Make No Mistake (7 page)

Had he overheard? Nancy had no way of knowing. Giving Matt her sweetest smile, she dropped him a curtsy and took his arm. Then they were off, gliding across the pond. They skated well together, and Nancy decided to take Bess's advice and just enjoy herself—for the moment.

As if reading her mind, Matt asked, “Having fun?” He grinned down at her and gave her arm a friendly squeeze.

“You bet,” she said. And it was true. They didn't say anything for a few minutes, and Nancy let herself enjoy the crisp cold air and the smooth motions of the skating. Inevitably, the case crept back into her thoughts, though.

That article, for one thing. It was quite a coincidence that the person Matt interviewed turned out to be his father's ex-gardener. Nancy
was about to ask him about it when someone yelled behind them.

Tony had fallen on the ice and was having a hard time getting back on his feet. Matt sped over and helped him to one of the benches to catch his breath. A moment later George had skated over to Nancy again.

“Do you think Matt heard what we were talking about?” she asked in a low voice.

Nancy shrugged. “I don't think so, but I'm not positive. I thought of something else, too, about that article. But I didn't have time to ask him about it.” She looked over to where Matt, Bess, and Tony were sitting, then went on. “Why would the picture of Matt's father jog his memory about the past, when seeing Loomis in the flesh didn't? And why didn't Loomis recognize him?”

George shrugged. “I don't know—maybe Matt never really saw the gardener. They wouldn't necessarily have run into each other.”

“I guess you're right,” Nancy said, letting out a sigh. “I'm going to sit down for a minute. I need to clear my head.”

Bess and Matt were just stepping back onto the ice as Nancy got off and sat down next to Tony on the bench.

“I should be going, Nancy,” he said, bending over to unlace his skates. “Give my thanks to Mrs. Adams.”

“Sure. Did you notice anything special about Matt?”

He glanced up and shook his head. “It's amazing,” he began. “If I didn't know better—” He broke off his sentence, and suddenly he became extremely animated.

“There
is
something special, but I didn't think of it until now,” he said. “Once when I was here, Matt had an accident.”

“A serious one?”

“Not really.” Tony pursed his mouth as he tried to remember. “Someone tripped him when he was skating, and he cut his wrist on a piece of sharp ice. It bled pretty badly. We were only about ten at the time.”

Nancy looked at him, confused. “I'm not sure I see what the point is.”

Tony's excitement continued. “The cut left a scar, that's the point. Right here.” He pointed at his left wrist. “A half-moon shape. Check it out—see if it's there. I'll bet you it's not. And if it isn't, we have proof that this guy's a fake!”

• • •

“Hot chocolate,” said George, grinning.

Bess chimed in, “And marshmallows, too! This is perfect, Mrs. Adams.”

“If anything can un-numb my fingers, this is it,” Nancy said, taking a mug from the beaming housekeeper.

The girls and Matt had left their skates and boots in the kitchen and were back in the library. Matt was reviving the embers of the fire, and they
were all leaning on oversize pillows on the hearth rug.

“If you'd stayed out any longer, you'd have frozen to death,” Mrs. Adams said, taking in their bright red cheeks. “Well, I'm off to bed.” Matt kissed her cheek, and she blushed with pleasure.

Nancy had made a point of sitting next to Matt. She wanted to get a good look at his wrist. If Matt didn't have a scar—and if Tony was telling the truth—then Matt was a phony.

“I think my watch is fast,” she said, shaking her wrist. “It says eleven forty-five, but it can't be that late.”

Without hesitation, Matt hiked up the sleeve of his sweater and consulted the old-fashioned gold watch on his left wrist.

Nancy leaned over his shoulder. There was the scar, all right, exactly where Tony had told her it should be.

Before she could take a closer look, Matt shrugged the sleeve of his sweater back down and said, “What do you know. It really is a quarter to twelve.” He shot one of his big grins across the room at Bess. “I was having so much fun with you guys that I lost track of the time.”

Nancy rubbed her chin. Chalk up another piece of evidence in Matt's favor, she thought. Still, she wished she'd gotten a closer look. There was something . . .

“That's a neat watch you have, Matt,” she said suddenly. “Do you mind if I take another look at it?”

“Sure.” He pulled the sweater sleeve back up and said something about how the watch had belonged to his grandfather and Mrs. Adams had told him to wear it.

Nancy barely listened to his words, however. All of her attention was focused on the puckered skin that formed a half-moon on his wrist. She wasn't an expert on scars, but she was pretty sure that they faded to normal skin tone or paler with time.

But Matt's scar still was pinkish red—as if it was only a few months old—not ten or fifteen years!

H
EY, N
AN,
I could really get used to this, couldn't you?”

Bess's cheerful voice brought Nancy's attention back to the conversation in the library. Focusing on Bess and George, she saw that they had their stockinged feet stretched toward the glowing fire. Bess was munching on one of the sandwiches that had been left over from before they went skating.

Beside Nancy, Matt laughed and said to Bess, “You're welcome as often as you like.” His blue eyes shone as he added, “And I hope it will be
very
often.”

“It's really wonderful here,” Nancy agreed, sipping her hot chocolate and checking out the glistening oak bookshelves and antique furniture.
Inheriting Glover's Corners would definitely be worth an impostor having plastic surgery to give him a scar like the one the real Matt had had, Nancy added silently. She wished she knew for certain how old his scar was.

Nancy's brain was so full of
possible
scams. Maybe Matt was an impostor with a phony scar. Or maybe Tony was trying to cheat Matt out of his inheritance. Or maybe Mrs. Adams, or the ex-gardener Jake Loomis, was working with Matt. Her brain felt like a computer on overload —nothing would compute.

Boy, will I be relieved when tonight's over and I'm back home in bed, she thought. A good night's sleep is the only hope for me!

• • •

Over breakfast the next morning, Nancy told her father about the skating party and Matt's scar.

When she was done, Carson rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “The young man is taking a lie detector test down at city hall this morning,” he said. “The test isn't always a hundred-percent reliable, but his willingness to take it is in his favor.”

Nancy nodded. After her father had left to meet Matt, she poured herself a second glass of juice and sat back down at the kitchen table. Even after a good night's sleep, she wasn't sure where to start. She pulled out the article about
Loomis and began to reread it. Maybe there was something she had overlooked.

It wasn't until she was reading it for the fourth time that Nancy suddenly paused and drummed her fingers on the kitchen table. According to the article, Loomis Landscaping had its office in downtown Chicago.
Hmmm.
Matt might not have recognized Loomis during their interview a year ago, but had Loomis recognized
Matt?
It was a long shot, but she had to ask.

On an impulse, Nancy picked up the phone extension in the kitchen and called George. “Are you up for another trip to Chicago this morning?”

“Not another visit to the
Clarion?”
George's voice sounded skeptical.

“Nope. I want to talk to Jake Loomis this time.”

“Good idea,” George said. “Ready when you are, which, knowing you, is probably about ten minutes ago!”

Next, Nancy called Bess, but there wasn't any answer, so she headed out to her Mustang. It was as cold as ever outside, and the sky had a heavy, gray look to it.

“I hope it doesn't snow today,” George said as she climbed into the car ten minutes later. “It looks as though the sky's going to open up and dump a huge pile of it on us.”

Nancy shrugged. “That's fine with me—as
long as it holds off until we get back from Chicago.”

“What's our story going to be?” George wanted to know as Nancy turned the Mustang toward the highway. “Are we still reporters?”

“I guess so. We'll say we're doing research for a
Who's Who in Chicago Business.”

“Get him off his guard by buttering him up and making him feel important, eh?” George grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

The traffic was heavy, but by midmorning they were in Chicago, and Nancy was winding her way through the crowded city streets to St. Paul Street, where the Loomis Landscaping office was. Luckily, she was able to park right outside.

“This is pretty familiar,” Nancy said, getting her bearings before she and George went into the building. “If I'm not mistaken, the
Clarion
building is only a block east of here.”

“Whatever you say.” George grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the entrance. “It's a little cold for a geography lesson, Nan. Let's get inside.”

In the marble-floored lobby, George let out an impressed whistle. “Not too shabby,” she said in a low voice.

Nancy nodded her agreement. “It looks as if Jake Loomis has done pretty well for himself.”

The office of Loomis Landscaping was a huge space that looked as if it had been converted from a warehouse. It was partitioned with low
walls and tastefully decorated with plants and framed photos of colorful gardens. A blond woman sitting behind a wide reception desk asked the girls if she could help them.

“We'd like to see Mr. Loomis,” Nancy said.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No,” said Nancy, “but we won't take much of his time.” She gave her
Who's Who
spiel.

When she was done, the receptionist gave them a wide smile and said, “I'm sure Mr. Loomis won't mind giving you a few minutes.” She picked up her phone and spoke into it briefly.

A moment later a man dressed in an expensive-looking suit emerged from a room at the far end of the office and headed toward them. He had salt-and-pepper hair with a beard to match and a burly, muscular build.

Jake Loomis received them with a big smile. Nancy and George followed him back to his office, which was large and furnished with a mahogany desk and leather-upholstered chairs.

“You girls look pretty young to be doing such important work,” he said, gesturing for them to sit down in the leather chairs.

“We're older than we look,” Nancy assured him, smiling. “Younger reporters do all the footwork, and the older ones get all the credit.”

“Well, you can't have everything right away,” he said. “Look at me. I didn't start to be successful until I was twice your age—at least.” He spoke with a self-satisfied air, and Nancy suspected
that he had probably made the same comment many times before.

George leaned forward and said, “We wanted to check up on something in the article about you in the
Clarion
—the one that came out about a year ago.”

“Good article,” Loomis said.

Ignoring his smug tone, Nancy went on. “It said that you had been a gardener for a private estate before you came to Chicago. Could you tell us whose estate it was?”

The smile left Loomis's craggy face, and he grunted. “What possible difference could it make?” he asked.

“It's important to know some background of the men and women we select for
Who's Who,”
Nancy said, pressing him.

Jake Loomis rested his chin on his thick knuckles. “Oh, well,” he said at last. “It can't matter now. The man is dead, quite recently, as a matter of fact. He won't know.”

Nancy arched an eyebrow. “I'm sorry, I don't understand,” she said.

“Let's just say we weren't exactly friends when I left. I quit after an argument with him. Glover was stubborn as a mule. That was his name, Clayton Glover. He was a hot-shot millionaire in River Heights.” Loomis glowered at Nancy as he remembered. “The old man never would admit he was wrong. But I didn't want to make his life worse by mentioning him in that article.”

Nancy pretended to take notes. She didn't understand why Loomis couldn't just mention Mr. Glover's name without bringing up whatever their fight had been about, but she didn't want to put him on the defensive.

“What do you mean, 'make his life worse'?” she asked.

Loomis shook his head, “You see, Glover was absolutely shattered after his only son died in an accident,” he explained. “Matt was a great kid. I taught him everything he knew when he was small. I was more like a father to him than his own dad, if you know what I mean. The kid was only twelve or so when I left. I really missed him. Too bad his father and I couldn't see eye to eye.”