Free Running on Empty by Franklin W. Dixon Page A

his bulldog face squeezed into a tight frown, his finger thumping Joe on the chest, "is make sure you two cowboys don't get in my way."
    "Let's get out of here, Joe," Frank said before Joe could say anything. "It's obvious that Detective Cronkite is right. We'll just be in the way."
    Joe knew his brother well enough to realize that Frank was putting on an act. He didn't know what Frank was scheming, but he trusted Frank and would go along with him. He followed his brother to the van.
    "Uh, Frank," Cronkite said from the doorway of the office. Frank turned. "I would think such a smart 'detective' as you would know better than to withhold evidence."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "I stopped by Brooke's place before I came here. That man can't keep a secret." He held out his hand. "I'll take the tape, if you don't mind."
    "It's at the motel," Frank lied.
    Cronkite turned the answer over in his head for a moment, then sneered, "Just make sure it gets into the proper hands."
    Frank and Joe hopped into the van. The detective gave a mocking, insincere wave as they pulled away from Royce's Garage.
    "So, what's brewing?" Joe asked after they had gone several blocks.
    Frank fingered the tape. Something about the background noise bothered him, but that would have to wait.
    "Head for the motel," he replied. "We'll get a few hours' rest and then start the raiding party a little bit earlier than planned."
    "You read my mind." Joe smiled as he gassed the van.
    ***
    Frank and Joe stood outside the dark and empty chop shop dressed in the black pullovers and pants they kept in the van for nighttime surveillance. They canvassed the outside of the building, trying to find an easy way in. The building was large, and the early-morning full moon threw deep shadows down the side of the building. They stopped in the back alley.
    Joe glanced at his watch. "This place is going to be crawling with cops in about an hour."
    "When they get here," Frank began, wrapping a handkerchief around his right fist, "they're going to have to file a breaking and entering report."
    Without hesitation, he smashed his hand through one of the blackened windows. Glass shards shattered on the concrete floor inside the warehouse.
    Joe looked up and down the alley. "All clear."
    Frank reached through the broken pane, carefully avoiding the razor-sharp edges, unlocked the window, and threw it open.
    He and Joe climbed inside and stood in the large, dark, open warehouse. Joe flipped on his penlight. The metal skeleton of Uncle Ed's Caddy sat on blocks, parts lying around it, some in boxes, some in the open. The old woman's sports car was nowhere to be seen.
    They sprinted across the warehouse to Smith's office.
    Frank turned the doorknob. Locked. He had expected as much. He stepped back and kicked the door open.
    Joe stepped inside, shut the door, and flipped on the light. Except for a metal desk, a chair, and a wastepaper basket, the office was empty.
    No Chet.
    Joe wasn't really expecting to find his friend in the office, but he was still disappointed.
    "Maybe there's something in the desk," Frank said, reading the frustration in Joe's face. The desk was nearly as empty as the office. A phone, several bills, and an auto parts catalog were on the desktop; the drawers were empty. Frank sat down at the desk. He was puzzled by a large rectangular area of dust on the desk.
    Upset by the lack of clues and the stone wall they seemed to have run up against, Joe grabbed the thick catalog and flung it across the office.
    "I don't know what you expected to find," Frank said, thumbing through the stack of bills on the desk as he continued to eye the dusty spot. "It's not as though Smith would keep a record of stolen parts lying around."
    "You're right." Joe kicked the wastebasket. "But you'd think there'd be something.
    They're moving three, four cars a week here. And we're not talking station wagons and sedans, but expensive, classy cars. I don't care what Cronkite says, Smith has