Bad Times, Big Crimes Read online

  Bad Times Big Crimes

  So I was sitting with Ned in a lecture, and then bam, Ned’s in a three-piece suit, and I’m in a city hall meeting on how to get through the beginning of the Great Depression. As in the Depression, in the 1930s.

  What’s more, there’s a thief to track down. Someone’s robbing local banks of what little money they have. Everyone’s panicked about their money, so the thief could be just about anyone. But after spending just a little time in this odd place, I have a hunch there’s more to it.…

  Catch my next case:

  Framed

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Cover photograph copyright © 2005 by

  Corbis

  Cover designed by Debra Sfetsios

  Ages 8–12

  kids.simonandschuster.com

  1105

  Try Solving This One…

  Something really strange was going on. It was almost as if I’d woken up in some sort of alternate universe. I had to do something—fast. “Be right back,” I said to Ned as I slipped out of my seat.

  I hurried out of the building and ran to the first newsstand I could find. Reading the front page, I almost fainted.

  According to the paper, the year was 1930.

  I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. No dice.

  #1 Without a Trace

  #2 A Race Against Time

  #3 False Notes

  #4 High Risk

  #5 Lights, Camera…

  #6 Action!

  #7 The Stolen Relic

  #8 The Scarlet Macaw Scandal

  #9 Secret of the Spa

  #10 Uncivil Acts

  #11 Riverboat Ruse

  #12 Stop the Clock

  #13 Trade Wind Danger

  #14 Bad Times, Big Crimes

  Available from Aladdin Paperbacks

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2005 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right of

  reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  NANCY DREW is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS, NANCY DREW: GIRL DETECTIVE, and

  colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Lisa Vega

  The text of this book was set in Bembo.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition November 2005

  Library of Congress Control Number 2004117703

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87883-1

  ISBN-10: 0-689-87883-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-439-11332-5 (ebook)

  Chapter 1: The Town Hall Time Warp

  Chapter 2: Hello 1930, Good-bye Sanity

  Chapter 3: Stranded

  Chapter 4: Animal Invasion

  Chapter 5: A River Heights Casino

  Chapter 6: Hooverville Is Haunting

  Chapter 7: When in Doubt, Blame It on a Belgian

  Chapter 8: Hasty Conclusions

  Chapter 9: Dropping Hints

  Chapter 10: Hatching a Plan

  Chapter 11: Deuces Wild

  Chapter 12: A Little Help from Horsehair

  Chapter 13: Gambling with Gangsters

  Chapter 14: Gotta Run

  Chapter 15: The Not-So-Open Road

  Chapter 16: No Place Like Home

  Bad Times, Big Crimes

  1

  The Town Hall Time Warp

  I’m sorry, Nancy. Am I keeping you awake?” my boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, asked.

  I struggled to answer him between yawns. “It’s not the company—promise.”

  “Good thing my ego isn’t too fragile.” Ned took another enormous bite of his hamburger before continuing. “Of course, it can’t be, since I’m dating the kind of person who ignores me half the time because she’s so busy helping out everyone else in the world.”

  Glancing at Ned, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

  “That wasn’t supposed to be funny,” he said. “Can’t you at least pretend to take pity on me?” He smirked.

  “It’s not that.” I tried, but failed to keep a straight face. “It’s just—you’ve got ketchup on your nose!”

  “I’m surprised you even noticed.”

  Though Ned was acting like a wounded puppy dog, I knew he was just kidding around. He’s used to this kind of thing. Why? Well, I’m Nancy Drew, the busiest amateur detective in River Heights. Whenever there’s trouble brewing in town, people call me. Ned’s been my boyfriend for years. He totally understands that my passion for solving mysteries could not and should not be suppressed. Not only is he perfectly happy to help me whenever I ask him to, he’s also happy to step aside when I need the space to do my own thing.

  Pretty great, huh?

  Not that things were totally perfect. I mean, there was still the issue of the ketchup.

  “I cannot take you seriously when you have food on your face,” I teased.

  “Ketchup is more of a condiment, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Ned!”

  As he smiled at me, he revealed his adorable dimples. Then he finally wiped his face. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “So whatever happened at the old Burnside Inn?” he asked. “It wasn’t really haunted, was it?”

  “Of course not,” I replied. “But I had to stay up all night to prove it.”

  The Burnside Inn is an old hotel that’s been for sale ever since the owner, Maxine Burnside, died in a horrible car accident. Last week, rumors started circulating that the place was haunted by Maxine’s ghost. Some concerned citizens came to me, hoping I’d get to the bottom of things. It took me all night, but I finally figured out the real deal. “Turns out the so-called ghost was actually Bob McFadden. He owns a chain of hotels all over the Midwest, and wanted to add the Burnside Inn to his list.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Ned. “The hotel was already for sale, right? So why’d he have to go to so much trouble?”

  “Sure, he could have just bought the place, but that would have been too easy. He figured if no one else wanted it, he’d get it dirt cheap. All he had to do was scare away the competition.”

  Ned shook his head in wonderment. “Amazing what people will stoop to just to save a few bucks.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  It’s funny. River Heights is a fantastic place to live. It has everything anyone could ask for in a city. There’s the natural beauty of the river, miles of open fields where horses and cattle graze, and tons of old trees all over town. There’s the culture: We have museums and galleries, a top-rated university, and an award-winning orchestra. And business is booming. Rackham Industries, a major computer company, is headquartered here, and they recruit people from all over the world. The shopping is great too. You can get anything you want downtown: books, music, antiques, sporting goods, jewelry—even gourmet cheese. And the people couldn’t be friendlier.

  But I have to say, this city also attracts mischief and mayhem like no place else.

  “So, was it a tough case?” asked Ned between bites.

  I shrugged. “Not so much. But waiting to catch Bob in the act was pretty time-consuming. He didn’t show up until five a.m.”

  “And then you and Bess and George surprised him?” asked Ned.

&nb
sp; I shook my head. “Not quite.” Bess and George are cousins, my two best friends, and my usual partners in crime (or anticrime, really). But the night before they’d been busy. “Bess and George’s greataunt, Eliza, was in town, so they had to be home for dinner. I was on my own. Since I didn’t think it was a good idea to confront Bob by myself—he’s a really big guy—I snuck around and took a bunch of pictures. Then I had to wait until Chief McGinnis rolled into the police station so I could show him the evidence. He took over the investigation from there, but I shadowed him, just to make sure he followed through. So, basically, I pulled an all-nighter. I didn’t get home until noon.”

  “And I showed up soon after that,” Ned finished.

  “Yup.”

  “You don’t have to go to the lecture today,” Ned said. “I totally understand if you need to catch up on sleep.”

  “No way would I miss seeing Tracey Gaines,” I exclaimed. “How often does a famous historian come to River Heights to talk about our city’s history of crime?”

  Ned laughed. “The lecture is about the Great Depression. The crime stuff is just a small part of it.”

  “Small to you,” I argued. “Tracey Gaines’s grandparents were famous gangsters! They totally terrorized the streets of River Heights and lots of other cities all over the country—untraditional behavior for gangsters. I’ll bet she has some wild stories. You couldn’t keep me away if you tried.” I glanced at the clock on the far wall of the diner. “In fact, we should really get going. Are you ready?”

  “One sec,” said Ned, polishing off the last of his fries.

  I’d inhaled my tuna melt and side of onion rings as soon as the plate hit the table ten minutes before. Solving mysteries always makes me hungry.

  Minutes later we were strolling down River Street. Ned had his arm around me and it was oh-so-cozy. I was just relaxing when I spotted the line in front of city hall. The lecture wasn’t due to start for twenty minutes, but there was already a huge crowd. We ran the rest of the way. Once we got inside, we saw that George and Bess had arrived early and saved us some seats.

  “Didn’t think you’d make it,” George said as we sat down. “Haven’t you been up for thirty hours straight?”

  “And didn’t you wear those same clothes yesterday?” Bess added. The look of genuine concern in her pretty blue eyes cracked me up.

  “I can’t keep track. It’s all a blur,” I replied sleepily, dropping into the seat next to Ned. “How’s your aunt?”

  “Oh, great,” said Bess. “She thinks it’s so funny that we’re going to a lecture on the Great Depression.”

  “Why is that?” asked Ned.

  “Well, she lived through it and knows how awful it was,” George explained. “Her family lost their home, and everything. It was such a sad time in our country’s history, she thinks people are crazy for dwelling on it, and—hey, Nancy! Are you listening?”

  My eyes flew open. “Sorry,” I said. “These chairs are so comfy.…”

  Soon I felt Ned shaking my shoulder. Applause was exploding from around the room. “What’s going on?” I wondered.

  “It’s starting now,” he said.

  “Huh?” I asked.

  “You’ve been asleep for the past ten minutes.”

  I sat up straight and looked toward the stage.

  A woman was standing behind a large podium. She had shoulder-length red curly hair, and she was dressed in a dark green pants suit. “Good afternoon, River Heights. My name is Tracey Gaines. I’ve been studying the effects of the Great Depression on small cities like yours, and I’m here today to share some of my research. Many of you know the basics of the Great Depression. The stock market crashed on Tuesday, October 29, 1929. Herbert Hoover was the president. Millions of people lost their savings, their jobs, their homes, and most of their possessions. Everyone was touched by the Depression in some way, but small cities like this were particularly vulnerable. They became breeding grounds for criminal activity.”

  My ears pricked when I heard that.

  “People always think about big crimes happening in large cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago,” said Tracey. “But in fact, in the early nineteen hundreds it was a different story. Small towns and cities were where most of the crime took place. Why? Small cities had small police forces. Imagine trying to stop ten gangsters with a police force of three.

  “Second, the first road atlas was put out in 1924, by a company called Rand McNally. The first of its kind, it made escape routes easier to map out. It was also in the nineteen thirties that hard-surfaced roadways were introduced. This made getaways speedier. Criminals could, for instance, hold up a bank in River Heights, speed on over to Columbus to swindle some investors with a fake building project, and then roll into Lexington to fix a poker game, all in the same week.”

  George leaned over and whispered, “Sounds like fun, don’t you think?”

  Ned and I laughed, but Bess shushed us all.

  “Criminal life was so romanticized that some criminals became national heroes,” Tracey continued. “In the nineteen thirties, people talked about gangsters in the same way that people talk about movie stars today. Enter my great-grandparents, Loretta and Clay. But before I begin, let me assure you that our family is much more honest now.”

  My eyes flew open at the sound of widespread laughter. Whoops—couldn’t believe I was drifting again. Blinking, I rubbed my eyes.

  “Here’s a picture of my great-grandmother,” said Tracey. I was so glad there were some visuals to go along with the lecture—they’d help me stay awake.

  The picture that flashed on the screen behind Tracey was a close-up of the famous Loretta Gaines. She was beautiful, with a spark of intelligence in her eye and soft ringlets of hair framing her heart-shaped face. “This is a black-and-white shot, since modern color film wasn’t introduced until 1935. But Loretta had bright red hair, very much like mine. She was small, too. Four feet, ten inches. Of course, she always wore very high heels.”

  Tracey pressed a button and suddenly some jazz music began to trill from the city hall’s speakers. The next picture was of Loretta and Clay. Clay was tall and broad-shouldered. He wore a handsome, pinstriped suit and a dark hat. He was winking at the camera. Loretta was in a fancy beaded dress. She had a fur stole slung over one shoulder. The couple stood in front of a fancy old car. They looked as if they were on their way to a party—as if they didn’t have a worry in the world.

  “Loretta and Clay had a field day all over the Midwest, swindling everyone they came across before speeding out of town. They rigged card games and set up casinos. Easy to understand how they earned people’s trust—they were such a charming, mesmerizing couple. They loved fancy clothes, fast cars, and all types of excitement. Of course, most exciting to them was scamming people out of their hard-earned cash. It was in the fall of 1930 that they rolled into River Heights.”

  “Hey, Nancy,” Ned whispered, tugging on a lock of my hair.

  “I’m up.” I forced my eyes open. “This is pretty great, huh?”

  “Great?” Ned was staring at me as if I’d sprouted a second head. “Are you crazy?”

  I was about to ask Ned what he was talking about, but the words got stuck in my throat.

  Ned was next to me, but he wasn’t the Ned I recognized. For one thing, rather than his standard jeans and a button-down shirt, he was wearing a dark gray three-piece suit. Plus he’d traded in his baseball cap for an old-fashioned bowler hat—the kind I’d only seen in old movies.

  “Ned, what are you wearing?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “It’s just a suit. I’m wearing the same thing everyone else is. So are you.”

  Looking around, I was in for a huge shock. Every guy in the entire room was dressed like Ned. And every woman was in a dress.

  Also weird: Tracey Gaines was no longer at the podium, nor was her multimedia presentation. Addressing the audience was a tall and portly man with a thick, brown mustache. “As mayor
of this town,” he said, “I’d like to talk to everyone about what we can do during these hard times.” Mayor of the town? Uh, last time I checked, Heather Simmons was the mayor. She won by a narrow margin last year.

  Something really strange was going on. It was almost as if I’d woken up in some sort of alternate universe. I had to do something—fast. “Be right back,” I said to Ned as I slipped out of my seat.

  I hurried out of the building and ran to the first newsstand I could find. Reading the front page, I almost fainted.

  According to the paper, the year was 1930.

  I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. No dice. I squeezed my eyes shut. Opening them again, I saw the same scene: some old-fashioned version of my hometown. The streets were cobblestone rather than pavement. Horse-drawn carriages shared the road with cars. The shops lining the sidewalk had old-fashioned, wooden signs out front. Downtown had been magically transformed into a place I hardly recognized.

  “Wake up, Nancy.” I stamped my foot on the ground. When nothing happened, I really panicked, and started jumping up and down. But instead of ending this crazy experience, I was just drawing lots of stares.

  I sighed and sat down on the curb. I chewed on my bottom lip. What was going on?

  How was I in River Heights at the beginning of the Great Depression?

  2

  Hello 1930, Good-bye Sanity

  What happened to you, Nancy?”

  “Are you okay?”

  Apparently two people had followed me outside. They were talking to me as if they knew me, and at first, I couldn’t figure out why.

  Good thing I was already sitting—because once I realized who they had to be, I almost passed out.

  The blonde started to look just like Bess: same long, wavy hair, same large blue eyes, same hourglass figure.

  And, tall and slender with short brown hair and dark eyes, the other could have been George’s clone.

  The thing that was so strange was the outfits they had on. Bess always dressed in a style that I liked to think of as the Three Fs: fashionable, feminine, and flattering. George’s style was the opposite: strictly functional. Whether she was in jeans, khakis, or shorts, it was always no fuss, no muss. But now they were both wearing the same thing: high-waisted skirts that billowed out slightly from their calves. On their feet they wore dark pumps. It was the first time I’d ever seen George in anything but sneakers or hiking boots.