called up the directory. “Oh, my goodness,” Nancy
said, shocked. “These are all Blaine Warner's files.”
“She must be the one who attacked you!” Bess cried.
13. Late-Night Stakeout
Nancy stared at the screen. “It's certainly a possibility
that Blaine was the attacker,” Nancy said. “I'm sure
she'd be strong enough, and she's a bit taller than I am,
too. But what's worse is these files are all about that
new Harris case that Blaine and my dad are working
on. Why was she carrying around a disk like that?”
“Maybe she was taking it home to work on. Do you
think we should we give it back to her?” Bess asked,
suddenly concerned. “What if Henry or Byron stole the
disk from Blaine, and it fell out when one of them
attacked you? Maybe Byron borrowed it and dropped
it on his way to the Cyber Space. What if Blaine needs
this disk to work on your father's case?”
“I'm sure she has the information stored on her hard
drive as well,” Nancy said. “Let's not tell anyone and
see what happens.”
“Okay, Nan,” Bess said, exiting the directory and
removing the disk, which Nancy slipped into her
portfolio.
“Listen,” Nancy continued softly, “I have an idea.
Why don't you go ask Ms. Hanson if there's anything
else you can do to help out around the office?”
“Sure,” Bess said. “That way I can pop in and out of
a few offices and snoop around a little.” Bess stood up
and walked out to the reception area, leaving the door
to the library open. Nancy could hear Bess and Ms.
Hanson's conversation.
“Hi, Ms. Hanson,” Bess said. “Nancy suggested I ask
if I can help out with anything else around the office—
run errands, make phone calls, whatever you need.”
Ms. Hanson smiled at her. “Why not?” she replied.
“Here are some memos you can distribute to all the
offices. And then maybe you can do a coffee run. I'd
like a cheese Danish and a coffee with two sugars.”
Nancy kept working in the library until Bess
reappeared a few minutes later with a copy of the
memo.
“Nancy, you'll never believe what happened,” Bess
said. “I walked into Blaine's office to give her a copy of
the memo, and she was whispering into the phone,
something about erasing a file. I'll bet she tried to wipe
out that E-mail log. And when she realized I was in
there, she yelled at me to get out.”
Before Nancy could ask her any questions, the girls
heard a phone slam down across the hall, and Blaine
burst in through the door to the law library. Ignoring
Nancy and Bess, she started searching through the
papers and disks on the table and shelves. She bent
over to peer in the disk drives at each computer
station.
“I just got back from court, and I discovered I'm
missing a very important disk,” Blaine stormed. She
looked closely at Nancy and then at Bess. “Are you sure
you didn't get it mixed up with those disks you've been
copying?”
“No, Blaine,” Nancy said carefully. “I'm sure I didn't
get it mixed up with any of my disks.”
“I was working late in the library last night, and I'm
sure I left it in here. Unless Byron or Henry picked it
up. Henry's always sticking his nose where it doesn't
belong. And Byron's always snatching up disks and
papers and stuffing them in his law books or his
pockets. I'll bet one of them has it!” she huffed.
“Neither of them has been in here this morning.
Didn't you say you were working late last night?”
Nancy asked Blaine. “When would Byron or Henry
have picked up your disk, if you were the last one in
here?”
Blaine shot Nancy a hostile glance, then said,
“Maybe they took it during the day, and I didn't notice.
They might even have taken it out of my office. No one
ever knocks around here,” she concluded, glaring at
Bess as she stamped out of the library.
“Whew!” Bess exhaled. “And I thought she was
upset before when I barged into her office.”
“Well,” Nancy said, her mind racing, “we know
Byron couldn't have taken the disk last night, because
he was at Art-Dot-Café—and the Cyber Space—at the
same times we were.”
“But it could have been Henry,” Bess said. “Or
maybe it was Byron, and he'd already passed the disk
on to his partner in crime at Williams and Brown—and
the accomplice is the one who attacked you and
dropped the disk Byron had given him.”
“I guess that's a possibility, too,” Nancy replied. “But
what's most likely is that Blaine was taking the disk
home, and that she lied about working late last night.
She probably realized that she must have dropped the
disk when she attacked me. . . .”
“And now she's trying to cover it up, by trying to
blame Byron or Henry,” Bess concluded excitedly.
The girls quickly dropped their discussion as the
library door opened, and Nancy's father walked in. “Hi,
Bess; hi, Nancy,” he said. “Sorry I missed you this
morning. You two doing okay with that file copying?”
“Fine,” Nancy said. “Bess has been helping Ms.
Hanson distribute memos.” Suddenly Nancy's com-
puter made a ping sound, and she glanced at the
screen. “Who's sending me E-mail?” she wondered
aloud, and pressed a button to retrieve her mail.
There was a new message: “I'm in. Come hear me
read—live and in person—tomorrow night at the
Cyber Space. Please invite Bess.—Byron Thomas”
“Wow, I guess they liked his stuff,” Bess said,
reading over Nancy's shoulder.
“What's that?” Mr. Drew asked.
“Oh, we ran into Byron last night at a computer
coffee bar in the warehouse district,” Nancy explained
to her father. “He wanted to arrange a poetry reading
there, and I told him to E-mail me an invitation if he
got the gig.”
“I wonder where he's E-mailing you from,” Bess
said.
“He's probably on-line on the computers at the
courthouse,” Nancy's father answered her. “Blaine has
him working down there today.”
“So, what's up, Dad?” Nancy asked. “The last few
days you've been too busy to stop in and say hello.”
“I've got some more papers that have to go over to
Williams and Brown,” he replied. “I hate to pull you off
your computer work again, but I figure with Bess
helping out . . .”
“I'll go, Mr. Drew,” Bess offered. “I was going on a
coffee run anyway. I'll go to Williams and Brown first,
and then pick up the food on my way back.”
“Thanks, Bess,” he said as he left the library. “And
by the way, I take my coffee black, and I'd love a
croissant.”
Once he was gone, Nancy turned to her friend.
“Listen, Bess, let's hide out in the office tonight and
see if we can catch Blaine—or one of the others—
stealing computer disks or sending out E-mail.”
Bess grimaced. “Hey, I missed my on-line group last
night, Nance. You want me to miss it again?”
“I really need you here,” Nancy said. “The solution is
right around the corner.”
“No,” Henry said, appearing in the doorway to the
library. “I'm right around the corner. What are you two
up to?” he asked.
“Nothing, Henry,” Bess replied. “I was just going to
deliver some papers for Mr. Drew and go on a coffee
run for the office. Can I bring you something?”
“Hot tea and a scone, if you please, madame,” he
replied with his broad grin.
When Bess returned from Williams & Brown, she
walked back into the library and gave Nancy her cup of
tea and bagel. “I didn't turn up any new clues,” Bess
said. “How about you?” Nancy shook her head, and the
two girls spent the rest of the day working quietly in
the library.
A little after six o'clock, they gathered up their
things, shut off the computers, and walked out to the
reception area.
“Good night, Ms. Hanson,” Bess said.
“Good night, Bess, Nancy,” Ms. Hanson said. “I'll be
leaving in a few minutes. You girls aren't working late
tonight?”
“No, we had enough for one day,” Nancy said,
laughing.
“Me, too,” Ms. Hanson said. “I'll see you tomorrow.”
Instead of getting on the elevator, the two girls went
to the ladies' room at the end of the public hall. They
saw Ms. Hanson turn out the lights in the reception
area, set the automatic locks by the double glass doors,
and get into the elevator. Once the doors had slid shut
behind Ms. Hanson, Nancy entered the door-lock
code, and the two girls sneaked quietly back into the
office.
“Shh . . . I think I hear someone in the hallway,”
Nancy whispered. “Get in here.” She pulled Bess into a
small closet off the reception area.
“What is this?” Bess whispered.
“It's a utility closet,” Nancy replied. “The fuse box,
electrical panel, phone switches, and computer cables
are all in here. I didn't want to go in the coat closet,”
she explained, “in case someone was leaving and
wanted to get a coat.”
Through the crack at the edge of the door, Nancy
could see her father press a button next to the doors
and wait a few seconds while the automatic lock
disengaged. Then he exited the reception area doors to
the elevator lobby.
“That was too close,” Nancy said. “Let's take off our
shoes, so when we go out we'll be really quiet.”
Once Mr. Drew was gone, the two girls emerged
from their hiding place and tiptoed up the hall toward
the library in their stocking feet. They could see Blaine
working at her desk by the light of a small desk lamp.
The girls slipped into the dark silence of the law
library. They hid underneath the long oak table
housing the computer stations, concealed at the far end
by the metal filing cabinets.
“Now what?” Bess whispered.
“Now we wait,” Nancy whispered back.
They had a long wait. After nearly two hours, they
heard the metallic click of the outer door.
“That must be Blaine leaving,” Bess whispered. “I
guess she's not doing anything tonight. Can we go
now?”
“Shh,” Nancy said. “That wasn't Blaine leaving. That
was someone coming in!”
The door to the library opened softly, and a figure
slipped into the darkened room. The girls saw Byron
click on a small desk lamp, and power up one of the
computers. He looked around nervously, slipped a disk
out of his pocket and into the disk drive, and tapped
away at the keyboard. The girls heard the telltale whine
of a computer modem dialing out.
Then the overhead fluorescent lights came on.
Byron jumped out of his chair and turned off the
computer.
“Byron,” the two girls heard Blaine angrily say.
“When did you come in? I've told you not to sneak
around here at night and use our Internet link. What
are you up to, anyway?”
“N-nothing, Ms. Warner,” Byron said. “I just came
back to enter these, um, notes. I didn't mean to startle
you. I'm s-sorry.”
“I'm leaving for the night,” she said brusquely. “Did
you check to make sure you didn't pick up my disk last
night?”
“I left before you last night,” Byron replied simply,
“and I've been at the courthouse all day.” He turned
off the desk lamp and started for the door.
“I'm going to the ladies' room, and then I'm
leaving,” Blaine called out as she turned off the light
and moved up the hallway. “I'll lock up when I'm
done.” The girls stayed hidden until they heard the
outer door lock click shut.
“Great,” Bess said. She wriggled out of her hiding
place. “Everyone's gone home for the night. Our
stakeout's a bust, and I can get home in time for my
chat group.”
“Wait a minute,” Nancy whispered urgently. She
reached out to grab Bess by the arm. “What about
Henry?”
“Exactly.” A deep male voice came from the
darkened hallway. “What about Henry?”
Bess gave a little cry of surprise as the lights came
on once again to reveal Henry standing in the doorway
to the library.
“Henry!” Bess cried. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask the same of you, but I already know the
answer,” he replied smugly. “You're here to help Nancy
catch whoever sent that E-mail on those settled cases.
But you're too late. I, Henry the Great, have figured it
out,” he whispered. “The E-mail mystery is solved, and
the culprit is . . . Ms. Marian Hanson!”
14. The E-mail Trail
“What?” Nancy cried. “Ms. Hanson would never do
anything to hurt my father, or help another firm—
especially not Williams and Brown.”
“Well, look at this,” Henry said, waving a piece of
paper at them. It was a printout of the E-mail log file
that Nancy had discovered. “Her log-on is all over this
E-mail that was sent to Williams and Brown on the
same day the cases came into our office,” Henry said
triumphantly.
“Hold on just a minute, smart guy,” Bess said.
“That's the first thing I noticed, too. But you can
pretend to be anyone you want in cyberspace,
remember? You could have sent that, and just used
Ms. Hanson's log-on name and password to cover your
tracks.”
“And you know everybody's password, Henry,”
Nancy said. “Remember when I forgot mine, and you
told me what it was?”
“That's true,” Henry admitted. “Your father insisted
that we all have each other's passwords in case we need
to access material in each other's files.”
“You stick to the law, Mr. Hotshot Paralegal,” Bess
said, “and leave the investigating to us.”
“I still think—” Henry began.
Nancy cut him off. “I think we should look at the
disk that Byron forgot when Blaine surprised him here
a few minutes ago to see if he's really the poet he
claims to be—or if he's something else, altogether.”
“Good idea, Nan,” Bess said.
“I saw them both head out of the office,” Henry
said.
“You don't think they're working together?” Bess
asked.
“No way,” Henry replied. “Those two are like oil and
water. They do not mix.”
The three turned on the computer where Byron had
been sitting and waited for it to boot up.
“Shh,” Nancy whispered. “I think I hear something.”
“Naw,” Henry said. “That's just the computer
warming up. So, what happened? Byron was sneaking
in here to go on-line, and Blaine caught him?”
Nancy nodded, and once the computer screen
showed it was ready, called up the first file on Byron's
disk. Its contents scrolled down the screen.
I dream in bits
and bytes
Of you
My shining light
My dream of day
My unknown cyber love . . .
“Enough!” Henry said, rolling his eyes. “I've seen
enough.”
“I think it's beautiful,” Bess said, glaring at Henry.
“I've never seen a computer love poem before.”
Nancy continued to scan the files, just to be sure,
but it was all poetry or notes on Web-page design and
memos to Internet writers' groups. It appeared that
Byron was just what he claimed to be.
“Bess and I were pretty sure already,” Nancy said
thoughtfully. “But this confirms it. If your interest in
these settled cases is for real, and if Byron's activities
on-line are truly about his poetry, then Blaine's our
main suspect.”
“And she might be dangerous,” Bess warned.
“Nancy was attacked last night, outside the Cyber
Space Café—and we found Blaine's missing disk right
there, where she was attacked.”
“Blaine's missing disk?” Henry exclaimed. “She's
been screaming about that all day. Let's take a look at
The E-Mail Mystery Page 10
