Nancy Clue Mysteries 2 - The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend (37 page)

"Why, it's like watching two Mrs. Meekses," Cherry exclaimed. "Bravo!"

But once at the Chief's house, all laughter subsided.

"So this is where the Chief of Police lives," Mr. Donald murmured as Jackie jimmied the front-door lock of the ranch house on Lindy Lane and led the way in. "Lucky for us he's gone for the night. Let's hope he doesn't come back unexpectedly.

"This place is a nightmare," Mr. Donald lamented as they shut the curtains and turned on a lamp. "Look at that tartan sofa with those awning-stripe drapes! Who picked those out?" he shuddered. "What do I tell people over and over? Never mix plaids with stripes. But do they listen to me? No. I do wish people would call a professional before taking such drastic steps as picking out their own furnishings," he added. "That's what we're here for. So things like this don't happen."

Cherry had to agree with him. It was always better to get an expert's opinion. That's why she so often turned to Velma for advice about matters of the heart. "Why, Velma knows practically all there is to know about love," Cherry thought.

Cherry gave a little gasp of alarm when she spied a moosehead mounted over the fireplace, its big, glittery, unblinking amber eyes staring back at her.

"That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about," Mr. Donald groaned. "The wall above the fireplace is the focal point of the living room, but instead of a lovely oil painting or a mirror-which would open up this space-he chooses to mount the head of some poor dead animal."

Mitzi, Bitzi, and Fritzi whimpered in alarm. Mr. Donald patted each on its little head in a reassuring manner.

"This room could certainly use a woman's touch," Cherry murmured as she surveyed the bowling trophies and stuffed, wall-mounted fish that gave the room all the charm of a pool hall.

"I would love to get my hands on this place," Mr. Donald agreed.

"Was there ever a Mrs. Chief?" Cherry wondered aloud as she looked around the stale, dark room, which smelled of hair tonic and cheap cigars.

"She died a few years ago," Micky informed her. "She was a mousy woman with a mild manner who let the old man boss her around their whole married life."

"Here's the plan," Jackie interrupted. "We'll split up and each take a different part of the house. Now, everyone knows what we're looking for, right? Letters written to Nancy from Mr. Clue. Micky and Mr. Donald, you search down here, Cherry and I will take the basement and, Midge and Velma, how's the upstairs bedroom sound to you?"

"Perfect!" Midge and Velma cried in unison. They raced off to do their duty. But a half hour later, after an exhaustive search, they had to admit defeat. They rejoined Mr. Donald and Micky downstairs in the living room, poring through a stack of papers they had found in a desk drawer.

"There's nothing here besides the usual correspondence," Mr. Donald bemoaned. "Electric bill, grocery list-the man ate a lot of beans," he noted. "A shoe-repair bill, a receipt for some bullets, what's this?" he cried suddenly as he came across something in a plain brown wrapper. He ripped it open. "American Nudist Magazine," Mr. Donald read aloud. "Hmmn," he said as he flipped through the publication.

Mr. Donald opened the magazine to a photo of a co-ed playing volleyball. Midge stared at the statuesque brunette wearing only sunglasses and a smile.

Cherry and Jackie returned from the basement, which they had searched thoroughly, but to no avail. Nancy's letters were not downstairs!

"Did you find the evidence?" Cherry asked when she saw Midge bending over the desk in concentrated study. "What are you looking at?" She blushed when she saw what was in Midge's hands. "My, she's a healthy girl," she stammered.

"She certainly is," Velma agreed after she had taken a good look for herself.

Midge hurriedly closed the magazine and slipped it back into the desk drawer.

"Girls, we'd better get out of here," Mr. Donald fretted. "The bars are closed by now and the Chief is sure to be home soon."

"No, he won't," Cherry blurted out. "He's dead."

Mr. Donald looked surprised.

"Er, did we forget to tell you the Chief had a little accident tonight that resulted in his unfortunate demise?" Midge asked.

"What a pity," Mr. Donald exclaimed. "And I was so looking forward to seeing that man put in his place!"

"I have a feeling you'll get your wish," Midge promised their new chum. She sighed as she thought of Nancy, sitting alone in a cold, dark jail cell. Where could those letters be? "We've got to look again!" Midge cried. "Every inch of this house has to be searched. We've got five hours until court opens. Let's go!"

Nancy washed out her underthings in the little sink at one end of her tiny cell, humming a gay tune as she soaped and then rinsed her easy-care nylon half slip, silk stockings, and white cotton panties. "If I don't hum, I'll cry," she thought with a sigh as she surveyed the eight-by ten-foot cell. Drab gray stone walls and a curtainless, barred window set high above her head made for a cheerless interior. "Even a colorful rag rug and some starched gingham curtains wouldn't make this a sunny place," Nancy thought in dismay.

Although she could see Hannah's touch everywhere she looked-the single iron bed with its scratchy wool blanket was neatly made up and boasted crisp hospital corners, and her prison-issue tin drinking cup had been shined to a warm luster-it wasn't enough to soften the gloomy room.

And try as she might to keep busy performing the little tasks that make up a girl's evening toilet, Nancy soon found herself mulling over the mystery of the missing evidence. She had been so intent on making the switch with Hannah a success, she had pushed all other thoughts out of her mind. But now Jackie's words were back to haunt her, and in the silence of her cold, lonely cell, she could no longer ignore them.

"He's the only one with the opportunity and the knowledge to commit the theft of your evidence."

"If I could just get those words out of my head," she thought. She grabbed her hairbrush, took off the gray bun, and gave her trademark titian mane one hundred swift strokes.

"Face it, Nancy. Chief Chumley is not your friend!"

"Midge is wrong!" Nancy cried aloud. She clapped a hand over her mouth. She mustn't give herself away now, now that she had come so far! She peered out of her cell and down the dark hallway. Her closest neighbor, Miss Hildy Harms, a chronic shoplifter three cells down, appeared to be fast asleep. Luckily, murderesses were kept at the far end of Cell Block B, away from the general population.

"Thank goodness I haven't any neighbors to see me remove my nose," Nancy thought. Mr. Donald had warned her not to sleep in the rubber prosthesis, as it could easily be stretched out of shape. Nancy had decided to keep the precious organ in her purse next to her bed.

"That way I can easily slip it on during the night if the need should arise," she schemed.

Her thoughts returned to the suspicions raised by Jackie and Midge.

"If they only knew the Chief as I do, they'd realize how mistaken their crazy accusations are," Nancy told herself as she laid out her outfit for the morning-a tidy gray house dress and a crisp white apron. Sensible tan tie shoes would complete her look.

Her tasks finished, she donned a plain white cotton nightgown and slipped into bed. She pulled the thin, scratchy blanket over her head. If a guard were to shine her light into the cell during the night, she would find nothing more than a sleeping housekeeper, securely tucked in bed.

"Lights out, ladies," a woman's voice boomed through the corridor. The cell block grew dark. Suddenly Nancy wished she was home in her own bed with Cherry by her side.

"I wonder what everyone's doing tonight?" she thought wistfully. She had to grin. She knew what Midge and Velma were doing! Then she sighed. "When I get out of here, I'm going to take Cherry into my arms and do the very same thing! "

Just then a terrible thought came to her. What if her evidence was never found, and Hannah was convicted of murder?

"Will I have to stay here for life?" Nancy wondered, shivering as she peered around the darkened cell. "What happens when Hannah makes a full recovery and wants to leave the house to go to the store? What then?"

Nancy realized she hadn't thought through her plan in a very orderly fashion. "I haven't been thinking clearly for some time," Nancy mused. "Not since the day after I killed Father, when I started having martinis for breakfast. I'll just have to stop that!

"Some detective you've turned out to be!" she chastised herself. "In the old days, you would have had this case sewn up long before now." She had never faced such a quandary! "There's virtually no evidence as to who stole the letters, and the only likely suspect is someone who couldn't possibly have committed the crime!"

She remembered what her instructor at Mr. Peeper's Professional School of Detecting had cautioned. "A good detective must put aside her own emotions and prejudices. Never go into a mystery with your eyes shut and your mind made up. Examine every clue, even if it leads to the most unlikely of suspects!"

Could Midge and Jackie be right about Chief Chumley? Could he be the one behind the nefarious plot to railroad Hannah into jail?

"Let's say Chief Chumley did it," Nancy reasoned. She shuddered to even think it. But it was her duty as a card-carrying detective to eliminate all possible suspects. She went over the events of the last few days carefully. Those she could remember, at any rate.

"Since nothing valuable was missing from the house, I can rule out a cat burglar who happened upon the secret drawer in my hope chest.

"Plus, when I think of it, it is odd that I received a threatening phone call in Wyoming, when the only person who knew I was there was the Chief!"

The horrible incident in the Chief's office came flooding back. She could see the scene as clear as day-the queer expression on the Chief's face when she surprised him and his ugly and mean words when she confronted him with the truth.

"And I'll never forget the way he pounded his fist on his desk," Nancy shivered. "Golly, I'm lucky he didn't throw that big entomology book at me!"

It struck Nancy as odd that the Chief would have such an impressive tome on his desk. Why, she had never known him to read anything but true crime magazines and police rap sheets. "Before he came to me to solve The Case of The Insistent Insect he didn't even know the difference between a common house fly and a moth. He told me at the time that just the thought of bugs made his skin crawl," Nancy suddenly remembered. "So why is he suddenly reading a book called Exotic Entomology Made Easy?" Nancy wondered.

She shot straight up. "Exotic Entomology? Golly! Bees!" Suddenly, everything made sense. "When Velma took that threatening phone call for me, she recalled hearing a buzzing sound over the telephone. At the time I dismissed it as a bad connection, but now I see it was an important clue. The Chief must have been calling me from his office, where he was housing the deadly bee while awaiting my return.

"And to think I fell right into his trap. I'm the one who sent him straight to the evidence! Oh, how could I have been so trusting?" she chastised herself.

Nancy tossed and turned on the stiff narrow cot. There was one thing she didn't understand. "Why is the Chief so anxious to get rid of both me and Hannah? What could he possible gain?

"And where are my letters?

"Tomorrow I've got to let Cherry and the others know that it is Chief Chumley who's behind all this!" Nancy thought in horror. "If he's underhanded enough to let a killer bee loose in my basement, there's no telling what he'll do next!"

For an hour she lay awake, trying to think of where he could have hidden her letters. "Where would the Chief hide something that important? If they were in his desk drawer, the one I saw him slam shut, he's no doubt found a better hiding place by now, and probably at his home where fewer people are likely to congregate."

"Put yourself in your suspect's shoes," the Chief had once told her while they were tracking a dangerous dognapper. Nancy knew people often hid important things in, around, or under a favorite or sentimental place or belonging-often right under the nose of the sleuths.