084 Choosing Sides Page 8

  Adrenaline pumped through Nancy's body. She couldn't stand waiting until the next morning to talk to the mayor. Setting down her apple, she flipped through her address book to find the mayor's office number. When she dialed the number, Mrs. Wellborn answered the phone.

  "I'm sorry, the mayor is gone for the day," the secretary replied in response to Nancy's question. "Would you like to leave a message?"

  Nancy hesitated. "Er, no. But could you tell me where he can be reached?*'

  "I'm sorry, but I can't," Mrs. Wellborn replied. "You'll have to try again tomorrow,"

  Frustrated, Nancy hung up. Unfortunately, she didn't have the mayor's home number. She called information and was told the number was unlisted. Next, she called Caroline Hill's campaign ofl&ce to see if she had the number, but Nancy was told the candidate was out campaigning and couldn't be reached.

  Nancy lay down on her bed. "I can't just stay at home and do nothing!" she muttered, staring up at the ceiling. There were too many leads to follow—this secret business with the mayor, and finding out more about Wayne Buckley. . . .

  Nancy sat up straight. Wayne Buckley! She could at least try to talk to him again. She picked up the receiver and dialed the number for Patrick Gleason's campaign office. If she was lucky, Ned would still be there.

  She was put on hold, and then her boyfriend came on the line. "Ned! I'm glad you're there," Nancy told him. "How would you like to take a trip to Chicago with me this evening?"

  "I don't know about that meeting tomorrow morning. Nan," Ned said several hours later, as he and Nancy drove toward Chicago. "You thought Filanowski was hiding something. He might want to meet you there so he can threaten you.'*

  Nancy took her eyes briefly from the road to look at Ned. "If he was planning to hurt me, why would he leave that incriminating message on my machine?'' she countered. "Besides, I don't have many leads in this case. I can't not go."

  "Maybe you're right," Ned reluctantly agreed. "I just don't like the idea of your going alone. But at least you asked me to come with you to Wayne Buckley's. Someone who's willing to blackmail his own sister might be dangerous."

  "He sounds pretty down and out," Nancy replied, "I'm still not sure Wayne is the one who called Steve Hill. Steve said that the guy he talked to had a deep, resonant voice, but that's about the only clue we have."

  It was after seven o'clock before they found the street where Wayne Buckley lived. Ned had to squint in the fading sunlight to read the addresses. "This is it. Nan," he said, pointing to a doorway that was below sidewalk level.

  "They live in a basement?" Nancy asked as she parked behind a rusty van.

  Kids playing baseball in the street hit their ball Ned's way. He caught it and tossed it back. "Who knows," he said to Nancy in a low voice. "Two of those kids could be Buckley's."

  Nancy nodded and went down the steps to Wayne Buckley's doorway. She heard a television on inside. When she rang the buzzer, she heard the sound switch off.

  "Who is it?" a reedy voice demanded.

  "My name is Nancy Drew. I'm here with my boyfriend, Ned,'' Nancy said loudly. "I want to talk to you about the phone call you made this afternoon to your sister, Caroline.''

  She had to wait a few moments before the door opened. The man standing there was in his early forties. His brown hair was thin and receding, and his creased face looked tired and defeated. His eyes skimmed over Nancy and Ned. Then he walked outside, went up a few steps, and looked up and down the street.

  "Caroline didn't come?" he asked, eyeing them warily.

  Nancy shook her head. Wayne seemed to think this over for a second. "I guess that's okay," he decided. He came back down the steps and led them into his living room. Then he turned around. "So is she taking me up on my oflfer?"

  Nancy and Ned stood just inside the door. In the center of the room was a huge television set and a well-worn easy chair with a racing car magazine splayed across the arm. The floor was scattered with toys, schoolbooks, and homework papers.

  Nancy decided to call his bluff. "No, Wayne, she's not dropping out of the race. I'm here to find out why you're blackmailing your sister. I doubt there even is a fencing ring. Or if there is, there's no way Caroline is involved."

  "Why are you doing this?'' Ned asked, picking up on Nancy's reasoning. "Is someone paying you?"

  Wayne grabbed an open can of soda sitting on the television set and took a big gulp. "She told you that I was lying? I figured she would," he said. "Well, it's not a lie. And nobody is paying me anything. I'm blowing the whistle on her because I don't think it's right that she should be mayor when she's committed a crime." Wayne took another swallow of soda and gave them a self-righteous look.

  Ned snorted with disbelief "Are you the one who leaked the fencing ring story that ended up in Today's Times?"

  "Yeah. So?" Wayne asked.

  Nancy stared at him. Steve Hill had said the person he spoke to had a deep voice, but Wayne Buckley's voice was pretty high. What was his game, anyway? "Then why did you give Steve Hill a doctored photograph?" she asked. "Why didn't you just send the canceled checks as proof in the first place?"

  "My mistake," Wayne replied. "I didn't think I had enough proof, so I staged that photograph with Rouse. It was a reenactment of what actually happened, only it wasn't Caroline in the photograph. But it could've been!"

  Nancy and Ned exchanged a look. "Did you know that the man in that photograph, Bobby Rouse, was murdered?" Nancy asked.

  Wayne shifted his eyes nervously. **So what? He was a hood, and he got into trouble."

  "What about Greenwood?" Nancy asked. "Is he the one who convinced you to blackmail your sister?" She knew it was a shot in the dark, but she had to try everything.

  Wayne crushed his soda can and pointed it at them. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "Look, I have proof of the fencing operation. And Fm talking about more than the canceled checks. Til show you."

  Waving for Nancy and Ned to follow, he stalked down a hallway to a doorway and flicked on the overhead light. Surrounding a narrow bed were stacks of stereo equipment boxes. Nancy looked more closely. There had to be at least a hundred CD players stashed there.

  "Yikes!" Ned whistled, running his hand over a pile of boxes. "This bundle must be worth thousands! Where did you get all these from?"

  Wayne laughed and grabbed a box. "Let's just say they fell off a truck." He fished his key chain out of his pants pocket, then slit the factory tape open with a key. "And this is just one day's shipment," he said proudly. "Caroline puts up the money that this load cost, then I turn around and sell it again for two, maybe three times that. She gets half the profit, and I get half."

  Nancy felt her stomach sink. All Wayne had to do was call Today's Times with this story, and Caroline's chances of winning would be zilch.

  "How can you prove that Caroline received any money from you?'' Nancy asked Wayne.

  "I can't, she got paid in cash," Wayne explained. He pulled a shiny black CD player out of its protective foam shell. "It's a nice little operation," he said, holding the player up for Ned and Nancy to inspect. "But I can't be doing this stuff anymore. I've got an obligation to my kids to go straight." For the first time, Nancy saw his expression soften.

  "This is pretty impressive, Wayne," Ned said lightly, looking around the room. "But do you realize how much you're hurting your sister by pretending that she's financing this operation?"

  "I'm not pretending," Wayne insisted. He shepherded Nancy and Ned out of the room ahead of him.

  Suddenly the front door banged open, and a boy who looked about eight years old zipped past Nancy and Ned. "Dad," he pleaded, hopping on one foot in front of Wayne while he juggled a baseball in his hands. "Can Suzy and I have some money for the ice cream truck? Please please please?"

  Wayne's expression softened again. He reached into his pocket, then handed the boy a few dollars. "Here," he said. "Now, make sure you share this with your sister."

  'Thanks!'' Tommy exclaimed. A
s he took the money, he accidentally dropped his ball, and it rolled into the bedroom. Tommy ran after it and dove behind a stack of CD boxes. With a look of panic, Wayne ran in after him.

  "Tommy, be careful in here!'' he shouted, just as Tommy knocked into the boxes with one knee, causing the whole stack to rock. With a light touch, Wayne quickly steadied the boxes.

  As Nancy watched from the doorway, a warning bell went off in her head. Wait a minute, she thought. Something about those boxes isn't right. Heavy audio components shouldn't be so easy to move.

  She pulled Ned aside in the living room, while Wayne shooed his son out the door. "Try to distract Wayne in the kitchen," Nancy whispered to Ned. "I want to take another look at those boxes."

  As Caroline's brother rejoined her and Ned, Nancy said, "Wayne, I'd like to get a photo of these CD players to show Caroline."

  "Sure, why not?" Wayne shrugged.

  "My camera's in the car," Nancy fibbed. "I'll be ri^t back."

  As Nancy slipped out the front door, she heard Ned ask Wayne for a drink of water. She paused outside the door for a moment, holding it open a crack until she heard the two men walk into the kitchen at the far end of the apartment. Ned was

  telling Wayne that he believed him, not Caroline, and Wayne fell for it.

  Good work, Nickerson! Nancy thought.

  Walking on tiptoe, Nancy sneaked back into the bedroom and lifted one of the boxes. It couldn't have weighed more than a few ounces— much lighter than it would be if it contained a CD player.

  The box had to be empty! No wonder Wayne had managed to steady the stack so easily.

  Reaching down, Nancy picked up the whole stack of seven CD boxes. They all felt empty.

  Her excitement built as she quickly checked the other stacks. Except for the one Wayne Buckley had opened for her and Ned, every single one was so light that Nancy knew they were empty.

  Her suspicions had been right. Wayne had filled this room with boxes so that it looked as if there was a fencing ring. But his stolen electronics story was really a big fake.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nancy's heart leapt. Finally she had some solid proof that would help prove Caroline's innocence.

  Trying to control her excitement, Nancy sneaked back to the front door. She pretended to be coming in from her car and shut the door loudly behind her. Then she walked into the kitchen, where Wayne Buckley and Ned were still talking.

  "I must have left my camera at home," she said, trying to look disappointed. She decided not to confront Wayne about the empty boxes. She was fairly certain he wasn't in this operation alone, and confronting him would give him enough time to stock up on real CD players before leaking his story to the press. Then Nancy would have a much harder time proving that the whole thing was a scam.

  Turning to Wayne, Nancy asked, "Why didn't you go directly to the newspaper with the fencing ring story in the beginning? Why did you pick Caroline's ex-husband to talk to?" ^Who?" Wayne asked.

  Steve Hill, Caroline's ex,'^ Ned explained, shooting Nancy a glance. Wayne didn't seem to know who Steve Hill was!

  "Oh, right!" Wayne said in a rush. "Steve Hill." He laughed nervously. "I knew he wasn't crazy about Caroline, so I called him. I was hoping I could avoid getting myself in trouble, but that didn't work out."

  "I see," Nancy said blandly. She was beginning to think that someone else, not Wayne, had given Steve Hill the story about Caroline. Now that person was using Wayne to back up the story.

  Wayne clapped Ned on the shoulder and escorted Nancy and Ned out onto the sidewalk. "Then I'll be hearing from Caroline tomorrow?" he asked. "I mean, she won't still run for mayor once she hears that you've seen the evidence, right?"

  "She'll call you at nine a.m,," Nancy assured him. After saying goodbye, she and Ned walked to her car.

  As they drove away, Nancy told Ned about the empty boxes.

  ''Wow! You're kidding! Well, that takes the sting out of Wayne's threat to Caroline," Ned remarked. He pulled a map of Chicago from the doorflap and consulted it for the best way back to the highway. ''What will you do now? Will Caroline confront him?"

  "I guess that's up to her," Nancy replied, stopping at a red light. "The thing is, someone else besides Wayne has to be involved in this fencing scheme. If Wayne was involved in a real fencing operation, he'd have to implicate himself as well as Caroline, which he wouldn't do. Besides, Steve Hill told Bess and me that the person who gave him the story had a deep, resonant voice."

  "Which Wayne Buckley definitely doesn't have," Ned put in. "Also, it was pretty obvious that Wayne was lying when he said he called Steve. Wayne couldn't even remember who the guy was." He pointed ahead. "Make a right here. The highway entrance is just ahead."

  Nancy nodded, turning her car to the right. "That leaves the question of who it was that Steve Hill did talk to. Could it have been Greenwood?"

  "Whoever that is," Ned added.

  "Mmm. I hope to have another lead tomorrow morning after I talk to the mayor," Nancy said. "My meeting's at eight, so maybe I can get back to Caroline with any new leads before she has to give Wayne an answer."

  Nancy certainly hoped so. Caroline's whole future could depend on it.

  Nancy woke up the next morning at six-thirty, feeling nervous. A cold, drizzling rain didn't ease her mood at all as she got in her Mustang to go meet the mayor.

  With her radio blasting rock music, Nancy drove north through town and turned onto Summit Drive, a narrow road that wound up into the hills overlooking the town. Nancy passed nothing but trees. She drove a mile or so through the rain-soaked woods to the top of the hill, where Summit Drive ended abruptly in muddy tire tracks that led into a small clearing.

  Nancy peered through her rain-blurred windshield: no sign of another car. She got out of her Mustang and pulled up the hood of her yellow rain slicker, then trudged through the mud into the clearing. She saw nothing but tree stumps, a huge boulder jutting ten feet or so out of the ground, and a sign nailed to a tree off to one side of the tire tracks.

  Looking around uneasily, Nancy walked over to read the sign. It was a legal notice stating that a hearing was scheduled for the end of the next week to rezone the land for an incinerator.

  That's odd, Nancy thought. She hadn't heard anything about an incinerator being built. Wouldn't Caroline have known about it? With her strong environmental stance, Caroline would definitely have an opinion about the effects an incinerator would have on the town's air quality.

  She read on to the end of the notice, then gasped when she saw the name of the company that had requested the hearing.

  "Greenwood Incorporated!'' Nancy said aloud. So Greenwood wasn't the name of a person at all: It was the name of a corporation.

  How did Greenwood Incorporated fit into the frame-up of Caroline and Bobby Rouse's murder? Nancy wondered. Whoever ran Greenwood would have every reason to want to make sure that Caroline wasn't elected mayor. With her record, Caroline was sure to fight any plan that would pollute the environment as much as an incinerator would.

  And that meant that whoever ran Greenwood Inc. had every reason to want Caroline to lose the election. This put a whole new angle on the case!

  Nancy's thoughts were interrupted as a black sedan pulled up behind her car. Mayor Filanowski climbed out of the car and made his way over to her.

  "Good, you're here," he said simply. "I was afraid you wouldn't show up." He was wearing a black raincoat, a hat, and boots.

  "Of course I came," Nancy said, turning her face up in the rain to look at him. "And my guess is that you didn't call me up here to yell at me for fooling you. Am I right?"

  "Oh, that." Filanowski chuckled. "I think

  Miss Carlton was the one who was most upset. We both found out we'd been fooled when she called me to confirm her appointment on Friday, Somehow, she figured out that it was you." The mayor started walking into the clearing. "That's when I realized that you were that young detective Fve heard so much about."

  Nanc
y walked alongside the mayor. "Why did you want to talk to me?"

  Filanowski smiled. "FU get to that in a second," he told her. "Let's climb up on this rock. You can get a good view of the city from here."

  Trying to keep her curiosity in check, Nancy started up the rock. The climb wasn't steep, but the rock was slick under Nancy's grip as she scrabbled up. "Are you sure you should be doing all this with your heart condition?" Nancy asked, giving Filanowski a hand up.

  "No, I'm not," he grunted, "so don't tell my doctor." At the top he stood and looked around. All around them were trees. At the foot of the hill, Nancy could make out the gray outline of River Heights through the rain.

  "Nancy," the mayor began, gazing out, "I had to wait until this morning to tell you because I wanted to make one more attempt to convince an old friend that what he was doing was wrong. Unfortunately, he wouldn't listen to me."

  Convince who? Nancy wanted to shout. And what's he doing? But she had a feeling the mayor wouldn't be hurried, so she kept quiet.

  "He's been my friend since he moved here ten years ago/' Filanowski went on. "He's done very well in business, and he's made many generous contributions to the town, including a new hospital wing. Then, six months ago, he came to me with an idea: He wanted to build an incinerator on this site, to bum the town's garbage. However, he didn't want to follow the city's restrictions on the amount that he could bum."

  "That's not fair—" Nancy started to say, but the mayor held up a hand to silence her.

  "My friend convinced me to loosen the regulations and allow him to sell his incinerator service to other cities as well as River Heights. Chicago, for instance, is desperate to get rid of its excess garbage. That way, he could make a much bigger profit. In return, he planned to donate money to build a new public library for the city."