As Nancy followed Annabel out of the dark woods to the edge of the cliff, the sudden change to bright light made her squint. The Severn River stretched out below her. Nancy saw the Skipper's Surprise sailing into the cove.
Stepping closer to the edge of the cliff, Nancy looked down. The steep, rocky sides plunged to the shore about forty feet below.
"That would be a tough way to go, huh?" Annabel said, coming up beside Nancy. She had put on her sunglasses, so Nancy couldn't read her expression, but there was a dark tone in Annabel's voice that Nancy didn't like.
Annabel stepped closer to Nancy, so close that Nancy could feel her shirt sleeve brush her arm. Quickly Nancy looked behind her. Ned wasn't there!
For a second, panic seized her. Nancy spun in her tracks, trying to get away from the cliffs edge. At the same time, she could feel the stones give way beneath her feet.
Nancy screamed as she started to slide. Out of the comer of her eye, she saw Annabel shoot out her arms toward her. In that instant, Nancy knew she was doomed. Annabel was going to push her over the edge!
Chapter Thirteen
"No!" Nancy yelled. "Ned, help!" Annabel quickly grabbed Nancy's arms and pulled her away from the edge of the cliff. At the same instant, Ned rushed out of the woods and hurried over.
"What's going on?" he asked in an accusing tone. Reaching Nancy, he steadied her with an arm around her shoulders.
Annabel lowered her glasses and looked at the two of them in shocked surprise. "You don't think / was going to push her off the cliff?" she asked. Then she threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, how funny! Annabel the murderer. I've been called a lot of things, but that would be a new one."
"It's not funny, Annabel," Ned said.
With a shrug, Annabel put her sunglasses back in place. For a second Nancy could only stare at her. Had the woman been about to push her off the cliff, then changed her mind when Ned came into view? Or had Nancy only stumbled in her panic?
Pulling away from Ned, Nancy looked up at him. "Thanks," she whispered. Stepping toward the edge of the cliff again, she peered down to the cove. Below, Andy, Bess, and Parker were slowly maneuvering the Skipper's Surprise into the spot where they'd discovered Nick Lazlo's boat, the Neptune. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Nancy gazed out at them.
"Not such an easy shot from up here," Ned said. "The person would have to be quite a marksman."
"Is there a way to get to the bottom of the cliff?" Nancy asked Annabel. In her mind, she tried to imagine the crime. Andy wouldn't have had enough time to go down to the shore, hide and shoot Nick, and then climb back up again. But someone else might have shot Nick from below, then climbed up the cliff and planted the gun.
Annabel nodded. "There's sort of a path about a hundred yards to the right. Before we were married, Nick and I used to climb down to the cove to have private picnics." Then she sighed. "That was before I realized he was a shark in disguise."
"Can you show us?" Nancy asked, growing excited. When she'd watched the police and crime team investigate, they had concentrated only on the area around the cliff where the gun had been found. By expanding the search, there was a good chance she might find some clue they'd missed.
"I guess," Annabel replied with a shrug. "But I'm supposed to play tennis, so after this you're on your own."
Nancy and Ned followed Annabel down an overgrown path. It was no wonder that nobody had noticed the trail, Nancy thought. It looked as if it hadn't been used in years.
"There." Annabel halted, pointing to a wild azalea bush growing from an outcrop of rock. "The path's on the other side of that bush."
"Thanks," Nancy said as she and Ned walked past Annabel.
"Don't fall!" Annabel called in an overly sweet voice. Then she turned and headed back the way they'd come.
"Annabel is one strange lady," Ned whispered. "I wonder what Andy sees in her?"
"It could be that he likes challenges," Nancy replied. "Though I agree with you that she's strange. I mean, here we're trying to find clues that will help Andy, and she's off to play tennis."
Nancy stopped on the right side of the azalea bush. Sure enough, a steep, rocky path angled down to the cove. Nancy bent down to study the area.
"Look at this!" she exclaimed, pointing out an imprint of a shoe toe embedded in a patch of clay. "Annabel said she and Nick came down here before they were married," Nancy said in a low voice. "That was a long time ago. I bet that footprint was made last Friday."
"Didn't the police climb down here?" Ned asked.
Nancy shook her head. "They climbed down at Annabel's property and walked along the shore from there."
"That's right. So then, who left this footprint?" Ned wondered aloud.
"Let's see if we can find out," Nancy said with a determined set to her jaw.
The two started slowly down the steep incline, pausing to search for signs that someone had recently been there. About halfway down, Ned pointed out a broken twig. Then Nancy found a scuff mark on a rock. When they reached the bottom, she jumped to the rocky shore.
"The tide would've washed away any signs down here," Nancy said. Turning, she tilted her head back to study the cliff. "Only someone who knew about that path would have even attempted to climb to the top."
"Annabel?" Ned guessed. "She could have climbed down at her property as the police did, and then walked over here. After she shot Nick, she could have climbed up the cliff, figuring no one would ever spot the prints."
Nancy frowned. "But then why show it to us? Unless she thought there was no way she'd left tracks. Except she was wrong. The police can use that toe imprint to get an idea of the make of the shoe as well as what size foot the person had."
As she scanned the cliff, Nancy spotted something odd at the base. When she stepped closer, she could see little dots in a patch of dirt that had collected between two rocks. "I wonder what this is?" she asked, leaning down to study the dirt more closely. The dots looked like little craters randomly sprinkled in the dry earth.
"Who knows," Ned replied, coming over to join her. Turning, he waved to Andy, Bess, and Parker, who had anchored the Skipper's Surprise about a hundred feet from shore. "All I know is, Fm getting hot and hungry. Those guys look like they're having fun."
Nancy twisted around. Andy raised his soda can in the air in a silent toast. Parker and Bess were relaxing on the top of the boat's cabin.
"That does look pretty inviting," Nancy agreed. "Maybe we could dive in and swim out to the boat—"
She broke off abruptly. "Dive in!" she repeated. "Ned, now I know what these dots are! They're drips of water that splashed into the dirt. When the dirt dried, it made these little craters."
"You mean raindrops?" Ned asked. "But it hasn't rained since we've been here."
Nancy shook her head. "No. Besides, if it had rained, then we'd see those marks in lots of places. These drips are just in one area—they came from the person who climbed this cliff." Her heart was pounding in her chest as she grabbed Ned's hand. "Don't you see? The person who climbed up the cliff was wet! He or she had been swimming in the river!
"I bet someone was in the boat with Nick," Nancy continued. "Whoever it was shot him, then motored the boat somewhere else to dump the body. That's why the divers haven't found it."
Ned let out his breath. "Then the killer anchored the boat in the cove, swam to shore, climbed the cliff, and planted Andy's gun there," he said, finishing Nancy's thought.
Nancy pulled Ned toward the cliff. "Come on. We've got to find Stan. With all the information he's gathered, this might sound logical enough to convince the police that Andy's been set up."
Half an hour later, Nancy burst from the woods into the sunlight. Ned was right behind her. Earlier they had parked Andy's car along the side of the road of Annabel's mother's property. As the two jogged toward it, Nancy spotted a beat-up sedan parked in front of the Cadillac. Stan Yadlowski opened the sedan's door and got out.
"How did you know where to find us?" Nancy aske
d, puffing for air as she and Ned stopped in front of him.
Stan grinned. "Hey, that's my job." He held out a rolled-up sheet of paper. "Wait till you see what I discovered."
Unrolling the paper, he showed it to Nancy and Ned. It was a computer printout. "This is Bill Jobeson's credit report. It's public record. Any time you apply for a loan or make a credit card purchase, anyone can check this."
Nancy studied the report. There were three columns. The first had the name of the bank or credit account and the date it was opened.
"Notice anything strange about Bill Jobeson?" Stan asked
"I do," Ned put in quickly. "The guy didn't spend anything for almost two years. Look." He pointed to the date column. "He has a long history of credit—charge cards, a car payment, mortgage. Then three years ago—nothing."
"Right," Stan said. "Until last year. Then all of a sudden, our mysterious Mr. Jobeson starts spending again. And look here—" Stan unrolled another sheet of paper. "This is a list of purchases Mr. Jobeson made in the last year with his credit card."
Nancy looked sideways at Stan. "How did you get that? Or is that another trade secret."
Stan laughed. "Let's just say I have my ways."
Pointing to the last item on the list, Nancy
said, "Look at this. A charge to a rental car company—and it's dated Thursday, Do you think Bill Jobeson was the person in the van who met Leah O'Halloran?"
Before Stan could reply, Ned snapped his fingers and said, "Maybe Mike O'Halloran, Leah's husband, is pretending to be this Bill Jobeson person. We thought Leah might have lied about her husband being dead."
"Maybe the two were blackmailing Nick for something," Nancy added excitedly. "That's why Jobeson is suddenly spending money again— Nick transferred the money into a dummy account under the false name of Bill Jobeson. Of course Mike O'Halloran really set up the account, using a fake identity."
Stan cleared his throat. "Uh, I hate to burst your bubble, kids, but the other news I've got is from police headquarters. This morning the Miami Police Department called Annapolis. Mike O'Halloran's body washed up on shore. It took them some time to identify it, but it was him, all right. And just as Leah O'Halloran said, he'd been shot."
Nancy's mind was reeling. "So if Mike O'Halloran isn't Bill Jobeson, who is?"
Stan shrugged. "My first hunch was Mike, too. Now I don't know."
"Well, we've just discovered something else," Nancy told him. She and Ned told the private investigator about what they'd seen on the cliff and her theory that the shooter had actually been on the boat with Nick Lazlo. When she was finished, Stan frowned.
"It could be that this mysterious Bill Jobeson knew Nick well enough to go sailing with him that morning. But that still doesn't tell us who he or she is and why the person shot Nick," Stan said.
Nancy cocked her head to one side, thinking over the case. "There seem to be several suspects. Let's take another look at your printouts and see if they give us any more leads."
"Good idea," Stan agreed.
Holding up the credit report, Stan pointed to the two-year time gap in the dates. "Sometimes when we see this pattern—where there's a big gap between the times a person spends money— it suggests someone who's established a new identity."
"A new identity?" Nancy repeated.
"Yeah. Some missing persons don't want to be found. Maybe they owe their ex-wives a ton of alimony, or maybe the creditors are hot on their heels. So they disappear. The stupid ones get caught, of course. Because eventually they run out of money and have to reestablish credit or get a job. If they use their own name, bingo, we've got them."
"But the smart ones come back as a whole new person," Nancy added. "Fve read about that. A year or so before the person plans on disappearing, he or she begins to establish a new identity."
Ned put his hands on his hips. "Wait a minute. A person can't just pick a new name out of the air. He needs a birth certificate, social security number—"
"Correct," Stan cut in. "So someone establishing a new identity has to take someone else's identity. Usually they find a dead John Doe— some bum who's in a pauper's grave with no family to claim him. Or maybe they . .."
Bum. The word leapt out at Nancy. That was why the name Bill had sounded so familiar, she realized. Sheila the waitress had told her about the homeless man, Old Bill, disappearing at the same time Nick Lazlo had gone overboard.
"That's it! That's the missing piece of the puzzle!" Nancy exclaimed. She suddenly grabbed Stan and gave him a big hug. "Now I know who Bill Jobeson is. He's the bum who hung around City Dock!"
When she and Ned told Stan about their conversation with the waitress, the private detective's mouth dropped open.
"My guess is someone's out there pretending to be Bill Jobeson," Nancy finished excitedly. "The way Sheila talked, Old Bill was pretty crazy and had no family. Someone could have been using his name all this time. Someone who knew the real Bill Jobeson well enough to know he no longer had family, friends, a car, a job. Someone who hung around City Dock and the Irish tavern. Someone like Nick Lazlo."
Ned snapped his head up. "Nick Lazlo! Are you saying he took on Bill Jobeson's identity?"
"Yes!" Nancy exclaimed. "That's why the police never found Nick's body and why we found drips on the path, as if someone had swum from the boat."
"But what about the blood?" Stan asked.
Nancy spread her hands wide. "Easy! Just like 'arker said, I bet Nick really did cut himself— except that it wasn't an accident, it was on purpose. After leaving the trail of blood, he swam from his sailboat to shore, climbed up to the cliff, shot a hole in the boat, planted the gun, and then disappeared."
Nancy looked from Stan to Ned, then back again. "Nobody shot Nick Lazlo. He arranged the whole thing himself because he wanted everyone to think he was dead!"
Chapter Fourteen
The idea had come to Nancy so suddenly that she was still reeling from the shock of it.
"That's why the crime was set up so perfectly!" she continued, waving her hands in the air, "I kept suspecting Annabel because I thought she was the only person who knew Nick and Andy well enough to plan the shooting. But who would know Nick better than Nick himself!"
Glancing at Ned, Nancy saw that he was staring at her as if she'd gone crazy. But Stan was rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"I think you've got something there, Ms. Drew."
"Still, there's no proof that Nick Lazlo is alive," Ned said doubtfully.
"That's only because no one's looked for it," Nancy replied. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that her theory was right. "If we go on the hunch that he's alive, the evidence may make more sense."
Ned still looked unconvinced. "But why would Nick fake his own death? He and Andy just designed their new boat. If it was a success, their business would explode."
"If it was a success," Nancy said. "You heard Andy after the race. The Skipper's Surprise didn't perform nearly as well as he thought she should, and yet the boat seemed to be shipshape. What if Nick discovered that his dream boat wasn't a dream boat after all and that they'd sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into it for nothing?"
For a second Stan silently stroked his mustache. "But how does Nick figure in with the stolen boats?" he asked. "And what is he planning to do next?"
"Probably only Nick Lazlo knows the answers to those questions," Nancy said grimly.
Swinging around, Stan opened the driver's door to his sedan. "Come on, we'll drop Andy's car at his house. Then we have some things to check out. If we're going to convince the police that Nick Lazlo's alive, we'd better be armed with a lot of proof!"
"Uh, are we all going in there?" Ned asked in a nervous voice an hour later. Stan had parked his sedan in front of a tin shed at the end of an abandoned pier west of the City Dock. The shed's roof was partially caved in, and the siding was rusted from the salty water.
When they had questioned Sheila at the tavern, she had directed them to th
e shack, saying it was the only home Old Bill had ever mentioned. No one wanted to say out loud what they were all thinking—that Bill Jobeson might be in there, dead.
Before Stan could answer, Nancy opened the car door. "I'm going in, that's for sure. If there's any proof in that shack that Old Bill is Bill Jobeson, it might take some careful searching to find it."
Clutching her shoulder bag to her side, Nancy climbed out and started toward the shed, hoping she would not find a dead body inside. Behind her, two car doors slammed shut as Stan and Ned both jumped from the car and jogged after her. She breathed a sigh of relief that they were with her.
As she slowly opened the shed door, a shaft of light cut into the pitch black of the interior, illuminating a cot piled with dirty blankets. An overturned crate stood next to the cot. Flies buzzed around a half-empty can of tuna. There was no sign of anyone.
Nancy let out her breath.
"Whew." Stan waved the air as he stepped into the shack. "Old Bill wasn't much of a housekeeper."
"Let's do this quickly," Nancy said. She gingerly lifted the blankets and musty pillow on the cot. Behind her, she could hear Stan checking out a pile of junk thrown in a corner. Ned was grumbling about the smell as he hunted around the crate.
Stooping, Nancy felt underneath the cot with her hand. "What's this?" she asked as her fingers touched metal. "Hey, I think I've got something."
She pulled out the object and saw that it was a dog tag on a chain. Taking it into the sunlight, Nancy read the tag out loud. "Bill Jobeson," she said, looking up at Ned and Stan.
"Wow. Now we have positive proof that the real Bill Jobeson is the bum Sheila was talking about," Stan stated. "Or at least he was."
"Do you think he's dead?" Ned asked. He seemed relieved to step back out of the shed behind Nancy.
Stan shut the shed door behind them. As they started for his car, he said, "Could be. I'll call my buddy at the morgue. Maybe he can clear this up for us."