False Notes (5 page)

“Maybe, but that’s not the point,” I said. “The point is, I noticed that the piano keys looked funny—they’re supposed to be ivory, right? But these looked sort of grayish. That’s when I realized they were dusty.”

“Dusty?” George repeated from the backseat, still sounding perplexed.

I nodded. “Dusty. And that means they haven’t been touched in at least a couple of days.”

“That
is
kind of weird.” Bess clicked on her turn signal as she reached an intersection. “But wait, I still don’t get what all this has to do with Morris Granger and the rest of the stuff you said.”

I explained the scenario again patiently. “There’s no way Leslie would go without practicing that long with a recital coming up, let alone that important audition. She must not have been home for the past couple of days at least—which matches up with what
we saw on the school’s Internet bulletin board. She’s been missing from there for two days too.”

“Right,” George said. “But that doesn’t mean she’s been kidnapped. Maybe she’s off visiting her grandparents or something.”

“It’s possible,” I admitted. “But I don’t think so. It just ties in too perfectly with my dad’s weird reaction to Leslie’s name, and also what I saw on the street earlier today. I think Mr. and Mrs. Simmons were arguing about whether or not they should go to the police. Her parents are afraid to report Leslie’s disappearance. Maybe they received a ransom note or a phone call warning them not to tell anyone.” I shrugged. “They obviously decided not to involve the police. But they must have decided to risk talking to Dad—probably to get his advice about what to do. That would explain his reaction.”

“I guess that could make sense,” Bess said as she pulled to the curb in front of George’s house. “Your dad probably wouldn’t freak out like that if they were just regular clients coming to him about some ordinary thing. But I still don’t see how Granger fits in.”

“I’m getting to that,” I said. “See, we know from checking the town Web site that he’s the only one who’s officially running for mayor as of now. And if local gossip holds true, the only other person thinking of throwing her hat in the ring is Heather Simmons.
But she needs to get that paperwork in before Friday’s deadline. What better way to distract her from doing that than by kidnapping her daughter?”

“But that seems so crazy,” George protested, leaning on the front seat to talk to us. “It’s taking a huge risk. If Granger did something like that and got caught, his political career would sink faster than an anvil in the river.”

I nodded. That was the only part of my theory that was still bothering me. “I know,” I said. “But a guy like Granger is probably used to taking big risks—gambling on big stock purchases and corporate takeovers. Maybe he figures the payoff is worth it. Mayors are powerful. If he gets elected, he’ll be in a great position to affect all sorts of stuff at Rackham Industries and arrange a takeover on his terms.”

I could tell that Bess and George still weren’t totally convinced, but they both agreed to help me investigate. If Leslie really was in trouble, we all wanted to help.

“First things first,” George said as we all climbed out of the car. She pulled out her cell phone. “Let’s find out for sure if Leslie really has been MIA for the past couple of days.”

“Good idea,” Bess said. “Who are you going to call though? Her parents aren’t going to tell you, even if it’s true.”

“Duh,” George said. “But she’s supposed to be going to music camp, remember? We can call them and ask if she showed up today. I’ll get the number from Directory Assistance.”

By the time we reached George’s front steps, we had our answer. Leslie Simmons had been absent from music camp that day—the first time she’d missed a day since camp started.

Bess paused outside the door, looking somber. “Okay, you guys,” she said. “This is starting to get serious. If Nancy’s theory is right, this means big trouble. We should call the police right now and tell them what we know.”

“Bess has a point,” George agreed. “Kidnapping is serious stuff, Nance. The cops should be the ones to handle it.”

I chewed my lower lip. “I’m not so sure,” I said slowly. “I see what you guys are saying, and I agree that this is serious. But that’s exactly why I think we need to be careful. I mean, think about it—do you really expect Chief McGinnis to believe all this if the Simmonses haven’t called him themselves?” I thought back to my encounter with him earlier that day and grimaced, imagining how the conversation my friends were suggesting might go.

What a surprise, Miss Drew,
the chief might say dryly.
So you’ve turned up a kidnapping all of a sudden.
Must be having a boring summer, eh? Why don’t you take up a normal hobby. Imaginary crimes aren’t a worthy pastime for Carson Drew’s only daughter.…

“Okay, maybe not,” Bess said. From the expression on her face, I guessed she was probably imagining a similar conversation. “But we should at least try to do the right thing.”

“But
is
it the right thing?” I said. “If Leslie’s parents haven’t reported her missing, there must be a reason—some kind of ransom note, or instructions to keep quiet, backed up with threats of some kind. We don’t want to put Leslie in more danger.”

George looked uncertain. “You don’t really think Granger would…” Her voice trailed off.

“We don’t know what he might do,” I said. “In fact, I think it’s time to do a little more snooping into our possible future mayor. Come on, let’s hit the computer again.”

Soon we were back at George’s computer, digging through the many online mentions of Morris Granger. We turned up plenty of information about his companies, his real estate holdings, and much more. George had been right about his homes in other parts of the country; he owned property in several midwestern states, apartments in Chicago and New York City, a beach estate in Florida, and a town house in River Heights.

“Yikes,” Bess said. “What if he’s shipped Leslie off to one of those places? We’d never be able to find her without help from the police.”

“I doubt he’d do that,” I said. “I mean, I’m sure he doesn’t really want to hurt her, or keep her forever. He’s probably planning to release her as soon as the paperwork deadline passes and his unopposed run is a sure thing. So it makes sense that he’d keep her someplace local.”

“But if he releases Leslie, won’t she be able to turn him in as the kidnapper?” George pointed out.

I shrugged. “Only if she knows he was behind it,” I replied. “And I seriously doubt that a rich, powerful man like Morris Granger would get anywhere near the dirty work himself. He probably hired some icky underworld-criminal types to grab her and guard her until he says the word.”

We continued the online investigation, scanning through so many articles about corporate buyouts and stock options that my eyes started to cross.

“It’s weird that there’s no hint of anything shady in Granger’s past in anything we’ve read so far,” Bess commented as we read an article from a back issue of a national business journal. “I mean, a lot of those big financial guys get in trouble somewhere along the line, but there’s not even a hint of anything suspicious about this guy.”

George nodded. “Good point,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper.…”

I winced. Whenever George gets that particular gleam in her eyes, it means she’s about to do something illegal, or at least highly irregular. She can hack through any ordinary firewall like it’s nothing, and takes trickier ones as an exciting challenge. Normally I try to discourage that sort of behavior as much as possible; as a lawyer’s daughter, lawbreaking of any sort always troubles me. However, I figured that in this case, whatever we might find out would make it worth looking the other way for a while. I didn’t say a word as she started typing rapidly.

Despite her best efforts, though, George didn’t come up with anything dastardly or even slightly despicable in Granger’s past. “He’s clean,” she said, sounding slightly annoyed at the fact. “I’d put money on it.”

Coming from George, that was practically an iron-clad guarantee. I stood and stretched my shoulders. “Well, I guess that’s good news,” I said. “If this is Granger’s first criminal act, it probably means Leslie’s less likely to get hurt.”

George glanced at me, looking grim. “Or maybe it means he’s so desperate for the mayor’s job that he’s willing to do
anything.
”

• • • •

“How about a portable CD player?” Mrs. Fayne said. “Or a nice new set of barbecue tools?”

“Neither of those seem quite right,” I said. “But keep the good ideas coming! I need all the help I can get, or you’re all going to see a very embarrassed and pathetic daughter at that party on Thursday night.”

George’s mother chuckled sympathetically. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something wonderful, Nancy,” she assured me, her brown eyes twinkling.

When George, Bess, and I had emerged from George’s room, we found George’s parents playing a lively game of cards. They had immediately corralled us and insisted we join them for ice cream. All five of us were now sitting around the table in the Faynes’ bright, big country kitchen discussing my gift dilemma.

Mr. Fayne licked some chocolate sauce off his spoon. “Well, if you need any help shopping, I could come along and help you out,” he said. “Say, tomorrow night, around seven?”

Mrs. Fayne made a face at him. “Very funny, dear,” she said. She glanced at the rest of us. “He’s taking me to the recital over at the university tomorrow night,” she explained. “He’s been trying to get out of it all week—says classical music puts him to sleep.”

“At least I should get a good nap out of it,” Mr. Fayne joked.

I recalled that George had mentioned something about that earlier. “I hear you’re a fan of Leslie Simmons,” I remarked, trying to sound casual. “She’s supposed to be quite a pianist.”

“Oh, she is! She’s wonderful,” Mrs. Fayne replied enthusiastically. “She just makes the music come alive.”

After our dessert break, my friends and I excused ourselves while George’s parents returned to their card game. I led the way outside.

“Look,” I said. “I just realized—by this time tomorrow night, a whole lot more people are going to know that Leslie isn’t around when she doesn’t show for that recital.”

“
If
she doesn’t show,” George corrected.

“Okay—
if,
” I agreed. “In the meantime, I think we should keep investigating. Let’s drive over to Morris Granger’s place and see if we can turn up anything interesting there. Maybe we’ll find some clues—or even Leslie herself!” I was feeling a growing sense of urgency about the case. Not only was Leslie’s disappearance going to be harder and harder for her parents to hide, but I had just realized that I had promised to spend the next afternoon and all day Wednesday helping out with a charity tag sale. This could be my last chance to crack the case.

“Are you sure it’s such a good idea to go to his house?” Bess said dubiously. “Seems pretty risky to me. What if he catches us snooping around?”

George sighed. “Give it up, Bess,” she advised. “You know she’s going anyway. We might as well tag along and try to keep her out of trouble.”

I grinned. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

At that, Bess looked more dubious than ever. “Are you sure?” she said. “I don’t mind driving. Really. And my car is much closer than yours.”

She pointed to her car, which was parked exactly one space closer on the curb than mine. I rolled my eyes. For some reason Bess doesn’t trust me behind the wheel. It’s not that I’m an unsafe driver—I always follow the speed limit, and rarely forget to signal before I make a turn. However, I have occasionally been known to get slightly distracted when I’m thinking about a case, and this means I’ll forget to check the gas gauge and run out of gas. Or I might leave the door open when I leave the car and thus run down the battery. Or forget to take the key out of the ignition and accidentally lock it inside the car.

Of course, that sort of thing almost never happens. Probably no more than once a month or so. Still, Bess just doesn’t trust me.

She made a big show of carefully checking the gas
gauge as she climbed into the passenger seat. “We’re good,” she told George. “There’s about half a tank. That should be enough to get us to the other side of town and back, even with Nancy driving.”

“Ha-ha,” I said with a snort. “Come on, let’s get those seat belts on so we can get moving. It’s getting late.”

It didn’t take us long to find Granger’s home. It was located in a luxurious new town house community on the outskirts of River Heights. We knew the address from George’s snooping earlier. To avoid suspicion, I carefully parked a few doors down.

We climbed out of the car. There were no regular streetlights in the development, but tastefully landscaped lighting fixtures made it easy to get a clear look around. Granger’s town house was an end unit. It was two stories high in the front, but from where we were standing we could see that the neatly mowed lawn dropped off sharply in the back. The house most likely featured a walk-out basement with a nice view of the small lake behind. A large white van bearing the words T
AYLOR’S
T
IRELESS
C
LEANING
S
ERVICE
was parked right in front. As we watched, several apron-clad women hurried up the front steps carrying various cleaning implements. The front door was propped open with a metal dustpan.