The Tower's Shadow
By Fflur Cadwgawn
When Frank Hardy is found following an attack, the reporter who found him is assigned to find out exactly what happened. Slight AU.
Disclaimer: Anything recognizable isn't mine.
Author's Note: This story takes place at Chautauqua Institution. There are a lot of good things about this place, one being that it's the playground of the rich, some of the famous, and more than a few well-known university professors. It was originally a bible study camp, so the original location in Western New York State just south of Niagara Falls has a LOT of references to the Christian religion. It was built during the Second Great Awakening (in the mid-1800s) as a walking community, and then some sections were added on in the height of the flight to the suburbs movement in the 1960s. The old section is very crowded as far as buildings go, with a lot of Victorian and Greek influencing in the architecture. Some structures also have obviously been influenced by some of the architecture present during the communes that sprouted up everywhere in this time period. I'm not going to try to make Chautauqua a product of its past. The community, because it is so well known and so close to some other major nationally recognized landmarks, will be accurately described.
Chapter 1
Monday Morning
Nancy Drew smiled to herself as she peeled and sliced vegetables for her lunch. It was 8:30 am—just half an hour until she had to clock in at the newsroom. The graduate student had managed to snag a summer job as a reporter, at Chautauqua Institution, of all places. Nancy's smile turned into a grin as she added a spoonful of peanut butter to the Tupperware dish of carrot and celery sticks. She'd worked at the Chautauquan Daily for two weeks now, having been assigned the morning lecture beat. Finishing her lunch prep, Nancy slung her hippie-inspired bag over her shoulder and grabbed her black thermos of coffee. "I'm outta here, Aunt Ellen," she said, giving the other woman in the kitchen a hug. "See you tonight."
Nancy stepped out of the house into a nearly perfect summer morning. A nearly perfect morning—Nancy toyed with the nagging thought of retrieving her umbrella form the entry way. The black flies were biting, hard: a sure sign of at least heavy rain later that day. Nancy decided against it, though, for she had just enough time to get to the newsroom now.
Aunt Ellen wasn't really her aunt, but rather Hannah Gruen's sister. Hannah was the housekeeper for Nancy and her father, Carson; Nancy had grown up calling Ellen her aunt after Nancy's mother died. Aunt Ellen's husband had died in the 1980s and left her a sizable inheritance.
Aunt Ellen's permanent residence was in the residential section of Chautauqua, just on the path that cut through the woods to emerge by the Turner Community Center. It was a two-story house, with large glass windows overlooking the roundabout drive the house was situated on. It had been built at the height of the modern art movement, and was in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Wrought iron swirled into floral-shaped window panes on the front door. A cantilevered white stucco balcony hung out over the side of the house, and it was that balcony where Aunt Ellen ate most of her meals in good weather. A set of white wicker lawn furniture and a glass table with a braided rush edging graced that balcony, and were now gleaming in the light from the morning sun In stark contrast to the overall elegance of the house, a quirky umbrella in bold rainbows was currently shading the table from the sun.
Nancy cut through the woods, enjoying the still mugginess of another hot day in Western New York State. She could almost imagine the grounds in an earlier century. Daydreaming, she almost stepped on him.
"Oh, my gosh," she whispered, frantically digging her phone out of her bag and hitting the emergency call button. Waiting for the operator to answer, she knelt down to feel for a pulse. Was there one? She couldn't tell.
"911," came the voice.
"Yes, I'm in the woods by Turner Community Center at Chautauqua Institution," Nancy rattled off. "There's a young man here. I…..I don't know if he's alive."
At the operator's direction, Nancy found the man's wallet. "License…" she muttered, flipping through it and noting the clearly recent cashed paycheck there. Huh. "It says his name is Frank Hardy."
###
Nancy sighed, running her hands through her short hair. She sat in the back of an ambulance that had pulled behind Turner; as luck would have it the events of the morning had triggered another asthma attack. She was getting sick of the things; back home in River Heights, she'd never gotten them but here…well, here the doctor was convinced it was weird pollen Nancy wasn't used to. Aunt Ellen stood by the path, watching the EMTs load the young man into another waiting ambulance. Aunt Ellen turned her attention back to the police officer, but Nancy wasn't really focused on that even though she knew Aunt Ellen was probably verbally chewing up the officer and spitting him back out for letting something like this happen. Aunt Ellen was…forceful, at best, sometimes, a complete opposite of Hannah Gruen.
"Nancy!"
The male voice broke through to her. She swallowed, struggling against a thick throat.
Her boss. Of course. She'd texted him that she was going to be late today after practically tripping on that man. Quite frankly, though, she had other things on her mind. Like breathing. She put her head in the palms of her hands, trying to draw air as her chest tightened again. The O2 monitor started screeching. Josh heard the commotion, and Nancy saw his feet stop a little distance before her.
"Before you ask," Nancy rasped, "asthma. Gimme a few minutes."
It was 10 am now. She was missing the lecture.
"I gave Dan the lecture beat for the rest of the week," Josh said. "I want you finding out what you can about what happened here."
"But—"
"Ah! No buts. You're a good reporter. You were here first. Get the facts. You're good at that."
"I'm not an investigative reporter, Josh!" She still couldn't breathe. "What makes you think I can do this?"
"You said you wanted to improve your culture skills. So get out there and do it."
Fine. "What, the orange blanket doesn't tell you anything?" she snapped as an EMT poked and prodded at her. "I'm also a bloody witness!"
He ignored her and turned to leave. "Tomorrow would be a good day to start," he said over his shoulder.
###
Fenton Hardy, sitting beside his wife, Laura, clapped with the rest of the crowd as the Education Director of Chautauqua Institution finished reading an impressive resume. "Please welcome to the Amphitheater Lecture Series archaeologist Jessica Donaldson," the woman concluded.
A younger woman with light brown hair pulled into a strict bun stood up from her chair, located next to the podium where the Education Director stood, and traded places with the older woman. As she did so, the giant three-fold screen above the stage displayed a PowerPoint presentation title—"'An Archaeological Study of Fingerprints and Their Links to Ancient Trade Routes,' presented by Jessica Donaldson."
"Good morning," Jessi said in her soft, plainly accented, lilting voice, gripping the podium as though it were her lifeblood. Fenton could hear a slight tremor in her voice, and sympathized with her: The Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater held 6,000 people and had played host to people like Franklin Roosevelt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and countless others. Jessi's lecture had drawn in so many spectators that there was standing room only. If Fenton was standing in her place, he'd be nervous, too.
Fenton for once was relieved to be in an audience, not having to worry about anything going wrong at all. His last two cases had ended badly (being chased all over Acapulco happened during the first one, and the second one wasn't even really for a case initially but still wound up with him spending quite the breathless night in Washington, D.C.). Jessi was a former intern of his from his days as a cop with the NYPD, and he sincerely hoped that her lecture went well. After Frank and Joe's success with capturing Spoonface the month before, he had decided to briefly put aside his own projects to give himself and his sons a much-needed vacation and Jessi moral support.
"You've all heard of fingerprints being used in the law enforcement field to identify all sorts of individuals and their links to crime scenes," Jessi began. "This is a research project for which I've been able to team up with some very well-known people in law enforcement, including the internationally known detective Fenton Hardy. I'm very excited to be presenting my research here at Chautauqua this morning."
As he listened to Jessi's preamble, Fenton looked around, and was pleased to see that many members of the audience were wearing open looks of astonishment that Jessi was claiming to be able to identify entire clay production sites and the regions they served not only by the isotopes in the clay, a common enough procedure in archaeology, but by the fingerprints left on the baked clay itself.
"You may be wondering," Jessi said, "if this is reflected in the human record." She smiled—no, grinned, like the Cheshire Cat.
"My friends," Jessi Donaldson said, "it is. It is indeed. This morning, let me take you on a journey—a journey to the world's oldest civilizations and the world's oldest trade routes, and how to find them."
###
Fenton privately was surprised that Joe hadn't been interested in attending Jessi's lecture. Normally his youngest son was obsessed with fingerprints, and he would have thought that Joe would have been interested in some of Jessi's theories of being able to trace trade routes through fingerprint science. But, that morning Joe had begged off anything requiring brain power.
"We just solved a huge case, Dad," Joe had whined at breakfast. "We're on vacation."
"In the world's learning place," Fenton reminded him.
Joe had just rolled his eyes over his spoonful of cereal. "Daaaaaaad." His tone was clear: Not interested!
Time to change the subject.
"Where's Frank?" he asked, taking a sip of coffee.
"He wanted to go check out the old steamboat route," Joe replied, his voice muffled around the cereal. He swallowed. "He left at 7 this morning. I'm pretty sure he was after some books, too, but the bookstore doesn't open til 9."
###
Fenton and Laura clapped with the rest of the crowd. Jessi, to his surprise, had received a standing ovation. Whether it was for her enthusiasm during the lecture, or the content of the lecture, he didn't know. But he stood with the crowd and, when the applause died down, made his way through the wooden pews and concrete aisle ways to the front of the stage.
"Mr. Hardy!" Jessi exclaimed, spotting them heading toward her. She was standing by one of the door that went out into the back gardens of the Amphitheater. A road above it went straight to the main door of the Athenaeum Hotel just down the hill from the Amphitheater. "I'm glad you could come!"
"This is my wife, Laura. You'll probably meet Frank and Joe later. I'm surprised Joe didn't come."
"Fenton, does that really surprise you?" Laura asked, laughing.
"I am really craving caffeine after that lecture," Jessi said finally. "Want to go get a coffee in Bestor Plaza?"
"Sure," Fenton agreed.
"Starbucks or Afterwords Café?"
Fenton said, "We can get a Starbucks drink any time we want to in Bayport. Let's act like real Chautauquans for the day and go to the Afterwords Café."
The three of them walked down the ancient steps of the back porch of the Amphitheater, steps that have played host to so many famous historical figures, and through the rhododendron forest in the back gardens to a red-painted bridge, and from there to Bestor Plaza.
Bestor Plaza was the heart of Chautauqua Institution. Accessible by foot via Vincent Walkway, one of at least three locations on the grounds named for Bishop John Heyl Vincent, it was the central area of the resort grounds. Chautauqua itself was in the fashion of a museion, an area in ancient Greece where intellects gathered to discuss literature, art, and music. A fountain in the exact middle of Bestor Plaza showed the four muses that were represented by Chautauqua—education, music, literature, and art. Set on each of the four corners of the fountain were giant stone fishes.
It was the first week of the Chautauqua season. A crew of gardeners was still scraping moss from the brick walkway that starts at the Amphitheater and quarters the plaza. Fenton, Laura, and Jessi ambled down the section of the brick walkway that lines the east side of Bestor Plaza, threading their way through the after-lecture crowd. In the distance, the Miller Bell Tower chimed the half hour. Up ahead, Fenton could see a crowd of several dozen people deep swarming in front of the Brick Walk Café on the other side of Miller Street.
"Smith Library," Jessi said, pointing to the big brick building on their left. "And that small building on our right is the current home of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, which to date is the oldest continuous book club in America." A young boy stood in front of the CLSC building hawking newspapers—the Chautauquan Daily, Fenton realized. It was a summer job traditionally held by children up to fifteen years old.
"The history here is absolutely amazing," Jessi breathed, ever the archaeologist. "You can actually get up close and personal with it here."
Fenton grinned again. Jessi hadn't changed one bit from when she was his intern. He started to reply to her comment, but was interrupted by his phone ringing.
"Dad," Joe said seriously when he answered, "you and Mom need to come to Dunkirk. Frank's been attacked."