Nancy Screw and the Coming of Age (18+) Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Digging Up the Dirt

The following morning Nancy almost overslept. She woke up and got ready in a frenzy. Her parents were downstairs. They had no clue about last night. Nancy knew when they were on to her about something. It was rare, but there were those times where she had let her innocence slip and they had found out about it. This time, however, had eluded them. Nancy’s eyes were still half-closed when she smelled the nauseatingly sweet aroma of fresh-brewed coffee and remembered how it had, among other things, perked her right up out of her dismal surroundings of the Riverside Police Station. Oh Officer Bradley, God bless him.

“Nancy, your ride’s here.” Nancy’s mother called over to her as she choked down some coffee.

“Honey, you’re drinking coffee now?”

“Well, mom,” Nancy replied. “I didn’t get much sleep last night and I hear this wakes you up.”

“Can’t argue that one, dear,” Nancy’s father piped in. Nancy’s mother looked at her father scornfully.

“Mom, what did you mean by ride?”

Nancy’s mom pointed to the window. Beyond it was Beth’s car, sitting at her driveway. Nancy kissed them both and trotted out the door to meet Beth. In the backseat Janet was also waiting. Nancy opened the passenger side door and got in. Beth, without saying a word, put the car in drive and headed on down the road towards Riverside High. As soon as they were out of sight of Nancy’s parents’ place she spoke.

“Nancy, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t be there to help you out, to get you free sooner. It all happened so fast.”

“It’s okay Beth, everything turned out for the best.” Nancy looked at her and smiled. Beth momentarily broke her attention from the road and returned Nancy’s smile.

“Okay. Thank you for being so understanding.”

“So, what happened?” Beth’s tone turned from dread to excitement.

“Well,” Nancy went on. “I had found some evidence that could lead us to our next big clue and I was sure that I would be able to make it out.”

Janet and Beth listened.

“As I’m sure you know, Beth, I had made it inside the house and Margaret had come home. I didn’t hear her and when I did, I had to race down the stairs to try to make my escape.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you, Nancy. Really, I am.”

“Don’t worry, Beth. I’m here, right?” Nancy flashed her a comforting smile and continued with her story.

“You see, I ended up hiding in the downstairs bedroom closet. That’s where they caught me.”

Beth’s face shrugged with disappointment.

“Don’t worry, Beth,” Nancy assured once more. “You worry too much. But thank you for doing so.”

“I saw the police come up and I felt like running, but I just couldn’t. I had to stay there until the very last moment.” Beth stopped talking momentarily to organize her thoughts.

“I almost got caught too, you know. They came up to my car and I had to slip out!”

Nancy let out an embarrassing, yet sympathetic laugh.

“I almost killed myself flying down that hill! Luckily a log and some branches broke my fall,” Beth exaggerated.

“I’m sorry, Beth. I didn’t mean to laugh.” Nancy was still chuckling, though she tried with miserable failure to keep it pushed down inside her.

“What happened then,” Janet asked, poking her head in between the space in the front seats between the two.

“Well, the police caught me hiding in the closet. That Margaret is a lot more clever than we thought,” Nancy added. “It’s almost as though she knew that we’d be there.”

“How’s that?” Beth briefly turned to Nancy.

“Well,” Nancy replied. “She said that he other friend was probably around, too, meaning you, Beth. She even pointed to where our car was. She also mentioned that she saw you spying on her with binoculars.”

“How did she…?”

“Apparently she’s very observant,” Janet interrupted.

“Well, I did get arrested and Margaret did say she wanted to press charges, but one of the officers I spoke with at the station told me that he would see that everything is taken care of.”

“Wow,” Beth inquired. “How did you end up getting so lucky?”

Nancy smiled and blushed a little, remembering how giving Officer Bradley had been with her in that cell.

“I don’t know, Beth. I don’t know.”

“But what I do know, or what I am soon to find out, is another potential lead in this exciting little case.”

“Huh?” Both sisters turned to Nancy and proclaimed in unison.

“I was able to obtain Margaret Turner’s diary.”

“Well, where is it?” Beth glanced over to see a look of disappointment on Nancy’s face.

“When I got arrested it must have slipped out. I held onto it as long as I could after I stuffed it down the front of my jeans. It must have fallen out on my way down the porch to the patrol car.”

Nancy cursed under her breath.

“Shoot. If there was only some way I could get it back.”

“But we have school, Nancy,” Beth lectured. “And these are the days that count towards graduation, especially if we want to end up at the same college together next year.”

“That’s true, Beth. I’m just going to have to go back after school is over.”

“What? Nancy you can’t be serious. You got arrested last time. This time they’ll never let you out, I’m sure!”

“I know, Beth, but something inside me won’t quit until I know what happened to Mr. Turner. You don’t have to take me up there if you don’t want to. I don’t want you to actually get caught this time.”

“Nancy, the police will probably be all over that place. Also, that Margaret Turner will probably be watching her property like a hawk. It’s dangerous to go back.”

“I know, Beth. But I need that diary. There’s just something inside it.”

“How do you know that, Nanc? How do you know?”

“Well, I started reading a bit of it before I was interrupted.”

“What did it say,” Janet asked.

“It talked about how her and this guy named, named, Paul! The last page in the diary talked about how her and Paul took care of her husband.”

The other two looked at her with a shocked expression upon their faces. Nancy added another tidbit of information as it came to her.

“They also talked about another person.”

“Nancy,” Beth butt in. “There was a man that was with Margaret when that car pulled up to her house that night. Do you remember seeing a man with them?”

“No I don’t. But I did hear him talking. He had a very strange tone about him.” Nancy’s mind flashed back to when she was shut in the room. All she could rely on was her ears to provide her with as much information as possible.

“I couldn’t see much from inside that closet.”

“Do you think that man could be Paul, Nanc?”

“Perhaps. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”

Beth nodded uncomfortably as the three pulled in to the parking lot of Riverside High. It was going to be a long day.

Nancy didn’t get much more than the routine accomplished during the school day following her brief incarceration. She was still tired from the lack of sleep she suffered from, and there was no real other means of staying awake besides catching herself when she nodded off those few times during first and second period. Third period was, however, the exciting part of the day. It was the last block before the school day came to a close. She knew that she would have to find a way to get up there and get find the diary before the wrong person did. It was all she had to go on and she knew that if Margaret somehow found it outside on her property she would either burn it, or ship it to some far away land where no one would ever find it. The one question the pounded inside Nancy’s head above all others is why didn’t she lock it away in the first place and why did she, if she was guilty of something, potentially write it down for anyone to stumble upon? I guess the guilty make the first mistake. Perhaps it could be on account that their conscious knows it’s wrong and the rest of them, in an effort to fight that innate feeling, unwillingly lets their guards down for but a moment allowing such an error to occur? This could certainly be a valid argument and, before the rest of that guilt would catch on and rectify that error, Nancy needed to get there to defend right. Nancy was racing against the very gears of injustice and she had to win.

Beth nervously fussed with the car keys as she told Nancy where her alliance lie. Janet sat in the car, indifferent yet supportive in every way.

“It’s a nice day for a ride up a hill, isn’t it?”

Nancy smiled wide and ran up to hug Beth.

“You’re the best!”

Beth smiled back, hiding the regret she had prepared for the coming occasion.

“It’s all your fault,” Beth teased. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that darn diary and what it would say next.” Beth closed her car door and started the engine.

“It’s like a book that you can’t put down, but have to.” Beth smiled back at Nancy.

“I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

In the backseat Janet shook her head lightheartedly, for once feeling cheated out of being let in on the subject where she has authority. What did Nancy know about the feeling of not being able to put a book down? Janet quieted her mind, relaxed, and listened to the two carry on about one irrelevant thing to another. Before long, they had reached the base of the hill marking the essential stretch along Monte View Way.

The car got quiet. Nothing really needed discussing. Beth was to stay in the car with Janet and Nancy was to carry out her suicidal plan of trespassing once more. This time, however, Beth had thought of something different. She passed the house altogether and parked a couple house length distances ahead. If she were to come home this time, she wouldn’t be able to see any sign of the girls along the way, assuming it safe to search no longer. Nancy opened her mouth to alert Beth that she had missed the place but, as she was about to speak, she cut herself off, realizing what Beth’s strategy was.

“Genius, Beth,” Nancy commended. “Genius.”

Beth stopped the car.

“We’ll wait here Nancy. Please be careful. And quick.”

“Okay, Beth, I will.” Nancy opened the front passenger door up and stepped out of the vehicle. Beth looked on through the rear and side-view mirrors as Nancy crossed the street and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

Nancy jogged practically the whole way there. She only stopped just before the line of skyscraper hedges that marked Margaret Turner’s property from the one beside it. Nancy’s heart raced. She looked around from the boundary of the street, scanning quickly and carefully for any signs that someone might be home. She closed her eyes for a split second to retrace her steps that night.

“Let’s see,” Nancy whispered to herself. “I was escorted off the porch there and I walked along past those rhododendrons and those rose bushes.” Nancy’s mind came to a conclusion.

“It’s gotta be in that dense patch there.” She pointed to a space between the rhododendrons and the rose bushes to a patch of neglect where weeds now took ownership. Nancy raced up to them and, when she arrived, began prodding through the dense patch in front of her. She couldn’t quite get all the way in for a thorough look, due to the immense growth of rose bush, but she didn’t have to. Her hand felt something alien to her senses lying in amongst the weeds. She compromised her flawless skin and reached in through the thorns to pull it out. When she got a good hold of it she pulled it up enough to recognize it. Margaret’s Diary! It had been there, undisturbed. Just then a car roared by startling Nancy so that she spun around and caught herself in a trap!

“Help,” she cried. “Get these off of me!”

Nancy kicked and pulled at the thorns that held on tight to her garment. She grabbed onto the ensnared parts of the top and, one by one, released them, leaving hairline lacerations along her wrists and forearms.

“Ouch.”

With one final pull she was free, cursing at the bushes and scolding her stupidity for being startled so by a car that nowhere near resembled Margaret’s, nor came up her driveway. With diary in hand, Nancy scooted across the street as inconspicuously as possible, and rejoined the other two in the car that awaited her just down the road.

“Nancy, what happened?” Beth looked in surprise at the dark red scratches that ran up and down Nancy’s arms and wrists.

“I lost a fight with a rose bush,” Nancy joked. Anything to take her mind off the pain.

“But I got the diary.” She held it up and handed it over to Janet.

“Here, could you read the last page for me? I’m afraid it hurts too much to even think about holding the book, let alone getting it stained with my blood,” Nancy whimpered.

“Okay. Sure.”

Janet turned to the last page of the diary and read.

“WE TOOK CARE OF HIM, PAUL AND I. OUR PLAN WILL BE

CONSULT THE THIRD, WHO KNOWS WHERE TO TAKE IT

FROM THERE. MY HUSBAND, CHARLES. OR SHOULD I

SAY EX-HUSBAND. THAT BASTARD THINKS HE’LL GET

ALL OF THIS? HE’S DEAD WRONG. WITH HIM OUT OF THE

PICTURE, THERE’S NO ONE TO DISPUTE. WE’LL MAKE IT

LOOK LIKE AN ACCIDENT. I DISCUSSED WHERE TO DO

IT. ALSO, THERE’S A SPOT THAT IS THE PLACE THAT IS”

Nancy turned her head back at Janet.

“Why did you stop reading?”

Janet held up the diary. “There’s no more. She pointed to its median. “It appears as though the next page has been ripped out.” Jagged ends of paper were apparent as they stuck up from the book’s center. They resembled teeth.

“Dammit,” Nancy couldn’t help it. “After all I’ve gone through. That Margaret Turner is really becoming a thorn in my side,” Nancy added, neglecting the irony that, from her encounter with the rose bushes, she just may have an actual thorn in her side.

“Well,” Janet reassured. “We know that they are keeping him somewhere. If anything, we may be able to follow them to him?”

Nancy perked right up.

“Genius,” Janet. “Genius!”

“It would be less dangerous than going back into her place to get some evidence that may not be there. After all, she might have thrown it away.”

“Well, where do we start?” Beth and Janet looked at each other.