False Notes Read online

  “Didn’t Deirdre play the flute in elementary school?” Bess said.

  “Yes,” I recalled. “For about ten seconds!”

  As my friends continued to joke around at Deirdre’s expense, I returned my attention to the computer screen. Simmons, L. I stared at the name thoughtfully, remembering how strongly Dad had reacted to my mention of Leslie’s name.

  “Hey, George,” I said, interrupting whatever she was saying to Bess. “Can you check out one more site?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “River Heights High School,” I said. “I want to see if we can find out anything more about Leslie Simmons.”

  Bess cocked her head at me as George went to work. “Why?” she asked. “Even if she has something to do with this so-called mystery, what’s the high school home page going to tell you? It’s summer, remember? School’s out.”

  George glanced up at her as the home page loaded. “Yeah, but the school bulletin board is still active all summer,” she reminded Bess. “A lot of kids keep in touch that way, remember?”

  Bess wrinkled her nose. She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, “Yeah, the geeks, maybe.”

  I swallowed a laugh as George shot her cousin a dirty look. Then I leaned over and pointed to a link. “Look, there’s the bulletin board,” I said. “Let’s see if Leslie has checked in lately.”

  It turned out that she had—quite a lot, actually. There were all kinds of entries from her. Some were just chitchat, while others had to do with her music studies.

  “Look, she’s been going to music camp over at the university’s performing arts building,” Bess said, pointing to one entry.

  George nodded. “I knew that already,” she said. “My mom wants to go to their recital—I think it’s this week. She loves to hear Leslie Simmons play.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “And look, here’s something even more interesting. Leslie’s most recent bulletin board entry was at two thirty-eight P.M. on Saturday—two days ago. There’s nothing since then, even though she was posting several times per day up until then.”

  George shrugged. “So?” she said. “She’s got a big week coming up—first the recital, then the audition on Thursday. She’s probably practicing twenty-four seven.”

  “Maybe.” I stared at the screen. “It’s just a little weird, that’s all.”

  Bess narrowed her blue eyes at me. “Nancy, I know that look,” she said. “You’re coming up with a theory, aren’t you? Come on, spill it.”

  I smiled. Bess was right—I was starting to think I might know why the Simmonses had looked so upset earlier. But I wasn’t quite ready to share yet.

  “In a minute,” I told my friends. “First, let’s take a little ride over to the Simmons house, okay?”

  Bess and George exchanged a perplexed glance. Then they both sighed.

  “All right, come on,” Bess said. “I’ll drive.”

  Soon we were cruising down a pleasant, tree-lined residential block in the eastern section of River Heights. The streetlights had just come on, even though dusk had barely thickened the shadows beneath the shrubs and playsets in the neatly tended yards. I pointed to a green-shuttered white clapboard house about halfway down the block.

  “That’s their house,” I said. “I sold raffle tickets door-to-door a couple of years ago for the hospital fundraiser, and I remember talking to Mr. Simmons in front of his house. He bought five tickets.”

  George leaned forward from the backseat of the car to give me a funny look. “You know, sometimes it’s downright scary the way your mind files things away, Nancy.”

  Bess idled at the curb in front of the house. “Well?” she said. “What do you want to do now? Should I park?”

  I bit my lip, not quite sure how to proceed now that we were there. I stared at the house. There were two cars in the driveway, and several lights were on inside. Through the large picture window to the left of the front door, I could see a grand piano.

  “No, just wait here a sec,” I said, reaching for the door handle. “I want to check on something.”

  I hopped out of the car before my friends could ask any more questions. The theory that had been forming in my mind still hadn’t totally jelled yet, but my sixth sense was tingling like crazy.

  Not knowing exactly what I was going to say, I moved up the front walk and rapped on the door. A moment later I heard footsteps inside, and Heather Simmons answered.

  She gasped at me and looked very startled. Even though we’d never actually met, she obviously recognized me. “Nancy Drew!” she blurted out. “Did your father—” She gulped, clearly struggling to regain her composure. “I mean, hello. Please come in. What can I do for you this evening?”

  I pasted a friendly smile on my face as I stepped into the foyer. “Sorry to bother you this late, Mrs. Simmons,” I said. “I’m just out reminding people that the River Heights Animal Shelter will be doing a pet adopt-a-thon next weekend at Bluff View Park. There will be games and door prizes and all sorts of fun stuff. I hope you and your family will come out and support us.”

  That was all true enough. I volunteered once a month at the shelter, and we were all excited about the event. But even while I was talking, I was shooting curious glances around at the inside of the house. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for—any clue, any small hint that might confirm my growing suspicions. My gaze darted over the half-open coat closet in the foyer, the large arched entryway into the living room, the dark-colored grand piano in front of the window, the last rays of sunlight gleaming on the slightly grayish keyboard.…

  “Oh!” Heather Simmons blinked, seeming distracted. “Well, thank you, Nancy. I’m sure we’ll try to make it if we can.”

  “That’s… great.” I was suddenly distracted myself. I had just spotted it—the clue I needed. “Um, okay, then. I’d better be going,” I added. “Thanks for your support.”

  Mrs. Simmons looked a little confused at my abrupt farewell, but she didn’t seem eager to change my mind about leaving. As soon as the door clicked shut behind me, I sprinted for Bess’s car. I flung the door open and jumped inside.

  “I was right,” I said breathlessly. “I just saw something in there that confirms what I was thinking: Leslie Simmons has been kidnapped!”

  Kidnapped!

  Huh?” Bess and George said at the same time, their faces registering identical expressions of surprise.

  “It all makes perfect sense,” I said, my words practically tumbling over each other in my eagerness to explain my theory. “The deadline for filing those papers to run for mayor is this Friday, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” George said. “So?”

  “So don’t you get it?” I exclaimed. “Someone obviously wants to distract Heather Simmons so she won’t be able to file!”

  “Obviously,” George said, in a tone that indicated that she thought I was off my rocker.

  Bess looked troubled. “But who would do something like that?”

  “Why, Morris Granger, of course!” I said. “He’s the only possible suspect. He’s got the money and the power and connections to pull off something like this. And I’m sure he’d love nothing more than to run for mayor unopposed.”

  “Whoa… hold the phone, here.” George held up both hands. “Back up a second, Nancy. What happened in there to lead you to this, er, interesting conclusion?” She gestured toward the Simmons house.

  “Oh, right. I forgot to tell you that.” I poked Bess in the arm. “Let’s get going. We probably look kind of suspicious sitting out here in front of their house.”

  As Bess drove back toward George’s house, I filled my friends in on my brief conversation with Mrs. Simmons. I mentioned how distracted she had seemed while talking with me.

  “Don’t tell me that’s your big clue?” George said skeptically. “There better be more than that—or you might have to give back your World’s Greatest Amateur Sleuth title.”

  I grinned and shook my head. “The
re’s definitely more,” I assured her. “I was trying to look around while I chatted with Mrs. Simmons—you know, to see if I could spot anything suspicious or out of place.”

  “Like a big ransom note cut out of newspaper letters?” Bess giggled. “Let me guess: It was tacked up on the wall and signed in blood.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “No, it was nothing as obvious as that. It was the piano. I was sort of staring at it out of the corner of my eye, thinking that it was weird that Leslie wouldn’t be sitting there practicing with the recital and auditions coming up.”

  Bess shrugged and glanced over at me before returning her gaze to the road. “Even piano prodigies have to take a break sometime,” she said. “Maybe she was in the kitchen having dinner. Or taking a shower. Or out with friends.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not the point,” I said. “The point is, I noticed that the piano keys looked funny—they’re supposed to be ivory, right? But these looked sort of grayish. That’s when I realized they were dusty.”

  “Dusty?” George repeated from the backseat, still sounding perplexed.

  I nodded. “Dusty. And that means they haven’t been touched in at least a couple of days.”

  “That is kind of weird.” Bess clicked on her turn signal as she reached an intersection. “But wait, I still don’t get what all this has to do with Morris Granger and the rest of the stuff you said.”

  I explained the scenario again patiently. “There’s no way Leslie would go without practicing that long with a recital coming up, let alone that important audition. She must not have been home for the past couple of days at least—which matches up with what we saw on the school’s Internet bulletin board. She’s been missing from there for two days too.”

  “Right,” George said. “But that doesn’t mean she’s been kidnapped. Maybe she’s off visiting her grandparents or something.”

  “It’s possible,” I admitted. “But I don’t think so. It just ties in too perfectly with my dad’s weird reaction to Leslie’s name, and also what I saw on the street earlier today. I think Mr. and Mrs. Simmons were arguing about whether or not they should go to the police. Her parents are afraid to report Leslie’s disappearance. Maybe they received a ransom note or a phone call warning them not to tell anyone.” I shrugged. “They obviously decided not to involve the police. But they must have decided to risk talking to Dad—probably to get his advice about what to do. That would explain his reaction.”

  “I guess that could make sense,” Bess said as she pulled to the curb in front of George’s house. “Your dad probably wouldn’t freak out like that if they were just regular clients coming to him about some ordinary thing. But I still don’t see how Granger fits in.”

  “I’m getting to that,” I said. “See, we know from checking the town Web site that he’s the only one who’s officially running for mayor as of now. And if local gossip holds true, the only other person thinking of throwing her hat in the ring is Heather Simmons. But she needs to get that paperwork in before Friday’s deadline. What better way to distract her from doing that than by kidnapping her daughter?”

  “But that seems so crazy,” George protested, leaning on the front seat to talk to us. “It’s taking a huge risk. If Granger did something like that and got caught, his political career would sink faster than an anvil in the river.”

  I nodded. That was the only part of my theory that was still bothering me. “I know,” I said. “But a guy like Granger is probably used to taking big risks—gambling on big stock purchases and corporate takeovers. Maybe he figures the payoff is worth it. Mayors are powerful. If he gets elected, he’ll be in a great position to affect all sorts of stuff at Rackham Industries and arrange a takeover on his terms.”

  I could tell that Bess and George still weren’t totally convinced, but they both agreed to help me investigate. If Leslie really was in trouble, we all wanted to help.

  “First things first,” George said as we all climbed out of the car. She pulled out her cell phone. “Let’s find out for sure if Leslie really has been MIA for the past couple of days.”

  “Good idea,” Bess said. “Who are you going to call though? Her parents aren’t going to tell you, even if it’s true.”

  “Duh,” George said. “But she’s supposed to be going to music camp, remember? We can call them and ask if she showed up today. I’ll get the number from Directory Assistance.”

  By the time we reached George’s front steps, we had our answer. Leslie Simmons had been absent from music camp that day—the first time she’d missed a day since camp started.

  Bess paused outside the door, looking somber. “Okay, you guys,” she said. “This is starting to get serious. If Nancy’s theory is right, this means big trouble. We should call the police right now and tell them what we know.”

  “Bess has a point,” George agreed. “Kidnapping is serious stuff, Nance. The cops should be the ones to handle it.”

  I chewed my lower lip. “I’m not so sure,” I said slowly. “I see what you guys are saying, and I agree that this is serious. But that’s exactly why I think we need to be careful. I mean, think about it—do you really expect Chief McGinnis to believe all this if the Simmonses haven’t called him themselves?” I thought back to my encounter with him earlier that day and grimaced, imagining how the conversation my friends were suggesting might go.

  What a surprise, Miss Drew, the chief might say dryly. So you’ve turned up a kidnapping all of a sudden. Must be having a boring summer, eh? Why don’t you take up a normal hobby. Imaginary crimes aren’t a worthy pastime for Carson Drew’s only daughter.…

  “Okay, maybe not,” Bess said. From the expression on her face, I guessed she was probably imagining a similar conversation. “But we should at least try to do the right thing.”

  “But is it the right thing?” I said. “If Leslie’s parents haven’t reported her missing, there must be a reason—some kind of ransom note, or instructions to keep quiet, backed up with threats of some kind. We don’t want to put Leslie in more danger.”

  George looked uncertain. “You don’t really think Granger would…” Her voice trailed off.

  “We don’t know what he might do,” I said. “In fact, I think it’s time to do a little more snooping into our possible future mayor. Come on, let’s hit the computer again.”

  Soon we were back at George’s computer, digging through the many online mentions of Morris Granger. We turned up plenty of information about his companies, his real estate holdings, and much more. George had been right about his homes in other parts of the country; he owned property in several midwestern states, apartments in Chicago and New York City, a beach estate in Florida, and a town house in River Heights.

  “Yikes,” Bess said. “What if he’s shipped Leslie off to one of those places? We’d never be able to find her without help from the police.”

  “I doubt he’d do that,” I said. “I mean, I’m sure he doesn’t really want to hurt her, or keep her forever. He’s probably planning to release her as soon as the paperwork deadline passes and his unopposed run is a sure thing. So it makes sense that he’d keep her someplace local.”

  “But if he releases Leslie, won’t she be able to turn him in as the kidnapper?” George pointed out.

  I shrugged. “Only if she knows he was behind it,” I replied. “And I seriously doubt that a rich, powerful man like Morris Granger would get anywhere near the dirty work himself. He probably hired some icky underworld-criminal types to grab her and guard her until he says the word.”

  We continued the online investigation, scanning through so many articles about corporate buyouts and stock options that my eyes started to cross.

  “It’s weird that there’s no hint of anything shady in Granger’s past in anything we’ve read so far,” Bess commented as we read an article from a back issue of a national business journal. “I mean, a lot of those big financial guys get in trouble somewhere along the line, but there’s not even a hint of anything suspicious
about this guy.”

  George nodded. “Good point,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper.…”

  I winced. Whenever George gets that particular gleam in her eyes, it means she’s about to do something illegal, or at least highly irregular. She can hack through any ordinary firewall like it’s nothing, and takes trickier ones as an exciting challenge. Normally I try to discourage that sort of behavior as much as possible; as a lawyer’s daughter, lawbreaking of any sort always troubles me. However, I figured that in this case, whatever we might find out would make it worth looking the other way for a while. I didn’t say a word as she started typing rapidly.

  Despite her best efforts, though, George didn’t come up with anything dastardly or even slightly despicable in Granger’s past. “He’s clean,” she said, sounding slightly annoyed at the fact. “I’d put money on it.”

  Coming from George, that was practically an iron-clad guarantee. I stood and stretched my shoulders. “Well, I guess that’s good news,” I said. “If this is Granger’s first criminal act, it probably means Leslie’s less likely to get hurt.”

  George glanced at me, looking grim. “Or maybe it means he’s so desperate for the mayor’s job that he’s willing to do anything.”

  • • • •

  “How about a portable CD player?” Mrs. Fayne said. “Or a nice new set of barbecue tools?”

  “Neither of those seem quite right,” I said. “But keep the good ideas coming! I need all the help I can get, or you’re all going to see a very embarrassed and pathetic daughter at that party on Thursday night.”

  George’s mother chuckled sympathetically. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something wonderful, Nancy,” she assured me, her brown eyes twinkling.

  When George, Bess, and I had emerged from George’s room, we found George’s parents playing a lively game of cards. They had immediately corralled us and insisted we join them for ice cream. All five of us were now sitting around the table in the Faynes’ bright, big country kitchen discussing my gift dilemma.