The Case Of The Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend

Praise for Mabel Maney’s Nancy Clue Mysteries!

“Maney has penned a mystery with tongue-in-cheek homo-erotic hilarity that’s simultaneously fun, nostalgic, and completely contemporary.”—Los Angeles Reader

“In a gem of a book-length parody, the author faithfully hews to the narrative and plotting style of juvenile series fiction, her remarkably straight face making the goings on all the funnier. I loved this book …”—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

“Maney, who evidently grew up bent in a straighter-than-thou environment, has had a field day with our conventions. Wittily, subversively, she has exposed the underbelly of America: it’s softly rounded, and warm.”—Toronto Globe and Mail

“Utter kitsch, done with class and distinction. Mabel tools the pages like an expert, in the process bringing up a lot of dialogue about the role of lesbianism in the ‘gay’ 90s, albeit subtly.”—Your Flesh Magazine

“Girl-detective fiction fashioned with a gusto and much self-parody … Maney delivers a strange tale of missing nuns, lesbian romance and much hapless do-gooding detective work. Fun at its most Sapphic, this is one mystery that you should get to the bottom of!”—The Pink Paper

“Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend is definitely a hoot; you’ll laugh until your dress gets mussed … Maney knows ‘50s America like she majored in Ozzie and Harriet.”—Lambda Book Report

“The sequel to The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse is another hoot, a lampooning of girls’ fiction of the past full of hapless, do-gooding detectives with ‘keen sleuthing abilities, up-to-the-minute fashion sense, and gracious finishing-school manners.’ With a honey like Cherry, who is always careful to keep an ample supply of freshly starched, white linen handkerchiefs in her seasonally appropriate handbag, we know Nancy can’t miss.” —Booklist

Nancy swiftly and expertly roped Cherry in.

MABEL MANEY was born at All Saint’s Hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin, to Marge Muldoon Maney, a former beauty queen whose titles include Miss Muskie Queen 1949 and Miss Cheese Log 1951, and Milton Maney, a traveling footwear salesman specializing in sensible shoes.

After her parents were lost at sea, Mabel’s spinster aunt, Miss Maude Maney, a successful women’s undergarments buyer for a local department store, enrolled Mabel at St. Agatha’s School for Girls in nearby Bear Lake, where she excelled in Conversational Skills and Table Manners. After an idyllic four years spent in the highest academic pursuits, Mabel was expelled for behavior too unpleasant to mention here.

Mabel enjoyed a short stint at the Appleton Home for Wayward Girls, after which she made her way west where she found employment in the film industry, training miniature collies to jump through hoops. Following many years devoted to canine education, Mabel retired to San Francisco, where she now resides.

Her key to success? “Never mix plaids with stripes!”

Mabel Maney is the author of The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse, The Case of the Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend, and Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys in A Ghost in the Closet (Cleis Press). Her short stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories (Houghton Mifflin) and San Francisco Thrillers (Chronicle Books). Her new girl spy adventure series is forthcoming from Avon.

Maney’s installation art and handmade books, self-published under the World O’Girls Books imprint, have earned her fellowships from the San Francisco Foundation and San Francisco State University, where she received her MFA in 1991. Her art has been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States. Artspace wrote of her handmade World O’Girls edition of The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse: “In Maney’s refigured narrative, gay heroine Cherry Ames moves unhampered through a world populated by lesbian nuns and adventuresses, even engaging in a one-nighter with Nancy Drew. Entertainment aside, by appropriating and redefining the sexual orientation and cultural limits placed upon her fictional female characters, Maney provides a powerful reminder of the exclusionary nature of the ruling (in this case, straight) culture, with its power to define specific roles and acts as ‘natural’ while denying or marginalizing others.”

A Nancy Clue Mystery

The Case of the Good-for-Nothing Girlfriend

Mabel Maney

www.spice-books.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Miss Lillian Bee of the Milwaukee Bees, and for M. P. K.

Special thanks to the nurses of Cleis Press—Deborah Barkun, Leasa Burton, Frédérique Delacoste, Maura Farrell, Lisa Frank, Pete Ivey, and Felice Newman—for their keen editing abilities, unflagging good humor, and eternal patience.

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

1 A Maddening Mishap

2 To the Rescue!

3 Oops!

4 Pocatello Bound

5 That Special Something

6 A Chance Encounter

7 Mysterious Strangers

8 An Important Assignment

9 A Horrible Mix-up!

10 What a Coincidence!

11 “Adieu, Idaho”

12 Shocking News

13 A Cheery Hello

14 A Sudden Crash

15 A Cunning Career Gal

16 “Look Out!”

17 A Startling Confession

18 Eureka!

19 Unexpected Guests

20 A Frantic Phone Call

21 “O, Nebraska!”

22 At Long Last, Iowa

23 A Surprising Encounter

24 Eager Anticipation

25 A Queer Quiz

26 Crossing the Mississippi

27 A Delightful Surprise

28 A Creepy Tale

29 “Bess? Bees?”

30 Purloined Letters

31 The Search for Nancy

32 Conflicting Reports

33 A Frightful Encounter

34 A Meddling Matron

35 Nancy’s Return

36 A Sudden Cry

37 A Rocky Romance?

38 A Scandalous Story

39 A Fabulous Fellow

40 A Sudden Awakening

41 A Warning

42 A Delightful Discovery

43 Follow That Car!

44 An Exhaustive Search

45 A Sudden Realization

46 A Shocking Rumor

47 The State of Illinois v. Hannah P. Gruel

48 Drop That Moose!

49 The Secret Revealed

50 Trouble!

51 An Agonizing Decision

Thrilling Chapters from Your Favorite Nancy Clue Mysteries!

The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse

Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys in A Ghost in the Closet

Endpages

Copyright

CHAPTER 1

A Maddening Mishap

Pretty, titian-haired detective Nancy Clue, known to all for her keen sleuthing abilities, up-to-the-minute fashion sense, and gracious finishing-school manners, kicked the right front tire of her modern convertible in frustration and burst into tears.

“I can’t believe it! This is the second time today something has happened to this automobile! First that tire blew in Boise, and now this! Oh, it’s maddening!” Nancy sobbed.

The attractive girl, clad in a simple powder blue summer skirt and crisp white blouse with a Peter Pan collar that gave her a charmingly innocent air, flung herself over the front of the snappy automobile and gave way to a fervent fit of wailing that made her traveling companions jump back in alarm.

The four girls accompanying her on the trip looked at each other in bewilderment. Just minutes before, Nancy had been leading the group in a merry sing-along, and now she was writhing on the hood of her 1959 canary yellow Chrysler convertible, tears streaming down her pretty face.

They had just finished a rousing round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” when the car had hit a rather large rock and made the most awful clanking noise before rolling to a dead stop at the side of the road. And just when they had almost reached Pocatello, Idaho, where they’d planned to stop for a nice supper before driving across the border to the majestic mountain state of Wyoming.

Nurse Cherry Aimless, Nancy’s close chum and a native Idahoan, had warned them to use caution while traversing the roadways of eastern Idaho, but the five girls had been so engrossed in their own amusements, they had become careless. Cherry scolded herself for not paying closer attention. She knew from her many experiences during family car trips to keep an eye out for the rocky road ahead. Now, just hours into their trip, their automobile was damaged, perhaps beyond repair!

“And Nancy’s on the verge of hysteria,” Cherry noted with her keen nurse’s eye. “Not only that, she’s in danger of becoming downright mussed,” she thought in alarm.

Under normal circumstances, Nancy Clue, who had solved enough baffling mysteries to earn a well-deserved reputation as a first-rate sleuth, was the model of feminine decorum. She was accustomed to keeping a cool head while solving cases that baffled even the professionals, and emerged from every escapade with nary a hair out of place. For Nancy was as well known for her attractive hairstyles as she was for her ability to remain unruffled during the most trying circumstances.

But now the young sleuth was facing one of the most hair-raising experiences of her life.

Nancy was headed home to River Depths, Illinois, to confess to the murder of her father, prominent attorney Carson Clue, who had been found shot to death eleven days earlier in the tidy kitchen of his comfortable, three-story suburban brick house!

“I must get home and expose the terrible truth about my father, and free Hannah!” Nancy cried through her tears. She pummeled the hood of the fancy car with her small fists. “I … simply … must … get … home!”

The Clues’ longtime housekeeper, Hannah Gruel, had insisted on selflessly shouldering the blame for the death of Mr. Clue in order that Nancy might remain free, and so had confessed to shooting the popular attorney during a domestic dispute.

“I told that man time and time again to stay out of my kitchen while I was baking,” Hannah had declared as she was led away in handcuffs to the River Depths jail. There she remained, awaiting trial for murder, due to begin in just over two days’ time.

It was only because Nancy had been in such a state of shock after the shooting that she had agreed to Hannah’s scheme. At the housekeeper’s urging, she had headed for faraway San Francisco to start a new life. Once there, Nancy had been drawn into the exciting mystery of The Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse, where she had become fast friends with the four girls who were now standing back helplessly as their new chum took out her frustrations on her nifty automobile. This fascinating case, which had started in San Francisco and led the girls to a dark dungeon outside the city, had ended on a happy note. Using just their wits and a pair of handy handcuffs, the five chums had managed to escape from their captors—a group of nefarious clergymen—free a convent of kidnapped nuns, and outwit the evil priest who had masterminded the devious plot to murder the nuns and steal their land.

Luckily, the five chums had been quickly exonerated in the priest’s subsequent death, and it was then Nancy had decided to go back home and set the record straight about what had really happened in the three-story, Colonial style brick house at 36 Maple Street. The startling news that Hannah had suffered a heart attack in prison had made Nancy even more determined to get home as quickly as possible, for Nancy was terribly afraid that Hannah’s weakened heart wouldn’t survive the strain of a courtroom drama.

“If only I hadn’t agreed to this scheme, perhaps Hannah wouldn’t have become ill,” she admonished herself over and over again, until she was sick with worry. She would do anything to get Hannah out of jail, even if it meant telling her terrible secret to all of River Depths!

Nancy was positive that once people heard the truth about her father, she would immediately be cleared of any wrongdoing in his death. “Once they hear how truly dreadful he was, there will be no question but that I did the right thing; the only thing I could have possibly done!” she had assured her companions. When her chums expressed their fear that she might be charged with murder, Nancy confidently brushed aside their doubts

“Any sensible person will certainly understand that I had to shoot Father,” she assured them. “Besides, everyone in River Depths knows I never lie. Why, Police Chief Chumley, who has called on me many times to help solve particularly baffling cases, has declared that he trusts me as much as anyone under his command.”

If truth be told, Nancy was one of River Depths’ most important girl citizens. Tales of her exciting adventures were reported by newspapers everywhere, and the young sleuth was recognized wherever she went for her keen logic, upstanding behavior, and attractive outfits. Why, just the year before, Nancy had received the coveted River Depths Outstanding Girl Award. True to her modest nature, she had been surprised and flattered by the accolade, and had promptly donated the twenty-five dollars in cash that had accompanied the bronze plaque to the River Depths Home for Troubled Girls, a worthwhile institution Nancy had visited on many occasions on missions of charity.

She assured her friends that in River Depths her word was as good as gold. “Besides, I have irrefutable evidence that proves my father’s crime,” she had told her worried chums, adding, in a confident tone, “Not that I’ll need it!” Safely hidden away in the secret bottom drawer of her hope chest at home were documents that would prove her father’s guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt—letters written in Carson Clue’s own hand. Once authorities saw this evidence, Nancy was sure she would instantly be absolved of any wrongdoing in his death!

“Little good that evidence does me here, though,” Nancy groaned. “I may as well be a million miles away,” she thought glumly as she slid off the hood of the car, not even caring that her travel outfit was now wrinkled beyond repair. “At the rate we’re going, Hannah will have been tried and convicted already by the time we get there. Or worse! I’ll never forgive myself if Hannah dies a murderess!” Nancy wailed. “Never!”

She fumbled through her summer straw handbag for one of the starched, white monogrammed handkerchiefs she always kept on hand. She discovered, with dismay, that she had run out of clean hankies!

“Could things get any worse?” Nancy wailed as she threw up her hands in despair. She jumped up and ran screaming from the car.

She didn’t know where she was headed, and, frankly, she didn’t care!

CHAPTER 2

To the Rescue!

Cherry rushed after her distraught chum, a fresh hankie in one hand and her stainless steel travel thermos in the other. Cherry had thoughtfully purchased the sturdy, practical thermos earlier that day.

“A cool cup of water is just the ticket when dealing with emotional flare-ups,” she thought cheerfully.

Cherry knew that water, along with the right amount of rest and plenty of tasty, nutritious food, was an essential component to good health. So, unfortunately, was peace of mind—something Nancy hadn’t had in a very long time.

“It’s not good to overexcite yourself in this warm weather,” Cherry murmured in a soothing voice, trying to calm her near-frantic friend.

If truth be known, Nancy and Cherry were more than just friends. Despite the warmth of the humid, July day, Cherry shivered when she recalled the evening she had first set eyes on the lovely, titian-haired girl. Little had she realized that night she would find love beyond her wildest dreams!

Just one week before meeting Nancy in San Francisco, Cherry Aimless, R.N., an attractive, dark-haired girl with a bubbly nature and a burning desire to help others, had been a happily overworked ward nurse at a big-city hospital in Seattle. A vacation to the city by the bay had changed her life forever—for not only had she been caught up in an exciting mystery, she had also fallen deeply and truly in love, and with her longtime idol, Nancy Clue!

Until that trip, Cherry had been content with reading about the young detective in newspapers and magazines. It was well known throughout the nurses’ dormitory at Seattle General Hospital that Cherry spent much of her free time filling scrapbooks with carefully clipped articles and photographs of her favorite detective. Cherry took the teasing about her enthusiasm for the girl sleuth with good grace. She knew hobbies were a relaxing way to spend one’s leisure time, and no one needed to relax more than a hard-working nurse!

And no nurse worked harder than Cherry, whose cheerful presence and attention to duty made her a favorite among patients and colleagues alike. Cherry loved nursing, especially in her trim white uniform, dashing royal blue cape, and perky cap with its dark blue stripe that proclaimed she was a proud graduate of Stencer Nursing School, class of 1957!

So what if Cherry spent a tidy sum of her weekly salary on special leather-bound scrapbooks for her ever growing archive of Nancy Clue stories?

“At least it keeps me off the streets,” she joked to her nurse neighbors before shutting the door to her room for an evening of clipping and pasting. No one was a more eager hobbyist than Nurse Cherry Aimless!

The kidding had stopped the day the attractive nurse solved The Case of the Vanishing Valium and exposed the dastardly deeds of young Dr. Kildare, who was pilfering dangerous drugs from the hospital supply room. After that, the nurses were frank to admit that Cherry, with her dancing green eyes, shiny black curls, and curvy figure, was proof that beauty and brains could walk hand in hand.

But never in her wildest fantasies could Cherry have imagined that one day she’d actually come face to face with Nancy Clue!

Although Cherry sorely missed the hustle and bustle of the overcrowded, understaffed hospital, where the patients seemed to really need her, she knew her place was by Nancy’s side. For although she had taken a vow to be a big-city nurse—a soldier, really, in the fight against ignorance, filth, and disease—Cherry knew that there was one person who needed her most right now. And although she was dressed as a civilian, she was as much a nurse in her pretty pink taffeta party frock and dressy gold sandals as she was in her trim, starched white uniform, perky cap, and cunning cape.

It was Cherry Aimless, Registered Nurse, who put her own wants and needs aside in order to keep a cool head during Nancy’s outburst. Cherry knew that Nancy’s temper tantrum could send her blood pressure soaring! Why, Cherry might be called upon to perform a medical procedure right there by the side of the dusty road, where their automobile had rolled to a stop. She was somewhat reassured, knowing that her first-aid kit was securely stowed in the back seat of the car.

“If you just relax, we can put our heads together and find a way out of this spot,” Cherry said in a soothing tone. “A cool head always prevails.” She handed Nancy a clean handkerchief. Cherry always kept plenty on hand for times just like these.

“But I want to go now!” Nancy cried, crumpling Cherry’s white cotton hankie and throwing it to the ground.

Cherry picked up the now germ-laden handkerchief and put it in her pocket. She took a fresh one from her white patent-leather purse and held it ready in her hand. In a calm voice that she hoped would stop her excitable friend from working herself into an even more heightened nervous state, Cherry explained that car trouble was not unusual during a long auto trip. “Especially if one is trying very hard to get someplace in a hurry. Accidents are bound to happen,” she said in a firm yet soothing tone. “And you have to admit this wasn’t the most carefully planned trip,” she added.

“ ‘Many a trip is spoiled by poor planning,’ ” Cherry quoted her mother, Mrs. Doris Aimless of Pleasantville, Idaho, a sensible woman with lots of helpful advice. She felt a flash of guilt when she thought of her mother, who was no doubt worried sick about the whereabouts of her only daughter. Cherry had raced out the door earlier that day, and right in the middle of the mid-day meal!

Cherry vowed that she would call home as soon as she could, and assure her mother she was safe and planning on eating well-balanced meals. But until she could find a public telephone, she had another, more urgent, matter to contend with. Nancy was becoming dangerously overwrought, and it was Cherry’s job to see she didn’t make herself sick with worry.

“You told me yourself you’ve been involved in a lot of scrapes,” she said, adding, “and, eventually, you’ve found a way out of each of them.”

“But I’ve never been in such a precarious predicament before,” Nancy wailed. “I should have flown home,” she added anxiously. “What was I thinking when I suggested we drive cross-country in a little over a day’s time? At the rate we’re going, we’ll never make it to Illinois in time to stop that trial!

“If I had flown, I’d be home by now, and Hannah would be free,” she said, a gleam of steely determination in her blue eyes. She checked her slender, diamond-faced watch. “Let’s see—it’s almost six o’clock now. I could hop a bus back to Boise and catch a late flight to Chicago. I could be home first thing in the morning,” Nancy schemed.