Chapter 14

"Nance? That you, baby?" Mr. Drew's voice called out from the living room.

"Yeah, I'm home," Nancy called back, peeking around the corner to look for the source of the voice. She smiled as her father's preoccupied face met her. "Were you worried about me, dad?"

"You'd better believe it. The storm didn't hit River Heights that bad, but it was rough up in Ridgefield. I was just glad that you went in George's Jeep. I wasn't, however, too glad that George was driving…" Carson shook his head. He stopped suddenly, looking over his daughter's disheveled appearance. "What the hell happened to you? You look like a wreck."

Nancy's hand automatically came up to brush through her hair, which was mussed up. She realized her coat was smeared and that she had patches of dirt staining her pants. "Well, that storm had something to do with what happened to me today."

"Were you in an accident with the car? Are you hurt?" Hannah asked from her spot in the kitchen, whipping potatoes.

"Accident, yes. With the car, no. I've got a bruise and a little cut on my leg where a punk on a sled knocked me over. But, don't worry, I'm fine," she added as her father bent to pull her pant leg up and look at the damage. Hannah paused in her whipping and when she saw Mr. Drew rise, unconcerned, she continued. "It's good, actually. If it wasn't for that kid, the letters would never have opened and I wouldn't have found out about Edgar Nixon running a match making scam and-"

"Whoa, whoa," Carson cried with a laugh, waving his hands to stop the flood of words. "Information overload. Take off your heavy clothes and tell us about this at the table, it sounds good."

They all sat and, over Hannah's meal, Nancy told them both about what she had learned in Ridgefield.

"Nixon is a skeeze," Nancy murmured as she stuck a forkful of potatoes into her mouth with a sour expression.

"Yeah," Carson agreed, not knowing what else to say. "You'd never have thought that Ira Nixon would have a conman for a brother. I think it's a really good idea giving those letters to the postal inspector. But, you're going to have to tell Ira something."

"I can't lie to him," Nancy said, cringing at the thought of hurting the poor guy. "George could lie to him maybe, but I don't think I can."

"So don't lie. Just… spin the story the way you think would be best. Um… okay, what if you say that the letters were damaged and you thought that the post office should take care of them first."

Nancy thought it over for a minute, a slow smile creeping over her face. "Yeah, that'll work. Not a lie. Just… not the entire truth. George would be proud…" She thought of something suddenly and looked at her father. "Any news from Bates-Jones in London?"

Mr. Drew shook his head. "I'm kind of glad there's nothing. You're going up to Emerson with the girls tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah."



"I don't want you up there thinking about this. I want you to have fun. In fact, there is something in the paper I think that you'd find very interesting."

He reached onto the unused chair and pulled for the newspaper, tossing it in front of his daughter. She learned forward and saw that it was flipped to the sports page. In big, bold letters, the main article stated:

EMERSON COUNTS ON NICKERSON'S TOE

Nancy's heart jerked and she tried to contain a smile. She grabbed the paper and read the article in full quickly. Apparently, Ned had been praised for his field goal kicking abilities. She tried to contain a blush, but her father and Hannah saw it and gave her patronizing looks.

"Aren't you the lucky girl?" Hannah said in a teasing tone. "So honored to be the guest. To be Mrs. Nickerson…"

"Shut up, you know it's not like that," Nancy said.

"Do we?" Carson taunted. At his daughter's death glare he stood form the table. "All right, all right! I'm out of here. I'm going bowling with some of the guys. I'll see you guys later." He kissed Hannah and Nancy's foreheads and then walked out of the house.

Nancy began collecting the dishes to help Hannah clean up, but the woman stopped her.

"There's not a lot to do here, just the dishes," Hannah told her. "You go upstairs and start packing. You're going to have to get up early if you're going to drop those letters off at the post office before you pick up Bess and George. It's a long drive up to Emerson."

"Ugh, yeah," Nancy sighed and rolled her eyes. "And I'm sure that George won't make it any easier on us. She'll try to complain the whole time if she can get away with it."

Hannah laughed. "That's George for you. And plus, I'm sure you want to relax a while before you go off and don whatever it is you're going to do tomorrow night."

"It's the Shakespeare play tomorrow and we'd have to change. We need to get there before six. I'm hoping that I can meet Nancy Smith Drew as soon as possible."

"Remember what your dad said."

"I know, I know. I won't stress out, I just want to see the damned woman already."

"Take a picture. I want to see her too," Hannah called as the girl went up the stairs to pack.

Nancy had begun to pack, running through the list of necessities when she heard the doorbell downstairs. She ignored it, knowing that Hannah would get it since she was downstairs. After a couple of minutes, voices started wafting up the stairway and Nancy thought she heard Hannah fighting with someone. She slowed down in her packing, trying to catch a gist of what was being said. After that, she heard Hannah's footsteps coming up the stairs and a second later the housekeepers annoyed face poked through her door.



"It's that annoying brute again," Hannah sighed, exasperated. "I told her to go away because you were busy, but she refuses to leave until she sees you. Do I tell her to jump off a cliff?"

Nancy contained a grin. "Skeets?" Hannah nodded. Nancy shrugged. "I guess I should find out what she wants or she might stay there all night. And I'd like to sleep tonight if at all possible."

Nancy got to the door and saw the familiar, gangly figure well bundled. Her stringy hair was shooting out from underneath her hat and she had the same worn and tattered fake fur coat thrown over the scrawny shoulder. She looked at Nancy with a sneering grin.

"Knew you'd come and see me. Nosy as always," Skeets said in her rough voice.

"What do you want?" Nancy asked, getting straight to the point without the courtesies.

"Like I said before, I don't want nothing that ain't mine and I meant it."

"I'm not giving you one more cent," Nancy declared, giving her a look.

"Don't you sass me, jumping to conclusions like that. You might regret it. I'll leave right now and you'll never know why I came. You can't stand that now, can you? I came on an errand of good will, I'll have you know, and I intend to see it through, but you're testing me."

The tirade amused Nancy and she calmed down, curious to know what Skeets had come for. "I'm listening."

"I thought as much. Most of you younger girls don't listen to their elders. A lot of them little chicks think that they can show the old birds how to fly. How backwards. They never listen to a word of good sense and it does 'em wrong. Like I was saying to my neighbor, Mrs. Brant, the other day who has six little brats of her own, 'Mrs. Brant,' I said, 'I said-'"

"Can you please tell me why you came, I'm really busy upstairs."

"Well, fine," Skeets snapped, annoyed. "I just came by to tell you that all those people's missing mail was returned to them this morning."

"What?" Nancy asked, surprised.

Skeets gave a smirk. "I knew I'd blow your socks off, I did."

Nancy realized that her mail hadn't been returned. She looked at the skinny woman. "How do you know?"

"Well, 'cause I asked, that's how. We got a new mail carrier. I heard that poor old man was still sick. He was always very nice, he was. Anyway, this morning I got three letters. The first was from the electric company, which was a total sham. I didn't run no fifty-three dollars worth of electricity! We go to bed early, my old man and I, and you can bet that they'll be hearing from old Mrs. Maud Skeets, they will.

"The other one wasn't a letter at all, but a postcard from an old friend of mine from New York. She moved down to Florida. House looked like a prize catch. That is, before she actually got there. Now she's living in a rat hole, barely making ends meet. She said to me last that she don't know what the rich folk see in Florida and I agreed. The whole place is a-"

"Please, Mrs. Skeets," Nancy said. "What does this have to do with you coming to see me?"



"I'm getting there, hold you horses. Where was I? See? Now you made me forget. Let me think… Oh, yes! The last letter was from Joe's sister. I knew for a damned fact that she wouldn't write us twice in one week if someone held a gun to her head. I opened it up and what do you think was inside? A hundred dollars. Now I know she would give me two hundred dollars in one week anymore than she'd give me a million. So, I looked at the envelope and just as I thought. Post-marked twice by the post office."

"Good. That'll help Ira relax a lot," Nancy said with a smile.

"I guess I owe you an apology," Skeets said in just as brash a voice as usual. "But, anyway, here are your hundred dollars back."

Nancy looked over the woman and sighed. Skeets was annoying, but not a menace. Just a bitter and worn woman trying to get by. She felt a surge of pity for the woman.

"Go ahead and keep it," Nancy offered.

Skeets scoffed. "I don't need no charity from some rich, spoiled girl, no sir. Take it back. Like I said, I don't want nothing that ain't mine."

Nancy took the bill that was thrown her way and watched as Skeets popped her collar up and headed back out towards the street. She stopped as she passed the porch and looked back at Nancy with a devious grin.

"I guess you had your fun," she said.

"Excuse me?" Nancy asked.

"You don't think I'm stupid, do you? You and those two other girls just couldn't help yourself to a prank. Still, it was pretty mean to do that to a poor old man, hiding all his mail for a couple of days."

Nancy was furious. "Ira Nixon happens to be a good friend of mine and neither I nor my friends would ever stoop to that level. The post office wouldn't think that it was funny either. We could be held liable for that."

"All right, all right, I was wrong. But you can't blame me for thinking my thoughts, now can you. I won't say anything else. Have a good life, Nancy Drew."

Nancy closed the door, still enraged and found Hannah standing behind her, shaking her head and looking out the window at the bundled figure heading towards the bus stop.

"There is a reason why her husband is a sailor. I'd take long trips if I was married to her too," Hannah announced.

Nancy laughed for a good long time and patted Hannah's arm.

"I did notice something, though," she said as she sobered. "Our mail wasn't returned. That just proves that Nixon was after our mail all along. Probably dad's certified letter. He couldn't have known about the hundred dollars in the Skeets' mail and he didn't care about what was in any of the others. He probably didn't have time to weed ours out of the sack and he just grabbed everything."

"This directly involves you in the case then, honey," Hannah commented, raising her brows. "You'd better finish packing. It's getting late."

"Yeah," Nancy commented absently.

She climbed the stairs, her mind whirling. She finished packing and went to bed, but had trouble sleeping. Finally, she decided that she couldn't do anything else other than drop the letters off at the post office tomorrow. At least that part of this case would be closed.