Crown Drive was on the outskirts of the peaceful little town, and the DeCamp house was at the end of it. The brick house was large and imposing, with a long graveled driveway bordered with roses. It was a house that had been built by somebody who had plenty of money, and it had a peaceful, serene air. But Nancy had the feeling that the peace and serenity were only an appearance. Underneath, there was something else. Darla had lived here, and now she was dead. And Nancy suspected that the last few weeks of her life had been anything but peaceful and serene.
Nancy rang the doorbell. After a few minutes, a thin, dark-haired man opened the door a crack. His hair was disheveled and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a week.
“If you’re a reporter, go away,” he said gruffly. “I won’t talk to you.”
“I’m not a reporter,” Nancy told him. “My name is Nancy Drew. I’m a private detective from River Heights. I know that this is a very difficult time, but I’d like to ask you a few questions about your daughter, if you don’t mind.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I do mind,” he said, and began to close the door.
“Please, Mr. DeCamp,” Nancy pleaded. “I know this is hard for you, but with your help, justice can be done and—”
“Justice!” Mr. DeCamp spat out the word. “My daughter is dead! Justice can never bring her back again! Don’t talk to me about justice!”
“Perhaps I can help,” Nancy said softly. She opened her bag and pulled out the photo of Mike, holding it up. “Can you identify this man?”
Mr. DeCamp stared at the photo, the color draining from his face until it was pasty white. “Yes,” he said, swallowing hard. The Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his thin neck. “That’s the man who killed my daughter!”
Chapter
Twelve
SO SHE WAS murdered,” Nancy said softly.
“Yes, but the police won’t admit it,” Mr. DeCamp said, his shoulders slumping. He opened the door. “I guess you’d better come in.”
Mr. DeCamp led Nancy down a short hall and into a thickly carpeted and elegantly furnished living room that stretched the width of the house. A woman in a burgundy housecoat lay on a velvet sofa, listlessly watching a soap opera on television. On top of the television set was a gold-framed picture of a vibrantly attractive young girl, with soft brown eyes and a dimpled smile. A small bouquet of fresh flowers was arranged beside the picture.
Mr. DeCamp turned off the TV. “We’ve got company, Emily,” he said gently. “This young lady has come to talk to us. Her name is Nancy Drew, and she knows something about—” He cleared his throat. “About Pete Mitchell.”
“I don’t want to talk about that man!” Mrs. DeCamp wailed. She put her hands over her eyes. “If the police won’t do anything about him, what can we do?”
“Pete Mitchell?” Nancy asked. “Is that the name he was using here in Batesville?”
Mr. DeCamp nodded. He dropped down into a chair and motioned to Nancy to take the one across from him. “What do you know about him?”
“I know that he has a history of duping young women,” she said. “He apparently romances them, then somehow convinces them to give him money, and pulls out of town. Your daughter wasn’t the first one he conned, but if I wrap this case up quickly, she might be the last.”
Mrs. DeCamp sat up. Her hair was tousled and her eyes were bloodshot. “Tell her, Howard,” she said urgently. She pounded her fists on her knees. “Tell her everything. If she can bring Darla’s murderer to justice—”
Mr. DeCamp went over to the woman. “Now, Emily,” he said softly, “you’re not supposed to excite yourself. Your heart—”
“Tell her,” the woman repeated, lying back and closing her eyes in exhaustion.
Mr. DeCamp took his seat again. “It all began when Darla went down to Fort Lauderdale on a little vacation,” he said wearily. “While she was there she got mixed up with Pete Mitchell—the guy in the photograph. He followed her back here and took a job playing guitar at the Waterloo Inn.” He rubbed his eyes. “Emily and I tried to convince Darla that she shouldn’t waste her time on him. But that only seemed to make matters worse. She’d always obeyed us before, but this time she was determined. She said she loved him.” He sat back in the chair and closed his eyes.
“And then what happened?” Nancy prompted.
“Well, the thing went on for a couple of weeks. Then I got a call from some friend of Mitchell’s, warning me that Mitchell and Darla were eloping. The caller told me that he could convince Mitchell to leave town—without Darla—for a price. It was a lot of money, but I paid it. Or rather, I paid half of it.”
“Something happened to interrupt the plan?” Nancy asked.
“Yes. I made the first payment, but then Darla disappeared. For a while her mother and I thought she had run away with this guy, although we couldn’t understand why she didn’t call us or write to say that she was safe. We were terribly afraid that something was wrong. Anyway, Mitchell’s friend never called back, and I never made the second payment.” He cleared his throat again. “A few weeks ago a fisherman found her body, in the lake outside of town.”
“And she’d been murdered?”
“The police say she’d drowned. But the autopsy showed that her skull was fractured. I think Pete Mitchell knocked her out and threw her into the lake.”
Mrs. DeCamp sat up again. “What we can’t understand,” she burst out hysterically, “is why Chief Saunders won’t investigate the case! He keeps telling us that there’s no evidence to charge Pete Mitchell and that crony of his, but we think there is! We can’t understand why—”
“Emily, please, calm down,” Mr. DeCamp said. He turned back to Nancy. “If you have evidence linking this man to Darla—or to any other young woman—it ought to be taken to the authorities. There’s got to be somebody else who can act on it, the county district attorney or somebody—”
“What about the other police on the case?” Nancy asked. “What’s their opinion?”
Mr. DeCamp laughed shortly. “There’s only the deputy,” he said, “and he doesn’t count. In Batesville, Chief Saunders is the boss.”
At that moment, the doorbell pealed sharply.
“I’ll get it,” Mr. DeCamp said with a glance at his wife, who lay motionless on the sofa. Out in the hallway Nancy heard him open the door. Then she heard a flat, expressionless voice. It was Chief Saunders!
Holding her breath, she went to the door of the living room, where she could hear the conversation.
“—see from the car parked out front that that young woman from River Heights is here talking to you,” the chief was saying smoothly.
“Yes, she’s here,” Mr. DeCamp conceded. His voice rose. “What business is it of yours?”
“Well, now, Mr. DeCamp, it’s nothing to get excited about.” The chief’s voice was conciliatory. “I just thought I ought to warn you that it’s not a real good idea to talk to outside people about this business. I mean, we don’t know exactly what happened out there at that lake, and until we do—”
“Chief Saunders,” Mr. DeCamp said in a firm voice, “I intend to talk to whoever will help me bring my daughter’s killer to justice. And you can’t stop me!” Nancy heard the door slam violently.
“There!” he said, coming back into the living room. Outside, there was the sound of the chief’s car driving off, tires spinning on the gravel. “I feel better already!” He looked at Nancy. “Miss Drew, is there any way I can help you?”
“I think so,” Nancy said. “I would like to see the lake where Darla’s body was found. I know it will be difficult for you, but it would be a help.”
Mr. DeCamp glanced toward the sofa where his wife lay. “Let’s take my car,” he said.
The lake was about five miles out of town, in a heavily wooded area. Mr. DeCamp drove down a rutted road, to a rocky beach. A wooden raft was moored about fifteen yards out from shore.
“It’s not much of a lake,” Mr. DeCamp said, getting out of the ca
r. “People fish out here, and in the summer the kids swim off that old wooden float.” He pointed up the shore about fifty feet. “Her body was found washed up in those trees.” He choked. “She’d been dead for three weeks.”
“Is it possible that she was swimming out here and hit her head?” Nancy asked.
“That’s what the police chief keeps saying,” Mr. DeCamp replied. “But she wouldn’t have been swimming in the middle of April. And she’d never been fishing in her life. No, there’s only one reason she’d come out here—to meet that no-good Pete Mitchell. He killed her!”
“Well, I’ll do my best to stop the man you think did this,” Nancy promised. They drove back to the DeCamps’, where Nancy said goodbye, got in her car, and drove to the Waterloo Inn.
The manager, a plump, motherly-looking woman, confirmed that an entertainer named Mitchell had worked there, and that she’d sometimes seen him with Darla and with an older, gray-haired man.
“Such a shame about Darla drowning,” she said, shaking her head. “She was such a pretty girl, and always so mannerly. I tell all my kids not to swim at that lake, especially at night.”
“So you think she was swimming and hit her head?” Nancy asked.
“That’s what I read in the paper,” the woman said decisively. “Anyway, everybody knows that lake is dangerous.”
By the time Nancy had finished at the inn, the sun was setting into the flat, empty horizon. Nancy drove past the now-deserted town square and turned onto the highway to River Heights. The road ahead was perfectly straight and empty. Nancy rolled down the windows to enjoy the mild evening air.
It wasn’t a bad evening for a drive, Nancy thought, checking her watch. She ought to be home by ten. In the meantime she had plenty to occupy her thoughts. There was the police chief’s reluctance to pursue the case, for one thing. And the way he had responded when Nancy mentioned the phone call from Felix. It was almost as if he already knew about it. But what connection could there possibly be between Felix and the Batesville police chief, unless the chief were involved in the case too, and covering up for—
Nancy looked up. The highway had been completely empty, except for a tractor in the distance, but a car—an old one, judging from its silhouette—suddenly pulled out of the rest stop she had just passed. She could hear the squeal of the tires even over the noise of the Mustang’s engine. In a half second, the old car had eaten up the distance between them. Was he trying to bump her in the rear?
But the car pulled out to pass, and Nancy relaxed a little. Then she glanced to her left, and what she saw chilled her blood. The car—an old green Buick—had pulled up beside her. There, as close as if he were sitting across the dining-room table, was Felix. He was looking directly at her through the open window, and there was a slight smile on his lips.
Nancy shivered. Felix? What was he doing here?
In the second after their eyes met, Felix jerked his steering wheel, sending his car reeling in her direction.
There was only one thing Nancy could do. She hit the brakes and yanked her steering wheel to the right as far as she could, toward the tall corn that lined the road. As she started to throw herself across the passenger seat, she felt the car skidding through the loose gravel at the side of the road.
The next second, everything went black.
Chapter
Thirteen
VICTIM IS A female Caucasian, long blond hair, in her late teens, possible concussion . . .”
Victim? Nancy thought groggily, trying to turn her head. The voice faded out and back in again. Her head hurt, as if someone had hit it with a baseball bat.
“ . . . driving a blue late-model Mustang, license number . . .”
Mustang? He must mean me, Nancy thought. She fought against the blackness, pushing it away. She was lying on her back with her head resting against something firm and a little damp.
Nancy managed to open her eyes a little. Everything was hazy, as if she were opening her eyes underwater, and she couldn’t move either of her arms. But she could make out a red light flashing some distance away, at the end of a long, green tunnel. After a moment she realized that the tunnel was a narrow path of flattened corn, and that the red light was on top of the police car parked at the edge of the road. A state highway patrolman was giving Nancy’s license number into the microphone of his radio.
There was a second voice, from another direction. Nancy moved her head slightly. It was another highway patrolman. “Can you describe the suspect car, the other car that was involved?”
“It was an old green Buick,” a third voice said. The speaker was an old farmer in coveralls, sitting on the hood of her Mustang, which was nosed into the corn. “One of them big, ugly green bombs they used to make years ago. Lots of chrome up front. Must’ve had four hundred horses under the hood. He was doing at least ninety by the time he passed me.”
“And where were you at the time of the incident?” continued the second voice.
“I was coming down the side of the road on my tractor, hurrying to get home before my missus got dinner on the table. I saw that Buick pull up beside the gal’s blue car and make a quick turn right toward the little gal. And then the blue car went off the road.” He pointed dramatically to the path Nancy’s Mustang had plowed. “She tore through my corn just like those stunt cars do in the movies.”
“What did the suspect vehicle do?” the patrolman asked.
“Well, he must’ve seen me, because he pulled back into his lane all of a sudden. Came flying past me like he was a jet.” The old farmer squinted down at Nancy. “Look, she’s coming to.”
The patrolman knelt beside Nancy. “It’s okay, miss, just lie still. The ambulance is on its way, and you’ll soon be—”
But that was the last Nancy heard. Blackness closed over her again. Helplessly, she felt herself falling into it.
• • •
It was morning when Nancy woke up again, and outside the window birds were singing cheerfully. The walls of the room were white. The ceiling was white, too, and so was the scratchy gown she was wearing. She turned her head. Ned was sitting beside her, dozing, his head propped up by his hand.
“Ned?” she whispered. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
With a start Ned came wide awake. “Nancy?” He leaned toward her and covered her hand with both of his. “You’re awake? You’re okay?” His voice was tense and strained and he looked tired, as if he’d been up half the night.
“I’m awake,” Nancy said. “Whether I’m okay is still a big question mark.” Slowly, she moved one arm, then the other, then both legs. “Well, at least I can move everything.”
“Thank heaven,” Ned said fervently. He bent forward and kissed her. “Oh, Nancy, what would I do if anything happened to you?”
“But nothing has happened—nothing permanent, that is.” Nancy struggled to sit up. She put her fingers to her forehead, where she felt a giant lump. “When did you get here?”
Ned propped the pillows at her back. “Hannah called about nine, and I got here about eleven-thirty. I think I set a land speed record on the interstate.”
“Hannah called you?”
“Right. The hospital phoned her to find your family. Since your dad wasn’t in town and her car was in the shop, she called me. The doctor said you’d just suffered a mild concussion when you hit your head. You were really lucky. From what they told me, it sounds like somebody tried to kill you.”
“Better not move around, young lady,” a nurse said briskly, coming in with a breakfast tray.
“But I’ve got to get out of here,” Nancy exclaimed, suddenly remembering everything. She pulled at Ned’s hand. “We’ve got to get back to River Heights, Ned! Brenda’s in real danger!”
The nurse put the tray on the table at the foot of the bed and pushed it toward Nancy. “Not so fast,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere until the doctor says so. Since it’s Saturday, he won’t start his rounds for a couple of hours yet.”
??
?A couple of hours!” Nancy moaned. “By then it could all be over!”
“It might be over sooner than that if you don’t relax,” the nurse warned with a smile.
“Calm down, Nancy,” Ned said gently. “You’ll think better after you eat.” When the nurse had left the room, he added, “How about filling me in on everything—from the beginning?”
By the time Nancy had finished breakfast, she had sketched out the events of the day before, beginning with her discussion with Chief Saunders and ending with her unexpected side trip into the cornfield. “The thing I can’t figure out,” she added, “is how Felix knew I was in Batesville. Unless—” She tried to think, but her head was still aching and it was hard to concentrate.
The door opened. “Good morning, Miss Drew.” It was Chief Saunders, in uniform. He took off his brown hat and glanced at Ned. “I’d like to talk to this young lady alone, if you don’t mind.”
“I mind,” Nancy told him. “Ned’s staying.”
The chief shrugged. “Have it your way,” he said, watching her with his cold blue eyes. “Are you ready to answer a few questions? I want to know why you went out to the DeCamp place and bothered Mr. and Mrs. DeCamp.”
“I needed to know how Darla DeCamp had died.”
“And what did you find out?”
“That her skull was fractured, and that she died from drowning.”
“And what else?”
“That her parents think that she was murdered—by a guy calling himself Pete Mitchell.”
“And you think you know where this Pete Mitchell can be found?”
Nancy folded her arms across her chest. “I thought you weren’t interested,” she said cagily.
“I am interested,” the chief said. “I’m going to put my deputy on this case, and I want you out of it.”