Close Encounters

by Carolyn Keene

  George obliged, with a warning. “That’s ruling out right from the get-go the possibility that UFOs might be the real thing.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe . . . ,” I started to protest, then caught the twinkle in George’s big brown eyes. I punched her shoulder lightly. “You had me there for a minute.”

  George’s expression shifted slightly. Her tone was almost wistful as she said, “I’m afraid part of me, like that guy Nathan at the square, wishes they were real. Can you imagine the technology a species advanced enough to send visitors here might have?”

  Honestly I couldn’t, but I was sure tech-savvy George could.

  While she talked, she surfed to a couple of sites, then finally stopped on one. “This looks promising,” she said. It belonged to an organization that investigated paranormal activities. “They don’t sound as negative as the others. I don’t know about you, Nancy, but I’m not interested in the theories of people who just dismiss this stuff. Whoever is perpetrating these hoaxes is pretty clever . . . and there’s always the possibility that some sightings are real.”

  When Bess came out of the bathroom, George handed me the laptop before washing for dinner. While Bess phoned home on her cell, I read up on UFOs. By the time it was my turn to freshen up, I was somewhat surprised and thoroughly confused.

  Even planetarium websites admitted that most, but not all, UFO sightings could be explained away as either hoaxes or honest mistakes.

  I took the little notebook I always carry out of my purse and listed some of the honest mistakes made by witnesses. Spectators sometimes mistook ordinary aircraft for UFOs because of a trick of light or the angle of the sun or moon. Weather balloons were another culprit. Most nations’ militaries would never admit the existence of spy balloons, but even the famous sighting in Roswell, New Mexico, during the 1940s was possibly due to a spy balloon the government refused to admit existed.

  I listed more possibilities and made a note to check out some online weather information sites later. It seemed that sometimes weather phenomena could trick the eye, often at sunset or twilight, or even on a cloudy night.

  As we headed downstairs, I shared my findings with Bess and George. We were still talking about the sighting when we walked through the lobby. The Reel TV crew was enjoying hors d’oeuvres and cocktails in the lounge before heading into the dining room for dinner. I spied the crew’s cameraman on the far side of the lounge, and made a mental note to try to speak to him about the footage he’d shot during the sighting. I wondered if I could convince him to let me see it.

  “What surprises me,” Bess admitted as we threaded our way through the knot of people clustered near an hors d’oeuvres tray on the reception desk, “is that all the sightings aren’t proven to be hoaxes. It’s not reasonable, though, to think that anyone—or anything—smart enough to build spacecraft powerful enough to travel for light-years to get here would bother hovering over mountains in Vermont, or New Mexico, for that matter.”

  “My feelings exactly,” I said as we were passing the reception desk. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Does everything have to make sense?” A woman leaning against the reception desk asked me. She shifted her glass of wine from her right hand to her left and introduced herself. “I know it’s rude to eavesdrop, but I’m a producer at Reel TV, and I couldn’t help but overhear you. My name’s Isabel Sanchez—people call me Izzy. And you’re . . . ?”

  “Nancy Drew,” I answered, shaking her hand. Her grip was firm and strong. Isabel Sanchez looked to be barely thirty, and radiated pure energy. I found myself instantly liking her, in spite of her seeming overly nosy and very aggressive. I introduced George and Bess.

  “Anyway,” she continued, focusing her large dark eyes on me. “I couldn’t help but overhear what you said. I’m not sure I agree.” She interrupted herself with a throaty laugh. She had a warm, deep voice and talked at the speed of light. “You see, I produce all the Reel TV episodes—and what doesn’t make sense is what the show is all about. You know, ghost sightings, haunted houses, out-of-body experiences, and now aliens among us. That’s why we came to Brody’s Junction.”

  “To film UFOs,” I stated. Could this be my opening to ask to see some footage? Before I could ask, Izzy shook her head.

  “No—well, yes and no. Of course we want to film the UFOs. That’s half of our program—presenting weird phenomena and letting our audience judge how real or unreal they might be. But the other half is to see how people—people like you girls—react to the paranormal.”

  “Or faked alien sightings,” George added.

  “You’re sure they’re fake?” Izzy challenged.

  “Are they ever real?” I shot back.

  Izzy shrugged. “I don’t know. But what I know or think isn’t the point. The point is I’d love to have permission to follow you girls around and get your reaction to the goings-on in town. To make you part of our show. We’d pay you, of course.”

  Bess’s eyes widened. “We’d be on television? Hey, I’m game.”

  “Count me out,” George replied instantly.

  “Why us?” I asked. I found her request off-putting, though I wasn’t sure why. “Why not ask some other tourists to be on your show?”

  “Because you’re not believers. I know you’re not, Nancy, and I’m assuming you two,” she said, looking at Bess and George, “aren’t either. I want to record your reactions to what’s happening in this town. The change from doubt to belief when you finally see that the UFOs are legit.”

  “And you’re sure they are?” I shot back.

  “I’m open to the possibility,” Izzy answered. “By the way, I’m in room 302, in case you decide to join us. Or leave a note for me at the desk.”

  4

  Sabotage

  So the big-time producer’s your neighbor,” Winnie remarked to us over coffee and pumpkin pie. The café was slowly emptying out, and the last guests were finishing up their desserts. Taking advantage of the slowdown, Winnie had poured herself a cup of coffee, then joined us at our table.

  “Right, we’re in room 301,” I said. “The Reel TV producer is in 302.”

  “Convenient, in case we decide to bang on her door in the middle of the night and accept her offer to have our every step shadowed by her camera crew,” George remarked wryly.

  “It might have been fun, being on TV and all,” Bess said, spooning another dollop of whipped cream onto her pie.

  “I’m glad you opted out,” Winnie said. “Not that I have anything against Ms. Sanchez personally. I met her earlier this month when she came to scout locations in town. She was nice enough, but I felt like the vultures were descending. Maybe that’s too strong a word.” Winnie ran her finger around the edge of her cup. “But between us, I much preferred Brody’s Junction when the media hadn’t heard of us, and the town was just a blip on the ski radar.”

  “And not on whatever passes for radar on a UFO,” George joked.

  “Right!” Winnie slapped the table and chuckled. “I knew it was a good idea to have you guys visit. I haven’t had a good laugh in weeks,” she said.

  I waited for her to explain why she needed us around to share a laugh. But a couple motioned for their check, and Winnie was instantly on her feet. “Let me take care of these people. I’ll be right back.”

  While Winnie tended to her customers, I glanced at the wall behind Bess’s head. A framed photo caught my eye.

  In it, Winnie and another woman were standing in front of the café, arms slung around each other’s shoulders. They both wore goofy chef’s hats and aprons and were grinning like schoolgirls in a high school yearbook. Below the photo was a smaller frame. Inside the frame was a shabby dollar bill. I figured it was a good luck souvenir—the first dollar the restaurant had earned.

  Bess turned to see what I was staring at. “Who’s that with Winnie?” she asked George.

  George took a closer look. “It must be Winnie’s original business partner. She opened the café wit
h a cousin who’s also a food person. I don’t know her name, but she’s no longer part of the business.”

  “What happened?” I wondered.

  “I don’t know,” George answered. “I’m not even sure my mother knows the details.”

  “I read somewhere that business partnerships break up all the time,” Bess said.

  Up front Winnie was putting some pastries into a box. The long front counter served as a display case for the café’s take-out baked goods. The cash register, Winnie’s laptop, and a small display of local tourist brochures were at the far end of the counter.

  While I was watching, Winnie rang up the sale, said good-bye to her guests, and noted something in an accounting book next to the cash register. Winnie seemed like such an open, pleasant person, I found it hard to believe she’d have problems with a business partner. She started keying something into the computer. Then she frowned, jiggled the mouse, and poked some keys a few times. “Not again!” she said, pounding her fist on the counter.

  She turned toward our table. “George. The whole system just crashed—for the third time today!” She sounded on the verge of tossing the whole machine out the café window.

  “Not to worry!” George hurried over to the counter. Bess and I followed.

  As I leaned over the counter to watch George, I knocked a loose-leaf book off the counter. “Sorry!” I bent to pick it up. The rings inside the binder had snapped open, and a few sheets had fallen out. As I reinserted them into the binder, I saw they were recipes: some neatly typed, others handwritten on paper yellowing with age.

  I handed the book back to Winnie. “It’s okay, Nancy,” she said. She put the book on a shelf behind the counter. “I shouldn’t have left it there. Any chance I get, I’m trying to enter my recipes onto the computer.” She shook her head in dismay. “Probably all of the info I put in today—bookkeeping, recipes, whatever—is lost. I hadn’t backed it up yet.”

  “You’re in luck. George can retrieve almost anything,” Bess said.

  “If I can get it up and running.” George was half talking to herself as she tried to get the blank screen to come to life.

  “Is it serious?” I asked, peering over George’s shoulder at the screen.

  George didn’t answer. She continued to press a few keys. Suddenly the screen flickered to life.

  “All right!” George started to smile, then she groaned as the screen filled with rows of gibberish and nonsense characters. A moment later a leering animated cartoon face appeared on the screen and let out a mocking laugh.

  “What’s that?” Winnie asked.

  “I have no idea,” George said. “But one thing’s for sure. Someone’s hacked into your system big-time.”

  5

  A Tempting Offer

  Hacked in?” Winnie pulled up a stool and sat down heavily.

  “Who would do this to you?” Bess asked.

  “And why?” I wondered.

  George tapped on some keys while thinking out loud. “This looks like a pretty sophisticated job,” she said.

  “So you can’t fix it?” Winnie seemed close to tears.

  “I didn’t say that.” George kept her focus on the screen. “It’ll just take some time.” She kept drumming her fingers on the keyboard, thinking. “Here’s a thought. Maybe we’re jumping to conclusions. Maybe the hacking isn’t just aimed at Winnie’s machine.”

  “Maybe it’s some kind of glitch caused by the UFOs—or whatever they are,” Bess said.

  “Or someone playing a prank—knowing half the town would suspect UFOs were behind any tech breakdown,” I suggested.

  “I’ll check it out,” George said, retrieving her backpack from our table. She took out her laptop and switched it on. It booted right up. George tested a couple of programs, went online, then looked up from her screen. “It’s fine. The problem’s limited to your system after all,” she told Winnie.

  “It figures.” Winnie blew out her breath. “The way everything’s been going lately around here, I’m beginning to feel jinxed.”

  “Jinxed?” I repeated. My mind catapulted back to Sarah Conway’s mention of Winnie’s troubles.

  Winnie gave an embarrassed laugh. “There are probably reasonable explanations . . .”

  “For . . . ?” George said, encouraging her.

  “Lots of little problems have been cropping up at the café,” Winnie explained. “I’m not even sure they’re connected. The ovens broke down last week, and somehow the baking powder and flour containers got mislabeled, and we had to throw out a whole evening’s baking. Just yesterday the plug on the cappuccino machine fell off. Joel had to take it to be repaired—I won’t have it back until tomorrow, and we’re so busy.”

  As I listened, I felt as if I were looking at a puzzle where the dots didn’t really connect—and yet my sixth sense, known for helping me solve tough mysteries, told me otherwise. “Do you have any explanation?” I asked.

  “In my saner moments,” she answered, “I chalk it up to being understaffed and overbusy. I’ve been through this kind of stress before. You start making mistakes in the kitchen—everything from not-so-minor accidents, like cutting yourself during prep or burning your hand on a hot pot, to dumb things, like going to drain pasta in the sink and forgetting the colander.” Again, Winnie looked sheepish.

  “And when you’re feeling not so sane?” Bess asked. Her tone was light, but the question was reasonable. I’d been wondering the same thing.

  Winnie colored slightly. “Oh, I think someone is deliberately sabotaging me and the restaurant.”

  Sabotage? Before I could ask her who or why, Winnie gave a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “Like I said, I’m probably blowing things out of proportion . . .” As I watched, her expression shifted from embarrassed to puzzled to something I couldn’t quite read. “It can’t be.” She seemed to be figuring something out—out loud. “Hacking into a computer—how would she?—I can’t believe . . .” Winnie’s words trailed off as the door to the kitchen swung open.

  Joel emerged. He wore a beat-up shearling jacket over his apron and thick winter gloves on his hands. “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

  Winnie’s jaw dropped.

  “It’s the freezer again. The back section is fine, but the front is defrosting at a pretty scary rate, and we just got that meat order in this morning.”

  “The freezer.” To my amazement, Winnie sounded relieved. “That’s all?” She turned to George. “This is an ongoing problem I’ve had since the café opened. The new freezer’s on order, but meanwhile, I’ve got to deal with this.” She headed for the kitchen.

  “What about the computer?” George asked.

  Winnie stopped and turned. “Do you need me, or can you just deal with it?”

  “No problemo!” George waved her off. “Go ahead—I’ll have it up and running before we leave.” Immediately she sat down at the computer. Bess and I exchanged a glance, and knew it was time to leave George to wrestle with the computer.

  Winnie told us to help ourselves to more coffee and dessert, then followed Joel into the kitchen.

  As the doors closed behind Winnie, Bess lowered her voice and said, “I wonder who ‘she’ is?”

  “Whoever this mystery woman may be, Winnie doesn’t think she has the tech skills to hack into her system.” A pot of hot water was on the coffee machine heater. I located a tin of tea bags and made myself a cup of tea. As it brewed, I mentally reviewed the list of Winnie’s mishaps. At first glance all the incidents seemed like just a run of bad luck. But what if Winnie was right, and someone was sabotaging her?

  Within the hour George had Winnie’s system up and running. “I need to come back tomorrow morning to install a better firewall,” she reported. “I’ll ask Winnie to stay offline until then.”

  After saying good night, we headed back to the inn. When we arrived, Sarah invited us into the lounge. A meeting with the mayor, some town officials, the police, and the Reel TV people had just broken up. “
You all look a bit chilled,” she said. “Why not help yourselves to hot chocolate and something sweet?”

  Bess patted her stomach. “We’ve all had more than our share of dessert, but something hot sounds great. It’s getting cold out there.”

  Sarah smiled broadly as we took off our jackets. “Snow’s predicted any day now. Maybe our spell of dry, warm winters is about to break.”

  “Let me get rid of my backpack,” George said, then ran upstairs to our room, taking our jackets with her.

  I followed Sarah into the lounge. This was the perfect chance to track down the cameraman who had filmed the UFO sighting. After a cursory glance at the crowd I asked Sarah if he was still there, or if he’d already gone to his room.

  Sarah looked up from filling a mug with hot chocolate. “Oh, you mean Frankie Lee. He’s not staying at the inn. Ms. Sanchez rented a house for him up the road a ways. His family’s flying in from the West Coast next week to spend some time here, and we just didn’t have room.” She handed me the drink. “He should still be around, though. I overheard him say he had to speak with Ms. Sanchez about some production notes.”

  “I’d like to meet him,” I said.

  “I’d be happy to do the honors,” she said, but we hadn’t moved two steps away from the buffet when a spare, rangy man stopped us. “Who’s your friend?” he asked Sarah. He was over six feet tall, and he looked like he was in his seventies. His sandy hair was faded and thinning; his face was narrow. But his pale blue eyes shone sharp as a hawk’s. He smiled and reached out to shake my hand even before we were introduced.

  “Oh, Ethan, this is Nancy Drew. She and her friends are visiting Winifred. And, young as she is, she’s a bona fide detective.”

  I was dismayed at that introduction—I like to keep my sleuthing private when I can, just in case it gets in the way of my getting some evidence. Ethan lifted his eyebrows. “Impressive,” he said.

  “And Nancy, this is Ethan Brody. He’s the mayor of Brody’s Junction.”

  “Who’s a detective?” a shorter, beefy man inquired as he walked up. He wore a state trooper uniform and held a cup of coffee in one hand.