Nancy Clue Mysteries 2 - The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend (39 page)

"Mrs. Meeks, could you characterize Hannah's relationship with her employer?" the district attorney asked.

"Yes, I'd be delighted to," she replied haughtily. "Perhaps an anecdote will serve. I remember it like it was yesterday. Hannah had been hired at a good wage to help tidy up after a Ladies' Club Luncheon. After the other maids had done their chores and caught their buses home, Hannah cornered me and begged me to let her come clean my house! She said she hated Mr. Clue and that Nancy was a demanding, spoilt child whose extensive wardrobe required hours of ironing. 'If I don't get out of that house, I promise you something terrible will happen!' were her exact words!"

"But you didn't hire her, did you?"

"Of course not," Mrs. Meeks cried indignantly. "I would never dream of stealing someone else's maid!"

"She'd make a nice statue," Midge growled to Jackie.

"A short time later, I asked Miss Gruel to bake me a huckleberry pie," Mrs. Meeks remembered. "Oh, I paid her for ita whole fifty cents! I took one bite, and I knew there was something awfully wrong with it. Why, it was poison, I tell you. Poison! She was trying to get back at me for not employing her! " Mrs. Meeks swooned into the arms of the district attorney and had to be helped to her place beside her friend Mrs. Tweeds.

Members of the jury were on the edges of their seats. Mrs. Meeks was one of the town's most respected community leaders, and her testimony had proven to be quite damaging for Hannah!

Just then, an unexpected thing happened. Nancy struggled to her feet, clutching the long, oak table in front of her for support. She turned and faced the back of the courtroom. She looked Cherry straight in the eye.

"Miss Gruel, please take your seat," the judge demanded.

"I...fear ...I...am...going ...to...faint," she whispered right before she pitched forward. Everyone jumped up in alarm. Lucky for Cherry, she had had the foresight to throw bandages, germicidal ointment, smelling salts, aspirin, and her spare nurse's cap in her purse that very morning. "I'm a nurse," she cried as she pinned on her cap. "Stand back!"

Cherry leapt over the railing and caught Nancy just before she hit the floor. "Give her some air," Cherry ordered. The crowd took a step back. Nancy opened one eye and smiled slyly. "I fooled them didn't I?" she whispered. Cherry realized Nancy had been putting on a very convincing act. Why, she hadn't fainted at all!

"I just had to talk to you," Nancy whispered urgently. "I've figured out where the Chief has hidden the evidence."

Cherry grew alarmed at the mention of the Chief. "Lie back," she said in a shaky voice. "I'm going to check your heart rate."

"We haven't much time," Nancy whispered. "Listen carefully. The evidence has got to be in the moosehead hanging in the Chief's living room. I'm sure of it!"

Cherry nodded. "Your heartbeat is dangerously fast, Nancy," she whispered.

"You know why, don't you?" Nancy murmured. "It's because you're here. Did you get my letter?" she asked softly. "I've got to know, Cherry. Will you be waiting for me when I get out?"

Cherry blinked back tears. She couldn't answer. She didn't know!

"Maybe this will convince you," Nancy murmured. She swung her handcuffed hands around Cherry's head and pulled her girlfriend down, kissing her full on the lips. At first Cherry struggled to break the embrace, but soon found that her body had a mind of its own. She surrendered to Nancy's warm kiss.

A murmur went through the crowd. "What's going on?" someone yelled.

"It's the kiss of life," a woman explained knowingly.

"The court will recess for lunch," Judge Meeks pounded his gavel. Two prison guards came to take Nancy away.

Jackie fled the courtroom with Midge at her heels. "That Nancy! I'll bet she's playing on Cherry's naturally sympathetic nature to win her back," she exclaimed. She buried her head in her hands. "What am I saying here? Where's my professional distance? What's wrong with me?" she groaned.

Midge slapped her on the back. "You're in love," she said. "Ain't it grand?"

Cherry raced out of the courtroom, her cheeks all aflame. "The letters are in the moosehead!" she cried. "Let's go. I'll explain later."

They crowded in George's jalopy and raced across town to Lindy Lane. On the way Cherry told them everything she knew. It wasn't much.

"Then Nancy asked if I was going to be waiting for her when she got out of prison," Cherry practically sobbed.

"What did you say?" her friends chorused.

"I didn't have time to tell Nancy the truth-that I don't know what I want!" Cherry cried. "Everything happened so fast. Then she kissed me, and I got all confused. I just don't know. Velma, is it cruel to let Nancy think things that might not be true?" Cherry wondered.

"I wouldn't break up with someone in the middle of her murder trial, if that's what you're asking," Velma said softly.

Jackie, Midge, and George strained under the weight of the gigantic moosehead. "This thing weighs a ton and it stinks, besides," George complained.

"Careful, honey," Bess said worriedly as the three girls finally got the stuffed head off the wall and lowered it into Cherry and Velma's arms.

"Golly! " Cherry exclaimed when she saw the massive beast up close. "Look how its eyes sparkle yellow in the sunlight. Why, if I didn't know any better, I'd say these eyes were made of amber!"

"Drop the moose or I'll shoot," a sinister voice rang out from behind them. When Cherry turned and saw who was on the other end of the gun-a middleaged man in a straw hat and a dark-haired woman in a simple Navy suit, the very same woman she had found crouched in their convertible in Kornville-she released her grip on the stuffed head and it crashed to the floor.

"The jewel thieves!" Cherry gasped.

"Look!" the others cried as a veritable treasure chest of jewelry laden with rubies, diamonds, pearls, emeralds, garnets, and opals-came pouring from the hollow head. The woman took a pearl-handled revolver from her purse and trained it on the girls while her accomplice removed his straw hat and scooped the gems into it. Cherry gasped.

"Thanks for finding the Chief's booty," the woman laughed. "After we heard the news that our boss left town, we were afraid he'd taken the loot with him." She came closer. Cherry was only a few feet away from the gun!

"Well, if it isn't that cute little nurse-the one who practically gave us her friend's jewelry," the woman chuckled. "Your friend's things brought a pretty penny in this town. Hey, doll, you want to come over to our side? Harold, think we could use a nurse?" But Harold was too busy playing with his newfound treasure to pay attention.

Cherry was near tears. Jackie was livid. "If only Cherry wasn't directly in the line of fire, why I'd-"

At that moment, Lauren came into the room, saying, "Hey, you guys, look at the keen rose quartz the Chief had on his bedroom bureau!"

The armed jewel thief, startled by Lauren's sudden appearance, whirled around just as the teen took quick aim and beaned the woman on the head with the sharp rock.

The woman stumbled and dropped her gun.

"You're under arrest," Jackie proclaimed as she whipped out her handcuffs and secured both crooks with them. She flashed her badge. "Detective Jackie Jones, SFPD."

"I'll tell you everything!" the woman cried out. She pointed an accusing finger at her husband. "He was behind all this," she insisted.

"It was all her idea," he shot back.

"No, it's all your fault," the woman cried. "If you hadn't racked up all those gambling debts that were sold to the Chief, we wouldn't have been forced to go out and do his bidding in the first place!"

"You mean Chief Chumley is your leader?" Cherry gasped. "That means he sent you all the way to Pocatello so you could follow us practically across the whole country and steal Nancy's jewels?"

The woman shook her head. "It was just dumb luck that we met up with you," she said bitterly. "I told Harold we shouldn't follow you girls so far. We normally don't work the Midwest. Besides, I wanted to stay in Pocatello and work the philatelist convention. Now those are people with money!"

While the others were mesmerized by the woman's tale, Velma was the one who remembered a girl sitting in leg irons, awaiting a special delivery. She reached inside the moosehead and felt around until she laid her hands on what they had come for-the crucial evidence.

"Look everyone! " she exclaimed. "I've found Nancy's letters! "

At the courthouse, the girls quickly found seats and waited for the trial to resume. This afternoon would mark the beginning of the __ defense's case, and everyone was eager to see how Hannah's attorney would staunch the flood of damage from that morning's shocking revelations from Mrs. Meeks. Mr. Donald, who had been unable to get a seat for the morning's proceedings, squeezed in next to Bess, and she filled him in on Mrs. Meeks's outrageous testimony and the exciting events that had unfolded at the Chief's house.

"And we've found Nancy's evidence," Velma said triumphantly.

"It's in my purse," Bess added with a smile.

Mr. Donald glared at Mrs. Meeks when he heard about her false testimony. The matron, who was sitting in the front row behind the district attorney, had run home to slip into a fresh outfit-a lavender summer suit with black piping, a purple cloche hat with a veil that fell to just above her little pug nose, and a silver-and-diamond brooch pinned over her right bosom. She smiled and waved at the group.

Mr. Donald smiled back through clenched teeth. "One of these days I'll get the opportunity to pay her back for all the misery she's caused," he promised himself.

Mrs. Meeks busied herself greeting other townswomen, all decked out in their finest summer outfits for the afternoon's event.

"It's like she's holding court up there while Hannah's life hangs in the balance," Velma said angrily.

"The nerve of her, showing up after what she said earlier," Bess hissed.

"You'd never know she was such a monster; she's always so well dressed and looks every bit the lady! " Cherry exclaimed. She took Nancy's binoculars from her purse and trained them on Mrs. Meeks.

"That suit is awfully flattering for a fuller-busted figure," Cherry thought as she examined every inch of the meddlesome matron's form. "And she was wise to choose a simple brooch as an ornament instead of fussy beads that would call attention to her rather large endowment. And what a pretty brooch it is, and so unusual, too," Cherry thought to herself as she got a closer look at the simple silver horseshoe pin studded with sparkling diamonds.

"A simple silver horseshoe studded with sparkling diamonds!" she gasped. Why, Mrs. Meeks was wearing Nancy's missing brooch!

"Cherry, what is it?" her chums cried. She passed around the binoculars. "Look at Mrs. Meeks's bosom," she whispered urgently. Her chums looked perplexed. "I mean, look at the brooch pinned to her bosom. It's Nancy's; it's just got to be!"

Midge saw that Cherry was right. She handed the binoculars back to Cherry. "Check out all her chums," Midge whispered. "I may be wrong, but doesn't it look like they're all wearing some of Nancy's jewelry?"