The Clue at Black Creek Farm Read online

  Someone’s on the couch!

  But closer inspection revealed that it was only Julie—lying down, asleep.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jumped again; a male voice, coming from the foyer. I swung around to face Jack, who stood in a pair of striped pajamas, watching me.

  “How long have you been standing there?” I asked.

  Jack shrugged. “A couple of minutes?” he said, moving into the living room. “Something woke me up. I could have sworn I heard the chickens going crazy, and then—a loud bang.”

  “It was shots,” I said, trying to catch my breath. Jack’s voice had startled me. “Someone attacked the chickens in the coop. I caught them, and when they saw me, they chased me across the fields and shot a gun.”

  “A gun?” Jack asked, frowning. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “That seems . . .”

  But I’d stopped paying attention to what he was saying. My focus was drawn to the sleeve of his pajama top, which was stained with a few bright-red blobs.

  Fresh blood. Whoever had killed the chickens couldn’t have avoided getting some of it on his or her clothing. Maybe Bob wasn’t involved at all. Maybe he was fast asleep in his bed across town, and had been all night.

  Maybe I was looking at the chicken killer. And nearly me-killer.

  “. . . probably just a car backfiring, don’t you think?” Jack was asking. He stepped forward, his expression cold.

  I had no idea what he was talking about. Where are Sam and Abby? I stepped backward, willing Jack’s parents to come down the stairs.

  I heard movement behind me. Julie was stirring on the couch, wiggling and rising up on her elbow. “What time is it?” she asked sleepily.

  “It’s about five,” Jack replied. “Sorry we woke you. Did you sleep any better down here?”

  Julie yawned and nodded, sitting up. “My back was killing me in that bed,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “This couch is just hard enough to balance me out. Once this baby is born, maybe I’ll sleep again.”

  “Oh, sure,” Jack said sarcastically. “Having a newborn baby in the house is great for sleep, I hear.”

  There was a clattering on the stairs. Sam stomped down, dressed in a red bathrobe and holding a hunting rifle. His hair stood up in every direction. He looked right at me, concern in his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  I nodded. “But Bess and George . . .”

  Sam nodded quickly and turned toward the kitchen. “I’m going to get them right now. Don’t worry, Nancy. If there’s someone out there, I’ll find them.”

  He disappeared into the kitchen, and I heard the screen door slam. Abby descended the stairs, peering in at Jack, Julie, and me.

  “What happened?” asked Julie, frowning as she looked from me to Jack and Abby.

  Abby sighed. “Why don’t we all come into the kitchen and I’ll make some tea,” she said. “I’m afraid there’s been another . . . incident.”

  Abby frowned as she handed Jack his tea. “Is that blood on your sleeve?”

  Jack glanced down, and his face darkened for a moment. “Oh, it is. I had a nosebleed earlier. I get them when I’m stressed. Sometimes they can be pretty . . . severe.”

  “Well, that must be new. I don’t remember you ever getting them as a kid. But here.” Abby went to the sink and wet a paper towel, then handed it to her son. “Maybe you can get some of it out.”

  Jack took the paper towel and scrubbed at his sleeve. “As we were saying,” he said, “that’s quite a story, Nancy.”

  I’d given an account of everything I’d seen since I’d heard the commotion in the chicken coop—leaving out a few details, of course, in case they became important later. “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, sipping my tea.

  Jack shrugged. “It’s just—you’re saying someone brought a knife and a gun to harass some chickens?”

  “Whoever it was, they weren’t just harassing chickens,” I pointed out. “They were killing them.”

  “Oh, right,” Jack scoffed. “Because you need two weapons to kill a couple of hens.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “So you don’t believe me?”

  Abby gave him a chastising look. “Jack!”

  Jack shook his head. “No, no. I didn’t say that,” he said. Then he turned to me, his eyes calculating. “It’s just—Nancy is young. If she was scared, maybe she imagined some things she didn’t really see.”

  I don’t have time for this, I thought with irritation. “You think I made up the shots?”

  “Jack!” This time his wife yelled at him. “Don’t be—”

  But Julie was cut off by the screen door banging open, and George and Bess piling into the kitchen in their pajamas.

  “Nancy, are you okay?” Bess asked, moving to the table with wide eyes. “Sam told us . . .”

  “I’m fine,” I said, standing. “Are you?”

  George nodded, stepping up to the table beside Bess. “We’re fine,” she said. “It sounds like we slept through all the excitement. Sam just came and woke us and explained what was going on.”

  Sam stood at the doorway now, rifle still in hand. He waved. “I’m going to take a look around,” he called to Abby. “Just to make sure there’s nothing out here.”

  “Be careful!” Abby called to him. “Maybe you should let the police handle it. . . .”

  But Sam gave her a dismissive wave of the hand. “This is my farm. I can protect it.” And he disappeared from the doorway. A few seconds later we heard him clambering down off the back porch.

  Abby gestured for Bess and George to sit down. “Can I get you some tea?”

  “Oh, that would be great, thanks,” Bess said with an enthusiastic nod. George agreed too, and they both took seats.

  “Nancy,” said Julie gently, “are you going to sit back down?”

  I realized awkwardly that I was staring. Right at the blood on Jack’s sleeve. A nosebleed? The blood was bright red and fresh. Was he saying he’d been woken up by the chickens, got up, got a nosebleed, cleaned it up, and then came downstairs?

  I tore my gaze away and turned to Abby. “The thing is, I have kind of a headache.”

  Abby turned from the stove to shoot me a sympathetic look. “Poor dear,” she murmured. “The stress, probably.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Do you have any aspirin, or anything I could take? Maybe that would help.”

  Abby nodded. “Of course!” She put the kettle back down on the stove and turned to walk toward the foyer. “It’s up in—”

  “Oh, that’s okay!” I scrambled from the table toward the foyer. “I can get it. I need to use the bathroom anyway. Where did you say it was?”

  Abby gave me directions to the upstairs bathroom, and I forced myself to file them away for future reference. Jack and Julie had fallen into a quiet side conversation, and Bess and George were watching me with mild curiosity.

  “Poor Nancy,” Bess said in a tsk, tsk kind of voice. “She gets headaches all the time when she’s worried. You should see her during final exams!”

  Don’t oversell it. I shot her a look. “I’ll be right back!”

  And I scampered up the stairs to the second floor, leaving everyone to their tea.

  The bathroom was exactly where Abby said it would be, second door on the left. But I walked right by, peering into the other rooms. I found what I was looking for at the end of the hall. A smaller bedroom, too neat and uncluttered to be the master suite, containing two suitcases and an array of personal items. This must be Jack and Julie’s room.

  I crept into the bedroom. One of the suitcases was set up near the doorway, and I flipped idly through it, finding only maternity clothes. Julie. I dropped the clothing and crept farther into the room, spotting the other suitcase on the other side of the bed. I walked over to it, crouched, and began sorting through the clothes.

  Button-downs and jeans. Sweaters. Socks and underwear. No black hoodies, no more bloodstains. I stood up and
looking around the room. On the dresser sat a laptop computer, open. I walked over and glanced down, pleased to see a PROPERTY OF JACK HEYWORTH label with a cell phone number on the keyboard. As I tapped the keys to wake up the screen, I felt a little flash of guilt. What if Jack isn’t responsible for the sabotage? I’d be spying on his e-mails and Internet history for no reason.

  But what choice do I have?

  None, I realized. Given what was at stake, I had to take a look.

  Then a terrible thought occurred to me: I don’t have my memory stick. I always carried a portable flash drive on my key chain. If I’d had it, I could have copied all the files on a computer or e-mail account onto it, then reviewed them later. But my memory stick was sitting in the tent out in the fields, along with all my other belongings.

  I sighed. I’m going to have to just look quickly and try to get through as much as I can before someone finds me up here. Biting my lip with determination, I clicked on the e-mail program and brought up the most recently used e-mail account, whose password the computer was thankfully programmed to remember: [email protected]. I went into the sent folder and, not even bothering to open the messages, forwarded all the e-mails for the last three weeks to my own e-mail account. Then I deleted those messages from the sent folder so Jack wouldn’t see what I’d done.

  I glanced at the clock: 5:53. Had I come up here at 5:40 or 5:50? I couldn’t remember. Just keep looking; I don’t hear anyone. I clicked on the Internet browser and went right to the “history” folder. Nothing immediately jumped out as unusual . . . the Chicago Tribune, NPR, eBay, Google. I followed the link to Google and typed “how to” in the text bar, to see whether any recent searches came up. Nothing. Then I tried “where to get” and waited for the site to fill in the missing words. New text flashed up, and when I read it, my heart nearly stopped.

  Where to get E. coli?

  Jack had entered that question just two weeks before.

  A chill went up my spine. Am I sitting at the computer of the person who tried to kill me? Maybe not. There could be a totally reasonable explanation.

  Or . . .

  “Nancy?”

  I nearly jumped ten feet in the air at the sound of a voice from the doorway.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Caught in the Act

  THE VOICE WAS JULIE’S.

  Uh-oh. I struggled to push my overtired, overworked brain into action.

  “Is that Waikiki?” I asked, pointing to the photo of a smiling Julie and Jack on a beach that served as the computer’s desktop. “Because it’s so weird, but I could swear I was on that beach last year.” I took a step back from the computer and gave an awkward laugh, looking around like I was just realizing I was in Jack and Julie’s room. Julie watched me, a little crease of confusion forming between her eyebrows.

  “I’m sorry, I know I’m being nosy,” I went on. “I just spotted that photo from the hall and it brought back all these memories of this great vacation I took. . . . I think I’m a little loopy from lack of sleep!”

  Julie’s eyes warmed with sympathy, and she stepped into the room. “I can relate,” she said with a little smile. “Actually, that’s Costa Rica, not Hawaii. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Jack and I took a vacation there last year and stayed in this gorgeous little eco-resort. We slept in a hut right on the beach. It was amazing.” She sighed, looking at the photo, then shook her head. “Of course, that was before I lost my job, back when we had disposable income.” She laughed a bitter little laugh.

  “What?” I asked.

  Julie shrugged. “Oh, I lost my job as an investment banker last year. You know—they keep saying the recession is over, but for bankers, is it really?” She smiled, like she was making a joke, but when I didn’t laugh, the humor left her face. “Anyway . . . finances have been a lot tighter lately. In fact, Jack and I originally came out here to look for houses in the area. We’re thinking about selling our apartment in Chicago.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You can’t quite afford it anymore?” I asked, filling in the blanks.

  Julie nodded, then shifted her eyes uneasily. “And we’ll need more room for the baby,” she added. “And it won’t exactly hurt to have Jack’s parents just a few minutes away. Abby’s such a peach, she’s offered to watch the baby a few days a week for me if and when I find a new job.”

  Money problems? It seemed Jack’s potential motivation to destroy Black Creek Farm went even deeper than I thought.

  Julie smiled brightly. “Anyway,” she said, “I came upstairs to look for you because Sam just came back. He says someone vandalized the chicken coop and killed three of the chickens! Can you imagine?”

  I shook my head, then caught myself. “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no, I can’t imagine wanting to do that. But it doesn’t surprise me that it happened. I actually saw the person out there. . . .” I couldn’t help shuddering, remembering that tense moment when the intruder had looked up and seemed to spot me peeking around the coop. What would have happened if I hadn’t been able to outrun him? Or her, I reminded myself.

  Julie was watching me with sympathetic eyes. “How horrible,” she said. “I’m so glad you got back to the house safely.” She paused, shaking her head. “Honestly, I can’t believe what’s been going on at the farm these past few days! I thought coming to the country would be relaxing. But this is more stressful than the city!”

  I smiled ruefully and nodded. “Maybe you’ll need to go back and, like, listen to car alarms going off for a while to relax,” I suggested.

  Julie laughed. I noticed then that her eyes looked tired; she must have been telling the truth when she said she hadn’t been sleeping well lately. “Well, I think I’m going to take a shower,” she said, gesturing to a door that opened off the rear of the room—a private bathroom, I guessed.

  “Oh, of course,” I said, moving toward the door to the hallway. “I’m sorry to keep you. I should get downstairs to hear the latest, anyway.”

  Julie smiled as she brushed past me. I paused in the doorway, watching her flip on the light and push open the door. Just as she ducked inside I saw it, thrown over a towel rod.

  A black hoodie.

  I had to bite my lip to keep from letting out a gasp.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A Clear Message

  “NANCY, WHY ARE YOU DRIVING like a maniac?” Bess grabbed the handle on the passenger-side ceiling of my car and gave me a horrified look as I just barely missed the bumper of an old Chevy, skirting around to pass it on the right.

  It’s your fault for going so slow, I thought when I saw the driver glance up in alarm, and then scolded myself. Stop it, Nancy. Don’t be the kind of driver you hate.

  “I’m sorry, Bess,” I said. “I just really need to get home and talk this out with you and George.”

  Bess raised her eyebrows. “So you have a theory?”

  “I do. And it took so long to make our report to the police and get out of Black Creek Farm, I was beginning to think I’d never get to share it with you.”

  Bess grinned. “Well, do tell! I always love hearing the latest deductions of Nancy Drew, Super Sleuth.”

  I smirked at her. “You know I can’t tell you without George here”—Bess pretended to scowl—“but I can’t wait to tell you guys what I’m thinking. More than anything, I want to figure out our next step!”

  Bess glanced out the windshield. “Well, I’ll give you this, Nancy,” she said. “When you want to drive fast, you really do drive fast! We’re nearly at your house already.”

  Minutes later I pulled into my driveway, and we piled out and ran into the house. Pausing only to grab two oatmeal raisin cookies from the cookie jar on the counter (Thanks, Hannah!), we hightailed it up to my room, where I pulled out my own laptop.

  I pulled up the home page for my e-mail program and logged in, then opened up my in-box to start sifting through the messages I’d forwarded from Jack.

  “What are you doing?�
�� Bess asked. “Or can’t you tell me that, either, till George gets here?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “No, I’ll tell you. I forwarded myself a bunch of e-mails that Jack’s sent in the last three weeks. I’m going through them now, looking for anything suspicious.”

  “Jack,” Bess said simply. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement.

  I looked over at her. Darn, did I just give away my whole theory? “Um . . . yeah. Jack.”

  Bess nodded slowly, tapping her chin. “He was very rude at the buffet,” she said. “And then with what Lori told us . . .”

  I had turned my attention back to my computer screen, where suddenly something caught my eye. “Oh my gosh!”

  Bess jumped up from my bed and darted over to my desk to look over my shoulder at the computer screen. “What is it?”

  It was an e-mail from Jack, sent, according to the time stamp, at around four o’clock that morning.

  Dude . . .

  Look, what we’re doing is having no effect. There’s more fun planned for tonight, but I’m not sure it will work. S is too hardheaded.

  We need to talk about sending a clearer message.

  Maybe if S had an “accident” . . .

  Meet me at Coffee Cabin in River Heights this afternoon at three.

  J

  I looked up at Bess. Her mouth was hanging open.

  “An ‘accident,’ ” she said slowly. Then she made finger quotes. “ ‘Accident,’ ” she repeated.