Into Thin Air (5 page)

“Breakfast,” Nancy replied, driving down the exit ramp and into a parking lot. “Maybe food will cheer you up a little.”

While they were waiting for their breakfasts, Mark was silent. A friendly waitress placed heaping plates of hotcakes and sausage in front of them, along with two steaming cups of tea.

“What's on your mind, Mark?” Nancy asked as they dug into their food.

“I guess this puts an end to our little partnership,
doesn't it,” Mark said sadly. “I don't blame you. In fact, you were probably right to begin with. It probably wasn't Johnson I saw, the photo really doesn't prove anything, and the missing money was probably burned to a crisp. I would just forget this whole thing if it wasn't for my reputation.”

He glanced across at Nancy, trying to smile. “I'm starting to think maybe I'm not cut out to be a detective. Maybe I need to make a career switch. I could always go back to school.” He shoved a forkful of hotcakes into his mouth and began chewing.

Nancy studied the sad expression on his face. “I thought that being a detective was what you've wanted to do since high school.”

“I guess it was just a daydream.” Mark shrugged and looked down at his plate. “Everything I do seems to blow up in my face.” He gave a little laugh. “I guess my bad luck is trying to tell me something.”

“It was good luck that you met me,” Nancy told him, trying to cheer him up. “After all, if you hadn't you might still be in jail.”

“True.” Mark sighed.

Nancy couldn't help feeling sorry for Mark. Jail had obviously been a humbling experience. Maybe it had been for the best. Still, she hated to hear anyone talk about giving up on a dream.

She stared straight into his deep blue eyes. “Mark, I'm going to help you for exactly twelve more hours.”

Mark stared at her. “I don't get it. Why are you going to help me some more?”

“If you had hung around River Heights for another hour instead of breaking into Johnson's house, I could have saved you the trouble. They're auctioning off all his furniture—tonight, in Brewster.”

Mark's eyes widened. Nancy's words seemed to have banished his troubled thoughts completely. “Are you serious? Nancy, I love you! This could be our big break!”

“Calm down, Mark,” Nancy said in a level voice. “I still think we might be on a wild-goose chase. But we may as well check this one last possibility and see if anything turns up. The auction's at seven o'clock, and we can check out the furniture starting at six. If we don't find anything"—Nancy put down her fork and raised her hands in a sign of surrender—"then I say we give it up.”

“We'll find something tonight,” Mark said cheerfully, going back to his breakfast. “I'm positive of it. My instincts—oh, no!” He stopped with his fork suspended in midair. “I've got to work this afternoon. But I get off at five forty-five. We could still get to Brewster by, say, six-fifteen.”

“Okay.” Nancy nodded. “Maybe Bess and George will come along to help.”

“Great!” Mark said. “I'll pay for your gas, Nancy, don't worry.”

“I wasn't worried.” Nancy smiled in spite of herself. She had to admit, Mark Rubin was a hard guy to stay angry at.

• • •

They didn't arrive at the Brewster Auction House until six-thirty, and Mark had worked himself into a state of high agitation by then.

“Only half an hour to check all this out,” he lamented, staring at a warehouse-size room full of expensive furniture that had once belonged to Christopher Johnson.

“We'd better get to work, then,” Nancy suggested. They strolled up and down the aisles between the pieces, glancing around them.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Bess asked.

“We don't know,” Mark explained patiently, as if it were perfectly clear to him. “Something the police didn't see. Something incredibly small, or else so obvious that other people might overlook it.”

“Oh” was all George could say as she continued examining the rows of antique furniture.

As she wandered through the auction, Nancy was struck by an idea. She left her friends
and found the manager of the auction house in an office at the end of the hall. He was a man of about fifty with glasses and a cap covering what had to be a bald head.

“Excuse me, sir. Have many people been here to look at the furniture?” Nancy asked.

He raised his head from the papers he was examining and eyed her up and down. “Many,” he said with a sarcastic edge to his voice. “Why?”

“A man with a mustache, sunglasses, and a flat cap?” Nancy prodded. “He's my uncle. We were supposed to meet him here.”

The manager put his pen down and thought for a moment. “No, nobody like that. There was a very rude young lady, though. She seemed interested in that desk over there, the one that man is studying now.” Going over to the office window, he gestured out at the floor.

Nancy saw Mark examining a large, antique Chinese enamel desk.

“What did she look like?” Nancy asked.

“Young, attractive, long brown hair,” the manager commented, peering down at Nancy over the rims of his glasses. “She was rifling through the drawers and banging at the sides of the desk. It seemed as if she were searching for something. When I asked her to stop, she practically bit my head off.”

Nancy's heart beat a little faster. Searching
for what? she wondered. It sounded as if the woman had had something specific in mind.

For the first time Nancy began to wonder if maybe Mark was on the trail of Johnson's embezzled money.

Maybe someone else was after the money, too!

H
OW ODD
,” Nancy said, throwing the manager an understanding smile. “Did this woman say what she was after?”

The manager shook his head. “I finally asked her to go,” he told Nancy. “She just wouldn't leave the desk alone, and I was afraid she would damage it.”

When Nancy returned to her friends, she saw that more people had filed in, all waiting for the auction to begin. Mark was still studying the desk. She debated whether or not to mention the mysterious dark-haired woman to him, but decided against it. She didn't want to set him off unless she had a definite lead.

Mark beckoned her over and said in a cautious low voice, “This desk is a Shenzu original,
Nancy. When I was a kid, I used to help out at my uncle's antique store, and he told me all about these. They're worth thousands of dollars and have all sorts of secret compartments! Each is hidden in a different way, too. Something could be in this desk, and the police would never have known about it! Look, I'll show you.”

As she watched, Mark found no less than three hidden drawers. All were empty, unfortunately. Then, before they could examine the desk any further, the auctioneer banged his gavel for the sale to begin.

After registering they took seats in front of the auctioneer's podium. The hall had filled quickly, with a substantial crowd of potential bidders. Nancy glanced over the crowd, looking for a man with a mustache or a young woman with long brown hair. All the women she saw were middle-aged, though, and the two men who had mustaches didn't look like the guy in Mark's instant photo.

“I've got to have another look at that desk!” Mark whispered furiously.

'There's no more time, Mark,” Nancy whispered back. “How are you going to get another look?”

“If I have to buy the desk, I'll buy it, that's all,” he said in a determined voice.

“But you said yourself that type of desk is worth thousands of dollars!”

Mark shook his head. “Maybe we'll get lucky and nobody else will bid on it. Not many people know the difference between a Shenzu and an ordinary Chinese desk.”

“What if the price gets too high?” Nancy demanded.

Mark stared at her for a second. “How much can you lend me?”

Nancy drew back. “Forget it! I've helped as much as I can, but this is asking too much. I mean—”

“Nancy,” Mark interrupted, “we can always resell it! Consider it as an investment!”

Nancy sighed. Well, she told herself, I
could
resell it. And also, I do think it's worth trying to find out what that woman was after.

“Okay,” she muttered at last.

George reached over the backs of the chairs and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Nan, they're up to the desk.”

Nancy came alert and so did Mark. From his podium the auctioneer said, “Now we have a lovely antique Chinese desk. The bidding will begin at one hundred dollars. Do I have a bid?”

Mark raised his hand.

“One hundred from the young gentleman over there,” the auctioneer began to chant in a singsong voice. “Do I have two, two hundred dollars?”

“Two hundred!” The bid came from a little
man with glasses sitting in the row behind them.

Mark gritted his teeth. He raised his hand. “Two-fifty,” he shouted.

“Four hundred,” cried the little man.

“I have four hundred!” crowed the auctioneer. “Do I have five? Five hundred dollars, will you give me five?”

Mark tugged at Nancy's sleeve. “Do you have any credit cards with you?”

“Yes, but—”

“Five hundred!” Mark shouted.

“I have five hundred dollars!” the auctioneer cried. “Will I get six? Who'll bid six—”

“One thousand!” the little man cried out, waving his hand furiously.

Nancy felt herself breaking out into a cold sweat. She looked hard at the little man, carefully committing his face to memory.

“Eleven hundred!” shouted Mark, throwing a hand into the air again.

Nancy grabbed his arm. “No, Mark!” she said angrily. “No more. You're already over the limit on my credit card.”

“Two thousand!” the little man called out.

There were murmurs from the audience, and it was evident that people were enjoying the bidding war.

“Mark, that's it!” Nancy warned. “No more! I'm serious.”

Mark's face fell, and he slumped down in his
chair. The auctioneer called for higher bids but the room was silent.

“Two thousand once, two thousand twice . . .” The auctioneer waited briefly, then slammed his gavel down. “Sold, to the gentleman in the second row, for two thousand dollars!”

Nancy, Mark, George, and Bess filed out of the auction house and stood in the cool evening air, thinking about what had happened.

“Maybe he knew it was a genuine whatever-it-was,” Bess said with a shrug.

“Shenzu,” Mark said. “Maybe. But maybe not. I'm going to find out.”

Just then the little man emerged from the auction house, the moonlight glinting off his glasses.

“Excuse me,” Mark said, turning to the man. “Would you mind telling me why you bid so high on that desk?”

The little man recognized Mark as the person he had been bidding against.

“I'm only a designated bidder,” he told them. “I'm not the new owner of the piece.”

“Well, who is?” Mark pressed him.

The little man smiled. “I'm not permitted to divulge that. If you'll excuse me . . .” He brushed past Mark and walked up to a waiting van. Two husky men in dark clothes were waiting beside it. At the little man's instructions, they went inside the auction house and
soon emerged carrying the heavy desk. As Mark, Nancy, George, and Bess watched, they loaded the desk into the van.

“Come on. Let's get out of here,” Mark said to the girls in a louder than normal voice.

They piled into the Mustang, and Nancy drove out of the parking lot.

“Pull over!” Mark commanded. “And turn off your lights. We can wait for the van here.”

Nancy smiled. This time, Mark was right on target. She had planned on doing exactly the same thing. She wanted to know where the desk was going—and to whom. It would be very interesting if the new owner turned out to be a young woman with long, dark hair.

“Oh, no.” Bess sank back in her seat. “We're following them, aren't we? Oh, I hate car chases.”

Just then the van pulled out of the lot. After giving it a good head start, Nancy slipped her Mustang onto the road and followed.

The van drove to the outskirts of River Heights. It turned off on a narrow road marked by a sign that read Landfill.

“Hey,” mused George. “It's the dump. What do you suppose—”

“Shhh!” Mark said.

Nancy doused the lights and slowed the Mustang to a crawl as she turned off on the road to the landfill site. The van drove uphill and disappeared over the crest.

Nancy noticed a gravel road off to her left. She turned onto it. The road twisted along the slope of the hill and ended at the edge of a woodlot. Nancy stopped the car.

“Do you think they can see us?” George wondered.

“It's too dark out,” Nancy said. “And we are pretty much hidden by the hill.”