Choosing Sides

by Carolyn Keene

  “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 I’ve heard so much about.”

  Nancy walked alongside the mayor. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

  Filanowski smiled. “I’ll 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 burn the town’s garbage. However, he didn’t want to follow the city’s restrictions on the amount that he could burn.”

  “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.”

  “But in the meantime, his incinerator would be belching out pollution,” Nancy argued.

  Filanowski nodded, a guilty look in his eyes. “At the time, it seemed like a small price to pay for a badly needed library that the city’s budget just couldn’t afford. I can see now that I was wrong. I guess I had become arrogant. I thought that after fifteen years in office, I knew better than anyone what was best for River Heights.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “as mayor, I have control over who gets awarded contracts. My friend’s plan made sense, so I agreed to go along with it and look the other way when his incinerator took in too much garbage.”

  Nancy’s eyes widened with shock. The mayor had just admitted to breaking the law! “But why would you . . .” Before she even finished asking her question, she knew the answer. “He paid you off, didn’t he?” she guessed. “That’s how you can afford to retire to that expensive place in Florida.”

  Filanowski looked surprised. “You are a good detective, aren’t you? I didn’t take any money at first. That came later, after my heart attack, when my doctor told me I couldn’t stay on as mayor much longer. When my friend realized that the next mayor might be Caroline Hill, a strong environmentalist, he bought me that condo and convinced me to turn my back on Caroline and withhold my endorsement of her.”

  He let out a weary sigh. “He convinced me that it would be in the best interests of River Heights in the long run. I convinced myself that the money was just a generous gift from an old friend, but now I see it for the bribe that it was. I was desperate,” the mayor said. “I had lost all my money a year ago, and I was being forced to retire. I swear to you, I had no idea that my friend would take it
so far.”

  “You mean when he made up the fencing ring story, don’t you?” Nancy asked.

  The mayor nodded. “When I saw that article on Monday, I knew it was a lie. I asked my friend if he knew anything about it, and he admitted that he’d thought the story up,” he explained. “I told him he was crazy. Then, when I read in the paper that Bobby Rouse had been murdered, I realized that he truly is insane.”

  Nancy could barely contain her excitement. The mayor was telling her that the same person was responsible for setting up Caroline and for killing Bobby Rouse! “Who is it?” she asked urgently. “You have to tell me!”

  Mayor Filanowski hesitated, then said, “I could have just given you his name right away, but I wanted you to hear—”

  Suddenly the mayor took a sharp breath, and his eyes bulged out. As Nancy watched in horror, his knees buckled and he toppled backward. He fell face up at the base of the rock.

  When Nancy saw the dark red stain spreading across his left shoulder, she realized what had happened.

  Sam Filanowski had been shot!

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  FOR A MOMENT, all Nancy could do was stare at Mayor Filanowski lying at the base of the rock. She was about to bend down, to see if she could find a pulse, when she heard a zing as a piece of rock chipped off next to her feet. Now someone was shooting at her!

  Nancy glanced around wildly. Another bullet whistled over her head, and she leapt off the rock, landing on her hands and knees in the mud, next to the mayor. At least now the big rock was between the shooter and her and the mayor.

  She felt a rush of relief when she heard him groan. “Thank goodness you’re alive! Hang in there,” Nancy said.

  The mayor tried to sit up, but Nancy gently rested him back against the rock. She yanked a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to the wound on his shoulder. Within a few seconds the handkerchief was saturated with blood.

  Mayor Filanowski groaned again, and his eyes flickered. Nancy’s eyes searched frantically around her, and she tried to ignore the panic that was building inside her. How was she ever going to get them out of there?

  Suddenly Nancy heard a car roar up to where she’d parked. There was the squeal of brakes and then the sound of a car door opening and slamming shut. She tried to stifle her fear. Did the shooter have an accomplice?

  “Nancy Drew!” a familiar voice rang out a moment later. “Where are you? I know all about your lies!”

  “Brenda!” Nancy breathed in disbelief. “What are you doing here! Stay down!” she cried out.

  Keeping low, Nancy edged along the rock and peeked around it. Brenda was standing on the edge of the road next to Nancy’s car, holding an umbrella.

  “Brenda, get back in your car!” Nancy shouted. “Someone is shooting at us.”

  Brenda didn’t seem to have heard her. “Where are you?” Brenda demanded, looking around. “You’re in big trouble, Nancy. You’d better come out!”

  Just then another shot ricocheted off the rock a few inches from Nancy, and Nancy ducked. This time, she could tell where the shot had come from: the trees just to the right of the cars and about fifteen feet to Brenda’s left.

  Nancy sneaked a second quick peek and saw Brenda gingerly putting one high-heeled foot forward into the muddy tire tracks. The shooter was using a silencer, so Brenda had no idea that she was in danger. In a second she was going to walk right into the line of fire!

  “Big trouble is right,” Nancy muttered. “Brenda,” she shouted again, “stay back, or you’ll get shot!”

  “What?” Brenda called, taking another step into the mud. Nancy glanced over her shoulder at Filanowski propped against the rock and groaning slightly. What a mess! The mayor was wounded, and Brenda could get shot any second. Nancy knew she couldn’t just stay behind the rock forever. She had to do something.

  She took a deep, steadying breath. “Here goes,” she muttered. Shedding her rain slicker so it wouldn’t get in her way, she darted out into the clearing, running in a jagged line with her head and shoulders tucked down. It seemed to take her hours to cross the thirty feet to Brenda, who was looking at Nancy as if she had gone crazy. Nancy grabbed Brenda’s arm and yanked her around.

  “Hey! What—” Brenda’s objection was cut short as a bullet pierced her umbrella, knocking it out of her hand.

  “Come on, Brenda, or you’ll get killed,” Nancy said through clenched teeth. She pulled Brenda ten feet back, to the safety of her Mustang. Nancy threw open the passenger door, pushed Brenda in, then ran around the back of the car and jumped in the driver’s side.

  “Wa-was that a gunshot?” Brenda stammered, hunching low in the seat.

  “Yes, it was,” Nancy said, revving the engine of her Mustang. “Keep your head down.”

  Her tires splattered muddy water as she threw the car into gear and plowed across the clearing to the other side of the rock. Brenda gasped when she saw Filanowski lying there.

  “Oh, my gosh, he’s bleeding!”

  Nancy had already jumped out of the car. “Quick, Brenda, give me a hand,” she called. “We have to get him to a hospital right away!”

  Filanowski was barely conscious and was shivering from shock as they tugged and pulled him to the Mustang. Nancy didn’t know how they managed it, but somehow she and Brenda got the mayor into the backseat. No sooner was he inside than he lost consciousness. Please let him be all right, Nancy silently begged.

  Two more gunshots whistled over their heads as Nancy unlocked the trunk of her car and thrust a blanket at Brenda. “Here, get in the car and cover him up with this,” she said urgently. “We have to get out of here before we all get killed!”

  For once, Brenda was speechless. She quickly did as Nancy asked. Seconds later, they were all back in the car, and Nancy sped out of the clearing.

  “Nancy, who was shooting at us?” Brenda asked. Her hazel eyes were wide with fear, and her face was white.

  “I’m not sure,” Nancy replied. It seemed clear to her, though, that the “friend” the mayor had told her about wasn’t such a good friend after all. She shuddered at the thought. She was dealing with a crazed, evil man. Nancy gazed worriedly at the mayor in the rearview mirror. Until he regained consciousness, she couldn’t find out who the person was.

  It seemed an eternity before Nancy pulled up at the emergency entrance of the River Heights General Hospital. A team of medics rushed the mayor inside.

  Nancy knew she would have to answer the staff’s questions, but first she needed to make a phone call. She hurried to a pay phone in the emergency room, then called Kyle at her father’s law office.

  “Hi, Nan, what’s up?” Kyle asked cheerfully.

  “Kyle, I need you to drop everything you’re doing,” Nancy told him. “Tap into the state’s computer records on businesses incorporated in River Heights in the last year. Look for Greenwood Incorporated, and find the name of the person who filed the incorporation forms. Can you do that?”

  “So that’s what Greenwood means!” Kyle exclaimed. “No problem, Nan. I should be able to find that out right away.”

  “Great,” Nancy replied. “Then, see if you can find Bess and meet me here at R. H. General. Someone just shot Sam Filanowski, and I don’t want to leave until I’m sure he’s going to be all right.”

  Next, Nancy called Caroline Hill at her campaign headquarters. By now it was a little after nine, and Caroline was there waiting for Nancy. After telling Caroline what had happened, Nancy asked her to hold off on giving her brother an answer about dropping out of the election. “If we can just wait until the mayor tells us who’s behind the fencing story, then we can confront Wayne with facts he won’t be able to deny.”

  Nancy was just hanging up when Brenda tapped her on the shoulder. “Nancy, I’ve told the people in the emergency room all I know. Now I’m going to catch a cab home,” Brenda said. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Hospitals give me the creeps!”

  After Brenda left, Nancy was tied
up for a half-hour explaining the details of the shooting, first to the emergency room’s attending physician and then to the police. She finally managed to break away and flag down a nurse, who told her that the mayor was being moved up to the Intensive Care Unit. Luckily, the bullet had only grazed his shoulder, and he would not require surgery.

  “Where is Intensive Care?” Nancy asked.

  “On the third floor.” The nurse pointed with her clipboard. “It’s in the Blount wing.”

  Nancy stared blankly at the woman. “The Blount wing?” she echoed. “You mean the Alan Blount wing?”

  The nurse nodded impatiently. “Just take the elevator and follow the signs.”

  That’s it! Nancy realized. The mayor had told her that his “friend” had donated a wing to the hospital. It had to be Alan Blount! And that meant that Blount was behind the scheme to get Caroline to back down from the mayoral campaign. Nancy was willing to bet that when Kyle told her the name of the person who was in charge of Greenwood, it would be none other than Alan Blount. She still wasn’t sure why Blount had backed Caroline’s campaign, but she didn’t have time to worry about that right now.

  Nancy picked up her pace as she headed for the elevator. If she could just talk to the mayor right away and get him to admit that it was Blount, then they could call the police to arrest the man before he hurt someone else. There wasn’t a moment to lose!

  As she stepped into the elevator car, she heard Bess’s voice call out, “Nancy, wait!” A second later Bess and Kyle threw themselves into the elevator with her.

  “We found out who Greenwood is!” Kyle gasped.

  “Alan Blount, right?” Nancy said.

  Bess blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Nancy said. “I’ve got to talk to the mayor, but they won’t let us all go into Intensive Care. Follow my lead, okay?”

  Bess and Kyle nodded. When the elevator doors opened at the third floor, Nancy hurried over to the nurses’ station. “I’ve got to see my father, Sam Filanowski,” she said urgently. “Where is he?”