Novel - Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer Read Free Book Online Page A

clear, Moon?”
    Murt had given me the stare before, so I wasn’t too intimidated.
    “What if you gave me a look at the Sharkey file, and if I figure anything out I tell you straight away?”
    Murt chortled. “God, you’re a chancer, Fletcher. You have more neck than a herd of giraffes. First of all, you wouldn’t be able to carry the Sharkey file it’s so thick, and secondly that file is very active. I’d have to get a written presidential order before I could let you look at an active file. I like you, Fletcher, but I’m not prepared to be stationed on some island off the west coast for you.”
    I sighed. “Okay, Sergeant. I’ll forget about the Sharkeys.”
    Murt closed one eye, focusing the other on me. “You’re not lying, are you, Fletcher? My policeman’s eye always knows.”
    “No, Murt. I’m not lying.”
    Of course I was lying.
    I ran home, and managed to make it into upstairs without the third degree from Mom and Dad. My sister, Hazel, was waiting on the landing chewing on a pencil.
    “Fletcher, what’s another word for rejected?”
    I thought for a second. “Em . . . How about unwanted?”
    Hazel jotted it down. “Good. And how about a rhyme for pathetic?”
    That was a bit harder. “Ah . . . would prosthetic do?”
    “I could work it in.”
    I paused by my door. “What are you working on, anyway? Something about you and Stevie?”
    “No,” said Hazel innocently. “An epic poem about your date with April Devereux.”
    I scowled at her, but realized there was no percentage in answering back. God only knew how long Hazel had been waiting for me to come home. She would have all her bases covered.
    Inside, I sat on my office chair, rolling over to the desk. A quick tap on the track pad woke up my iBook laptop. I stared at the FBI wallpaper on the screen and thought about what I intended to do.
    If I planned to proceed with this case, I needed information, and the only way to get that information was to access the police Web site and download the Sharkey file. Did I want to break the case that much? Or was I just doing it for my badge?
    A thought struck me. Maybe there was a way to get a new badge. I logged on to the Bernstein Web site and typed replacement badge into their search engine. The paragraph that popped up was not encouraging. Any requests for a replacement badge must be accompanied by two hundred dollars and a police report. Maybe I could scrape together the money after a year or so, but forging a police document was a serious crime.
    I had only two choices: give up now, or hack the site. No need to choose just yet, I told myself. Maybe you won’t be able to access the site, and the choice will be taken out of your hands.
    I opened the police site’s welcome page. I needed a name, rank, number, and password to proceed. I had three out of four. Name, rank, and number were easy. Password was a different matter, but I had a hunch.
    Murt Hourihan had two passions. One was law enforcement, which he was much better at than he pretended. The second was greyhound racing. He loved the sport so much that he had joined a police syndicate to buy a dog. The dog’s name was Blue Flew . I typed in the words.
    The iBook clicked and whirred for a moment, then welcomed Sergeant Hourihan to the site. I was in.
    The site was based on a common law-enforcement template used by police forces worldwide, and had several sections, including resources, keyword search, county by county, recent arrests, and incident reports.
    I felt a slight thrill of guilt. What I was doing was not illegal as such—citizens were entitled to access to these files under the freedom of information act. But a minor certainly should not be trawling through active files without supervision.
    I selected our county, then chose Lock from the drop-down menu. I narrowed the search further by typing the surname Sharkey in a flashing box. A colored circle whirled on the screen while the site compiled a list of Sharkey-related incidents.