and ya pushed Phil away, so he fell in front of the van, then it was an accident. You can't be blamed and Joe would be cleared."

  Annie said nothing, continuing to stare out the window.

  "You know they've accused Joe of killing Phil, don't you?" Frank said a little louder to make his voice enter the girl's head.

  "What happened out there, Annie? What dit you tell the police that made them suspect Joe of vehicular homicide?" Frank had raised his voice and was biting off each word now. He hoped to scare Annie into revealing something that hadn't come out so far.

  "I — I'm not sure, Frank," she said in a sleepy voice. Slowly she turned her head until she was looking out the windshield. She still wouldn't look at Frank. "Phil knew Joe was coming. He tried to get away, I guess. He ran the wrong way."

  "Why would he try to get away from you, or Joe for that matter? A guy who'd fight anyone who looked at you doesn't sound like someone who'd run from a confrontation."

  "I don't know. All I know is he stepped in front of the van."

  "If you told the police that, why don't they gbelieve Joe? Why have they booked him?" "How am I supposed to know what the cops are thinking?" Annie said, her gaze concentrated on the side window again.

  Frank wanted to probe deeper, but he kept silent. Annie was probably still in shock. Maybe she'd remember more later.

  She lived in the worst section of Bayport, where the buildings were old and jammed together. Rents were cheap there, of course, and Frank figured it was the best Annie could afford. "You can let me out here." Annie was unbuckling her seat belt as Frank slowed, looking for the number. She cut off the offer that Frank started to make of seeing her to her door. "I'm fine."

  Frank shrugged and stopped the van. If Joe was going to get any help from Annie, he was going to have to question her himself.

  That night Frank slept restlessly. He rose early to find Joe slumped in a chair in the den, staring blankly at an early-morning TV show with the sound off.

  "Did you sleep at all, Joe?" Joe shook his head, almost as if to clear it. Frank turned off the TV. "Let's get some breakfast. Maybe we'll both feel better."

  "I've gone over and over it, Frank. I keep seeing Phil Sidler, flying out and landing in front of the van. His eyes, Frank. He keeps staring at me. Right through me. It's spooky." Joe shut his eyes and exhaled in one loud burst as if he forced the picture from his mind.

  "Joe — "

  "I know only one thing for sure, Frank. It was an accident."

  "We both know that, Joe, but it seems weird going to have to prove it. I'm heading over to the police station this morning. I want to look at the evidence."

  "I'm coming, too." Joe stood up and followed Frank into the kitchen. Absently he plugged in the coffee maker.

  "It's better if you stay here, Joe. I think they'll talk more if you're not there. I want to see the coroner's report and Annie's testimony."

  "Annie," Joe muttered. "I have to see Annie."

  "Not now. Wait till I know what she said.' Frank used a no-nonsense tone of voice.

  Joe tapped on the countertop with a spoon then dropped it so that it danced across the smooth surface and clattered onto the floor.

  ***

  After him, he riffled through the rest of the papers at great speed.

  Annie's testimony wasn't much help. When asked if she thought Joe could have stopped and not hit Phil, Annie had answered that she couldn't really see.

  "I'll tell you, Frank, Joe's in a tight spot," Con said seriously, stacking the police notes back together and placing them in the file folder.

  "He shouldn't be, Con," Frank said. "There's something strange going on here. Did the police find out anything about Phil Sidler? Search his car? Find out where he was staying?"

  "We found a hotel key in his pocket. And an officer went to his hotel. Not much there." Con showed Phil's few belongings to Frank. —His sports bag held a change of socks and underwear. Phil hadn't planned on staying in Bayport long. There was a wadded-up jacket in the bag and a sports magazine also. Phil's billfold contained almost a hundred dollars in crumpled bills, a driver's license—giving his age as twenty-five— and a picture of Annie. The snapshot was slightly out of focus, but it was Annie smiling at the camera.

  The number for the pay phone at Mr. Pizza was scribbled on the back of a matchbook cover from the Bayport Downtowner. Frank knew the hotel it was in the same poor part of town where Annie lived.

  "Is this what led you to Phil's hotel?" Frank asked Con, holding up the matchbook cover.

  "Yep. He'd registered there three days ago."

  "Not yesterday?" Frank added a visit to the hotel to his list of places to investigate.

  "See for yourself, Frank." Con grinned as he packed up Phil's gear.

  "I plan to. Thanks, Con. Joe and I appreciate your help."

  "Luck to you, Frank."

  Frank glanced at his watch. In the confusion of the events of the day before and that morning, he almost forgot that he'd told Callie he'd take her to lunch. He called to ask her to meet him at Mr. Pizza at twelve.

  Mr. Pizza didn't open until 1145. Frank parked near the service entrance and slipped in the back door.

  The room was heavy with the smell of yeasi and green peppers cooking. Frank found his friend Tony Prito in the storeroom, lifting down a restaurant-size can of tomato sauce. Although Tony was the restaurant's manager, he did most of the initial preparations in the kitchen and carefully supervised the chefs.

  "Frank, good to see you," Tony said when he looked up and saw his friend. "I heard about the accident. How's Joe?"

  "Not too good." Frank filled Tony in

  "That's ridiculous," Tony said, slamming down the sauce. "Joe would never kill anyone because he was jealous."

  "I don't think he had time to get jealous," Frank pointed out. "He'd never even met this Phil Sidler. Listen, Tony, could you give me some background on Annie? I want to know everything you know about her."

  "That won't take long, Frank. I don't know much. She needed the job. I needed help. She seemed okay, so I hired her."

  "Where had she worked b
efore?" Frank asked.

  "She said she had no past restaurant experience, but who cared? How much experience does it take to carry a pizza to a table? Now, if she have been cooking ..." Tony smiled. »Did she seem different yesterday or the day before when she came to work, Tony?" Frank asked.

  Tony thought about that while he opened a cardboard barrel of flour. "Well, Annie wasn't a chatterer, didn't say much at all. Last couple of days, though, she talked a blue streak."

  "About what?"

  "Nothing in particular. You know how girls can yap on and on about nothing at all. She had the other girls laughing a couple Of times. Probably doesn't mean anything, but I noticed it."

  "Thanks, Tony." Frank turned to leave.

  Tony stopped him with his voice. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for Joe."

  "Will do." Frank headed out to the restaurant through the kitchen.

  Callie was waiting for him in the entry way. don't know why I put up with you, Frank. You invite me out to lunch at twelve and then aren't here on time. We could have made it for a late time."

  "Hi to you, too, Callie," Frank said. "You're a patient woman. Listen, do you mind if we eat someplace else? I can't face pizza today."

  "Sure, Frank. But what's wrong? We eat here so often, I thought you liked only pizza."

  Frank filled Callie in as they got seated at a sandwich bar in a corner of the mall's eating area. "Joe's been accused of murder?" Callie's face registered her astonishment. "How can that be! When did this happen?"

  "Yesterday. You must not have seen the news last night or today's paper. The Bayport Times made a big deal out of the son of Fenton Hardy being involved in a vehicular homicide."

  Frank gave Callie the rest of the details as they ate. "There's something wrong here, Callie. I'd like to know what Annie really saw."

  "You're being kind of hard on Annie, Frank," Callie answered. "You may not like her, but you have to give her the benefit of the doubt. I think you're trying to make a mystery where none exists. What Joe needs is a decent lawyer, not a detective looking for motives that aren't there." "Yeah, I keep telling myself that. Maybe I need a vacation." Frank smiled at the pretty blond girl sitting opposite him. He watched as she echoed a smile by lifting the edges of her mouth in a slow grin that spread infectiously up to her understanding eyes. Callie was the world's most patient understanding friend. Frank felt lucky that she put up with him.

  "Listen, Callie," he said, polishing off a hamburger. "I've some more ground to cover. Will you wait for me if I run?" "Don't I always?" Callie said, deciding at the last minute to make it a joke. Frank smiled and sketched a quick wave as he dashed out. Maybe he was inventing this case, but he was determined to check out every angle for Joe's sake. Callie was right in saying a good lawyer could get Joe off, but Frank didn't want Joe to be left dealing with another guilt trip. Frank didn't even know what he was looking for at this point, but he was going to investigate every detail.

  The Bayport Downtowner was once in the heart of Bayport, but the center of the city's activities had moved. The neighborhood had been left to change with the times. Trouble was, it couldn't be changed for the better.

  Half the fluorescent tubes in the fixture in the entrance of the cheap hotel were broken. The windowpane in the main door was cracked, and the door itself stuck when Frank tugged on it.

  Behind the counter a clerk nodded sleepily in the dusty air of the lobby, air that had trapped stale cigar smoke. Two elderly men sat in a lobby off the entryway, watching a game show on TV.

  "Ahem." Frank cleared his throat to alert the clerk that he had a potential customer.

  "Oh, hello. Want a room?" The man behind the desk was past retirement age, and Frank figured he'd taken the job to have something to do. The salary couldn't be much.

  "Can you tell me what room Phil Sidler is in?" Frank asked for starters.

  "Unfortunately, Mr. Sidler doesn't live here anymore." The clerk flashed a toothless grin.

  "Okay, what room did he have when he did live here?" Frank found he didn't have his usual patience with people.

  "Won't do me any good to tell you. Police have it sealed off. Why do you want to know? Was Sidler a friend of yours? Police might want to talk to you." The old man wasn't dumb.

  "A friend of mine thought she left her purse in his room. I said I'd get it back for her." It was a clumsy story but the best Frank could come uf with on the spur of the moment.

  "Cops took everything." The man relented for a moment as he added, "Two-oh-nine, second floor, corner. But you'd better try the police first, sonny." The clerk, tired of acting important, walked over to the small lobby full of faded easy chairs and joined the two men watching the game show.

  Frank hesitated. The clerk really didn't seem to-care if he went up for a look. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then huriedly he took the stairs two at a time. Upstairs, Frank read the police notice on Phil's room and turned the knob once. The door was locked. Disappointed, he slipped back downstairs and out the building. He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, looking up at the grimy facade of the hotel.

  Suddenly Frank realized that the rusty fire escape outside the corner room. He got a couple of wooden crates left in a nearby alley. He piled the crates up in a shaky tower beneath the fire escape and climbed it. He was almost able to reach the bottom rung of the Ladder, which hung down from the second-floor landing.

  As Frank jumped up to grab the ladder, the crates collapsed with a loud crash. For a moment he swung helplessly in empty space, one hand clutching the metal rung, waiting for someone to come out to see what was going on. But no one bothered.

  Instead, the rusty ladder began slowly to go down under his weight until Frank could climt up to Phil's window. His sneakers muffled his footsteps, but the metal creaked and rattled with each step and once even banged against the building.

  Standing outside what he was sure had to be Phil's room, Frank glanced about before tryin the window. A matchbook cover was wedged into the space between the metal railing and the building. Two cigarette butts had been ground out on the railing. Frank could imagine someone leaning against the building, smoking and absentmindedly pushing the cardboard cover into the small space The advertisement on the match cover was for a bar in New York City. It might mean nothing, it might have been left there long ago, but Frank stuck it into his pants pocket to investigate at a later time.

  The window to Phil's room was unlocked and open, two or three inches. So much for sealed rooms, Frank thought. But after raising the window and stepping into the room, Frank knew that the police weren't the only ones to have been there.

  He quickly closed the Venetian blinds so no one could see him in the room. The place was a shambles. Chairs had been overturned, the upholstery had been slit and the mattress was in shreds.

  Someone had done a very thorough job searching Phil Sidler's room.

  Frank was reaching for the light switch to have a better look when he heard the click of the door and He started to whirl around to hide, but there was no time to move. The doorknob turned. Frank's only impression was that the man who entered was tall.

  "What the — " the man cried. His reactions were lightning fast. He raised his arm to deliver a low.

  Before Frank could reach out to protect himself, he was sent spinning into gaping blackness.

  Chapter 4

  Frank had ducked so that the blow only glanced off his skull. But it did momentarily make him black out — enough to keep him from identifying the man later. All he knew was that the man was very tall—and agile. Shaking his head once, Frank looked around and saw he was alone. He' staggered out into the hallway and recovered enough to weave down the stairs.

  Out on the street he looked both ways. An elderly woman was making her way slowly toward the corner of the block. A tomcat, scarred from many battles, looked back at him before rolling his back once and moving on. But no tall man. The man had been unbelievably quick. He had reacted to seeing Frank i
n the room in a fraction of a second. Who was he?

  Frank knew it wasn't logical that he was the same person who had ransacked the room earlier. The search had been thorough enough not to be Continued or repeated. And how did the man get Into Phil's room? It seemed that he had a key. Had Phil been accompanied to Bayport?

  The hotel clerk had disappeared, so Frank didn't bother to find and question him about the stranger. He'd probably gone out for coffee, Frank decided. Tight security in this place.

  There was no way of knowing where the tall man had gone, why he had been there in the first place, or whether he might return. But Frank didn't want to leave without checking out Phil's room. He might not get a second chance.

  Frank gently probed the spot on his head where he was hit. He could feel an egg forming, but at least he wasn't bleeding. He decided to take one more chance.

  He slipped back up the stairs and into Phil's room - This time it remained empty. Frank searched for a few minutes. Nothing. It was pure luck that Frank had turned up that matchbook cover on the fire escape. Of course, it could have belonged to a previous occupant. The month had been dry, so the condition of the cover would have remained the same for several weeks. - After climbing down the fire escape — just in case the hotel clerk had returned to his post Frank got in the van and headed for home. He needed to talk to his father and Joe.

  "Where's Dad?" asked Frank, striding into the den.

  Joe was slumped in a chair, dully watching an old movie on television. Mr. Hardy had insisted that Joe stay in the house because he was out on bail. Fenton Hardy knew Joe could get in trouble and then the police would have no choice but to lock him up.

  "He left for the police station right after he told me not to leave the house for the tenth time." Joe followed Frank into the kitchen. "What did you find out, Frank? And where have you been?"

  "Police station. Nothing new." Frank debated whether or not to tell Joe about the incident in Phil's room but chose to keep it to himself in case Joe decided to investigate.