Trial and Terror by Franklin W. Dixon Read Free Book Online

through a baseball cap. You know whose hair it looked like?”
    â€œThat pushy reporter we saw this afternoon?” Joe said. “She had frizzy red hair.”
    â€œRight,” Frank said. “I think Nellie said her name was Lisa Velloni.”
    â€œHmm, maybe she was snooping for information to help with her story,” Joe figured.
    â€œMaybe,” Frank said. “But if it was her, how did she get in? And why was she so eager to get me out of the way? We should make a point of talking to her tomorrow.”
    Back at street level, the Hardys headed for the van, each brother lost in thought about the case. A siren whined on the avenue several blocks away.
    â€œYou know, I’m working up a theory about this guy John Q.,” Joe said. “Let’s assume he’s obsessed with Karen Lee. He said he feels ‘fated’ to be with her. Maybe he learned she was engaged to Nick from one of those soap magazines or something, and maybe he never heard about them calling it off. Maybe it really burned him up that she was going to marry someone else.”
    â€œEven if he didn’t know her?” Frank asked.
    â€œPeople can get possessive about celebrities,” Joe pointed out. “They think they know them just because they see them on TV all the time.”
    â€œSo what are you saying?” Frank said. “That John Q. may have tried to kill Karen Lee?”
    â€œMaybe he didn’t intend to kill her,” Joe said. “Maybe he just staged it to look that way.”
    â€œBut why?” Frank asked.
    â€œSo he could frame Nick and get him out of thepicture,” Joe said. “He planted the ski mask and gloves in Nick’s apartment and got some strands of Nick’s hair, say from a comb, and put them in the mask. Nick gets sent off to prison for a long time, and John Q. believes he can have Lee all to himself.”
    â€œWell, I guess it’s possible,” Frank said.
    â€œAnd, remember, possibilities are all we need,” Joe said. “So now we have two suspects to pursue. Fred Garfein and John Q. Not bad for a day’s work.”
    â€œBut, like Bernie told us,” Frank said, “we still have to find some real evidence that could in some way link one of them to the crime.”
    When the Hardys reached their van, Frank found a slip of paper attached to the windshield. “Don’t tell me it’s a ticket,” Joe said with a groan.
    â€œOkay, I won’t tell you,” Frank said, stuffing the ticket in Joe’s coat pocket.
    â€œI think I’ve had enough of the big city for now,” Joe said with a sigh. “What do you say we head back to nice, peaceful Bayport?”
    â€œFine with me,” Frank said, unlocking the van.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    The Hardys slept well that night. By eight-thirty the next morning, they were following a parade of cars over a suspension bridge that led back to the island of Manhattan. Across thebridge, hundreds of skyscrapers stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the clouds.
    Joe parked the van in the same parking lot as the day before, but this time the Hardys planned to leave it there. “No tickets or traffic today,” Joe said, shutting down the van engine. “From now on we travel the way most New Yorkers do.”
    The morning was cold, and the Hardys wasted no time finding stairs that led them down into the subway station and the underground network of trains that covered most of New York City.
    It was rush hour, and the platform was packed with people on their way to work. Soon two headlights appeared, a rumbling was heard, then a glistening silver train rushed through a dark tunnel and slowed to a stop at the platform.
    Doors slid open on each of the train’s many cars, and people poured in and out of the car. When the doors closed, Frank and Joe were jammed together like sardines in a tin can. “Could you give me a little more room?” Joe