The Buried Treasure on Route 66: A Nancy Keene Mystery (2 page)

“I’m so sorry to hear this.
That’s terrible of them. Makes you wonder how those kind of people
sleep at night.”

“The worst part of it is
that my ex-husband had always told me that he’d be leaving me
something in his will to make sure that I’m well taken care of when
he passed away.”

“Have you seen the
will?”

“Those stepsons showed it to
me. I just don’t believe them. I think there’s another will. I just
feel it in my bones.”

“Is their mother still
alive?”

“No. She died. Now, all
that’s left are her rotten sons.”

“If your ex-husband did have
another will, where do you think it is? Do you know who his
attorney is?”

“Yes. His name is Oliver
Brown. His office is in Scottsdale. Nancy, I just know there’s
another will. My ex-husband promised me. He may be guilty of a lot
of things--such as infidelity--but he would not blatantly lie to
me. Even though we were no longer married, he still looked upon me
as his friend.”

Nancy tells Mrs. Wood,
“We’ve got to find that other will.” She says to herself, Oh boy!!
Another mystery to solve!! It’s time for Nancy Keene, “teenage
sleuth”, to begin her next adventure.

****

Nancy realizes that it’s
getting late and fears that her father will be worried about her if
she doesn’t start for home soon. She asks Mrs. Wood if it’d be okay
if she came by tomorrow. Nancy tells her, “I have a big surprise
for you.”

Mrs. Wood’s eyes get big and
she says, “Oh, my. I love surprises.”

“Okay. See you then. When
would you like me to come?”

“Around 10:00 in the
morning.”

“See you then,” Nancy says,
as she drives away. She has decided to give Mrs. Wood her vintage
roadster so that her elderly friend can have some transportation,
now that her stepsons have taken away her car. Nancy’s going to ask
Ned if he’d drive it to Mrs. Wood’s house, while Nancy follows him
in her new car.

The next morning, Ned is
over at Nancy’s house at 9:30. He sees Nancy packing up some
Tupperware. “Hi Nancy. You’re looking good today. How’s about
putting that French maid’s outfit back on?”

Nancy says, “Down,
boy.”

“Woof! Woof!” Ned says.
“What are you doing, Nancy?”

“I’m packing up some
leftovers from our party to give to Mrs. Wood.”

“But I was looking forward
to those leftovers.”

“She’s much needier than
you’ll ever be.”

“Okay. What can I do to
help?”

“I’m almost ready. Thanks
for coming over to drive my old car for the last time.”

Ned says, “We sure had some
good times in that car, didn’t we?”

Her father walks in and
says, “You had good times in that car doing what?”

Nancy says, “Dad! You’re
always lurking about. Can’t a girl have some privacy?”

“Relax. I’m just coming in
to pour myself another cup of coffee. What are your plans for the
day?”

“Well, I’m donating my old
car to a little old lady I met.”

“Good for you, honey. I was
planning on donating it to one of your favorite charities. I’m glad
that it’ll be going to a good home.”

“Ned is going to drive the
roadster over to her house, while I follow him in my new
hybrid.”

“Okay. Call me if you have
any problems?”

“Dad. You’re such a worry
wart,” she says, as she kisses him good-bye.

As she is walking out to the
driveway, she tells Ned, “I think you’ll really like Mrs. Wood. And
I know she’ll like you.”

“I can’t wait until we get
our own place.”

“A little privacy would be
nice.”

****

She and Ned arrive at Mrs.
Wood’s house. The elderly lady greets them at the door in her
apron. “What have you got there?” she asks, looking at the
Tupperware that Nancy is carrying.

“Oh, it’s just some French
food from the party,” Nancy answers.

“Oh, thank you. You really
shouldn’t have, dear. I’m making lunch for you today. I have some
chili in the Crockpot.”

“Sounds great,” Nancy says.
“You can keep this food for later.” Just then, Mrs. Wood notices
that Nancy has brought along a cute, red-headed friend with
her.

“Hello, young man. What’s
your name?”

Nancy says, “Oh, I’m so
sorry I haven’t introduced you yet. This is my boyfriend,
Ned.”

Ned reaches out and shakes
hands with Mrs. Wood. “I drove the other car here.”

“Why take two
cars?”

“I’ll let Nancy explain,” he
says.

Nancy tells her that, since
she got a new car for her birthday, she’d like to donate her old
one to her.

Mrs. Wood is amazed that
Nancy, someone she’s only met yesterday, is giving her a car. “I’ve
died and gone to heaven,” she says, hugging Nancy and
crying.

“Well, you’d better wait
until you drive it, before you get all that overjoyed about it,”
Ned says.

“Oh, don’t listen to him.
This car runs like a top.”

After the three of them go
out for a test drive, Nancy is reassured that her old car is going
to a good home. As they have a seat in Mrs. Wood’s living room,
they talk about the problems with the will.

Ned says, “Nancy’s father is
a lawyer. He’ll be able to help you contest the will.”

“If she can find it,” Nancy
says. “That’s the problem.” Nancy asks Mrs. Wood if the stepsons
have taken away any more of her ex-husband’s belongings from the
house. She tells Nancy that the sons have ransacked her
ex-husband’s den. She explains that when he remarried, his new wife
didn’t want him bringing “all of his old stuff” with him because it
didn’t match her decor. She told him to leave it here.”

“Did he leave his desk?”
Nancy asks, with hope.

“Yes. The sons have dug all
through it, leaving papers everywhere.”

“May we take a look?” Nancy
asks.

“Of course. Follow
me.”

Mrs. Wood leads them to a
small room that has oak paneling on its walls. There is a beautiful
roll-top desk in one corner and a sitting area with two plaid
chairs and an end table in front of a brick fireplace.

“What a lovely room,” Nancy
says, looking around. “It reminds me of a cabin that my family
stays at every Fall in the Adirondacks. I love the moose and
Christmas tree stencils that run along the edges of the oak beamed
ceiling.”

“Thank you, honey. We tried
to make this room look like a cabin when we were decorating
it.”

Nancy notices the pictures
along the wall. ‘These are all places along Route 66’, she tells
herself. Above Mr. Wood’s desk, there is a picture of the Blue
Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

“I know that place,” Nancy
says. “It’s on Route 66.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Wood says.
“That’s where we spent our honeymoon.”

“What a beautiful picture. I
love the neon. It looks like your ex-husband was a big fan of Route
66.”

“We both were. We used to
take our Airstream out every summer on vacation and drive to all of
the sites along the Route. It was ‘our thing’.”

Nancy says, “Something tells
me that his new wife wasn’t into the same things.”

“No. She was a city girl,
all the way. She liked shopping in Chicago and Manhattan. That was
‘her thing’.”

Nancy thinks, I’ll never
marry anyone who doesn’t share my same interests. Why do people
marry when they don’t have anything in common? Ned and I are soul
mates. I can’t imagine being married to someone who’s different
from me.

“There’s got to be something
here that’s a clue to where the second will is,” Nancy tells Mrs.
Wood.

“I’ve looked all through his
whole office, and I can’t find anything,” Mrs. Wood says. “It’s
very frustrating. It’s probably right here under my
nose.”

“Maybe it is,” Nancy says.
“We’re just looking in the wrong places.”

Just then a kitchen timer
goes off. Mrs. Wood says, “Sounds like the chili is
ready.”

“Thank you so much. I’m
famished. I could eat a horse,” Nancy says. Ned knows perfectly
well that Nancy had just finished a late breakfast, but she is too
polite to say otherwise.

****

After a hearty meal, Nancy
and Ned say goodbye to Mrs. Wood, telling her not to give up hope
of finding the new will. Nancy says, “I’m with you, Mrs. Wood. I
just know that there’s another will.” She takes a steno pad and
fountain pen out of her purse and jots down her phone number.
Handing the number to Mrs. Wood, she says, “Feel free to call me if
you can think of any clues. Let me know if those two stepsons give
you anymore grief.”

Mrs. Wood says, “Thank you
ever so much, you two. I feel like you’re my only
friends.”

“Don’t lose heart, Mrs.
Wood,” Nancy says before they drive away.

After a few minutes on the
road, Nancy asks Ned, “Well, what do you think?”

“It seems pretty hopeless to
me.”

“We’re just not looking in
the right places, Ned. There’s got to be a clue
somewhere.”

***

The next morning, Nancy goes
to Mass with her father. As they’re leaving church, her father
says, “Wow! It sure is a hot one today. I was sweating in
there.”

Nancy says, “Me, too; but I
guess we have to accept the fact that we live in the Arizona desert
now.”

Her father says, “Nancy, I’m
sorry we had to move away from our home in upstate New York, but it
just had too many memories of your mother. I wanted us to have a
fresh start after she passed away.”

“I wish I remembered her.
She must have been really terrific or you’d never have married her.
Dad, have you ever thought of remarrying? You are going to get very
lonely when I go off to college.”

“I just haven’t found a
woman who is as beautiful and fun to be around as she
was.”

“Well, you never know,
Dad.”

They’ve both driven separate
cars because Nancy wants to go to Starbucks after church and do
some work on her computer.

Her father complains, “You
practically live at that place.”

“Oh, Dad; I’m just taking
advantage of their free Wi-Fi.”

“But you can look at the
Internet at home.”

“Dad. You are really going
to be lost without me around. You’d better start looking for your
dream woman.”

He makes a face at
her.

“See you later,” she says,
as she gets into her Prius.

Starbucks is very busy this
time of day, but she’s able to find her own table and sets up shop.
She buys a latte and a New York Times and says to herself, ‘There’s
nothing like doing the Sunday crossword the old-fashioned way.’ She
finishes the crossword 20 minutes later, looks up, and recognizes
the two stepsons standing in line. She tells herself, ‘Oh, I hope
they didn’t see my face when they almost ran me off the road; I’d
like to eavesdrop on them.’

‘What luck!’ she thinks,
when they sit at a table in back of her. They complain about the
heat, just like everybody else is doing. “I’m hoping to get back to
Vegas next weekend,” one of them says.

“Me, too,” says the other
one. I was hoping to get all of this estate stuff finished earlier
than we have.”

His brother says, “That Mrs.
Wood is sure making things difficult for us. She argues with us
about everything.”

“Do you believe what she’s
saying about another will?”

“I’m not sure. Mom was very
jealous of her. She was afraid that the old man wanted to reunite
with his ex.”

“Who’d want that fat old
cow?”

Nancy is tempted to get up
out of her chair and pour their coffees over their heads. ‘These
are some really ugly guys,’ she tells herself. She finds it
interesting that they are afraid that there may be another will.
‘Mrs. Wood was probably right,’ she thinks. ‘I have got to find
that later will before Mr. Wood’s estate finishes going through
probate. Where did he put it?’

The other brother complains
that he needs some money because he has to pay off some gambling
debts. His brother says, “I told you not to mess with those guys;
they are like the mafia.”

“Yeah, and they’ve been
leaving threatening messages on my cell phone.”

“You’d better watch your
step.”

“So what do you plan to do
with your share of the inheritance, if you ever get it?”

“I have bills to pay, too.
But I’d also like to have some spending money to buy some coke. My
new girlfriend just loves it. She claims that sex is better when
you’re high.”