“What?” Nancy blinked. “It was never found? No sign that Gleason had spent any of it? They couldn’t trace it to any bank account?”
Carson shook his head. “During the investigation, the district attorney tried to find the money, but it had simply disappeared.” He paused. “But that’s not all.”
“What do you mean?” Nancy asked.
“There was a strange twist to the case,” Carson began.
“What?” George asked. Bess and Hannah looked on expectantly.
“The twist was that if Gleason had told the DA where the money was he could’ve received a suspended sentence,” Carson said.
“But he didn’t,” Nancy mused. “Why not?”
Nancy’s father leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Because he insisted right up to the end that he was innocent and that he’d been framed.” Carson looked across at Nancy and waited for this last piece of news to sink in.
Nancy knew why her father had waited to tell them the most important aspect of the case. If Gleason was truly innocent, Allard might be guilty—and whoever was harassing her father could be thinking the same thing.
Carson continued. “The district attorney tried to get Gleason to tell him where the money was, but Gleason said he didn’t have a clue.”
“And what do you think?” Nancy wasn’t going to let her father stop now.
“I’m not sure, Nancy,” Carson said, rising. “But one thing I do know: It’s getting late, and Bess and George ought to be heading home before their parents start to worry.”
Bess took her cue. “You’re right, Mr. Drew. Let’s get going, George.”
Bess and George went into the hallway to get their coats. After thanking Carson for dinner again, George took Nancy aside in the hallway.
“Is your dad going to be okay?” she asked. “I’m a little worried about him.”
Nancy gave George a hug, then stood back and faced the cousins. “I know, guys. So am I. But between us we’re going to get to the bottom of this,” she said with conviction.
The phone rang, making them all jump.
Nancy reached out to grab it before Hannah or her dad could pick it up.
“Drew residence,” she said into the receiver.
A sinister voice spoke slowly on the other end.
“Carson Drew defended a guilty man and got him off. I know why. And how. Now it’s time for him to pay for his mistake!”
Chapter
Three
IN ONLY A SECOND Nancy had pulled herself together. Now wasn’t the time to lose her cool, she thought. Not when she had the caller on the phone.
“What do you mean, you know why?” she asked, keeping her voice steady.
“He’s going to pay,” the voice repeated. “You tell him—”
Carson Drew must have known what was happening, because before Nancy could hear what the caller had to say, her father had pulled the phone from her hand.
“Listen,” he told the caller. “If you have something to say, tell me. Otherwise, I’m going to start tracing these calls and have you arrested for harassment.” He slammed the phone down into its cradle.
“We should have let him talk, Dad. We might—” Nancy began.
Carson interrupted her. “Hold on,” he said, facing George, Bess, Nancy, and Hannah, who were standing in a semicircle by the phone. “This isn’t anything for you to worry about. You have to let me take care of this. That includes you, Nancy.”
Nancy lowered her eyes and stared at a corner of the rug. When her father sounded that serious, she knew that she had to pay attention.
“But, Mr. Drew,” George said, “Nancy could help you find out who’s behind this.”
“George, I understand why you’re concerned. But chances are that if we don’t take these people seriously, they’ll go away. Now you should be heading home, don’t you agree?”
Nancy, Bess, and George exchanged a quick look. Carson Drew obviously didn’t want them getting involved. The two girls put on their coats and said good night.
After her friends had left and Hannah had gone off to bed, Nancy tried asking her father one last question. “There’s one thing that still bothers me: Why do you think the money wasn’t found?”
“I don’t know,” Carson said with a sigh. “Probably because Gleason had hidden it well—maybe in a Swiss bank account.”
“But what good would it do him in jail?”
“He wouldn’t be in jail forever,” Carson explained. “He stole quite a bit of money, but his sentence wasn’t long—five to fifteen years. He’s probably out on parole by now.”
Gleason would be able to use the money when he got out of prison, Nancy realized. Then another thought occurred to her. “Do you think there’s any chance at all that Allard was guilty?”
“It’s possible, Nancy,” Carson said. A deep frown cut across his forehead. “But I honestly never found any evidence that he was. And if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have suppressed it.”
Nancy’s father stood up and stretched. “Now I think you should go to bed. It’s been a long day. And, Nancy—”
“Yes?” she asked.
“Don’t even think that this may be a case for you to solve, okay?” he said pointedly. “In my experience, it’s always better to ignore this sort of thing.”
Nancy kissed her father on the cheek. “I hope you’re right, Dad. Good night.” But as she went upstairs to bed, Nancy resolved that this was one case she wasn’t going to turn down, no matter what her father said.
• • •
Once her father had left the house the next morning, Nancy got to work. She had a lot to do.
After dressing in jeans, a peach cotton sweater, and sneakers, she called Chief McGinnis at the River Heights Police Department.
Her plan was to find out where Robert Gleason was and then go on from there. There were a few people who could know enough about the trial to make the kind of threats her father had gotten. Still, Robert Gleason was as good a person to start with as any.
“What can I help you with, Nancy?” The chief’s voice came on the line after Nancy had been on hold for a short time.
“I need some information about a former client of my father’s.”
“What do you need to know?” McGinnis asked.
“I need his address. My father thinks he’s been released on parole and wants to make sure he’s got a job and all. Dad’s busy, so I told him I’d help him out.”
“Well, it’s a little unusual.” The chief paused, then asked, “What’s the name?”
“Gleason. Robert Gleason.” Nancy waited.
“Hold on a second. I’m looking it up on the computer. Here we are. Robert Gleason. Yep, he was released three weeks ago. His parole officer lists his address as 1476 East Main, Apartment Five-A.”
Nancy recognized the address as being in one of River Heights’s more run-down neighborhoods. Gleason probably wasn’t doing too well.
“Thanks, Chief,” Nancy said, getting ready to hang up.
“Nancy, wait a minute. I think I ought to give you a word of warning: If you just happen to be on a case and don’t want to tell me because you think I might ‘interfere,’ you’d better come clean. Checking into a guy with a record can be tricky.”
“Honestly, I’m just trying to help my father out,” Nancy said.
“Okay, Nancy,” he said. “I sure hope I don’t find out otherwise.”
Nancy smiled. She hoped so, too. “Right. Thanks again.” She and Chief McGinnis had a lot of respect for each other, but he didn’t always appreciate being shown up by an eighteen-year-old detective.
She quickly ran a brush through her hair. Now that she knew where to find him, she didn’t want to waste any time tracking down Robert Gleason. She grabbed her jean jacket from the closet, snatched her purse from the bureau, and headed out the door.
Nancy was halfway between her house and Robert Gleason’s apartment when something Chief McGinnis had said came back to her.
br /> Robert Gleason was released from prison three weeks earlier. The phone calls to her house had started about two weeks ago. If the two events were coincidental, it was uncanny.
As she turned down East Main, Nancy decided that Robert Gleason had the most to gain by accusing Carson Drew of withholding evidence. There was a good chance that once he was out of jail, Gleason might try to prove he was innocent.
There had to be a connection between his release and the phone calls, Nancy thought as she looked for a parking place near 1476 East Main Street.
She slammed on her brakes as she approached the building. Four police cars and an ambulance were parked right in front of it. Police officers were milling around on the sidewalk in front of the building.
As Nancy watched, the rear doors of the ambulance were yanked shut and the van pulled away from the curb and roared off, siren blaring.
Nancy walked over to the nearest police car and approached a detective whose badge read Ryan.
“What happened here?” she asked. “Some kind of accident?”
Detective Ryan looked Nancy up and down. “Not exactly. Some poor guy jumped or fell from his apartment. It looks like it probably was a suicide.” He shook his head slowly. “Sad, really.”
A feeling of dread washed over Nancy. “Who was it?” she asked. “Do you know his name?”
Detective Ryan glanced at Nancy with a confused expression. “You seem pretty curious about all this. Unfortunately, I have a lot to do here. You’ll probably read about it in the paper.” He turned and started to walk away.
Nancy followed him. “Please. I’ve got to know his name,” she begged breathlessly.
“Okay,” Detective Ryan said finally. “Since it’s so important to you. His name was Gleason. Robert Gleason.”
Chapter
Four
NANCY DREW IN a sharp breath. “Oh, no,” she murmured. “It’s not possible—”
Ryan reached out and put a comforting hand on Nancy’s arm. “Was he a relative of yours?” he asked.
“No,” Nancy answered slowly. “No, I didn’t know him.” She looked beyond the detective to where several police were standing guard outside Gleason’s building. “Did he leave a note?” she found herself asking.
“Yes, he did,” Ryan said. He gave Nancy a curious look. “Let me ask you something—if you didn’t know him, why are you so interested?”
Nancy wasn’t too keen on explaining what she was doing outside Gleason’s building or why she wanted to know so much about him. “I was really just curious,” she explained.
Ryan continued to look at her carefully. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I thought I recognized you—now I know why. You’re Nancy Drew, the detective, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” Nancy said. “I was driving by, and I suppose you could say my instincts took over. If there’s anything I can help with—”
“That’s okay,” Ryan answered with a smile. “I’d be happy for your help if I needed it, but you can leave this one to us.”
Nancy could tell she wasn’t going to get any more information out of Ryan, so she didn’t press the point.
She slowly crossed the street and headed back to her car, thinking. Now that Robert Gleason was dead, it would be really hard to find out what connection, if any, he had to the harassment of her father. Unless . . .
She could check out his apartment for evidence. The police were probably making a sweep of the place now. Still, there was a good chance she’d find something they’d missed because they wouldn’t be looking for the same things.
Several police officers were still standing in front of Gleason’s building talking with Detective Ryan. He put out his arms to usher them toward the door. Now was her chance.
Nancy dashed across the street and darted around Gleason’s building to the alley that ran behind it. On the back wall of the building she spied a short flight of steps that led down to a gray metal door with a single grimy window. She could just make out an elevator to the right in the basement. Lights above the elevator showed it was stopped at the fifth floor. Gleason’s floor.
After trying the door and finding it locked, Nancy darted back up the stairs to look at the building to find another way in. She hadn’t brought her lock-pick tools with her because she’d only planned on having a chat with Gleason, not on breaking into his building.
Looking up, Nancy saw her way in—a fire escape. All she had to do now was jump up, pull the ladder down, and make her way up the metal stairs.
Nancy pressed herself against the building and cast a quick glance around the corner to make sure no one was observing her. Then she sprung up and just reached her fingertips around a metal bar. She hung on, and her weight pulled the stairs down to the cement alley. She stole up the rusted fire escape that creaked a whining protest at each of her steps.
Within a matter of minutes Nancy was standing outside the fifth floor window. She peered in and saw three police officers standing at the point where the two halls met. Gleason’s apartment had to be down there. There was no way for her to get inside the apartment while the police were standing guard.
Nancy waited, remaining flat against the brick wall and peering in the window regularly to see if the police had gone. Finally, after twenty minutes of waiting, Nancy saw two detectives and four officers head for the back stairs that were in her view.
“It’s about time,” Nancy whispered to herself. She had begun to think she’d never get inside.
After allowing the officers a minute or two to go down the stairs—they didn’t bother to wait for the elevator—Nancy pushed up the window and ducked into the hall.
She tiptoed quickly down the hall and around the corner to Gleason’s apartment. The police had left the door open, and that meant they were coming back. She’d have to work fast.
Inside, Nancy found that her suspicions had been right. The whole place was turned upside down, leaving little or no chance of her finding anything. She scanned the threadbare apartment, taking in its few mismatched pieces of furniture and the dirty, stained rug.
She stepped into the small kitchen and searched through the cabinets, but found only a box of cereal and two packages of spaghetti. Inside the almost bare refrigerator a cold light glowed on a quart of milk and a can of coffee.
I don’t even know what I hoped to find, she thought. Still, she forced herself to continue her search. She checked under the sofa cushions, knocked on every wall for a hidden panel, and even looked inside the toilet tank. Nothing.
Finally she moved to the window that faced the street. Gleason’s apartment was on a corner. One side looked out over the passageway between the buildings, but the other had a view of the street. She thought she ought to keep an eye on the activities of the police while she planned her next move.
As Nancy pulled back the frayed curtain, searching for any sign of activity below, something fell to the floor right next to her feet.
“What in the world—?” She bent down and picked up a small, red notebook. It must have been hidden on the window frame and was dislodged when she moved the curtain. Flipping the book open, she saw that it was an appointment book, with dates, names, addresses, and phone numbers written on several pages.
Before Nancy sat down to look at the book more closely, she glanced down at the street. There were no police officers in sight. That meant they had reentered the building, and Nancy had to beat it before she got caught. She slipped the book into her bag.
Her heart beating double time, Nancy stole to the door and inched it open. Peering down the hall, she saw no one, but she did hear the steady march of feet ascending the stairs. Perhaps six or seven people were closing in on the fifth floor.
Easing the door back, she slid out and tore down the hall. Head down, she barrelled around the corner and pulled up short, right against a blue serge uniform with brass buttons. She was caught!
“Hi,” she managed to say.
“Hi, there, yourself,” the young officer said. “Look
s like you put on the brakes just in time.”
Nancy smiled and said, “Looks like it.” She moved slowly toward the elevator and popped in just as the first detective moved through the doorway.
As Nancy walked out the front door, her attention was drawn to a loud argument between a lone police officer and a girl and boy. They were standing just to the right of the entrance to Gleason’s building.
Nancy skipped down the steps and stopped abruptly. She bent down and pretended to retie her left shoelace.
She listened as a pretty girl with long auburn hair, just about her age, spoke with the police officer. With the girl was a slightly older boy, also good-looking, dressed in an auto mechanic’s uniform that didn’t hide the fact that he was in great shape.
“I don’t believe it,” the girl was saying. “It’s not possible. He couldn’t have— Oh, Chris, why is this happening to us now?” She started to cry, and the boy put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her close.
“I think we’d better leave, Kate. You’re not in any condition to answer questions,” he said firmly.
“But I have to make them understand,” the girl said tearfully. “I talked to him just a few days ago. He was happier than I can remember him being in a long time.”
“You don’t think your father could have killed himself?” the police officer asked her gently.
Nancy stood up and bent down again, pretending her other shoelace needed retying. These must be Robert Gleason’s kids, she thought.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” the girl answered.
“Do you have any kind of proof?” the officer asked, pulling out his pad and pencil.
“What kind of proof can you give that someone didn’t kill himself? He was happy, that’s all, and I know he wouldn’t take his life,” Kate answered.
“Kate,” the boy said, quietly admonishing her. “I think the best thing would be for us to go home and let the police get on with their investigation.”
As she watched the girl wipe the tears from her eyes, Nancy thought about what she had said. Apparently, Kate Gleason thought her father had been murdered. If she had a reason for thinking so, Nancy wanted to know what it was.