WE HAVE TO HELP HIM!” Nancy ran up the ramp, searching for a door that would give her access to the tank.
“Up here,” Jackson shouted, racing ahead and tugging open a door that blended in with the gray wall surrounding it.
Running right on his heels, Nancy dashed into a room cluttered with small fish tanks and buckets. She nearly slipped in a puddle on the slick concrete floor. “How do we get to the tank?” she gasped.
“It’s back here,” Jackson called, starting up a short staircase. “But watch your step. The catwalk is narrow, and it juts out directly over the shark tank.”
Nancy could see what he meant. The narrow bridge stretched just a few feet above the gurgling water of the shark tank.
“Where’s Chris?” she shouted.
Jackson leaned over the water, searching until at last he shouted, “I see him!”
They shuffled ahead, and Nancy winced as she spied the red mist of blood in the water. A moment later she saw Chris’s hand reaching up toward the catwalk.
Rushing forward, Nancy and Jackson knelt down and reached into the water below. Jackson’s fingers closed around Chris’s wrist, and he managed to hoist Chris up so that he could grab the wooden bridge.
A moment later, both Nancy and Jackson pulled Chris out of the water. Chris pushed back his diving mask, then collapsed on the catwalk. Jackson took a clean handkerchief from his pants pocket and pressed it against the cut on Chris’s shoulder.
“How do you feel?” Nancy asked.
“I’m okay,” Chris insisted, pulling off his oxygen tank and easing it onto the catwalk. “He just nipped my shoulder.”
“The cut doesn’t look too bad,” Jackson said, “but we’ll have the nurse look at it to be on the safe side.”
“I’m more shocked than hurt,” Chris admitted. “I don’t know what possessed the barracuda to go after me. He’s a playful fish, but he’s never caused me trouble before.”
“He was going after this ring on your tank,” Nancy said, pointing to the bright yellow ring attached to Chris’s diving gear.
Chris stared at the ring. “No wonder he attacked me. He thought I was taunting him! Barracudas can’t resist striking at bright, moving objects.” Furious, he slammed his hand down on the wooden catwalk.
“Do you have any idea how the ring got on your air tank?” Nancy asked.
“You’re the detective—you tell me!” Chris said, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.
“Whoa! Hold on a minute,” Jackson intervened. “I’m only an intern, but I know the rules for diving. Did you check out that equipment before you put it on, Chris?”
“Of course I did,” Chris said. “I looked it over in the food prep room this morning. But someone must have tampered with it while I was moving the shark back into the tank.”
Nancy’s mind clicked away. Had Annie’s killer tried to strike again?
When the aquarium’s nurse arrived to examine Chris’s wound, Nancy and Jackson surveyed the food prep room where Chris had left his diving equipment. They didn’t see anything unusual.
Nancy tried to narrow down the list of people who had access to the equipment, but while visitors weren’t permitted in the prep area, any number of aquarium workers could have attached the ring to Chris’s gear.
“We have an open-door policy here,” Jackson explained. “All of the two hundred people who work here are free to come and go through any section of the building.”
Nancy felt frustrated. If something didn’t break soon, the aquarium’s open-door policy was going to allow the killer to slip away scot-free!
• • •
“None of us here will ever forget Annie Goldwyn,” Jonathan Winston said, addressing the crowd that had gathered in Annie’s honor.
The meeting room, just off the main lobby, was filled with teary-eyed employees. Dr. Winston stood at a podium flanked by flower arrangements and candles lit in Annie’s memory. One wreath of blue carnations was fashioned in the shape of a leaping dolphin.
From her seat in the back row, Nancy studied the people in the room, most of them familiar from her days of investigation there. She shivered at the realization that one of the mourners in the room was probably involved in Annie’s death.
Nancy considered the suspects.
Chris Marconi sat in front of Nancy, clasping and unclasping his hands tensely as Dr. Winston spoke. Chris had been a suspect until his close call that morning. Now that someone had tried to turn Chris into barracuda bait, Nancy was almost positive that he wasn’t the person threatening the task force. Luckily, his wound wasn’t serious. The nurse had bandaged it and pronounced him fit to go back to work.
Nancy glanced over at Megan O’Connor. The young redhead admitted that she resented Annie for her promotion, yet that alone was a weak motive for murder. Not to mention the fact that Megan had seemed genuinely upset when Asia had disappeared. And Megan couldn’t have been the person who pushed Nancy into the pool. Megan and Russ had heard Nancy’s shout at the same time.
Who was the rat inside the aquarium? Examining the net earlier that day had told her nothing. Anyone in the aquarium could have gotten one. Nancy ran down the list of other possible suspects: Russ Farmer, Doug Chin, Jackson Winston, Delores, and Jonathan Winston. Nothing pointed to any of them. She sighed. At the moment, she felt further away from solving this case than she had the very first day!
She was missing one vital link in the case—Stuart Feinstein. He had been with Annie on the night she was killed. He was Nancy’s chief suspect. She decided that, after the memorial service, she would look for him once again.
• • •
“What do you expect to find here?” George asked as Nancy parked the rental car in the dirt drive beside Annie’s cottage on Bodkin Point.
“I’m not sure,” Nancy admitted, “but it’s useless to go to Stuart’s apartment. The police are staking it out, and besides, we’ve already searched the place. Maybe we can find something here that the police missed, a clue that will lead us to Stuart.”
The front door was locked, but Nancy was able to spring the bolt with the help of her lock-picking kit. Inside the cottage, Nancy took one look at the tidy living room, then frowned. “It’s neat as a pin,” she muttered. “You can tell that the police have already been here.”
“We might as well give it one more look,” George said, disappearing into the bedroom.
Starting with the cushions of the couch and ending with the kitchen drawers, Nancy searched the living room and kitchen.
“Any luck?” George called from the bedroom.
“No.” Nancy took a seat at the kitchen table and looked up at the wall phone. Annie must have used it to call the police just before she was killed. There were no notepads to trace, no address books to study, but there was a wall calendar, compliments of Lenny’s Bait and Tackle.
Wiping her hands on her jeans, George came into the kitchen. “Nothing helpful in the bedroom.”
“I’m afraid the police have collected any evidence that might have helped us here. But we should make one more stop before we leave.” Nancy nodded toward the calendar.
Confused, George stared at the wall, then grumbled, “Oh, no! Not that creep. I’m not crazy about guys who whip out their shotguns first and ask questions later.”
“Come on,” Nancy said, heading toward the door. “He might know something.”
The girls walked up the dirt road to the wooden shack that housed Lenny’s shop. Inside, they were greeted by Tyler, Lenny’s gum-chewing son, who had let them “rent” the Lazy Daze.
“Not you again!” he said, glancing up from a comic book. “I’m still in trouble from the last time you came in here.”
Ignoring his comment, Nancy asked about Lenny.
“He’s in Florida for a fishing trip,” Tyler answered. “But I’m not renting you a boat or equipment, either.”
“We wanted to talk to Lenny about Annie Goldwyn,” Nancy began. “She used to live—”
“I knew her,”
the boy interrupted. “But you’re not getting a word out of me.”
Nancy gave George a sidelong look. “Do you know something about the murder?” she asked Tyler pointedly.
“No, but I—no, forget it. I’ve got nothing to say.” He sat down and held the comic book in front of his face. “If you want, you can come back next week when Lenny’s here.”
But Nancy couldn’t wait that long. She had exactly one day to find Annie’s killer before the press descended like vultures on Dr. Winston.
Outside, George turned to Nancy and muttered, “He’s hiding something.”
“I know.” Stuffing her hands into her coat pockets, Nancy studied the bleak horizon. There were only three boats in the marina. Nancy’s eyes widened as she glanced at the third boat. “Hey! That’s the Friendly Fin. Annie’s boat is here.”
The girls walked over to the dock and studied the cabin cruiser. “The police must have decided to store it here after they searched for evidence,” George said, brushing her hair out of her eyes.
“It’s sealed off.” Nancy looked at the police tape that was wrapped around the doorway. It seemed to be loose, but she assumed that it had been torn away by the sea winds.
“Wait,” George whispered, grabbing Nancy’s arm. “I just saw the curtain move in that cabin window.”
Nancy crept along the dock and stared into the cloudy window. Her eyes followed the pattern of a floral print curtain. At the edge of the curtain was a blue eye, peering back at her.
Nancy’s heart raced. “There’s somebody on Annie’s boat.” She stepped aboard, went down a few steps, and rapped on the cabin door, which was in the bow of the cruiser. “Open up!” she shouted.
The door didn’t open while Nancy was banging on the door. George, standing on the dock, saw the hatch in the bow slowly open.
“Somebody’s climbing out!” George shouted, racing down the dock.
Nancy jumped up on the dock again. She spotted a thin, lanky man climbing out the hatch. His back was to her, but as he straightened up, he turned, and Nancy got a look at his face. His hair was no longer blond, but there was no mistaking those bold blue eyes and high cheekbones.
Nancy gasped. “Stuart Feinstein!”
Chapter
Twelve
STUART TOOK a quick look at Nancy, then backed toward the dock on the other side of the cabin cruiser. “Leave me alone!” he growled.
“I just want to talk to you,” Nancy said. “My name is Nancy Drew, and I was hired to help Annie.”
Instantly, Stuart’s mood softened. “I remember Annie mentioning your name. She told me that Winston had hired someone to straighten out this mess.” He stared at Nancy and George for a long moment, as if deciding something. Then he motioned toward the cabin. “We should go inside out of the cold.”
Nancy and George followed him down the steps that led below deck. They entered a small room in the center of which were a round wooden table and chairs. There was a built-in bench along one wall. Beyond that, Nancy could see a sleeping area.
“Now I know why that kid in the bait shop was acting so weird,” said George.
“Who, Tyler?” Stuart shook his head. “That kid can’t keep a secret to save his life. He knows I’m here, and he’s just itching to tell everybody within ten miles. Fortunately, this place is pretty quiet in the winter.”
“Well,” said Nancy, “he didn’t tell us much, but we could see that he was hiding something.”
“I was jittery when I saw you two poking around outside,” Stuart said, gesturing for the girls to be seated on the bench. “I’ve been hiding from some guy who’s been trying to kill me, so—”
“Someone is trying to kill you?” George asked as she sat down on the upholstered bench.
Stuart nodded. “I think it’s one of the guys who was hoisting barrels into the bay the night Annie was killed, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, after the police questioned me on Tuesday, I went back to my apartment to sleep. That’s when this guy jumped me right outside my place. I managed to give him the slip, and I’ve been in hiding ever since.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” asked Nancy.
“Sure. He was a big guy, with short red hair, kind of a crew cut. I only got a look at him after I pulled off the ski mask he was wearing.”
The ski mask! That’s why Nancy had found it in the bushes outside Stuart’s apartment. She was glad to have something to confirm his story.
Stuart sat down in one of the chairs by the table and rubbed his jaw. “I’d know him if I saw him again. He gave me a few good whacks before I got away.”
Nancy nodded sympathetically. “Did you report him to the police?”
“What can they do?” Stuart asked cynically. “They couldn’t help Annie when she needed it. I know the cops want to ask me some more questions.” He frowned. “For all I know, they might charge me with Annie’s murder. I don’t have much confidence in the cops anymore. They can’t stop Paperworks from ruining the bay, and they can’t protect me from this guy who’s out to get me.”
“I know you work for the Mills Company,” said Nancy, “but why do you think Paperworks is—”
“Worked for the Mills Company,” Stuart said, interrupting her. “Right now I’m dead meat at that company. The bosses at Mills don’t approve of the fact that I helped Annie with her stakeout. I wasn’t a member of the task force, but I was willing to give up my job if Mills was tossing tires into the bay.”
“That night on the bay—the night Annie died,” Nancy said, “did you see who was dumping the barrels?”
“No,” Stuart replied. “But I saw that they were dumping steel barrels, not tires. And I’ve also done some investigating since the night Annie was killed.”
He picked up a leather wallet from the table and pulled out a plastic card. “This is my ID card from Mills. I changed the name and job title, and I dyed my hair.”
“I thought you looked different,” George said.
Nancy studied the ID card. “Simon Green,” she read aloud, “Midwest Sales Representative.” The photo on the card showed Stuart with the light brown hair that now fell over his eyes. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re still working at Mills, under an assumed name?”
“No. I just forged this from my old ID card so that I could play detective for a few days,” he said, waving off her question. “This ID card got me into a different branch of the company, the recycling center. I wanted to see for myself if things were legit. So I’ve spent the last two days spying on Mills. I pretended that I was Simon Green, visiting from Dayton, Ohio.”
“Wow!” George said as she and Nancy exchanged an impressed look. “That’s pretty cool.”
Stuart shrugged. “I had to do something. I figured that if I could get some dirt on Mills, Annie wouldn’t have died in vain.”
“Is Mills guilty?” asked Nancy.
“Not at all,” Stuart said. “In the two days that I spied on them, everything was on the level. They shred the tires down to crumbs right there in the factory. The crumbs are sold to road construction companies, who add it to asphalt.”
Nancy nodded. “I’ve heard about that process. I also heard that it can be expensive.”
“In time, they’ll start to make money on it,” Stuart explained. “While I was there, I even sneaked into their files to confirm the records. The recycling operation is working for Mills, Nancy.”
“That means Mills isn’t responsible for Annie’s death,” George said.
“And it points the finger at Paperworks.” Nancy told Stuart about Paperworks’s offer to buy the parcel of land at Terns Landing.
“That’s it!” Furious, he paced to the window and pointed at the bay. “They’ll take over that land and turn it into a waterfront dumping site.”
“Not if the task force can stop them,” Nancy reminded him.
Stuart was silent for a moment. “There’s something you should know about the task force,” he said quietly. “The police didn’t think this was i
mportant, but it is. There’s a rat on the force.”
Taking a deep breath, Nancy nodded. “Yes, and it’s someone who works at the aquarium. I’ve figured that much out, but I haven’t worked out who it is. How did you know about the inside person?”
“That night, after we saw the guys tossing barrels in the bay, we went back to Annie’s house to phone the police. I made the call, then went out to the main road to flag them down. Annie said she was going to call the task force and alert them. I don’t know who she called, but I saw her dialing.”
His eyes were sad as he added, “I didn’t know she was going to play daredevil and take the Fin back out to watch the dumpers. Anyway, whoever she called must’ve radioed the guys on the boat. They killed Annie, then got away before the police arrived.”
“You’ve suffered through a lot this week, Stuart,” Nancy said sympathetically. “I wish you would give yourself a break and go to the police.”
“No way.” His blue eyes flashed with determination. “Not until the guy who tried to kill me has been caught.”
• • •
As Nancy and George drove back into Baltimore City, they went over the details of the case.
“Who would Annie call?” Nancy asked. “Was there an established phone chain for the task force? Would she call the second in command?”
“Who also happened to be her closest colleague and best friend,” George added.
Nancy stopped at a light, and the two girls looked at each other.
“Russ Farmer?”
• • •
By the time Nancy and George got back to the aquarium, it was late Thursday afternoon. The girls had gone straight to the mammal amphitheater to talk with Russ. They were sitting in his office, and Russ was wearing a wet suit for the presentation scheduled to begin within minutes.
“Yeah, I got the call, or at least my answering machine did,” Russ explained. “But I wasn’t home. I was here, working on a new routine with Schooner, one of the dolphins.” His eyes were shadowed with regret. “I wish Annie had called me here. I’d have gone out there and kicked some—”
“Is there anyone else on the task force whom Annie would have called?” Nancy asked him.
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