by:
Author's Note:
Thank you so much for all of your support and reviews for this story. Many have commented on how it reminds them of the real Supermysteries- I'm glad it does because that is how I'm sort of trying to write the story. Some have warned against too much romance- Don't worry, the mystery is the main part of the story, not the romance- There will be of course a little, but just on the sideline, romance ISN'T the point of the story! Please read, enjoy, and review!
Thank You,
Lord Dreadnault
Chapter Three: The Fairchild Mansion
Frank, Joe, and Elayne pulled up to a large gate that guarded a mansion that sat just outside of Denver. Elayne reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out a miniature remote device and typed a code. The gate smoothly slid open.
Elayne quickly drove through the gate with Nancy following in her own car. The gate slide shut immediately after Nancy's rental car cleared the wall.
Frank whistled. "That's some tight security."
Elayne rolled her eyes. "Dad is a security freak. The walls and gate must have fifty different alarms and or security cameras on them. It's as if he thinks someone is going to wage war against us."
"Well, what with this kidnapping business maybe it's a good idea for tight security." Joe put in.
Elayne leaned over to Joe. "Walls, gates, alarms, and cameras are one thing," she whispered conspiratorially, "weapon caches all over the backyard and garden is another."
"You've got to be joking!" Joe exclaimed.
Elayne frowned as she pulled up to the front of the house, stopped, and turned off the car. "I'm dead serious! Come on, I'll show you."
Elayne jumped out of the car with Frank and Joe following. Nancy walked up just as Elayne began to lead them around the front to the backyard. "What's going on?" she asked Frank quietly.
"Elayne is just showing us some of Mr. Fairchild's security measures," Frank told her as they reached a corner of the gigantic mansion.
They quartet soon arrived in one of the back gardens. There were flowers and hedges everywhere. Elayne looked around quickly to make sure that no one was watching. She then walked over to one of the flowerbeds and used her feet to scrape away the dirt that was covering a long sprinkler box.
She pointed to it. "Open that up and see what's in there."
Joe obliged. He knelt down in front of the green sprinkler lid and pried it up. He looked in and his mouth dropped open. "Holy cow!" he exclaimed.
Frank and Nancy stepped up and looked in. There was two rifles, three heavy duty pistols, and two sub-machine guns. "That's some serious stuff." Nancy commented, "Is this the only stash around?"
Elayne shrugged. "It's the only one I know about. I found it once while I was playing several years ago."
"What did you father say?" Frank asked.
"I never asked him about it." Elayne replied.
"Why not?" Nancy inquired.
Elayne shrugged nervously. "When my mother died my father went into deep depression. When he finally cheered up, well, he was acting strangely."
"How was he acting strange?" Frank asked.
Elayne sighed. "I don't know, just in the way he did things. He never uses checks or credit cards, always cash. There are absolutely no documents around, anything important enough to keep is in a safety deposit box. Mainly he just has strange habits. Nothing harmful or anything like that, just odd."
"Did you ever talk to anyone about this?" Nancy asked sympathetically.
"I've talked about it a little with Amanda, she's just as puzzled as me. I talked about it more with Martin Webster though. He's a really old friend of my father's. After my mom died Martin showed up from my father's past. Apparently they'd kept in contact a little, but not much. He was around constantly until everything settled down. Anyway, I asked him about my father's strange behavior. Martin basically shrugged it off. He said not to worry. Martin referred to my father's strangeness as 'old habits.'"
"Old habits?" Joe said curiously.
"He didn't explain any further. After that night I never saw Martin again, until this week. Martin showed up and the next thing I know two amateur detectives are en-route to Denver to be my bodyguards." Elayne said.
Frank nodded thoughtfully. "Why don't you and Joe go unload," he suggested to Elayne, "Nancy and I will put all of this back."
"No problem," Elayne replied, "I'll meet you at the front."
Frank and Nancy watched as Elayne and Joe left. "So what do you think?" Frank asked Nancy, "The mother dies and the father goes nuts?"
Nancy shook her head. "Paranoia. I get the impression that Elayne was young and doesn't remember all that much about the death. I'd bet you anything that her mother was murdered."
"That sounds like a good theory," Frank said, "the mother gets murdered, the father gets paranoid that the murderer will strike again, at his daughter or him."
"That sounds right," Nancy agreed, "but, how does this Martin Webster fit in? Strange that he's around during the troubling times of the Fairchild family."
"I doubt he's connected to it, he's probably just an old family friend that shows up in their time of grief." Frank said.
"Whatever you want to believe Hardy," Nancy said smiling mischievously.
Frank grinned. "I say that one of us should stick around Elayne tomorrow, and the other two should go and try to find out some info about Webster and the late Mrs. Fairchild."
Nancy nodded. "That sounds like a good plan. However, maybe we kind find something right here at the mansion tonight."
Frank shrugged. "Maybe." Suddenly he felt a prickling feeling on the back of his neck. It was like someone was watching him. Frank turned towards the house quickly and looked. Was it his imagination, or had one of the curtains twitched? He shrugged and turned around to help Nancy re-stash Mr. Fairchild's weapons.
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Frank and Nancy arrived at the front of the mansion just as Joe and Elayne finished taking all of her stuff in. "I suppose I should introduce you to some of the staff." Elayne told them. "Follow me if you please."
The four teens walked into the large and well lit entry hall. "Let's see," Elayne muttered to herself, "the kitchen." She led the detectives to the kitchen.
Frank, Nancy, and Joe followed Elayne into the large kitchen. Two women were sitting at a counter sipping some juice and talking. Frank estimated the beautiful blonde to be in her mid-twenties, and the older woman to be in her sixties.
Elayne introduced them. "Frank, Joe, Nancy, this is Martha Harper our housekeeper and cook," she gestured to the older woman, "and this is her niece who lives with her, Amanda Johnson."
The two women smiled. "Have you shown our guests to their rooms yet?" Martha asked.
Elayne shook her head, "We're just on our way to do that."
"When is Andrew going to be home?" Amanda asked softly.
Elayne rolled her eyes and grinned causing Amanda to blush furiously, "He had to stay late at work, he'll be home sometime after dinner."
Just then another man walked into the kitchen from another part of the house. "This is William Hertz, he's our chauffeur, despite the fact that we all drive ourselves around."
Hertz smiled. "Nice to meet you!" he walked up to the trio and shook their hands. "I also service all the cars and I'm the general handyman around here, chauffeur is just my official title."
Frank smiled and nodded. "Nice to meet you Mr. Hertz."
"The pleasure is all mine," Hertz replied.
"I suppose I'd better show them to their rooms," Elayne said.
She led them out of the kitchen and to the second floor. "So what was that with Amanda and you rolling your eyes?" Joe asked as they walked down the hallway.
Elayne giggled. "Amanda has had a crush on my father since she moved here with Martha. She was seventeen at the time. I suspect her feelings go a bit deeper now."
Nancy laughed. "What makes you think her crush went deeper?"
"Its obvious! Last year on my birthday, we all went out to eat at a pizza joint. We were all eating when suddenly my father tensed up. No one really noticed except Amanda and I. Then he said that he had to go and use the restroom. Dad walked off and was gone for about a half-hour. No one was seriously worried. Martha and Hertz were occupied and all of my friends were too busy talking about some new boy in town. However, after ten minutes, Amanda was seriously freaking out. She looked like she was ready to go and charge the bathroom and see if he got mugged or anything.
"Weren't you worried?" Frank asked Elayne.
"Not really," Elayne answered, "I know that he can take care of himself. One time we were in New York City and someone tried to mug us. Dad's reaction was like something out of a spy movie. He lashed out with his hand and whacked the guy on the forehead and knocked him unconscious. Then we just left."
"Has he ever noticed Amanda's feelings for him?" Nancy asked.
"My father has never noticed. If Amanda walked up to him and smacked him on the lips he wouldn't notice. He's too caught up in those 'old habits' to notice anything like that!" Elayne was giggling harder now.
Joe was rolling his eyes. Girl talk. "Where's the rooms?"
"We're here." Elayne said. She pointed to two doors next to each other and one across the hall. "Those are your bedrooms. I'll let you freshen up a bit and then we can find something to do." Elayne walked back down towards the kitchen.
"So what do you think?" Nancy asked Frank and Joe after Elayne was beyond ear-shot.
"Strange guy." Frank replied.
"Especially if his daughter thinks that he disappearing for thirty minutes without an explanation is normal." Nancy agreed.
"Maybe he was in a gang and is trying to go straight but the gang won't let him!" Joe suggested.
Nancy rolled her eyes. "A high-class businessman Joe?"
"Nancy is right Joe," Frank said, "Fairchild is definitely high-class, if he was ever involved in crime it wasn't something like a street gang, more like the Mafia or something."
"I say that we go and check out his bedroom and his study. Maybe we can find out something about Fairchild's past." Nancy said.
They all quietly walked down the hall opening and closing doors until they found what appeared to be Fairchild's room. "You take the closet Joe, Nancy, you take the wardrobe, and I'll take his bed and bed stand." Frank directed.
The detectives searched in vain for about ten minutes. "There's absolutely nothing!" Joe said in disappointment.
"No kidding," Nancy agreed, "it's his room but there's nothing personal in it."
"Let's try the his office then," Frank said.
The trio walked down the hall again searching rooms until they found what they were looking for. Andrew S. Fairchild's office. Again, the search was fruitless. The office contained only normal stuff that one would expect to find in a office, nothing personal.
"What does this guy have to hide?" Frank wondered aloud as they headed back downstairs to find Elayne.
"No idea," Nancy replied.
"So, what's the game plan for tomorrow?" Joe asked.
"I think you should stay with Elayne tomorrow. Nancy and I will go and check out Fairchild's secretary. He was late for work and he definitely had the chance to plant that note. Even Elayne said that he usually isn't late. He must have known we were coming and where we would be staying."
"Don't forget Elayne's mother," Nancy put in, "we should go and look her up."
"Sounds good to me," Joe said.
"How about a background check on Fairchild, I bet the Network could dig something up on him. Where he came from, what he did, how he's at the top of a large financial empire now." Frank proposed.
"What about the servants?" Joe inquired, "Did they know we were coming in on the case? Maybe one of them is in on the kidnapping."
"I don't know," Nancy said slowly, "we could have the Network look them up too."
"What strikes me as odd," Joe commented, "is this Amanda person. What teenager comes around and falls in love with a forty plus man?"
Nancy sighed and rolled her eyes. "Joe, do you honestly think that girl is a kidnapper? Fairchild isn't some old derelict. He may be in his forties, or even above but he's in extremely good shape. He has class, I think that it's perfectly fine."
"Besides," Frank said, "it could even be the chauffeur, the general handyman, if anyone could engineer a kidnapping it's him."
"No way!" Joe shot back, "It could be the housekeeper for all we know! What better than to show up, become the trusted housekeeper and bring along an accomplice posing as a niece?"
"What would a housekeeper want with kidnapping?" Frank replied.
"Hey guys," Nancy interrupted them, "who says it's an inside job?"
Frank and Joe shrugged. "Just speculating," Joe said.
"What strikes me is this secretary you told me about," Nancy continued. "He could be jealous of Fairchild, maybe he thinks that Fairchild cheated him some way and is out to get revenge."
"That's nuts!" Joe scoffed, "I'm telling you, the housekeeper!"
"Next you'll be saying it's the butler!" Nancy retorted.
"Hey!" Frank said loudly, "Let's cool it. Tomorrow we'll check out as many people as we can. If anything suspicious turns up, we'll look into it further. I say that we get Hales's home address and Nancy and I follow him to work tomorrow, we can see if he does anything curious. Remember how Barcross said that Hales had been late to work lately?"
Joe nodded. "Yeah, I remember. Okay that works. I'll be the bodyguard and you two check out all the leads."
"It's agreed then," Nancy said.
A/N: Again, no cliffhanger- oh well, maybe I can arrange something next time. :) Please review now- it makes me feel like this story is worth my time. :)