Bum. The word leapt out at Nancy. That was why the name Bill had sounded so familiar, she realized. Sheila the waitress had told her about the homeless man, Old Bill, disappearing at the same time Nick Lazlo had gone overboard.
“That’s it! That’s the missing piece of the puzzle!” Nancy exclaimed. She suddenly grabbed Stan and gave him a big hug. “Now I know who Bill Jobeson is. He’s the bum who hung around City Dock!”
When she and Ned told Stan about their conversation with the waitress, the private detective’s mouth dropped open.
“My guess is someone’s out there pretending to be Bill Jobeson,” Nancy finished excitedly. “The way Sheila talked, Old Bill was pretty crazy and had no family. Someone could have been using his name all this time. Someone who knew the real Bill Jobeson well enough to know he no longer had family, friends, a car, a job. Someone who hung around City Dock and the Irish tavern. Someone like Nick Lazlo.”
Ned snapped his head up. “Nick Lazlo! Are you saying he took on Bill Jobeson’s identity?”
“Yes!” Nancy exclaimed. “That’s why the police never found Nick’s body and why we found drips on the path, as if someone had swum from the boat.”
“But what about the blood?” Stan asked.
Nancy spread her hands wide. “Easy! Just like Parker said, I bet Nick really did cut himself—except that it wasn’t an accident, it was on purpose. After leaving the trail of blood, he swam from his sailboat to shore, climbed up to the cliff, shot a hole in the boat, planted the gun, and then disappeared.”
Nancy looked from Stan to Ned, then back again. “Nobody shot Nick Lazlo. He arranged the whole thing himself because he wanted everyone to think he was dead!”
Chapter
Fourteen
THE IDEA had come to Nancy so suddenly that she was still reeling from the shock of it.
“That’s why the crime was set up so perfectly!” she continued, waving her hands in the air. “I kept suspecting Annabel because I thought she was the only person who knew Nick and Andy well enough to plan the shooting. But who would know Nick better than Nick himself!”
Glancing at Ned, Nancy saw that he was staring at her as if she’d gone crazy. But Stan was rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
“I think you’ve got something there, Ms. Drew.”
“Still, there’s no proof that Nick Lazlo is alive,” Ned said doubtfully.
“That’s only because no one’s looked for it,” Nancy replied. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that her theory was right. “If we go on the hunch that he’s alive, the evidence may make more sense.”
Ned still looked unconvinced. “But why would Nick fake his own death? He and Andy just designed their new boat. If it was a success, their business would explode.”
“If it was a success,” Nancy said. “You heard Andy after the race. The Skipper’s Surprise didn’t perform nearly as well as he thought she should, and yet the boat seemed to be shipshape. What if Nick discovered that his dream boat wasn’t a dream boat after all and that they’d sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into it for nothing?”
For a second Stan silently stroked his mustache. “But how does Nick figure in with the stolen boats?” he asked. “And what is he planning to do next?”
“Probably only Nick Lazlo knows the answers to those questions,” Nancy said grimly.
Swinging around, Stan opened the driver’s door to his sedan. “Come on, we’ll drop Andy’s car at his house. Then we have some things to check out. If we’re going to convince the police that Nick Lazlo’s alive, we’d better be armed with a lot of proof!”
• • •
“Uh, are we all going in there?” Ned asked in a nervous voice an hour later. Stan had parked his sedan in front of a tin shed at the end of an abandoned pier west of the City Dock. The shed’s roof was partially caved in, and the siding was rusted from the salty water.
When they had questioned Sheila at the tavern, she had directed them to the shack, saying it was the only home Old Bill had ever mentioned. No one wanted to say out loud what they were all thinking—that Bill Jobeson might be in there, dead.
Before Stan could answer, Nancy opened the car door. “I’m going in, that’s for sure. If there’s any proof in that shack that Old Bill is Bill Jobeson, it might take some careful searching to find it.”
Clutching her shoulder bag to her side, Nancy climbed out and started toward the shed, hoping she would not find a dead body inside. Behind her, two car doors slammed shut as Stan and Ned both jumped from the car and jogged after her. She breathed a sigh of relief that they were with her.
As she slowly opened the shed door, a shaft of light cut into the pitch black of the interior, illuminating a cot piled with dirty blankets. An overturned crate stood next to the cot. Flies buzzed around a half-empty can of tuna. There was no sign of anyone.
Nancy let out her breath.
“Whew.” Stan waved the air as he stepped into the shack. “Old Bill wasn’t much of a housekeeper.”
“Let’s do this quickly,” Nancy said. She gingerly lifted the blankets and musty pillow on the cot. Behind her, she could hear Stan checking out a pie of junk thrown in a corner. Ned was grumbling about the smell as he hunted around the crate.
Stooping, Nancy felt underneath the cot with her hand. “What’s this?” she asked as her fingers touched metal. “Hey, I think I’ve got something.”
She pulled out the object and saw that it was a dog tag on a chain. Taking it into the sunlight, Nancy read the tag out loud. “Bill Jobeson,” she said, looking up at Ned and Stan.
“Wow. Now we have positive proof that the real Bill Jobeson is the bum Sheila was talking about,” Stan stated. “Or at least he was.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” Ned asked. He seemed relieved to step back out of the shed behind Nancy.
Stan shut the shed door behind them. As they started for his car, he said, “Could be. I’ll call my buddy at the morgue. Maybe he can clear this up for us.”
• • •
Fifteen minutes later Nancy, Ned, and Stan were on their way to their next stop. Already they’d discovered another piece to the puzzle. The previous Thursday a couple of fishermen had come across the shack and found Bill Jobeson’s body in his bed. He had died of natural causes. Since there was no ID on him, Stan’s friend had said, he’d been kept in the morgue as a John Doe.
“At least now they can put a name on his cemetery marker,” Nancy said quietly.
As they drove, Nancy stared intently at the notes Stan had made of Bill Jobeson’s credit card purchases.
“Our bogus Bill Jobeson has made several purchases at the Chessie Marina. That suggests that he’s a sailor,” she said. “Like Nick Lazlo.”
Stan abruptly steered his car onto the side of the road. “Hand me the receiver of my car phone. I’m going to call the Chessie Marina and pretend I’m Bill Jobeson. They might just unknowingly tell us something.”
While he dialed, Nancy turned in the car seat. “Maybe by this evening we’ll have enough evidence to clear Andy. Then we’ll be able to enjoy that moonlight sail Andy suggested.” She checked her watch. “We’re supposed to meet everyone at the City Dock in two hours.”
Ned peered out the car window. “If the weather stays like this, I think it’ll be more like a picnic under the clouds.” Over the course of the day, gray clouds had begun to cover the sky. Now it was beginning to look as if it might rain.
“Hello, this is Bill Jobeson,” Stan spoke into his ear phone, bringing Nancy’s attention back to his call. “I’m calling about the purchases I made last Friday.”
There was a long pause. Nancy watched as Stan’s eyes widened. “Thanks,” the private investigator said in a level voice. But when he hung up and turned toward Nancy and Ned, he could barely contain his excitement.
“Chessie Marina just gave us the lead we need!” he said. “When I told them I was Bill Jobeson calling about the purchases I’d made last week, they said that
the new Sabre Forty sailboat that Ms. O’Halloran and I bought would be ready by tonight!”
For a second, Ned and Nancy were too stunned to speak. “Nick and Leah are in this together?” Nancy finally gasped.
“So that must have been Nick we saw in the parking lot with Leah!” Ned exclaimed. “I never would have recognized him in that disguise.”
“We’ll soon find out if it was Nick,” Stan declared, pulling back onto the road again. “Our next stop is to see Ms. Leah O’Halloran. I think our ‘grieving’ widow has some explaining to do.”
• • •
“No one’s home,” Stan announced a short time later, joining Ned and Nancy on the front porch of Leah O’Halloran’s house.
After parking the car across the street from the house, Stan had knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, he’d walked around back while Nancy and Ned waited on the porch.
“The guy at Chessie Marina said the boat wouldn’t be ready until tonight,” Ned said. “Let’s hope that means she’s still around.”
Standing on tiptoe, Nancy looked into the small square window in the door. “This would be a good time to take a peek inside,” she suggested. She opened her shoulder bag, pulled out her lock-picking kit, and quickly opened the door.
Stan chuckled as he stepped inside behind her. “Nice job, Nancy. Anytime you need a partner, give me a call.”
Inside, the house was cool and dark. All the curtains had been drawn, and the windows were shut tight. Nancy glanced into the small living room to the left of the foyer. The only furniture was a gray sofa and one end table. It didn’t look as if Leah had planned to stay long.
“I’ll start upstairs,” Nancy said. She sprinted up the steps by twos, while Stan headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll stay here as lookout,” Ned volunteered.
Upstairs, Nancy looked for the bedroom that seemed the most lived-in. When she stepped into the largest bedroom, she saw two canvas suitcases on the bed. She quickly unzipped a maroon one and ran her hands through the layers of clothes. Shorts, sandals, sundresses, T-shirts. Definitely clothes for a cruise, Nancy decided.
Suddenly her fingers felt something flat and stiff. Closing her hand around two thin rectangular booklets, she pulled them out. She immediately recognized that they were United States passports.
With trembling fingers, Nancy opened the first one. A picture of Leah O’Halloran stared back at her. Dropping it back into the suitcase, Nancy opened the other passport. Even though the person in the photo had a beard, she easily recognized Nick Lazlo. The name on his passport was Bill Jobeson.
“Bingo,” Nancy murmured. “We have our proof.”
“Nancy!” She jumped at the sound of Ned’s urgent voice. “Leah’s car just turned up the drive.”
Quickly Nancy zipped up the first suitcase and opened the second one. If she could just find a brochure or map that gave some clue as to Leah and Nick’s destination.
Nancy was checking a side pocket of the suitcase when she heard the front door open. Leah was in the house already!
Nancy hoped Ned and Stan had had a chance to hide. Still holding Bill’s passport, she zipped up the suitcase. Her heart beating rapidly, she stepped into the hall and frantically looked for a place to hide.
From downstairs came the tap-tapping of high heels as Leah walked across the wooden floor of the foyer. Nancy caught her breath as she heard the first scrape of a shoe on the staircase. Leah was coming upstairs. In a moment she was going to catch Nancy red-handed!
Chapter
Fifteen
THE TAPPING grew louder and quicker. Running as silently as she could, Nancy darted for the front bedroom. She flattened herself against the wall, hiding behind the open door. Then, hardly daring to breathe, she listened.
Sharp footsteps tapped rapidly down the hall and into the other bedroom. “Hi, it’s me,” Nancy heard a woman’s voice say. Leah had to be talking on the phone, Nancy guessed. She had seen one on the bedside table.
“Yeah, that nosy chick and the private eye were in the tavern asking Sheila a lot of questions,” Leah was saying.
So Leah had been hanging around the tavern. Which meant she could have been there the night Nancy had been knocked into the water.
“You’re right, we have to get out of here now . . . Yeah, fine. Meet you at the marina in an hour.”
A few minutes later Nancy heard footsteps in the hall. Leah was going downstairs, Nancy thought. She heard the front door open, close with a loud bang, and then heard it being locked.
Moving from her hiding place, Nancy quickly ran to the front window in the room. Leah was putting the two suitcases into the trunk of her sports car. When Nancy saw her get into the car and start the motor, she hurried downstairs. From the living room window, she could see Leah back the car out of the drive, then turn left and speed off.
Nancy unlocked the front door, then ran onto the porch. Ned was coming around the corner of the house from the back, with Stan right behind him.
“Leah knows we’re onto her,” Nancy quickly explained. “I heard her tell someone to meet her at the marina in an hour.”
“Who’s she going to meet?” Stan asked.
Nancy pulled the passport from her purse and held it out to the private investigator. Ned was looking over Stan’s shoulder when he opened it, and the two gasped in unison.
“So you were right about Lazlo being alive, Nancy,” Ned said, shaking his head in amazement.
“Let’s follow Leah to the marina,” Stan said. He started across the lawn toward his sedan.
“No!” she blurted out. “If we tip Leah off even more, the two could ditch their current plans and disappear forever.”
Stan stopped in his tracks. “You’re right.” We’d better get to the police instead. After we show them that passport, they’re not going to let Mr. Lazlo get very far.”
“If they can catch him,” Nancy said grimly. “By the time we convince the police, and they notify the Coast Guard, Leah and Nick will have a head start down the Chesapeake Bay.”
“So what now?” Ned asked.
Suddenly Nancy had an idea. “Stan, where is Chessie Marina?”
“About two miles south of Annapolis. Why?”
“Andy’s meeting us at the City Dock with his sailboat,” Nancy explained as she started to jog toward Stan’s car. “You can drop Ned and me there and then head to the police station. Do everything in your power to convince them that Nick Lazlo is alive and about to disappear to some tropical island.”
“And what have you cooked up for us?” Ned asked Nancy when he caught up with her at the car.
“We’re going to follow Leah and Nick.”
Ned frowned. “But you just said that would tip them off.”
Nancy grinned mischievously. “Not if we’re tailing them with another boat!”
• • •
“Nick’s alive?” Annabel exclaimed when Nancy and Ned met Andy, Bess, Parker, and Annabel at the City Dock and broke the news to them. Throwing back her head, Annabel burst out laughing. Then abruptly her expression hardened. “That no-good, two-timing jerk. I just hope he’s not running off with any of my money!”
When she boarded the sailboat, Nancy glanced over at Andy. He seemed stunned. Parker and Bess were sitting next to him in the cockpit. Parker had his arm around Andy’s shoulders, trying to comfort him.
“I can’t believe Nick did this to me,” Andy said in a low voice. He sounded furious, but Nancy knew that he must be deeply hurt, as well. His childhood friend and partner had stolen money from their business and then set up Andy to take the rap for a murder that had never even happened.
Suddenly Andy jumped up and grabbed the wheel of the Skipper’s Surprise. “Let’s go get him,” he said tersely. “I want to be face-to-face with that traitor when I ask him why he did this to me—to us,” he corrected himself. His steely gaze settled on Annabel, who was still on the dock. She nodded and without a word started to untie the bowline.
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The chase was on.
“Chessie Marina’s just around the bend!” Andy shouted half an hour later through the increasing wind.
The Skipper’s Surprise ripped through the waves of Chesapeake Bay. Thunderheads churned in the darkening sky now, and Nancy could smell approaching rain. The group had donned yellow storm gear and prepared the sailboat for the worst. In the cabin, every loose object had been stowed or secured.
The bad weather might be to their advantage, Nancy reflected as she grabbed for a handhold during a rough pitch. They might be able to tail Leah and Nick without the two knowing.
“So what’s the plan?” Annabel called from where she was standing beside Andy at the wheel. “Are we going to try to follow them?”
“Uh, can you drop us off somewhere first?” Bess asked. She and Parker were huddled next to each other in the cockpit. They both looked green.
Nancy reached across the seat and squeezed Bess’s hand. Her friend’s fingers were ice cold. “Maybe you and Parker should go down into the cabin,” Nancy suggested.
Annabel gave Bess and Parker a quick look. “There are some seasickness pills in the medicine chest,” she told them. For once, Nancy didn’t notice any sarcasm in her voice.
“Good idea,” Bess mumbled. She grabbed Parker’s hand, and the two stood up. Weaving and swaying with the boat, they clumsily made their way down the ladder and into the galley, then closed the hatch behind them.
“There’s the marina!” Andy cried. Nancy could see rows of sailboats and powerboats moored there. “Now what?” Andy asked.
“Now we wait,” Nancy told him. Pushing up the sleeve of her slicker, she checked her watch. “If it took Leah an hour to get here, they should have their gear stowed and be ready to sail any minute.”
Annabel pointed left toward Chesapeake Bay. “We’ll sail in small circles until we see them. We’re just north of the marina. They’ll be headed south, so they probably won’t even look this way.”
“And if they do, they won’t recognize the Skipper’s Surprise, anyway,” Andy put in. “It’s getting too dark. Besides”—he gestured to the stern of the boat—“I’ve covered up the name with a tarp.”