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detectives from Bayport. What a world!"
    ***
    After a fitful night's rest, the Hardys were up early, heading for Royce's Garage on the other side of Southport. The hotcakes they had ordered for breakfast had been cold and doughy, and Joe was irritable.
    Joe turned the van into the driveway of a run-down building sitting far back off the main road. Various car parts littered most of the driveway, ROYCE'S GARAGE was painted across the large front window.
    Joe had to jockey the van around the trash.
    "This is it? This is the big undercover operation?" Joe stared in disbelief.
    Frank sat up. "Looks more like a war zone than a repair shop."
    "I don't think they put a lot of money or planning into this," Joe said with a groan.
    "Let's meet this Sauter character and see what he has to say for himself."
    Because the bay doors were shut, Frank and Joe walked into the garage's outer office. Joe tried an inner office door, but it was locked.
    The walls of the outer office were cluttered with hot-rod posters and personal photographs. Joe checked out several of the photos. Many were of a pretty girl and classic fifties cars. The girl looked about seventeen or eighteen, her long red hair framing a beautiful face and green eyes. Joe fell in love immediately.
    "Out here," Frank said. "There's a mechanic under a car in one of the bays."
    "Officer Sauter?" Joe asked as they approached the mechanic.
    No answer. They knew he wasn't asleep; they could hear him tinkering under the car.
    "Officer Sauter," Frank called out. "It's Frank and Joe Davis. Detective Cronkite called you last night about us."
    Still no answer.
    "Rudeness seems to be this police department's primary attitude," Joe quipped. "Hey!" he shouted as he kicked the greasy boots of the mechanic.
    The mechanic yelled and whipped out from under the car on the wheeled crawler, leaping up with lightning speed.
    Instinctively, Joe cocked his fist to protect himself. He pulled his punch when He saw that the mechanic was a girl.
    What Joe didn't realize soon enough was that she had flung a heavy pipe wrench straight at his head!

Chapter 6
    "Look out!" Frank shouted as he shoved Joe aside.
    The heavy pipe wrench bounced on the floor.
    Joe cocked his fist, ready to punch the mechanic.
    "Try it, jerk, and you'll end up eating concrete," the mechanic threatened in a soft but stern tone.
    Joe stared at the mechanic. She was in a defensive karate stance, posed to strike, her baseball cap turned around backward.
    "Come on, macho man," the young woman challenged. "You started this - let's see if you can finish it."
    "Wait a minute," Joe protested, his hands raised. "I'm not going to fight a girl."
    The young woman's green eyes flared. "My gender has nothing to do with this. I'll use you to mop up this floor."
    "What's your problem?" Joe looked to Frank for help, but Frank only seemed amused by his younger brother's predicament.
    "I'll tell you what my problem is," the young woman said slowly. "I just spent the better part of two hours making delicate adjustments to this car's transmission, and your little kick caused me to slip and knock it all out of whack. That's my problem!" The woman pulled a rag from the rear pocket of her coveralls and began wiping red transmission fluid from her hands. "But I guess an ape like you wouldn't know about such things."
    "Wait a minute," Joe began. He glanced at the name stitched over the coveralls's pocket - Emmy. Emmy? "Emerson Sauter? You're a mechanic? I mean, you're a woman?"
    "I'm a cop, too. Got a problem with that? You two from Cronkite?"
    "Yes," Frank said, trying not to smile.
    "Look, if I'd known you were a woman, I wouldn't have kicked you," Joe explained. He turned to Frank. "Whoever heard of a girl named Emerson?"
    Emmy took off her cap, and her red hair fell to her shoulders. The girl in the photos, Joe realized.
    "It just so happens," Emmy finally replied, "that my father named me after Emerson Fittipaldi, the Brazilian race car driver. Not that