An Instinct for Trouble, Page 3

  Before she could ask more questions, Nancy saw Professor Trainey at the doorway.

  “Now what?” he demanded, slightly out of breath. “Can’t I leave this project for five minutes without—” His voice faded as he noticed Ned on the floor.

  “Someone hit Ned over the head,” Jennifer told her father. “And tranquilizers are missing from the supply room.”

  Trainey’s eyes widened as he knelt beside Ned. “We’ve got to get you up to the hospital in Gardiner as soon as we can.” He glanced around the room, clearly upset. “Can someone drive him there? We can’t take chances—not with a head injury.”

  “I’ll go,” Nancy quickly offered. “Where is it?”

  “Gardiner is just over the state line in Montana, right outside the north entrance of the park. I’ll ride along and show you the way,” Jack offered. “Just give me a couple of minutes to clear it with headquarters.”

  Nancy remembered the object she had stashed in her pocket. She slipped it out unobtrusively. It was a Phi Beta Kappa key. Turning it over, she saw the initials D.T. engraved on the back. Dan Trainey.

  She leaned down to pat Ned’s shoulder, then crossed the room.

  “Professor?” she said quietly. “May I speak to you privately for a moment?”

  Frowning, Trainey followed her outside.

  “If you’re concerned about Ned’s care, don’t be,” he began.

  “It’s not that,” Nancy replied. She showed him the gold medallion. “I found this just now under Ned. It’s yours, isn’t it?”

  Trainey took the key from her palm and examined it. “Yes,” he said. “I noticed I’d lost it a few days ago. Thanks.”

  “How do you suppose it came to be lying under Ned—now?” Nancy asked.

  Trainey flushed. “What are you implying?”

  “Professor Trainey,” Nancy said, “I’m a detective. Something strange is going on here. Ned asked me to help find out what it is.”

  “Now, look here,” Trainey said impatiently. “I have a research assistant in the hospital, another of my students on the way there, fifty marmots missing, and a crucial deadline coming up in a couple of days. The last thing I need is an amateur detective in my hair. Do I make myself clear?”

  Nancy remained calm. “Do you realize,” she asked, “that someone from your group could be behind all the trouble?”

  Trainey’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?

  Knowing she finally had his full attention, Nancy continued. “As I understand it, each marmot’s transmitter has its own distinctive code, right?

  “Yes, of course,” Trainey replied, his voice ominously low.

  “So someone could use the computer to pin down an animal’s location at any given moment?” she pressed.

  “That’s what the equipment is designed to do—if you know the codes,” Trainey replied.

  Nancy fixed her eyes on the professor’s face. “And who knows them?”

  Trainey shrugged. “Everyone here, I suppose. The list is in the computer. . . .” The professor’s voice trailed off as he realized the significance of what he had just said.

  “It all points to an inside job, professor,” Nancy said quietly.

  Trainey scowled. “Look, Ms. Drew, are you suspecting me of jeopardizing my project? That’s insulting and crazy.”

  “I’m not saying—” Nancy began.

  The professor interrupted her. “I don’t have time for this. Why don’t you go sightseeing or something?” he barked, then stalked away.

  As Nancy returned to the shed, she thought that it was unlikely the professor would jeopardize his own project, but until she could prove otherwise, he had to be a suspect.

  When she got back to the command post, Ned was sitting up near the computer. Nancy was glad to see that his color was better. “Can you walk?” she asked him.

  He smiled and assured her that he could.

  “All right, we can go,” Jack said from the doorway. As they walked across the campground to the parking area, he moved to Bess’s side. “Are you coming to the hospital, too?”

  Bess nodded, and Nancy noticed the interest in her friend’s blue eyes.

  “Good,” Jack continued, opening the door for Ned and then the back door of the car for Bess. He slipped in next to her.

  As they started off in the direction of the north entrance, Ned asked, “What were you talking to the professor about?”

  “The problems the study is having,” Nancy replied, being deliberately vague. “He seemed tense.”

  “He has a right to be,” Ned said. “His reputation is riding on the success of this project.”

  For the rest of the trip, Nancy concentrated on her driving while Jack pointed out landmarks. Ned leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed.

  At the hospital the group easily found the emergency room. After Ned and Nancy spoke with the nurse there, an orderly led Ned into an examining room, explaining to Nancy that only the patient was allowed inside. The rest of the group found seats in the waiting room.

  “I am totally starved,” Bess announced. “It’s dinnertime.”

  “There are some vending machines downstairs,” Jack said.

  “Is this the hospital Brad is in?” Nancy asked after Bess borrowed some quarters and headed for the elevator.

  “Yes,” Jack replied.

  “I wonder if he’s allowed visitors yet.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “We can ask. I hope he isn’t badly scarred. Burns can be pretty awful.”

  As he spoke, he rubbed a reddish scar on the back of his left hand. “So, tell me about you and Ned. You seem to know each other pretty well,” he continued.

  Nancy nodded. “We’ve been going together for a long time.”

  “Too bad,” Jack said with a charming smile. “If Ned weren’t such a nice guy, I’d ask you to the square dance tomorrow night at the Old Faithful Inn.”

  “That’s where we’re staying,” Nancy remarked.

  “Then you’ve got no excuse for missing it,” he said, casually draping an arm across the back of Nancy’s chair.

  “Are you sure I can’t tempt you to go with me?” Jack asked teasingly.

  Nancy felt flattered but shook her head. “I have a feeling Ned wouldn’t like that too much,” she answered lightly. “But maybe I’ll see you there.”

  Jack gave a mock sigh of disappointment. “Too bad. Ned’s a lucky guy.”

  From the doorway Ned said, “I sure am. The doctor says I’ll be fine. No concussion or anything—but I had to have a few stitches.” He gestured to the bandage wrapped all the way around his head. It gave him a roguish look.

  Just then Bess came rushing up. “Are they done with you already?” she asked. “Can we go now?”

  “I’d like to meet Brad,” Nancy replied. “If they’ll let us in to see him.”

  “Good idea,” Ned said.

  They asked for Brad’s room number at the front desk, then filed into the elevator. At the nurse’s station they learned that he was conscious and able to receive visitors. A couple of minutes later the group piled into Brad’s room. His face and arms were heavily bandaged, but his eyes lit up when he saw them.

  “Ned, Jack!” he said, and grinned. “It’s great to see you!” He turned his gaze to Nancy and Bess.

  “This is my girlfriend, Nancy Drew, and her friend Bess Marvin,” Ned explained.

  “Nice to meet you,” Brad said. Then he noticed Ned’s bandage. “Hey, guy, what happened?”

  Ned told him.

  “We are some hard luck bunch,” Brad said. “First me, and now you.”

  “Don’t forget that marmot that nipped me on the nose last week,” Jack interjected with a laugh.

  “That’s right,” Brad replied. “Maybe you should watch your step if you’re going to hang around with us, Nancy.”

  Ned filled Brad in about the missing marmots. “After the stove exploded I asked Nancy to come out to look into it. She’s a detective, and if anyone can figure out w
ho’s causing all the trouble, she can.”

  “Tell me about your accident, Brad,” Nancy began.

  “There’s not much to tell. The first thing I did when I went on duty was make a cup of coffee.”

  “Of course,” Ned said, grinning. “He’s a caffeine addict.”

  Brad smiled back, then continued. “When I went to light the stove, there was a whoosh, and then flames were everywhere. The next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

  “How terrible!” Bess exclaimed.

  Brad’s face hardened. “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure it was an accident. I saw someone sneaking out of the hut as I walked up the path.”

  Nancy leaned forward eagerly. “Could you tell who it was?”

  Brad stared up at the ceiling for a long time. Finally he said, “I hate to say it, but it looked an awful lot like Dan Trainey.”

  Chapter

  Five

  NO WAY,” Ned said. “How could you even think that the professor had anything to do with it?”

  Brad shook his head. “All I can tell you is that whoever it was was wearing a dark green hat and a green coat like the professor’s. And considering the way he ran behind the hut, I’d say he didn’t want to be seen.”

  “Well, it wasn’t Professor Trainey,” Ned insisted. “And that’s that.”

  Reluctantly, Nancy told them about finding the professor’s Phi Beta Kappa key.

  Ned scowled. “There’s bound to be an explanation. Did you ask him about it?”

  “Yes,” Nancy told him. “He said he noticed he lost it a few days ago.”

  “Well, there you are,” Ned concluded. “It was probably on the floor all this time.”

  Nancy glanced at Ned, who looked upset. She decided to drop the subject for a while. Turning back to Brad, she asked, “Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to hurt you?”

  “When I noticed that the traps were missing, the others divided up my chores so I could look into it. Maybe my investigation bothered somebody,” Brad suggested.

  Nancy nodded thoughtfully. “Did you discover anything?”

  Before Brad could answer, a nurse came bustling in. Nancy could almost hear the starch rustling in her white uniform.

  “Sorry, folks. Visiting hours are over.” She took Brad’s wrist between her fingers and checked her watch.

  The group said their goodbyes. As they left, Nancy decided to return the next day to question Brad further.

  On the way back, Ned sat silently beside Nancy. She could tell he was thinking about the professor. Jack and Bess kept up a steady stream of conversation in the backseat, and Nancy was glad of it.

  “I have an idea,” Jack said as Nancy turned onto the dirt road leading to the campsite. “There’s a new little café with disco music in West Yellowstone. I know Ned has to rest this evening, but we could go dancing.”

  “That sounds great,” Bess replied.

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Nancy said. “You guys go without me.”

  “Sure you don’t mind?” Bess asked.

  Nancy shook her head.

  When she parked the car, Jack climbed out, then put his head in through the window. “I’ll come by the hotel around eight, okay?” he said to Bess. “If you change your mind, you can still join us,” he added to Nancy.

  “Oh, wait,” Bess called, getting out and walking up the path after Jack. “What kind of place is this? I need to know what to wear.”

  Jack laughed and put his arm around Bess’s shoulders. The two of them bent their heads together and launched into an animated conversation.

  Nancy looked over at Ned. He was sitting very stiffly, staring straight ahead. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said in a tense voice. But then he added, “There’s no way Dan Trainey tampered with that stove, Nancy.”

  Nancy was silent, and Ned guessed the reason. “You’re not listening to me, are you?”

  “I’m listening,” Nancy said. “But I have to check him out, and what Brad said makes him a suspect.” When Ned didn’t respond, she continued. “Of course I’m investigating everyone.”

  Nancy hoped for a goodbye kiss, but Ned simply opened the door and walked away. Without a word, he passed Bess as she returned to the car.

  “Brrr!” Bess said, climbing into the passenger seat. “Did you and Ned just have a fight?”

  Nancy swallowed back tears but didn’t feel like talking on the drive back to the hotel. Bess was quiet, too, until they turned in to the parking lot. Then she said, “Let’s go watch Old Faithful.”

  Nancy would have preferred to lie down with a book, but she laughed and said, “Okay, Old Faithful it is!”

  The girls went through the lobby and followed a path to the geyser.

  “Come on,” Bess urged. “I see two spots on that bench over there. We’d better grab them.”

  They sat down and studied the center of attention, a four-foot-high cone that looked like a shrunken volcano. Small puffs of white steam trailed lazily upward from it.

  Suddenly there was a rumbling sound as if a truck were passing. Water bubbled up over the surface of the cone and shot at least a hundred feet into the air. Finally, after two or three minutes, the column of water slowly sank and then vanished.

  “Wow!” Bess exclaimed.

  Nancy just smiled.

  Touching her arm, Bess said in an undertone, “Look over there. See the guy with all the camera equipment? That’s Turkower.”

  Nancy saw a couple in their forties. The man was tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache. He had two expensive-looking cameras around his neck and a leather camera bag over one shoulder. Mrs. Turkower could have just stepped put of a beauty salon.

  “Come on, Bess,” Nancy urged. “I want to meet them.”

  The two girls strolled around the geyser and stopped next to the Turkowers. Nancy took the photocopied article about the marmots out of her pocket.

  “Excuse me,” she said politely. “Did you drop this? I looked for you earlier, but you’d already gone upstairs.”

  “So that’s where it went,” the woman said with a tittering laugh. As she accepted the sheet of paper she added, “Thanks for returning it.”

  “I’m Nancy Drew and this is my friend Bess Marvin.”

  “Gerald and Edith Turkower here,” the man replied. “Smile!” he said suddenly. Before Nancy and Bess could react, he raised the camera and took three quick shots of them.

  “I wasn’t ready!” Bess protested.

  “Gerald, really!” Edith admonished. “He’s such a camera nut.”

  “I couldn’t help looking at that article,” Nancy said casually. “Those whistling marmots are so cute! Wouldn’t it be fun to have one as a pet?”

  “Oh, yes,” Edith replied. “I know a woman back home who has three of them.”

  “Edith likes owning unusual things,” Gerald said, shooting a keen glance at Nancy.

  “I know there are lots of them here in Yellowstone. But isn’t it illegal to take animals out of a national park?” Nancy asked, sounding naive.

  Gerald nodded. “Sure.” Then he smiled knowingly. “But there are ways around that.”

  Nancy’s heartbeat quickened. Did this couple want to buy a marmot? Or were they somehow involved in the poaching scheme? She decided to dangle a little bait and see if one of them took it. “I might consider it, but only if I was sure I wouldn’t get into any trouble.”

  “Nobody likes trouble,” Gerald said. To Nancy’s disappointment, he didn’t say more before they wandered off.

  “What do you think, Nan?” Bess asked. “Could they be stealing the marmots?”

  Nancy frowned. “They seem more like buyers than sellers,” she said. “But either way, we’ll keep an eye on them.”

  • • •

  Somewhere downstairs a clock chimed. Nancy glanced at her wrist. Eleven o’clock. She was lying in the comfortable brass bed in her hotel room.

  She realized that she had had he
r book open to the same page for almost half an hour. The thought that kept running through her mind was that Ned cared more about Professor Trainey than he did about the truth.

  Suddenly she couldn’t stand it any longer and put her book down, stood up, and got her jacket from the closet. A little fresh air, maybe a drive, would clear the cobwebs from her mind, she thought.

  Nancy headed outside. The night was cold and crisp. As she walked toward the parking lot, she heard voices that sounded familiar.

  Just then the headlights of an incoming car swept across a small group of people about fifty feet away. Nancy ducked behind a parked car.

  Edith and Gerald Turkower were deep in conversation with Richard and Piker, the two park maintenance men.

  Nancy crouched down and began moving between cars to get close enough to hear them. But the group broke up before she got there.

  She went back to her room and tried to sort out her thoughts. The only link she could think of between a rich California couple and two Yellowstone maintenance men was poaching. Would any of them know how to track the marmots on the computer? Nancy doubted it. Someone in the camp had to be involved. Someone like Dan Trainey.

  Nancy was still thinking when the door opened and Bess rushed in, her face aglow. “The disco was great!” she exclaimed. “And it wasn’t even crowded. We had lots of room to dance. You should have come.”

  Nancy smiled. “Next time.”

  “Jack is really something!” Bess fell into a chair. “He is totally dedicated to his work and knows absolutely everything about the park. I just hope I can get him as interested in me as he is in whistling marmots,” she finished with a laugh.

  Nancy smiled. “I get the feeling you had a good time,” she said, then couldn’t help sighing.

  Bess stared at her. “What’s wrong, Nan?”

  “It’s just that Ned’s upset because Dan Trainey is on my list of suspects. I guess he thinks his friends should be exempt from my investigating them.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Bess said. “Ned knows better than that, Nancy. He’s just tired and stressed out. He’ll feel different tomorrow.”