Nancy and Chris walked to the end of the property line without finding anything unusual. They were on their way back to the boat when Nancy spotted something strange at the dock.
“Look!” she cried, pointing ahead. “There’s another boat tied up next to ours.”
Chris shielded his eyes with one hand. “Could be the coast guard. Can you see the markings?”
Nancy squinted to read the name painted on the hull of the cabin cruiser. “It says . . .” Her voice trailed off. That was impossible! “It’s the Friendly Fin!”
Kicking up sand, Nancy ran ahead. She could see that Annie’s boat was neatly tied up behind the Whaler. She raced to a halt and looked around. Where was the person who had brought the boat in?
Suddenly the screeching and flapping of birds in the dunes behind Nancy startled her. She turned toward the sound—and gasped.
A bearded man in a hunting cap had sprung from behind the hill of sand. He was holding a shotgun—and the glinting barrel was pointed right at her!
Chapter
Six
NANCY FROZE IN PLACE. He’s going to kill me! she thought, swallowing hard.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Chris stop short as he, too, spotted the bearded man.
“You’re trespassing here,” the gunman growled. “Ms. Cleveland wouldn’t like that. And you’re riding around in a stolen boat.” He moved out of the dunes and stepped closer to Nancy. She couldn’t help noticing the glint of the winter sun on the shiny barrel of the gun.
“I didn’t steal the Friendly Fin,” Nancy said quickly. “But I know that the coast guard has been searching for it all morning.”
“I’m not talking about the Fin,” the man grumbled. Although it was hard to make out his face beneath his dark beard and red hunting cap, his voice was sharp with quiet anger. “I’m talking about the Lazy Daze.”
Nancy glanced back toward the dock. “We rented that boat from Lenny’s.” She nodded at Chris. “He has the receipt.”
Chris cautiously stepped forward, pulling the receipt from his jeans pocket.
The bearded man lowered the gun, and Nancy sighed with relief. “Let me see that,” he said, snatching the receipt from Chris and quickly glancing at it. “Who gave you this?”
“A young guy with blond hair,” Chris answered.
“That’s my son, Tyler,” said the bearded man, pushing his cap back on his head. “The kid’s supposed to be minding the store, not starting a rental agency.”
Suddenly Nancy realized why this man was so upset. The Whaler belonged to him. “You must be Lenny,” she said. “My name is Nancy Drew, and this is Chris Marconi, a curator from the aquarium in Baltimore and a member of the Chesapeake Bay Task Force. I’m sorry about the mix-up with your boat.”
Lenny was still frowning as he returned the receipt to Chris. “Guess that part’s square. But you folks are trespassing. This land belongs to a friend of mine, Lydia Cleveland, and she doesn’t want anyone on it.”
Chris held his hands up in a gesture of peace. “We were just about to leave. No harm done.”
Looking back at Annie’s boat, Nancy said, “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you driving the Friendly Fin?”
“Taking her back to Bodkin Point. Was out clamming with a buddy of mine when we spotted her. She’d run aground. But before I could get the Fin back, I spotted the Lazy Daze tied up here, on Ms. Cleveland’s property.” He let the butt of the shotgun rest in the sand. “Needless to say, I was spitting mad.”
That’s for sure, Nancy thought. At least Lenny had been willing to listen before he used that gun, though.
• • •
“For a minute there, I was afraid Detective DePaulo was going to arrest us just for getting him so mixed up,” George said, and laughed.
“Yeah,” Jackson agreed as he stopped for a red light. “Criminal confusion.”
Nancy, George, Jackson, and Chris were driving back to the aquarium after sorting through a mountain of details back at Bodkin Point.
When the Friendly Fin and Lazy Daze had docked at the marina behind Lenny’s, Detective DePaulo had still been at Annie’s cottage, supervising the collection of evidence. As soon as Lenny pulled in on Annie’s boat, a forensic team had boarded it to collect more evidence.
Nancy smiled. “DePaulo didn’t like the fact that we took it upon ourselves to search the inlet. But I think it was the story of the gunpoint encounter with Lenny and the discovery of the Friendly Fin that really surprised him.”
After he had recovered from his initial reaction, Detective DePaulo had struck a deal with Nancy. She would keep him posted on any significant clues she uncovered, and he would fill her in on the results of the forensics tests.
“Do you think that Lenny had something to do with Annie’s disappearance?” George asked Nancy as Jackson pulled into the aquarium parking lot.
“According to the police, Lenny has an alibi that checks out, and it sounds good to me. He threw a surprise party for his wife last night.” Nancy climbed out of the back seat and zipped up her jacket. “I think Lenny was just lucky—or unlucky—enough to stumble onto the Friendly Fin.”
“It’s hard to believe Annie is really gone,” Jackson said.
“I know what you mean,” George agreed. “I hardly knew her, but I keep expecting to see her bouncing through the halls at the aquarium.”
Jackson nodded. “I don’t know how Dad is going to run the aquarium without her. He asked me to organize a memorial service at the aquarium. It’s planned for Thursday.”
“You can count on us to be there,” Nancy told him as the foursome entered the aquarium. Since Nancy had spent the morning investigating Annie’s death, she hadn’t been able to do the research she had planned on doing. It was time to roll up her sleeves and go through the aquarium’s personnel files.
Jackson and Chris returned to their duties, and Delores showed Nancy and George to a conference room filled with three stacks of cardboard boxes.
“Wow!” George exclaimed when she saw the cartons. “How many people work in this place?”
“More than two hundred,” Nancy said, glancing over a master list. “And we’re going to go through each and every file.” Ignoring George’s groan, she sat down and tugged the lid off the first carton.
“Don’t be bashful,” Nancy teased. “Dig in!”
Four hours later the girls had gone through most of the cartons and two-thirds of a pizza that Delores had brought back from Harbor Place.
“If I have to read one more résumé, my eyes are going to be permanently crossed.” George closed an employee file and stretched.
Using the list of task force members that Annie had supplied, Nancy also had called the key members who did not work in the aquarium. The people she spoke with expressed grave concern over Annie’s death, but they were unable to offer any possible explanation. No one had heard from her on the night of her death.
“Okay,” Nancy said, adding one last notation to a list she had compiled on a pad of paper. “We’ve gone through all the employee files, and I’ve talked to the task force members who don’t work here. I’ll have to meet with the second in command tomorrow.”
“Who’s that?” asked George.
Nancy glanced down at the list. “Russell Farmer. He’s a mammalogist here at the aquarium.”
George nodded. “Maybe he’ll have some ideas. After combing through all these files, we haven’t come up with any brainstorms.”
“Just some unusual tidbits,” Nancy agreed, picking up the notepad. “First off, we learned that Chris was dismissed from a New England college. Apparently, Annie isn’t the first person he didn’t get along with. The file doesn’t say why he was kicked out, but he went on to finish his degree at a school in California.
“Second, the only people who were fired in the last six months worked on the cleaning crew, and Annie had no dealings with them.”
George rubbed her eyes. “All that work for a handful of tiny leads? Someti
mes I wonder why you like being a detective.”
Smiling, Nancy continued, “But we learned a few things about the people in Annie’s department—the mammalogists. Megan O’Connor, the woman we saw working with the seals, just joined the aquarium nine months ago. And last month Annie was promoted over all the other mammalogists. Someone might have resented her promotion.”
“And we know that Chris resented Annie for dating Stuart, who might be doing Mills’s dirty work,” George added. “But there’s a big difference between disapproval and murder.”
“I’m afraid murder is exactly what we’re talking about here,” said a voice from the doorway.
Nancy glanced over at Jonathan Winston. His gray-streaked hair was disheveled from the wind, and she could tell he had just come in from the cold. He pulled off his coat and joined the girls at the conference table.
“I just spent the afternoon making arrangements to have Annie’s body shipped to her parents in Florida. Then I met with the police.” Sighing, he smoothed back his hair. “The police say that Annie was murdered. The hair and fiber samples found on the boat indicate that there was a struggle. Not to mention the bruises on Annie’s body. I won’t get into all the graphic evidence, but Annie was strangled before her body was dumped into the bay.”
“Now we know we’re dealing with someone desperate enough to commit murder,” Nancy said, frowning. “That puts this case into the major leagues.”
“I wish we could cancel the party,” Dr. Winston said, raking his fingers through his hair. “None of us feels much like celebrating. But I don’t want to put off our contributors. We can’t keep the aquarium going without their help.”
Nancy reached over and squeezed his hand. “Don’t cancel the party. Annie wouldn’t want that.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I just hope you can find out who did it before someone else gets hurt.”
• • •
“This is delicious.” George took another bite of baklava, a delicate dessert made of thin pastry, honey, and nuts. “Want to try some?”
Nancy was so preoccupied with the case that she barely heard George. “Um . . . uh . . . No, thanks,” she mumbled. Taking a deep breath, Nancy refocused her attention on her friend, who sat across the table of the Harbor Place restaurant where they were finishing a hearty Greek dinner.
“Annie’s death really threw you, didn’t it, Nan?” George observed gently.
Nancy nodded. “She was so full of life. It makes me more determined than ever to figure this thing out.”
“Why don’t you give your brain a rest, just for tonight,” George suggested. “Look at the bright side. We’re having dinner in an interesting city, surrounded by water and blinking lights and cheerful tourists. And we’ve connected with two great guys.”
“That’s true,” Nancy said. “Chris is full of fun surprises, even if we can’t rule him out as a suspect.” She rubbed her eyes. “You can’t help liking the guy. I just wish he and Annie hadn’t been such fierce enemies.”
“Jackson has been a big help in showing us around,” George added. “He’s invited us to a basketball game tomorrow night, and we’ll have a chance to meet some of his friends.”
“Sounds great,” Nancy said with a forced smile. Then she shook her head ruefully. “Sorry, George, my brain doesn’t want to take a rest. I don’t think I can turn it off.”
“Okay, you win. So what’s the next step?” George asked.
“Tomorrow we should interview some of the employees at the aquarium. Friday’s party will be a disaster if we haven’t solved the case by then. The press is making a big deal out of Annie’s death.”
“Yeah, the place has been crawling with reporters since this morning,” George added.
“And if they find out that Annie’s murder is linked to problems at the aquarium . . .” Nancy’s voice trailed off as she looked out the restaurant’s glass wall at shoppers browsing through Harbor Place.
“You’re right,” George agreed. “That would be a publicity nightmare.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Annie’s boyfriend, Stuart,” Nancy said.
“Do you think he could’ve killed Annie?”
Nancy shrugged. “He was there when Annie disappeared, and he does work for Mills. Maybe he’s in on the foul play.” Checking her watch, Nancy saw that it was almost eight-thirty. “Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said, picking up the check from the table. “I’ll never be able to sleep without some answers. I want to call Stuart Feinstein and see if he’ll answer a few of my questions.”
Back at the hotel, Nancy looked up Stuart’s number and called. Her heart sank when she got a busy signal.
Over the next two hours, as the girls munched popcorn they had bought at Harbor Place and watched a TV movie, Nancy tried the number dozens of times without success.
“Maybe he took the phone off the hook,” George suggested, yawning.
“Maybe,” Nancy agreed, crawling into bed and pulling the covers up to her chin. She switched off the lights, then lay in bed, wondering what role, if any, Stuart had played in Annie’s death until, at last, she fell asleep.
• • •
On Wednesday morning, the girls went to the hotel coffee shop for a breakfast of hot chocolate and fresh-baked rolls, then retrieved their rented car from the hotel garage and headed off. With George navigating, Nancy drove to Stuart Feinstein’s address, which she had copied from the phone book.
“There it is,” George said as they turned into a cul-de-sac surrounded by scattered three-story brick buildings.
Stuart’s apartment was on the first floor of a pale brick building with green shutters.
“I hope he’s home,” Nancy said, pushing the doorbell. When there was no answer, she rang again. Nancy tapped her foot impatiently and leaned over to look in the front window. There was no sign of life beyond the unmoving curtain. The girls started to turn away when the door swung open.
Nancy was about to speak, but instead her mouth dropped open in surprise as she found herself face-to-face with Detective DePaulo. “We were looking for Stuart Feinstein,” she explained, staring past him into the apartment.
“I’m afraid you won’t find him here,” the detective said. “It looks as if our prime suspect has skipped town.”
Chapter
Seven
STUART—A PRIME SUSPECT?” Nancy said, thinking aloud.
“Does that mean he’s going to be arrested?” asked George.
“Just as soon as we find him,” DePaulo answered, stepping back into the apartment. “He was told not to leave the area. I’m not going to make the mistake of letting him go again.”
Following the detective inside, Nancy glanced over the modern furnishings—a black leather sofa and two saucer-shaped gray chairs.
“Do you have a motive?” Nancy asked.
“Right now we’re just guessing that they had an argument that became violent,” the detective said, turning to Nancy. “You wouldn’t happen to know what they were arguing about?”
Nancy told DePaulo about the conflict involving Stuart’s employment at Mills. “I’m not sure if it interfered with Stuart’s relationship with Annie, but I know of at least one task force member who thinks that Stuart was The Mills Company’s hired gun.”
“Very interesting,” DePaulo said, sliding a gold pen out of his coat pocket.
“Maybe he’s at work,” Nancy suggested.
“Ahh . . . you run through the possibilities like a true detective,” DePaulo said. “However, I just phoned Mills. Mr. Feinstein’s boss says that he hasn’t spoken to him since yesterday’s incident.”
“I wonder if he’s telling the truth,” Nancy said. “He could be covering for Stuart or for Mills itself. After all, the company has been accused of illegal dumping.”
“Touché.” Detective DePaulo jotted a few notes in a pocket diary as he moved through Stuart’s living room.
Nancy picked up an address book that was sitting on a table besid
e the phone. Looking under F, she found three Feinsteins listed—probably members of his family—but they were out of state.
“I thought of that, too,” said Detective DePaulo as she returned the book. “But he has no family in this area.”
Pacing through the apartment, Nancy didn’t find anything unusual. If Stuart wasn’t here or at work, he had to be on the run. Where would he go?
Nancy slid open the door to the bedroom closet and saw rows of suits, pants, and shirts on hangers. “That’s strange,” she said aloud.
“Find something?” George asked.
“Just a closet full of clothes,” Nancy told her as Detective DePaulo joined them in the bedroom. “If Stuart was really skipping town, wouldn’t he pack up all his clothes and belongings?”
“Possibly.” DePaulo looked thoughtful. “But maybe the guy is panicked and traveling light.”
After they finished searching the apartment, Nancy and George waited on the front lawn while DePaulo carefully locked the door.
Two large shrubs stood under the window of Stuart’s living room, just to the left of the front porch. When Nancy noticed that the branch of one bush was broken off, she went closer to examine it.
“Look at this,” she said, lifting the broken branch. One part of the bush was flattened, as if someone had fallen on it.
“I guess Feinstein’s gardening skills leave something to be desired,” DePaulo teased.
George and the detective joined her beside the bushes. Nancy was kneeling on the ground when George plucked a piece of black knit cloth from a branch. “It’s a ski mask,” George said, holding it up.
Nancy frowned. “I don’t know what to make of this, but I’d love to get some answers from Stuart Feinstein.”
Detective DePaulo sighed. “It looks as if, for the moment, Stuart Feinstein is leaving us in the dark.”
Nancy nodded. In the meantime, she would have to talk to people who could provide some answers, and that meant interviewing Annie’s colleagues at the aquarium.