A Will to Survive
Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
12
Taking Care of the Caretaker
“All of this land along here is part of Shorewood Nature Center,” Callie Shaw said from the front seat of Frank Hardy's van. “There's the entrance, up ahead on the right.”
It was early on a Monday morning in June. Frank was at the wheel of the van. He glanced over at the high stone wall that ran along the road. It seemed to stretch on forever. On the other side of the wall, thick trees loomed faintly in the patchy morning mist. “The place must be enormous,” he remarked.
“It's more than half the size of New York's Central Park,” Callie replied. “It's big enough to get lost in, anyway.”
“Big enough to hide somebody who's up to no good,” Joe Hardy observed from the backseat. “I'm
glad you came by yesterday to tell us you've been having these problems.”
“So am I,” Callie replied. “The summer intern program kicked off just about three weeks ago, at the beginning of the month. Those spooky noises began practically the first night all the interns got to the center.”
“Maybe one of you brought the spooky noises with him . . . or her,” Joe said.
Callie nodded. “I thought of that. But until we arrived, no one was staying in the main part of the house. It was totally empty after dark What if there were suspicious noises? Nobody was there to notice them.”
“Old houses always have weird squeaks and creaks,” Frank pointed out. He slowed the van and put on his turn signal. Tall stone pillars flanked the narrow entrance. As he steered the van between them, he caught a glimpse of a weathered coat of arms carved into the one on the right.
“Sure,” Callie said. She reached over to touch his arm. “I wouldn't have asked you and Joe to help if that were all we're dealing with. But it's not just noises. The furniture moves around. Last night a display case of rare lizards was knocked over.”
“Leaping lizards!” Joe exclaimed.
Callie chuckled. “I thought of that, too,” she said. “But I'm afraid it's no joke. A lot of tension has built up. We're snapping at one another. Some of the visitors are starting to notice. If we don't . . .”
“Whaâ” Frank gripped the wheel tighter and
slammed on the brake. The van juddered to a stop. Twenty feet ahead, in the mist, a huge dark form ambled across the road and vanished into the woods.
“What in the world?” Joe demanded. “I could swear that was a moose!”
Callie giggled. “It
was
a moose.”
Frank cautiously put the van in motion. “Oh sure, a moose. I knew that,” he said. “But what's a moose doing down here? I usually think of them as belonging somewhere up north.”
“That is where most of them live now,” Callie explained. “But back before this area was settled, this was at the southern end of their range. Now Shorewood is bringing them back. We've got a whole family of mooses . . . I mean, moose. You have to be careful driving around the grounds. They might not get out of the way of your car.”
“Why should they?” Joe cracked. “They're probably bigger than your car.
You
should get out of
their
way.”
“Hey, Joe, you're starting to think like a Shorewood intern,” Callie said with a smile. “We should learn from nature and adapt to it, not expect nature to adapt to us.”
The road wound through the woods and crossed a meadow where a flock of sheep grazed. Joe leaned out the window and went
“Baa-a-a!”
A few sheep looked up, then went back to chomping grass.
“Don't take this adapting business
too
seriously,
Joe,” Callie warned him. Her voice went into a singsong. “Rule Two: Don't disturb the animals.”
“What's Rule One?” asked Frank.
Callie grinned. “No bad jokes.”
“I have the feeling that's
Callie's
Rule One,” Joe said with a sly smile.
As they rounded a curve, Frank spotted the main house through the trees. He gave a soft whistle. A moment later Joe echoed him.
Built of stone the color of dark honey, Shorewood was three stories high and wide enough to fill the full length of a football field. A dozen or more ornate brick chimneys pierced the weathered green copper roof.
The long rows of tall windows overlooked the precise lines of a formal garden. In the center of the garden, four stone statues of sea monsters spouted streams of water into a reflecting pool. Beyond the house, through a break in the trees, the waters of the bay gleamed in the distance.
“What a dump,” Joe said, sounding impressed in spite of his words.
“It's actually pretty modest, compared to some of the really big old estates around here,” Callie replied. “Shorewood's known more for the grounds than for the house. Still, it's big enough to make a really nice museum and still have plenty of room to house the internship program. But can you imagine living in a place this size all by yourself, the way old Mr. Parent did? Brr-r-r!”
Frank drove to the back of the building and followed signs to the staff parking lot. This was a paved brick area surrounded on three sides by a stable, an eight-car garage with a clock tower, and what must have been a guest cottage or servants' quarters. Frank parked next to a green pickup truck with the Shorewood crest on the door.
The three friends walked to the house and entered through a glassed-in porch. The peeling wicker chairs and couches looked as if no one had sat on them for years. French doors opened onto a wide entrance hall dominated by a curving staircase. On the wall to the right hung an enormous painting of assorted wild animals. Frank identified some turtles, an antlered deer, and a variety of birds.
Callie noticed Frank's interest. “That's by Walter Parent, the guy who set up Shorewood,” she said. “Wildlife painting was one of his hobbies.”
“I figured it had to be a hobby,” Joe said. “If the rest of his paintings were as bad as that one, no way he could have made enough money to build a place like this.”
“Watch out, Joe,” Callie said. “What if his ghost hears you? He might arrange for something to fall on your headâor even worse, on mine!”
The Hardys followed Callie down an echoey hallway to a tall, gleaming mahogany door. She tapped once and pushed the door open.
“Ah, Callie, you're back,” a low voice said. Frank
thought he heard a slight Eastern European accent. “Good. And these are your friends who are willing to help us out. Come in, come in.”
Callie led the way inside. “Tanya, meet Frank and Joe Hardy,” she said. “Guys, this is Tanya Sovskaya, Shorewood's director.”
Tanya seemed younger than Frank had expected the center's director to be. He put her age at about thirty-five. She had a roundish face framed by light brown hair that stopped just above her shoulders.
“Please sit down,” Tanya said, waving to three chairs that faced her desk. “I'm glad to meet you. I am very impressed by what Callie has told me about your exploits as detectives. And I just finished hearing your praises from a member of our board who is acquainted with your father.”
Fenton Hardy, a famous private detective, had enlisted the help of his two sons on many tough cases. It had been natural for Frank and Joe to start investigating crimes and solving mysteries on their own. Though they were still teenagers, they had growing reputations as skilled detectives.
“Dad's taught us a lot,” Joe said.
“You're being modest. From what I've heard, you've learned it very well,” Tanya replied. “I must say I hesitated. Your youth, after all . . .”
She picked up a pen and rolled it between her fingers for a few moments. Then she tapped it decisively on the polished surface of the desk. “However, that may work to our advantage,” she continued. “Are you willing to pretend to join the
internship program? You will fit right in. No one will suspect you're investigating the strange goingson. You will gain an insider's view that no adult investigator could hope for. It may not be easy to play such a role, of course. . . .”
“We've done this type of thing before,” Frank assured her. “And we'll have Callie to help us.”
“That's right,” Callie interjected. “I mean, everyone knows that I live close enough to Shorewood to go home on Sundays. It's perfectly logical that I've gotten them interested in the program, and so here they are being interviewed.”
“Callie's told us a little about what's been going on,” Joe added. “It doesn't sound very dangerous. Why do you want us to look into it? Why not handle it yourselves?”
Tanya sighed. “If these pranks were the only problem, perhaps I would. In itself, such mischief is a minor irritation. It is no worse than, say, discovering a patch of poison ivy along one of the footpaths. But we face a complex situation. Do you know the history of Shorewood Nature Center?”
“Uh-uh,” Frank and Joe said together.
“We've been in existence for less than two years,” Tanya explained. “All this was the idea of a wealthy nature lover named Walter Parent, who set up the center in his will.”
“The guy who did that big animal painting in the hall?” Frank asked.
“That's right. His will stipulates that the painting stay on display. He was obviously very proud of it.”
“I can't imagine why,” Callie commented. “It's not very good.”
Tanya gave a small smile. “Parent had a number of interests,” she said. “Nature painting was one of them. Another was puzzles. We have several shelves of puzzle books in the library, along with cabinets full of jigsaw and other puzzles.”
“He had another hobby, too,” Callie said. “Changing his will. Every time he got angry at someone or read something in the paper he didn't like, he'd write a new will. Good thing he never lost interest in nature studyâhe might have left everything to a foundation to study perpetual motion.”
“He sounds a little, well, eccentric,” Frank said.
“It's not my place to judge Walter Parent,” Tanya said. “His final will did great good by establishing this center. However, his fortune was not nearly as large as he may have believed. The house and land are immensely valuable, of course, but aside from that, the center's resources are stretched very thin.”
“You mean, there wasn't as much money in his estate as you expected?” Frank asked.
Tanya took a deep breath. “That's correct,” she said. “In fact, our endowment is several million dollars less than we had been led to believe it would be.”
Joe's eyebrows shot up in astonishment. “Several million? Where did it go?” he asked. “You don't
lose that kind of money from having it roll under the dresser.”
“Who knows?” Tanya said with a shrug. “Perhaps he made poor investments. Perhaps there never was as much as he thought. In any case, we depend much more on support from the community than would have been the case. We are a new institution, still building a positive image and reputation. Anything that threatens our good name could be disastrous.”
“That makes sense,” Frank said. “But howâ”
Tanya's telephone buzzed. Frank broke off what he was saying while she answered it.
“Yes, Roger,” she said. “Yes, I got your letter. Just a moment.” She covered the mouthpiece and said, “This may take a few minutes. Callie, why don't you show Joe and Frank around the grounds?”
Frank, Joe, and Callie got to their feet and headed for the door. As they left the room, Frank overheard Tanya say, “Now, Roger, what is this nonsense about selling our water frontage? You know how crucial the shoreline is to the mission of the center.”
Frank made a mental note to find out more about the center's financial difficulties.
Callie led Frank and Joe out a side door. By now the mist had lifted, and the day had become sunny. “Let's take a look at the Heirloom Garden,” Callie suggested. “That's where we're working to revive
old-time varieties of flowers and vegetables. These are kinds our great-grandparents grew that almost died out when people turned to modern hybrids.”
They followed a stone walk that curved across the lawn. On the other side of a stand of fir trees was an enclosure surrounded by a dusky redbrick wall. The walk led to an arched gateway in the wall.