“What if the thief wasn’t interested in electronics at all?”
“Then why would he take them?” Bess asked.
“As a cover,” Nancy answered. “Everyone expects that sort of thing to be stolen. What if whoever broke in was actually looking for something else, the coins or the camera or the trunk?”
Terry shook his head. “My stereo system alone was worth more than any of those items. Why would someone take all the valuable stuff first and then come back for the things that weren’t worth anything?”
Nancy frowned, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Unless there was more than one intruder. Or unless what was stolen today was more valuable than you thought. You said there was a story behind the trunk?”
“The trunk came back from Vietnam with me,” Terry began. “I was over there during the war as a soldier. I was very young and scared out of my mind. About six months into my tour our group teamed up with another unit.
“Anyway, I became friends with a guy from that unit named Nick Finney. We had the same birthday, and we’d both just gotten letters from our girlfriends in the States, telling us they had found new boyfriends.
“I only knew Nick for a couple of months before his unit was sent on one of those top-secret missions that no one finds out about until an hour before you go. But Nick came to me right before they left and gave me that little wooden trunk. He asked me to hold on to it for him.”
“What did the trunk look like?” George asked.
“It was about three feet by two, made of wood with brass bands around it and brass latches that were shaped like dragons. It wasn’t worth more than thirty dollars, then or now, but Amy liked it. I think she associates anything from Vietnam with memories of her mother.”
Nancy stretched out on the rug in front of the fire. “Nick never asked for it back?”
“He went on that mission and never returned,” Terry explained. “He was declared MIA—missing in action. When I got back to the States, I looked up his family to give them the trunk. The problem was, Nick didn’t have any family. He had been raised by a grandfather who died when he was in ’Nam. So I kept the trunk, sort of hoping that one day Nick would come back for it.”
“Was there anything in it?” Nancy asked.
“I’ll show you.” Terry reached into a drawer in the cabinet behind him and pulled out a large brown envelope. He emptied its contents onto the rug in front of the girls.
“A pocketknife, a red bandanna, and a Hotel Saigon key chain with no keys,” George said, examining the contents.
“And you never heard from Nick again?” Nancy asked.
“About a week after Nick went off on that mission, we heard that his unit had been hit by the North Vietnamese Army. Eleven men were killed. Nick wasn’t listed as one of them. There were rumors that the survivors were taken prisoner, but no one could ever prove that. They just disappeared. And after a few searches the army declared them MIA.” Terry rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking exhausted. “Why don’t we take this up again in the morning?” he asked. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to fall over if I don’t get some sleep.”
“Me, too,” George said.
“And me,” Bess added. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“I think I’ll stay up awhile,” Nancy said.
A few minutes later Bess and George went upstairs to the second-floor room they were sharing with Nancy.
Nancy sat by the fireplace, staring into the dancing flames. She thought about the three break-ins and what had been stolen. The intruder could have been after any of the stolen items. But her mind kept circling back to the trunk. Terry said it wasn’t worth anything. Its owner had disappeared years ago. And now the trunk itself was missing. Who wanted it? she wondered. And why?
• • •
The sun woke Nancy early the next morning. She lay in bed for a few moments, just enjoying the sight of the round window set high in the wall opposite her. Inside its wood frame was a stained-glass garland of blue and yellow forget-me-nots. Across the room from her George and Bess were still asleep. Careful not to wake them, Nancy got up and quietly dressed in jeans and a lavender-and-white striped rugby shirt.
Downstairs, she found Terry and Amy at the kitchen table. “Good morning,” Nancy said. “Have you heard from the police?”
“I called them this morning,” Terry answered. “They told me what I already knew. Whoever broke in was a professional. He didn’t leave any prints or any other clues. And the police have no record of any car like the dark red one that tore out of the driveway yesterday.”
“What about your van?” Nancy asked.
“The tow truck should be arriving any minute now to pull it out of the ravine.”
“Before it does, I’d like to take a look at the tire that blew,” Nancy said.
“We might as well,” Terry agreed. He and Nancy went outside, and Nancy had a chance to notice what she hadn’t really seen the day before in all the confusion. Terry’s house was surrounded by fragrant redwoods and eucalyptus. Wild jasmine and holly grew along the sides of the house, and far in the distance she could hear the sound of the Pacific breaking on the shore.
“How much of this is your property?” Nancy asked, gazing into the woods.
“I’ve got five acres surrounding the house,” Terry answered. “Why?”
“I was just thinking that if someone was watching your house, waiting to see when you were out, they’d have plenty of places to hide.”
“Wonderful,” Terry muttered.
They reached the ravine and scrambled down to look at the tire. “It’s pretty badly blown,” Terry said. “It almost looks as if parts of it exploded.”
“I don’t think this happened from driving over something sharp,” Nancy said. She knelt and ran one hand along the remaining surface of the tire. Her heart started to pound as she felt a small, cold metal object embedded in the rubber. “I think I know what blew your tire,” she said. “Do you have a pocket-knife? I’ll have to dig it out.”
Terry nodded and handed her a pocketknife.
Nancy applied it to the tire, and a few seconds later showed Terry what she had found. In her palm was a brass-colored bullet.
3
Stakeout
