095 An Instinct for Trouble (7 page)

“Can I help. Jack?” Bess asked, her eyes fixed on the injured animal.

“Of course.” Jack’s face relaxed into a smile.

“With a pretty angel of mercy like you, this little guy will recover in no time.”

“Are you coming. Nancy?” Bess asked.

Nancy shook her head. “I’m going up to the feeding station to see if Ned’s still there.” As she made her way up the hill, she kept thinking about the marmot. Had the thieves overlooked that trap when they collected the other mar-

mots, or were they starting to trap more?

When she approached the fenced-off area, she saw Ned and Jennifer, their heads close together, making some adjustments to one of the time-lapse cameras. The sight made her a little uneasy. She took a deep breath, pasted a confident smile on her face, and called out, “Hi, guys.”

“Nancy!” Ned dashed over and gave her a big hug and a quick kiss.

Nancy’s spirits soared; Ned wasn’t angry with her any longer. She turned to find Jenni-

fer watching them, a hint of challenge in her eyes.

“I can finish up here by myself if you want to take a break,” Jennifer said. “We got a lot accomplished today. Nancy, will you be at the square dance tonight? It should be lots of fun.

Ned, don’t forget you promised me a Virginia reel.”

Ned shifted his feet uncomfortably. “Oh, I won’t,” he said, then turned to Nancy. “I worked straight through lunch, so I’m due an hour or so. You want to drive to Mammoth Hot Springs? It’s my favorite place in the park.”

She touched his arm lightly. “That would be great.” They walked down the hill and stopped at the campsite to tell Bess and Jack where she was going. Bess was so occupied with helping Jack that she only nodded.

Ned led Nancy to one of the camp’s Jeeps.

The top was down so Nancy zipped up her jacket before climbing in.

During the twenty-minute drive, Nancy told Ned everything that had happened since she’d last seen him. She mentioned the Turkowers, the attack on the road, and how she’d found the linen service driver bound and gagged in his van.

Ned was appalled to learn how close Nancy had come to being run off the road. “You’ve got to be more careful. Nan,” he said anxious-

ly. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

She felt a sudden glow. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing,” she told him. “And anyway, what about you? I’m not the one who got himself knocked out. How’s your head today?”

Ned lilted one hand from the wheel to touch the back of his head, where it was bandaged.

“It’s still there,” he joked. “I can take this bandage off tomorrow, though.”

“I hope you’ve been taking it easy.”

“Are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “We have to wrap up everything by Saturday. I’ve been going like crazy since daybreak. We all have.”

He pulled the Jeep onto an embankment and parked. “Come on,” he said, pocketing the keys. “From here we walk.”

They crossed the road and made their way up the path.

“Mammoth Hot Springs is a twenty-foot-

high stack of limestone with one side cut away by erosion,” Ned told her. “And it’s gorgeous.

Look.”

Nancy gasped in delight as they cleared the trees, and she saw steaming water flowing softly down a series of stone terraces that looked like giant multicolored steps. Near the top the stones were pure white, but farther down they were splashed with red, brown, pink, and tan.

“At the top the water is so hot that nothing can live on the stones,” Ned told her. “But the water cools off as it flows downward, allowing algae to grow on the lower terraces. That’s why those ledges are so many different colors.”

“It’s beautiful!” Nancy exclaimed.

“I wanted to be sure you saw this,” he said, putting his arm around her waist. “But I’m afraid I have to get right back to camp. You can’t imagine how much work we still have to do.”

After another long look at the limestone terraces, they reluctantly headed back to the car.

“How’s the case going. Nancy?” Ned asked as he drove back to the campsite.

“I’m making some progress, but not a lot,”

she said. “I’ve got too many suspects. Anyone could have taken the key from under the rock by the command post, which means I have to consider outsiders, like Piker and Richard.”

Ned nodded. “Well, if the key was stolen, Professor Trainey obviously didn’t do it. He’s got one of his own.”

Nancy remained silent for a moment, then told Ned the news about the grant extension.

He looked crushed. “Dan didn’t say a word about it,” he began. “I guess he’s too upset.”

“It’s awful, I know,” Nancy said carefully.

“And I’m afraid I’ve still got to watch the professor. He must be pretty desperate for money now.”

Ned’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the wheel tighter. “That’s ridiculous. Professor Trainey is the last person on earth who’d get involved in poaching marmots-no matter how hard up he is,” he said indignantly.

Nancy took a deep breath. “Try to see it objectively. He’s got a strong motive. And he has complete access to the equipment. I can’t rule him out on your say-so.”

Ned was silent for a long time. As he pulled into the parking area, he finally spoke. “I’m beginning to wish I’d never asked you to help.

Some help! Doesn’t the poor guy have enough problems just trying to get this part of the project completed by Saturday? If you can’t manage to leave Dan Trainey alone, you’d better just turn around and go back to River Heights!”

Nancy’s anger spoke for her. “I don’t think you want this case solved! You’re more inter-

ested in protecting your precious professor and not offending dear Jennifer than you are in finding out who’s been poaching marmots.”

“At least Jennifer pays attention to what I say,” Ned retorted hotly.

Nancy knew, even as the words rose to her lips, that she was going to regret them. She couldn’t stop herself though. “Is Jennifer will-

ing to shut her eyes to the truth just because you tell her to?” she demanded. “Then all I can say, Ned Nickerson, is that the two of you deserve each other!”

Chapter Nine

If that’s the way you feel, I guess I know what to do about it!” Ned jumped out of the Jeep and stomped away.

Nancy sat still. What had Ned meant? Did he want to break up?

She started to follow him up to the campsite but then checked her steps. Maybe she should wait a bit to give him a chance to cool off. In the meantime she decided to talk to Bess.

Nancy found her at feeding station 1, strok-

ing the injured marmot through the bars of its cage.

“Oh, Nancy,” Bess said, “look at Spike. Isn’t he adorable?” Her blue eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.

In spite of the way she felt. Nancy managed a faint smile. “Spike?”

“I call him that because of the way his fur stands up around his head,” Bess explained.

“Look, Jack bandaged Spike’s leg while I held him. The little guy didn’t even try to bite me.

So how did things go with Ned?” Bess asked, glancing at her. Then she quickly added, “Uh-

oh. Not so well, huh?”

“No,” Nancy said. She gave Bess a full account of their most recent argument, includ-

ing their parting words.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Bess replied, frowning. “But you don’t really think that Ned and Jennifer…”

“I don’t know what to think,” Nancy said.

“They’ve been together every day for two and a half weeks now. But I’m sorry I said what I did-even if I meant every word of it!”

Nancy heard footsteps. Hoping it was Ned, she spun around eagerly. It was Professor Trainey. She couldn’t help letting out a sigh of disappointment.

Trainey nodded to her and gave Bess a distracted glance, then bent down to peer inside the cage. “This must be the little fellow Jack told me about,” he said.

“He’s so cute,” Bess announced. “Maybe in my next life I’ll come back as a marmot.”

Trainey actually smiled at her-it was the first time Nancy had seen him happy.

Bess turned to Nancy and said, “Come on, let’s go check out a few sights while the light’s still good. We’ll have plenty of time to eat dinner and change before the square dance.”

Nancy sighed and said, “I’ll probably skip the dance.”

Bess gave her a sharp glance, then replied, “We can discuss that later. Right now, what do you say to a waterfall?” Without waiting for an answer, Bess hooked her arm in Nancy’s to lead her down to the car.

After a few minutes of driving. Nancy said, “Bess? I think somebody’s following us. A dark blue car’s been right behind us the whole time.” All at once the car pulled off at a scenic overlook.‘“So much for that,” Nancy said with a laugh. “I guess I’m getting paranoid.”

Bess reached over to touch her shoulder.

“Nancy?” she said in a tentative voice. “Are you positive that the professor is involved in the poaching?”

“Positive? Of course not,” Nancy replied, surprised by the question. “I don’t have evi-

dence to prove it either way. Brad says he saw him just before his accident-but he wasn’t positive. And then there was that Phi Beta Kappa key.”

“Then he is your chief suspect.”

“Well,” Nancy said slowly, “no one is in a better position to set up a poaching operation than he is. …”

“What happens if we don’t find the missing marmots?” Bess asked. “Or if more of them disappear?”

“I guess the study will be ruined-and so will the professor’s career,” Nancy answered.

“So poaching and selling marmots wouldn’t exactly solve his problem,” Bess went on. “In some ways, it would only make it worse.”

Nancy nodded. “I see what you mean, Bess.” Nancy’s thoughts were churning. Was she focusing too hard on Trainey? In that case she owed Ned an apology-if she could ever get him to listen to it.

She slowed the car down. “There’s a sign for the falls,” she announced.

After finding a spot in the crowded parking area. Nancy and Bess followed a sawdust-

covered path through the woods. As they walked, they heard a low, persistent rumble in the distance. When they emerged from the trees at the base of the falls, the sound was overwhelming.

Bess tapped Nancy’s arm. Nancy turned and saw her friend’s lips moving but couldn’t hear anything above the roar of the water. Bess pointed up the path and raised an eyebrow.

Nancy nodded and followed her friend to an observation platform perched a dozen feet above the river, just beyond the reach of the spray.

She craned her neck to peer up at the top, where the water cascaded over a ridge of red and yellow volcanic rock. The constant mo-

tion of the water made her feel a little dizzy, so she clutched the railing for support.

Bess leaned her head close to Nancy’s.

“Would you like the binoculars?” she shouted, holding them out. Nancy took them and could see the individual droplets of water splashing into the river. Along the banks, bright wild-

flowers grew.

A large group of sightseers jostled onto the platform behind Nancy. Two middle-aged women pushed up and flanked her. As her gaze swept farther down the riverbank, she noticed a man with black hair. Frowning, she focused the binoculars to get a clearer image. She let out a gasp because she was looking at Dan Trainey, who was holding a marmot trap!

Nancy focused in tighter and realized that Trainey was talking to someone who was part-

ly hidden by a tree trunk. All she could make out Were the other person’s hands gesturing to Trainey.

She wanted to get a better view, so she started edging her way along the railing. She had almost reached the comer of the platform when someone shouted, “Look! A red-tailed hawk!”

As the crowd on the platform surged for-

ward, Nancy felt someone put both hands on her back and give her a powerful shove. A moment later she was falling over the rail into the swirling river below.

Chapter Ten

Nancy gasped as she hit the icy water. She had just enough time to fill her lungs and clamp her mouth shut before the river swirled over her. She fought her way to the surface and tried to make it to the nearest bank, but the raging current pulled her downstream.

As an eddy spun her around, she got one last glimpse of the platform she had just been pushed from and saw Bess frantically making her way through the stunned crowd, trying to reach the riverbank.

The current tumbled her again, pushing her into a somersault. Nancy flailed her arms wildly and managed to keep her head up, but she didn’t know how much longer she could hold on.

Downstream, a boulder rose up above the surface about half a dozen feet from shore. If only she could get to it, she thought, she might have a chance of saving herself.

Nancy put all the energy and determination she had into powerful strokes and kicks. Just as she was sure she couldn’t keep it up any longer, the rock was right in front of her. She wrapped her arms around it and took a deep breath.

“Nancy! Over here!”

Startled, she looked over and saw Gerald Turkower standing on the riverbank near her.

“Hang on!” he shouted, cautiously stepping off the bank. He inched forward, the water swirling around his knees now, then leaned forward and stretched out his hand. Nancy reached out and grasped it. Gerald steadied himself, then reeled Nancy in to the bank as if she were one of those cutthroat trout he had talked about at lunch.

Nancy’s legs were numb and wouldn’t hold her up. “Thanks,” she said to Gerald through chattering teeth.

“Nancy! Are you all right?” Bess demanded, running up.

“C-c-cold” was all Nancy could manage.

Gerald took off his fleece-lined leather jacket and draped it around Nancy’s shoulders.

Bess turned to him. “Where did you come from?” she asked curiously.

His eyes flickered. “I was in the woods, taking pictures.”

Nancy looked sharply at him and struggled to find her voice. “Was anybody with you?”

she asked after a second.

Gerald shook his head. “Come on. Nancy, I’ll help you to your car. You need to get in and turn the heater on full blast. How did you happen to fall in?” he asked as they walked.