Contents

  * * *

  1Danger on Delivery

  2A Medical Mystery

  3Searching for . . . What?

  4Cause of Death: Unknown

  5A Hunt for Clues

  6A Deadly Coincidence?

  7A Triple Dose of Harm

  8Some Poisonous Thoughts

  9Under Suspicion

  10A New Twist

  11Drive into Danger

  12Weird Science

  13Caught!

  14The Culprit

  15Trapped!

  1

  Danger on Delivery

  “I’ve got it!” Bess Marvin said, swinging her blond ponytail as she turned toward Nancy Drew and Regina Houser. Continuing down the sidewalk with her friends, Bess asked, “What if I write my essay about my summer as a camp counselor?”

  Nancy and Regina glanced at each other and smiled. Regina had been in Nancy and Bess’s class at River Heights High School. Trying not to laugh, Nancy said, “You mean when you sank the camp’s sailboat and got lost in the woods with a group of campers?” Her blue eyes crinkled in amusement. “Do you want your whole creative writing class to know about that?”

  Bess winced. “Uh, maybe not.”

  Regina smiled. “My brother, DeWitt, would never let you live that down,” she said. DeWitt was in Bess’s summer creative writing class at River Heights Community College.

  “Maybe George will have some ideas,” Nancy suggested. The three girls, having just finished breakfast at a local coffee shop, were on their way to visit Bess’s cousin, George Fayne. George had a part-time summer job delivering prescriptions for Twickham’s Drugstore, which was only a couple blocks away. Twickham’s had been in downtown River Heights for as long as Nancy could remember.

  Though she had known Bess and George almost her whole life, Nancy could never get over how different they were. Tall, dark George loved the outdoors and almost every sport. Blond-haired Bess was much more comfortable curled up in front of a fireplace with a good romance novel.

  A few moments later Nancy, Bess, and Regina arrived at a small brick building with an orange neon sign that said Twickham’s in curving script. As Nancy pushed the door open, a little brass bell tinkled. The three girls paused inside the door and looked around.

  Nancy’s father, Carson Drew, always said that Twickham’s looked just as it did when he was a boy. Though the store carried many modern conveniences, from blank videotapes to contact lens solution, it still had the smell of a different era: a sweet blend of talcum powder, penny candy, and medicinal tonics. The aisles were narrow, but the ceiling was high, with wooden paddle fans cooling the air. There was even an old-fashioned soda fountain, located to Nancy’s right, against the front window.

  On a side wall, behind a polished wooden counter, was the pharmacy area, raised a step from the rest of the drugstore. The pharmacy’s narrow shelves were full of small bottles of pills, syrups, and other medicines—it was the best-stocked pharmacy in town, Nancy remembered her dad saying. In front of it, the cashier’s counter had a heavy brass cash register that looked like an antique.

  Nancy remembered the store’s owner, Martin Twickham, whose smiling face used to greet customers at the pharmacy counter. She knew he had retired a few years ago, though he still owned the store. She missed seeing him.

  “Hey, are you ladies going to buy anything, or are you just blocking the doorway?”

  Nancy turned around to see George entering the drugstore with a big grin on her face. Carrying a small, blue zippered bag for her delivery money, George as usual didn’t stop moving. “Come on up to the pharmacy and say hi,” she greeted her friends.

  Nancy, Bess, and Regina followed George up into the pharmacy area, past the short line of customers waiting for their prescriptions. The pharmacy was a long narrow room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves on one side. Behind the counter, a man and woman in white lab coats stood before computer screens.

  “Hi, Grace,” George called out, waving to the woman in the white lab coat. She was about forty, with chin-length, very curly black hair. Nancy knew she was Grace Cerrito, the head pharmacist and George’s boss.

  But Grace seemed not to have heard George. She had just turned, scowling, to the man at her right. “I can’t waste time every morning double-checking your counts from the night before,” she snapped at him.

  The man’s face reddened. “You don’t have to,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes glued to the computer screen. “I only got it wrong once.”

  “That’s one time too many,” Grace said in a low, tight voice. Then, with a quick sigh, she looked up at the girls. A big smile lit up her face. “What brings you guys here so early in the morning?” she asked. Her voice was totally cheerful again.

  Nancy could tell that her friends were embarrassed about overhearing the exchange between Grace and the other pharmacist. She herself was very curious about it. But she broke the awkward silence, saying, “Oh, uh, we’re checking up on George, making sure she’s doing her work.”

  Grace laughed, her eyes crinkling merrily. “You don’t have to do that, Nancy,” she said. “George is doing fine. We’re very grateful for her help.” Nancy smiled in reply.

  Bess, who already knew Grace, said hello, and George introduced Grace to Regina. “And this is Kevin Duffy,” George added, gesturing toward the other pharmacist.

  Kevin Duffy’s eyes were still glued to his computer screen. At George’s words he looked over, running his hand nervously through his longish, curly, light brown hair. The expression on his tanned face was sullen, as though he was still smarting from Grace’s rebuke. As George introduced Nancy, Bess, and Regina, Kevin simply nodded, barely even looking their way. Clearly, they had caught him at a bad time.

  “Hey, Kevin,” George said, trying to lighten things up. “I saw your favorite team squeaked by in that doubleheader yesterday.”

  “Nah,” he said. “They had it in the bag the whole time.”

  “Oh, right!” George said with a laugh. She turned to the others. “Kevin’s a big Steamers fan,” she explained, referring to a local minor-league baseball team. “And the way they’ve been playing, that’s not easy,” she added with a teasing smile.

  Her remark coaxed a little grin onto Kevin’s face, though he never stopped tapping on his keyboard. He swiveled in his chair to begin counting pills on a small tray and putting them in a plastic bottle.

  George turned away to let him concentrate on his work. “So what have you three been up to?” she asked her friends.

  Regina laughed. “Food—what else? We just came from breakfast.” She glanced at her watch. “But I’m afraid I’ve got to get going. I have to be at work in fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh!” Bess said. “That must mean it’s almost time for my class.” She looked at her friends in a panic. “And I still don’t have a topic for my essay!”

  “I’ll give you a lift—I drive by the college anyway,” Regina offered. “We can brainstorm ideas on the way.”

  After Regina and Bess said goodbye and left, Grace called George over to her work area and said, “George, that face cream we special-ordered for Mrs. Cay came in last night. She didn’t ask for it to be delivered, but if you have time, maybe you could drop it by her house.”

  “Sure thing,” George said. “I always like to see Mrs. Cay.”

  Grace smiled warmly. “She’s great, isn’t she?” she agreed. “Say hello to her for me.”

  Nancy began to back away. “I should let you get to work,” she said to George.

  “Hang on,” George said. “If you’re not doing anything, why don’t you come with me on this delivery run? It’ll just take a few minutes.” She turned to Grace. “Is that okay, Grace?”

  “No problem,” Grace said. “Just hurry back. We’re having a busy morning.”

  George slipped the jar of face cream into a paper bag and wrote out a delivery receipt. Then she led Nancy out the back entrance to the asphalt parking lot behind the drugstore. They got into a small blue car with the word Twickham’s painted on the doors, along with the store’s phone number.

  Nancy watched the morning traffic as George steered the car out onto the busy downtown street that ran beside the drugstore. “You seem to be enjoying this job,” she commented.

  George nodded enthusiastically. “It’s turning out to be a cool place to work,” she said. “Doing deliveries means I can get out and move around a lot. Most of the customers have been coming to Twickham’s for years, so they know all the employees. Delivering to them is more like doing a favor for a friend than doing a job.”

  “Except that you get paid for it,” Nancy added.

  George smiled. “Yeah, that is nice,” she admitted. “This is the last place in town that offers free delivery service, and the customers really appreciate it. Most of them tip me nicely. I’m saving for a new CD player.”

  George drove into an older section of River Heights. “This is one of my favorite parts of town,” Nancy said, looking at the small, neat houses lining the residential blocks. “Even though these homes have been around awhile, people really keep them looking nice. Each house here seems to have its own personality.”

  “Mrs. Cay told me that she’s lived here her whole life,” George said. “And she’s been a customer at Twickham’s since it opened, over forty years ago. She’s about seventy, I think, though she’s still sharp as a tack.”

  Nancy smiled. “Sounds like she’s one of your favo rite customers.”

  George grinned and nodded as she turned onto a shady side street. “I hope I’m like her when I get to be that age,” she said. “It seems like she’s always got some new project going—she’s always trying to help out someone else. And she still rides her bike around town.”

  George pulled the car up to a one-story brick house covered with ivy. The small lawn was bordered with neatly trimmed bushes, and bright flowers lined the walk. More flowers filled rows of pots on the porch. “Someone here has a green thumb,” Nancy commented as she and George stepped out of the delivery car.

  “That’s Mrs. Cay all right,” George said as they headed up the stone walkway. “She can grow just about any—”

  George broke off suddenly, staring at the front of the house. Nancy came to a halt as she noticed the same thing George had.

  “Why is her front door standing wide open?” George asked in a low voice.

  “Maybe she stepped outside for a moment,” Nancy said. Her eyes swept over the porch and the sides of the house, hoping to spot Mrs. Cay.

  Nancy and George made their way onto the porch. George hesitated, then raised her hand to knock on the half-open door.

  Suddenly, from inside Mrs. Cay’s house, they heard a man’s voice cry out, “Oh, no!”

  2

  A Medical Mystery

  Nancy ran through Mrs. Cay’s open door, with George at her heels. “Hello?” Nancy called out as she dashed across a small living room.

  “In here!” a man replied.

  Nancy followed the voice to the back of the house. As she charged into a sunny kitchen, she pulled up short.

  An elderly woman lay sprawled across the linoleum floor. Her arms and legs were twitching, as if she were having some kind of convulsion.

  “Mrs. Cay!” George cried out from behind Nancy.

  A tall man in his forties was kneeling beside the woman, trying to hold down her shoulders. He glanced up at Nancy and George, his eyes wide with panic. “Aunt Evelyn!” he yelled. “What’s wrong with her?”

  A horrible gasping sound came from the woman. Her eyelids fluttered, and her neck snapped into a rigid, fixed position.

  “What happened?” Nancy asked the man kneeling by Mrs. Cay.

  “I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “She just collapsed onto the floor a moment ago. I called an ambulance right away—” He broke off, overcome with anxiety.

  Nancy and George knelt beside him on the floor. George tried to hold Mrs. Cay’s head steady. “Can she breathe?” George asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “She doesn’t answer me.”

  Feeling helpless, Nancy watched the poor woman straining for breath. What was wrong with Mrs. Cay? Nancy reached out to hold one of the woman’s stiff arms, but as she touched her, suddenly the twitching stopped and Mrs. Cay went limp. “She’s lost consciousness,” Nancy said grimly.

  “Where is that ambulance?” George asked in a tense voice.

  “Oh, no!” the man groaned. “What—” Then he broke off. In the distance, they heard the sound of a wailing siren.

  “Thank goodness,” George said.

  Nancy jumped up and ran to the door to meet the paramedics. The ambulance squealed to a stop in front of the brick house, and two emergency technicians, a man and a woman, jumped from the cab. Nancy hurriedly led them back to the kitchen. George and the tall man moved out of the way as the technicians kneeled down on either side of the unconscious woman. “What happened?” said the female technician.

  “I don’t know,” the tall man said. “I just stopped by a few minutes ago, and Aunt Evelyn was sitting here with a cup of tea. I’m her nephew, Don Cay. We were talking when suddenly she began gasping and having some kind of spasm. She fell out of her chair, totally losing control. That’s when these two young women arrived,” he added, nodding toward Nancy and George.

  “We were making a drugstore delivery,” George explained. “When we got here Mrs. Cay was having some sort of seizure, and then she went unconscious.”

  As Don Cay and George spoke, the technicians were prying open Mrs. Cay’s eyes and taking her pulse. The male technician placed a portable oxygen mask over her mouth. “We’ll put her on a respirator in the truck and get her right to the emergency room,” he said.

  “But what’s wrong with her?” Don Cay asked, his face twisted with worry.

  The technician shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “Is she in good health?”

  Both George and Don Cay nodded. “She has a cold, but other than that, she’s fine,” Don said. “She’s never had a serious health problem in her entire life.”

  “Let’s get the gurney,” the female technician said. In a matter of seconds, the paramedics had strapped Mrs. Cay to a gurney and carried her to the ambulance. Don Cay climbed in the back with her, and Nancy and George followed the ambulance to River Heights General Hospital.

  “Oh, Nancy, what do you think has happened to Mrs. Cay?” George said as she weaved the delivery car through traffic, trying to keep up with the ambulance.

  Nancy bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Could it be a stroke or a heart attack?” George asked in an uneasy voice.

  “It didn’t look like a heart attack,” Nancy reassured George. “She wasn’t clutching at her chest. But we’ll have to see what the doctor says.”

  George found a parking spot on a side street, and the two girls made their way to the admitting desk of the hospital’s emergency room. Looking in the waiting room, Nancy saw Don Cay just hanging up a pay phone.

  Nancy and George walked over to him. Nancy hesitated to intrude on him, but he looked so grateful when he saw the girls, she realized they might be some comfort to him at this stressful time. Besides, Don Cay was the only person who had witnessed Mrs. Cay’s mysterious collapse—and Nancy couldn’t help wondering what had happened.

  “Hello,” he said in a tone of relief. “It was nice of you to come. The doctor’s examining Aunt Ev now.” The tall man’s blue eyes were wide with worry, and he looked tired. “My wife should be here soon,” he added.

  “I know you must’ve spoken to the doctor already,” Nancy began gently, “but I wondered if you noticed anything strange about your aunt this morning.”

  Don Cay shook his head in despair. “As I just said to my wife, Aunt Ev looked perfectly fine,” he replied. “That cold she’d had really bothered her, but this morning when I called she said her head was clearing up. I had an extra symphony ticket for tomorrow evening, so I stopped by on my way to work this morning to give it to her. She seemed to be her usual energetic self and was just finishing a midmorning cup of tea. She was sitting at the table when she started convulsing, and . . . fell, and . . . well, you saw the rest,” Don said, trailing off.

  Nancy nodded sympathetically. It was frustrating to have no clue as to why Mrs. Cay collapsed, but Don Cay had only been with her for a couple of minutes. Maybe he would remember something after he had calmed down.

  Suddenly Don Cay looked up sharply. “Oh, Dr. Volman, what is it?” he said.

  Nancy turned to see a middle-aged man with graying hair and mustache walking toward them. His clothes were rumpled, as if he had spent the night in them at the hospital. He wore a concerned look on his dark face as he tucked a pen into his front breast pocket. “Your aunt is on a respirator and is stabilized now,” he said to Don Cay. “But she’s still comatose.”

  “But what happened to her?” Don Cay asked impatiently.

  The doctor shook his head. “It’s too early for me to say,” he said. “It’s not a heart attack, as you were wondering. But we’ll have to run several tests and get the lab results back before I’ll be able to determine what’s happened. By any chance do you know what your aunt had for breakfast or for dinner last night?”

  Mrs. Cay’s nephew looked surprised. “No, I don’t,” he said. “She’s generally a light eater, and she’s had a cold, so I doubt she’s been eating very much.”

  “Do you think this is a reaction to something she ate?” Nancy asked Dr. Volman.

  “I’m not prepared to make a definitive diagnosis,” the doctor said cautiously, “but a sudden, violent reaction like Mrs. Cay’s could come from something she ingested.”

  “We’ll try to find out what she’s eaten,” Don Cay offered.

 

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