088 False Pretenses Read online

  "Oh, Nancy!" Carla said when Nancy walked into the law firm's reception area. "Your father asked me to make sure that you see him the moment you got back."

  When Nancy pushed open the door to her father's office, she saw him sitting with his head in his hands. He lowered his hands and raised his eyes. She had never seen his face so drawn.

  "The buzzards are circling," he said. He tried to smile to take the edge off his comment, but the effort defeated him. He picked up a stack of pink message slips. "These are all from newspaper and TV reporters who want to interview me. I don't think they're calling to find out my views about the latest Supreme Court decision."

  The telephone buzzed. He picked it up, listened for a moment, then replaced it. "The police," he said, rubbing his eyes. "They asked to see me again tomorrow morning at headquarters. At least they're still asking."

  "Don't worry, Dad," Nancy said. She circled the desk and gave him a quick hug. "We're a lot closer to solving this business."

  "I heard," he said. "A missing will, eh? I wonder what the connection is to Broughton's death. Was there really a burglar after all?"

  Nancy quickly explained why that didn't seem likely, then asked, "Do you remember anything about Mrs. Carlisle's will?"

  Carson shook his head. "I'm not even sure that I drafted it," he said. "She was never a big client of the firm. I doubt if I met her more than two or three times over the years. I have a vague feeling that she planned to leave the bulk of her estate to various causes—birds, perhaps? Something like that."

  "Suppose we hadn't discovered that the will was missing?" Nancy asked. "What would have happened when she passed on?"

  "We would have hunted for the will and not found it," Carson replied. "In that case, the laws are very clear. The estate would go to her nearest living relative, whoever that might be."

  "I didn't see any mention of relatives in her file," Nancy observed.

  "She may not have any. If none come forward, after a waiting period, the state takes over the property—unless, of course, someone can prove to the court that she intended to leave it to him or her."

  "I just know that Mrs. Carlisle is the key to this," Nancy declared. "But how? Did Broughton steal her will? Or was it his killer? And in either case, why? Are you sure you can't tell me anything more about her?"

  Carson raised his palms in a gesture of helplessness. "I'm sorry, Nancy," he said. "As I told you, I doubt if I met the lady more than two or three times. I know she had the reputation of being a very shrewd businesswoman, and I seem to recall some story about a tragedy in her past, but that's it."

  Suddenly alert, Nancy asked, "What sort of tragedy?"

  "An accident of some sort. I don't recall."

  "Hmm—I wonder if whatever it was made the newspapers?" Nancy mused.

  She was about to ask about Jack Broughton's job references when there was a tap on the door. Ms. Hanson put her head in. "Oh, Nancy," she said. "There's a call for you on three from a David Megali."

  "Finally!" Nancy said. "Thanks, Ms. Hanson. Can I take it at your desk? Dad, I'll catch you later."

  She hurried out and picked up the phone. "Hi, Nancy," David said. "I got your messages today, but I've been running around like crazy."

  "That's okay," Nancy replied. "How did you track me down?"

  He laughed. "I called your house, and the woman I spoke to told me to try your father's office. Simple, huh? So, have you found out anything new?"

  "I certainly have," Nancy replied. "And it may tie in to your investigation, too."

  She told him a little about Mrs. Carlisle, though she didn't mention the missing will. When she finished, he said, "Crestwood Manor?

  I've heard of it, of course. Very upscale, very comfortable. And very profitable, too, I bet. But none of my sources has mentioned it in connection with the kind of abuses Fm researching. I don't recall the name Carlisle, either."

  "Oh. Too bad," Nancy said. The disappointment she felt took her by surprise. Had she really expected David to solve the case for her?

  "I couldn't get anything more on who spread the rumors about your father," David continued. "I have gathered a lot of other information. Some of it may help you solve your case. Why don't we meet for dinner? I'll lay it all out for you."

  Nancy's spirits lifted. "Great," she said. "But not at the Riverside. I really enjoyed our meal there, but it gave my car indigestion."

  He laughed. "Okay, then, I noticed a Middle Eastern restaurant not far from downtown," he said. "How does seven o'clock sound?"

  Nancy hesitated. "Can we make it a bit later?" she asked. "I need to go by the library first. I thought I might find some background information on Winona Carlisle in the newspaper files."

  "Sure, no problem," David replied. They agreed on the place for eight o'clock and hung up.

  After the call from David, Nancy found herself oddly troubled. She tried to calm down by checking over her notes on the case, but it didn't work. She kept finding herself staring blankly into space.

  It was time for drastic measures. She reached for the telephone and dialed Ned Nickerson's number. The rush of happiness she felt when he answered told her that this was the right prescription for what was bothering her.

  "Hi, Nancy," Ned said. "I was going to call you tonight. What's all this about somebody being killed in your father's office? I saw a story on the news last night. Are you on the case?"

  "Yes. I tried to call you earlier, but it's been hectic around here," Nancy said. She quickly filled him in on her investigation. Each time she mentioned David's name she sensed herself stumbling a little. Ned apparently noticed.

  "Tell me again who this guy David is," he said when she finished. "He's a reporter? For what paper?"

  "He's not a reporter, he's a free-lance journalist," Nancy replied. "He's written for a lot of important magazines."

  "Yeah? That's nice," Ned said dryly. "River Heights must really feel like the sticks to him, then. How long is he planning to hang around?"

  Nancy hesitated. It hadn't sunk in that David was in town for just a limited time. "I don't know—until he collects the information he needs for his article, I guess. Why?"

  "I was wondering how many more dinners you're planning to have with him," Ned said. "Tonight'll make two in a row."

  "Why, Nickerson, I think you're jealous!" Nancy said with a giggle. "You should know better. You're the one I love. But David is an experienced investigator, and I think he can help me with this case. And he is pretty cute," she added, teasing Ned.

  "He'd better keep his distance, or he won't be so cute when I'm done with him," Ned growled. "You take care of yourself, do you hear? Someone out there is a killer, and he's already made at least one try for you."

  "I'll be careful," Nancy promised. She was about to say more when the telephone buzzed. "Hold on a sec," she said, and pressed the intercom button.

  "Is that Nancy?" Carta said. "You've got a call on two. She said it's urgent."

  Nancy switched back to Ned and told him goodbye, then pressed the blinking button for the other line and said, "Hello?"

  "Nancy?" Bess said urgently. "Listen, we're at the junkyard—I mean near the junkyard, down the street—and I think we've spotted the car that tried to run you over today at the diner. You've got to come over here—right away!"

  Chapter Thirteen

  As Nancy drove out Henderson Road toward Al Fortunato's wrecking yard, she asked herself why she wasn't more excited about the discovery Bess and Kyle had apparently made. Was it because she didn't want Fortunato to be the killer? Or simply that the net of clues was drawing tighter, and she didn't think Fortunato was secured yet?

  As arranged, Bess and Kyle were waiting in Bess's car in the parking lot of the frozen yogurt stand next to the wrecking yard. Nancy pulled in alongside them, got out, and went over to order a double cone, vanilla and strawberry. She wasn't really hungry, but her sense of fairness told her that if they made use of the parking lot, they ought to buy something. Wh
en her cone came, she carried it over to Bess's car and got in.

  "I'm sure it's the same car," Bess said, almost bouncing up and down on the seat- "We almost missed it because it's partly hidden behind the office trailer. That's suspicious right there, if you ask me. Why hide a dumb old car unless you're afraid somebody might see it?"

  "What we call hiding it somebody else might call just getting it out of the way," Kyle pointed out in a let's-look-at-both-sides-of-the-question tone of voice. "We don't know it's the same car, and even if it is, what real evidence do we have to link it to Fortunato?"

  "It's in his yard, isn't it?" Bess retorted impatiently. "That's a link. And we're not going to find out if it's the same car by sitting here, yakking and eating yogurt. We have to go check it out."

  "Fortunato won't be very happy to see us again," Nancy said.

  "What if I go in first?" Kyle offered. "If he's there, I'll start asking him a lot of questions about carburetors or something. He doesn't know me, so he won't suspect anything. And while he's talking to me, you two can slip past and check out the car."

  "Good plan," Nancy said.

  They walked down the road to the big Fortune Salvage sign. Nancy and Bess waited, out of sight, while Kyle strolled into the wrecking yard. Through the hedge, Nancy could just glimpse him standing with another person who had to be Fortunato. Kyle gestured, and the two of them walked off to the left,

  "Now!" Nancy muttered. She and Bess ran into the yard. "Which way?" Nancy asked, keeping her voice low.

  "Over there," Bess replied, pointing.

  Just behind the office trailer was a familiar-looking battered blue sedan. The space on the trunk for a license plate was conspicuously empty and clean. Nancy hurried over, with Bess close behind. There were dents and scratches on the right rear fender that showed bright, unrusted metal under them. That meant they were very fresh. Nancy squatted down and examined the rear end of the car more closely.

  "Aha!" she said triumphantly. With her thumb and forefinger, she plucked a fragment of greenish safety glass from the gap between the car and the bumper.

  "I was right, this is the car!" Bess crowed.

  "What are you girls doing there?" an angry voice demanded loudly. "Get away from that car!"

  Nancy stood up and turned to face Al Fortunato. Kyle was right behind him. "Is this your car?" she asked.

  "It's on my lot, isn't it?" he retorted. "What business is it of yours?"

  Bess jumped in. "That car nearly hit Nancy just a few hours ago. Not long after we left here, as a matter of fact.'*

  "Attempted homicide is very serious," Kyle added.

  Fortunato scowled at him. "You're with them, are you?" he said. "I should have known. You talk pretty, but you don't know beans about carburetors."

  He turned back to Nancy and said, "I can see right through your game. You think you can take up where your friend left off, do you? Well, think again. I worked hard for what I have. I'm not about to hand it over to some thieving kid on account of some cock-and-bull story about being hit by a car. You look like you're in pretty good shape to me," he added.

  "Mr. Fortunato," Nancy began. "A couple of hours ago someone wearing a ski mask deliberately crashed this car into a phone booth while I was in it. I was lucky to escape without being seriously hurt."

  She pointed out the fresh dents and scratches, then showed him the piece of broken safety glass. Then she said, "This is the car that was used, and it belongs to you. Do you care to explain, or would you rather talk to the authorities?"

  Fortunato shifted uneasily and said, "I don't know anything about hitting a phone booth, and this isn't my car, anyway."

  "It's here on your lot," Kyle pointed out.

  "Yeah—well, what happens is this," Fortunato replied. "Somebody's got an old junker he wants to get rid of, but since he doesn't want the hassle of transferring the title, he'll park it outside my lot and take the plates off, then walk away from it. It happens all the time. So we just drag them inside the lot and try to make a few bucks off them."

  "Are you trying to tell us that this car was abandoned here this afternoon?" Bess demanded in a disbelieving tone.

  "I'm not trying to, sweetie—I am," he replied. "And I still think you're trying to measure me for a frame. But get this, and get it right. I won't play and I won't pay. I told your buddy that, and now I'm telling you."

  "Mr. Fortunato," Nancy said. "We have no intention of trying to frame you, or blackmail you, or anything else—really we don't. All we want is a few facts. Was Jack Broughton trying to extort money from you?"

  Fortunato studied Nancy's face. What he saw there seemed to change his mind about her and about confiding in them. "You bet he was," he said. "I guess no one ever told him not to tangle with an old junkyard dog like me. I still got a few bites left, I told him Fd rather give the dough to my dear wife's lawyers than to him."

  "I saw you downtown the night he was killed," Kyle blurted out. "You were in the coffee shop across from Mr. Drew's office."

  Fortunato pulled his head down between his shoulders. He reminded Nancy of a cross between a bulldog and a turtle.

  "What if I was?" he blustered. "I pay taxes in this town. I got a right to go wherever I want."

  Nancy sighed to herself, then said, "Mr. Fortunato, would you mind telling me why you were there?"

  He jammed his hands in his pockets and replied, "Since you ask so nicely, I'll tell you. Your buddy asked me for money, all right— lots of money. And he told me to bring it to him outside his office at six o'clock, or else. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. Finally, I made up my mind to go there and see how he liked having a few of his own teeth for dinner. But he never came downstairs. When I saw a bunch of cops show up, I decided to go on home."

  "And you never went up to the office?" Nancy persisted.

  "Ask him," Fortunato said, gesturing with his head toward Kyle. "He says he was there. Which reminds me—what were you doing there? Did Broughton try to get his hooks into you, too?"

  "That's a long story," Kyle muttered, flustered.

  "I think we'd better go," Nancy said. "Mr. Fortunato, thanks for your frankness. FU come back if I have any other questions."

  "Sure. Just don't expect answers unless I'm in the mood to give them," the wrecking yard owner replied. "It's not like you're the cops or anything. Sometimes I don't even answer their questions." He gave a deep, rumbling laugh that followed the three as they left the wrecking yard.

  Outside on the street, Bess said, "I still think—"

  "I know," Nancy said, cutting her off. "And I'm not crossing him off my list. But right now I think we have to try a different approach. It's looking more and more as though Mrs. Carlisle is at the heart of this case. How does this sound? Broughton took both copies of her will—the signed one from the vault and the one from her file—because he was hoping to extort money from her heirs."

  "You mean he got them to pay him to suppress the will so that they could inherit?" Kyle asked.

  "Could be," Nancy replied. "Now, if that's so, did he destroy the wills?"

  "Of course not," Bess contributed. "He would have needed to keep them. If they ever decided to stop paying, he could produce the will and the courts would take the inheritance back."

  Nancy snapped her fingers. "Broughton's apartment!" she exclaimed. "When I went there, I could tell it had been searched. I figured it was the police, but maybe someone else searched it, too. Someone I interrupted by showing up like that!"

  "Nancy! The one who shut you in the closet!"

  "It wouldn't surprise me," Nancy said. "And if I interrupted him—"

  Bess finished her sentence. "The will may still be there! Come on, guys, what are we waiting for!"

  The police seal was no longer on Broughton's front door, but Nancy led her two friends around to the back, where she thought they would attract less attention. Once again, opening the back door took only seconds. She held it for Bess and Kyle, then slipped through herself.
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  "Nancy, what a mess!" Bess exclaimed.

  Nancy turned. All the drawers and cabinet doors were hanging open. Most of their contents were in piles on the counter or the floor.

  "It looks like someone paid another visit," Nancy observed. "Come on. Maybe we can find something he missed."

  The living room was neater, but only because it didn't have much to mess up. The big TV and the VCR had both been turned around, as if the searcher had expected to find something hidden behind or under them. Kyle got down on the floor and ran his hand along the underside of the TV.

  "When I was a kid, I used to hide letters by taping them to the bottom of my dresser," he explained. He stood up, empty-handed, and dusted off the knees of his trousers. "I guess Jack didn't know that trick."

  "Let's try the bedroom," Nancy said, leading the way.

  The room looked as if it had gone through a hurricane. In front of the dresser was a tangled pile of shirts, socks, and sweaters. The empty drawers had been thrown on the floor. The same fury had visited the closet.

  Kyle picked up one of the suit jackets, glanced at the label, and whistled softly. "Jack had pretty expensive taste," he commented as he replaced the jacket on a wooden hanger.

  Bess helped him sort through the jackets and pants. Meanwhile, Nancy studied the old rolltop desk. All the drawers and cubbyholes were emptied. There didn't seem to be much point in retracing the rifler's steps. If he had found the missing will, he had obviously taken it away with him. If he hadn't, the reason was almost certainly that the will hadn't been in the places he searched.

  What about the places he might not have searched? This wasn't the first time Nancy had come across a rolltop desk. She recalled that some of them . . .