Stop the Clock (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 12) (10 page)

Suddenly the front door opened, and a sleepy-eyed Willy Franklin said, “What’s all the commotion out here?”

“Oh, hi, Mr. Franklin,” I said brightly, before he could figure out what I was doing there. “It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry you won’t be around to help with the library celebration!”

Mr. Franklin grunted. He turned to Chief McGinnis. “What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked.

“We need your help,” I said. “Do you mind if we come in to talk?”

Chief McGinnis gave me a dirty look, but he didn’t say anything.

“Oh, okay,” Mr. Franklin said.

I think he was taken off guard by what I had just said. He was probably all set to have us accuse him of doing something wrong. He turned around, and we followed him into his living room. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be, but if he had stolen the library clock and sold it for a lot of money, then he hadn’t spent any of it on furnishing his house.

“Have a seat,” Mr. Franklin said.

I pushed aside some old newspapers and dirty clothes and sat down on the edge of the sofa. I was
just hoping that some strange creature wouldn’t crawl out from under one of the cushions.

“How can I help you?” Mr. Franklin said.

Yes! He’d really taken the bait. Before Chief McGinnis could mess up the investigation, I said, “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this sooner, but you are probably the one person who can actually solve the mystery.”

I could tell that Mr. Franklin didn’t know what to say.

“You were in a position to see all the people who looked at the library clock,” I continued, hoping to convince him that he really could be a help to the investigation, “so we thought we’d ask you to try and remember if you ever saw anybody who kept looking and looking at the clock, as though he—
or she
—were trying to figure out how to remove it from the wall.”

Good grief. This was beginning to sound so dumb!

But Mr. Franklin already had the hook in his mouth. He started nodding his head, as though he was suddenly remembering all kinds of suspicious things that had taken place in the library. A smile came to his face, the first one I ever remembered seeing. I just knew that he was probably thinking that Chief McGinnis and I weren’t very bright, and that
he was going to pull a fast one on us. He launched into some of the most fantastic stories I had ever heard. I could tell that he was really enjoying suggesting that some of the most important citizens of River Heights might be criminals.

“Excuse me, Mr. Franklin, but I’m thirsty,” I interrupted him. “Would you mind if I get a glass of water?”

“Oh, sure, sure. Just help yourself,” Mr. Franklin said. With a nod of his head, he added, “The kitchen’s that way.”

I stood up and headed in the direction of the nod. I wasn’t really thirsty—and even if I had been, there was no way that I would drink out of any glass I found in his cupboards. I had suddenly thought that if Mr. Franklin had stolen the library clock, he might not have sold it yet, and it could still be somewhere in his house.

A Suspect Leaves Town

I
quickly headed down
the hall toward the door at the end. When I touched the knob to open it, it felt greasy, as though the last person who’d used it hadn’t washed his hands after eating. Yuck.

Unfortunately I needed to look inside the room. Wrapping my hand in the bottom of my shirt, I reached out, turned the knob, and opened the door. The room looked like a bedroom, but it was piled so high with boxes and junk that it was hard to tell. I shut the door behind me and turned on the light. Carefully I wove my way through the clutter, hoping I would see the familiar library clock—but I could hardly find anything interesting, digging through stacks of dirty clothes and rummaging through some of the larger boxes.

I was hoping that Mr. Franklin was so engrossed in telling Chief McGinnis his theories about the robbery that he wouldn’t be paying any attention to how long I was gone—but I knew I needed to hurry, just in case.

I turned off the light, stepped back into the hall, and looked in the three remaining rooms and the bathroom. They were all piled full of stuff too. What a way to live!

I started back down the hall, toward the living room. To my left I could see the kitchen, and I decided to check that out. In retrospect, I wished I hadn’t. Dirty dishes were stacked everywhere. Hannah would absolutely pass out at the sight of it.

There was a door at the rear of the kitchen, and I was sure it led to the backyard. Then it occurred to me that there might be a shed where Mr. Franklin had hidden the clock. I peeked out one of the windows, and I didn’t see any shed—plus, it was obvious that Mr. Franklin hadn’t been in his yard for some time. Weeds had completely overtaken it. I suddenly wondered if he could have rented one of those storage facilities that have recently popped up all over River Heights. If he had done that, I’d either have to find the key, which he probably kept in his pocket, or follow him to the place and hope to get close enough to see him doing something with the clock.

I knew I had been gone way too long, so I quickly went back to the living room. I needn’t have worried, though, because neither Chief McGinnis nor Mr. Franklin looked up when I sat down. It was as if I’d never left.

“I’ve seen that Lucy Gonsolvo looking at it too,” Mr. Franklin was saying. “I remember once I almost had to carry her out of the library, because she wouldn’t leave.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

Mr. Franklin turned and looked at me. It took his eyes a couple of seconds to focus. It seemed he’d forgotten I was there. “She kept saying it reminded her of a clock she used to have back in the old country,” he said. “That’s what she called it, the
old country
—but she never did say where that was.”

“I don’t think anyone really knows where she’s from,” I said.

“So she could have taken the clock too,” Mr. Franklin continued.

“Well, so far the list is up to fifteen possible suspects,” Chief McGinnis said. “Can you think of anyone else?”

Mr. Franklin scratched his chin. “I’m sure there are others, but I can’t rightly think of anyone else now. If I do, I’ll give you a call. I want this clock to be back on the wall of the library as much as anyone else in
River Heights.” He gave both of us a big smile.

Yeah, right. That wasn’t the impression I’d gotten from him the other day. Of course, I didn’t say that and chance making him angry. But I was positive that Mr. Franklin knew more about the clock than he was telling, and he was enjoying trying to throw us off the track by listing all the reasons other people in River Heights would have taken it.

I stood up. “Well, this has certainly been very helpful, Mr. Franklin, but we’d better be going.”

Chief McGinnis gave me a look that said that he was in charge of this investigation, and that he should be the one to decide when to leave—even though he looked about as ready as I was. He’d probably try to pull rank on me once we got back into the patrol car too. I decided to make sure he had no reason to.

“I learned a lot about how to interrogate a suspect from you in there,” I said as we headed to the patrol car. “That was like attending a course in criminal justice.”

Chief McGinnis blinked. “Really?” he said.

I knew he was dying for me to elaborate, so I added, “Yes. It was quite obvious from the way you were just letting Mr. Franklin talk that the whole point was to get him to implicate himself.”

“Why, yes, Nancy, that’s exactly what my plan was,” Chief McGinnis said. He cleared his throat. “It worked well, didn’t it?”

I nodded. “A masterful stroke, really,” I said. I could actually see his chest swelling. “It was all an attempt to throw us off the track, his implicating half the citizens of River Heights. In doing so, he made it quite clear that he knows more about the disappearance of the library clock than he wants us to believe.”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Chief McGinnis said. “I was hoping my plan would work.”

“Oh, it did, Chief McGinnis,” I said. “It did.”

All the way back to my house, Chief McGinnis had a smile on his face. Just as he pulled into my driveway, I said, “I think you should put a man on him. If he goes to pick up the clock so he can sell it, you can pick him up.”

“I’m one step ahead of you, Nancy,” Chief McGinnis said. “I had already decided to do that.”

“Great!” I told him.

I waved good-bye, then headed toward my front door. Hannah opened it just as I reached for the doorknob.

“Oh!” I cried. “You startled me!”

“Sorry, Nancy, I didn’t mean to,” Hannah said. “I saw you arrive, so I thought I’d let you in.”

I suddenly realized that I had left the house without my purse and my keys. “Thanks, Hannah,” I said. “Chief McGinnis picked me up so we could talk to
Mr. Franklin about the missing library clock. That’s all that was on my mind.”

“Oh, you got a telephone call from Lizzie Romer,” Hannah said. “She sounded kind of frantic.”

“Lizzie Romer?” I said. “Are you sure that’s who it was?”

Hannah nodded. “She asked me to tell you that she really needs to talk to you, and could you meet her tomorrow for lunch at her sister Janice’s apartment,” she said. “I wrote down the address for you and put it in your room.”

I couldn’t believe it. Lizzie and Janice Romer were distant relatives of Albert Washington, the man whose third, handwritten will I’d found—the will that disinherited the Smalleys.

“Maybe I should call Lizzie right now,” I said. “Did she leave her telephone number?”

“No, but she said she was leaving right away, and that she would be busy for the rest of the evening,” Hannah said. “She didn’t give me a cell phone number either; I don’t know if she has one or not.”

As I headed upstairs to my room, my head was spinning. It was bad enough that I had all the problems associated with the library celebration. Did an old case I had thought was solved need to start unraveling now?

I didn’t sleep well that night, and that’s kind of unusual for me. I kept tossing and turning and trying to piece everything together. I may have gotten just a couple of hours’ sleep. After thinking of all the reasons I didn’t really want to get up the next morning, I finally thought of one that, although it didn’t quite get me out of bed, at least made me sit up enough that I could reach the phone on the night table. I dialed Chief McGinnis’s number.

“Hi, Chief McGinnis?” I said, after he’d said hello. “I just wanted to find out if your men had learned anything about Mr. Franklin.”

I half expected a condescending reply, but he surprised me with, “Yes, Nancy, as a matter of fact, they did.”

When he didn’t elaborate, I said, “What?”

“He went to several clothing stores and bought some shirts and trousers, some socks, some underwear, a couple of belts, and some shoes.”

Interesting. “Which stores?” I asked.

Chief McGinnis named some of the less expensive department stores in River Heights. “He didn’t go anywhere else after that, except home,” he added, “but I have a man in an unmarked car at the end of the block. If he leaves, we’ll know about it.”

I took that opportunity to tell Chief McGinnis that instead of going to get a glass of water the day before, I’d actually searched the house.

The change in his breathing told me that he wasn’t happy with that bit of news, but he didn’t complain. I was pretty sure that he wanted to know if I had found anything.

“I didn’t find anything, though, no library clock, no clock parts,” I said. “But Mr. Franklin could have simply rented one of those storage facilities and hidden it there.”

I knew that Chief McGinnis had put his hand over the mouthpiece and was talking to someone in the office. It was muffled, but I could make out something about checking storage facilities. I wasn’t sure how he planned to do that, because I didn’t think we had enough cause for a court order to search any storage shed that Mr. Franklin might have rented. Maybe he was just going to find out if Mr. Franklin had rented one. That would be suspicious in itself—especially if it had happened within the last few days.

“I’ve got to go, Nancy,” Chief McGinnis said, now talking into the phone again. “If I learn anything new, I’ll get in touch with you.”

I wouldn’t hold my breath! “Okay,” I said. “ Same here.”

Just as I hung up, I heard Hannah answering the front door downstairs. Within seconds Bess and George had bounded upstairs and into my room.

“Quick! Get dressed!” Bess said. “You’re coming with us!”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You won’t believe what we just saw,” George said.

“Okay,” I said. I pulled on the clothes I had worn the previous night. “Ready!”

“Oh, Nancy. You’re not going out like that, are you?” Bess said, staring at me. “Nothing matches.”

I looked down. “Okay, I guess you’re right,” I said. I had forgotten that the chair where I tossed my clothes the night before also had some things on it from the night before that. They really didn’t match—even I could see that. “Sorry.” I quickly took off the clashing top and put on the matching top. “Better?” I asked.

Bess merely raised an eyebrow. It really wasn’t that much better, I knew, but wasn’t what they wanted to show me more important than my outfit?

Shaking her head, Bess led the way downstairs. We jumped into her car.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” George said.

“I feel like I’m being kidnapped,” I said.

“Well, you may beg somebody to do just that after you see this,” Bess said. “Keep watching on the right-hand side.”

Three blocks later I let out a gasp. Through the window I saw one of the biggest mansions on River Street, and standing on the lawn, bossing around some movers, were Merrie and Carrie Smalley.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, twisting my neck to watch out the rear window after we had passed them. “How in the world can the Smalleys afford a house like this?”

“Beats me,” Bess said. “Man, I detest those two!”

I turned around. “I saw them in a store earlier, and they talked about how, if things went the way they hoped they would, they’d be moving back to River Heights soon.”