Pure Poison

by Carolyn Keene

  Nancy stared at Marilyn Kilpatrick for a few seconds. She couldn’t believe that the senator would resort to threats of any kind, even in desperate circumstances.

  “Where do we go from here?” Nancy asked.

  “I don’t know, Nancy,” was the senator’s reply. “There doesn’t seem to be much we can do. Beverly’s convinced I wrote that note, and now I know she won’t delay publication of her book, either for me or for Teresa. As for finding out who really sent her that threat, well, there must be hundreds of possibilities in this town.”

  “Not really,” Nancy countered. “Who else is Beverly writing about? What other Washington officials does she have something on? Have you heard anything? Even if it’s gossip, it might help.”

  The senator looked confused. “But how will finding out who wrote the note help us to stop Beverly from publishing her book?”

  “I’m not sure,” Nancy answered truthfully. “But the more we know about Beverly’s book, the better. Maybe this other person, whoever he or she is, will have something on her. What we’ve got to do is find out everything we can about Beverly Bishop—what her sources are, who she talks to, and especially who else she has the goods on. Once we know that, maybe we can figure out a way to stop her.”

  “And just how do you mean to find out all this?” Senator Kilpatrick asked.

  “Easy,” replied Nancy. “Ask another big Washington columnist!”

  Marilyn’s eyes widened. “That’s brilliant. Just brilliant. And I know just the person you’ll want to talk to—Jillian Riley of the Washington Herald.”

  “Great. Tell me about her.”

  “She’s Beverly Bishop’s archrival—although she seems a lot nicer. She might be willing to tell what she knows.” The senator fell silent for a moment before continuing. “Then again, perhaps she’d want something in return. . . .” she mused.

  Nancy snapped her fingers and jumped up. “I’ve got it!” she cried. “Do you think Ms. Riley would like an exclusive interview with ‘Teresa Montenegro’? I’ll pretend to be Teresa tomorrow, and I’ll talk to Jillian Riley about Ms. Bishop while I promise her the interview at a later date. Teresa can do the interview if she wants to later on. I’ll say I had a falling-out with Ms. Bishop, and that’s why I’m giving her the scoop. And that will bring up the subject of Beverly Bishop’s nastiness. What do you think?”

  Marilyn Kilpatrick’s eyes sparkled. “I think I’m glad I asked you to take this case,” she said, picking up the telephone to call the Herald office.

  Three minutes later it was all arranged. Nancy—or rather, Teresa—had an appointment with Jillian Riley for the following day. “And now,” said Nancy, getting up to go, “I’d better give myself a crash course in being a tennis star from San Carlos. Luckily, I’ve had some practice. The hard part is going to be doing my hair and makeup to look like Teresa’s without Bess to help me—but I’ll manage.” She smiled at the senator. “Where’s Teresa staying these days?”

  “I’ll drive you there myself,” said the senator, leading Nancy out of the office. “It’s only about ten minutes from here. On the way, we can decide what to tell her. I don’t want her to be alarmed about any of this. She’s got some big matches coming up in a few days, and she’s got to be able to concentrate on her game.”

  On the way to Teresa’s, Nancy stopped at a drugstore and bought makeup for her “disguise.” She and the senator decided to play it cool. They’d tell Teresa that Nancy was in town for a short visit, and ask if she could stay with Teresa for a night or two. Then Nancy could study her unobtrusively all evening, and be ready for her big interview at the Herald the next morning.

  Teresa Montenegro lived in an apartment complex not far from downtown Washington, one of those tasteful yet faceless developments featuring garden duplexes and tight security. After what had happened to her in the past year, Teresa valued security above everything—except her freedom.

  At the gate, the attendant saw the senate license plate and waved them in. “Teresa’s place is right over there,” the senator explained, pointing to a garden apartment at the edge of the property near a man-made lake.

  Nancy followed her friend to the front door, which led into a carpeted foyer with four apartment doors opening onto it. “It’s right here,” said Marilyn, raising her hand to knock on the second door on the left.

  But her knuckles never touched the metal. “N-N-Nancy, look!” she gasped, pointing down at the floor.

  There, flowing out from beneath Teresa’s door, staining the beige carpet dark red, was a spreading pool of blood!

  Chapter

  Three

  TERESA!” CRIED NANCY, pounding on the door. There was no sound from inside.

  “What if we’re too late?” Senator Kilpatrick cried. “What if something awful has happened to Teresa? I’ll never forgive myself!”

  Nancy bent down to inspect the bright red stain oozing out from under Teresa Montenegro’s door. She gingerly touched the substance with one finger, then smeared a drop of it on her other hand. “It’s stage blood,” she told her friend when she stood up.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “It’s thicker than real blood, and it doesn’t dry or turn brown—it just stays the same. See?” Nancy held her hand up in front of Marilyn’s face.

  Nancy could tell she and Marilyn were thinking the same thing. Teresa Montenegro was not a theatrical person. If there was stage blood in her apartment, someone else had put it there.

  Stepping back, Nancy pulled her lock-picking kit out of her purse and quickly worked open the apartment door.

  Nancy burst into the room with the senator right behind her. The place had been ripped apart. Teresa’s tennis clothes were everywhere, most of them slashed. Her furniture was toppled over and several of her tennis rackets had been smashed. Stage blood had been thrown everywhere.

  But worst of all were the words scrawled in the fake blood on the living room wall: “Silence or Death.”

  “ ‘Silence or death,’ ” Nancy whispered. “ ‘If you publish, you’ll perish.’ ” She looked over at Senator Kilpatrick, who seemed to be in a state of shock. “Any idea who’s behind this?” she asked.

  “I’d say our dear old friends in San Carlos are trying to send us a little message, special delivery. They must know about Beverly’s book, too.” The senator found a clean spot on the sofa and sat down with a loud sigh.

  “I don’t think I understand,” murmured Nancy, pacing around the room, taking in the whole grisly sight yet again. “How could these people have found out about what’s going to be in Beverly’s book? They’re thousands of miles away, aren’t they?”

  “Ah, but they have their ways of knowing.” The senator smiled wearily. “Unfortunately, there’s no way to control espionage in this town. There are just too many people working out of embassies, consulates, trade delegations, student exchanges—and not all the spies are foreigners, either.”

  “We’ve got to find Teresa right away,” Nancy said quickly. “Any idea where she might be?”

  “Not the slightest,” said Marilyn Kilpatrick with a slight scowl. “We could try the tennis cl—”

  She stopped in midsentence, staring at the open doorway. Nancy turned and saw Teresa Montenegro standing in the hall, her eyes wide with fear as she surveyed the damage to her apartment.

  Looking at Teresa was almost like looking in a mirror for Nancy. Although they didn’t have the exact same shade of reddish gold hair, their blue eyes were identical. Teresa’s skin was a little darker than Nancy’s peaches-and-cream complexion, but they shared the same lean build, and when Nancy wanted to impersonate Teresa—as she had in the past—it was a cinch. She only hoped it would go as well this time, because the famous tennis player seemed to be in even more danger now.

  “Teresa—” Nancy started toward her friend.

  Teresa’s mouth opened, and a stifled scream came out in response. Then the tennis star’s eyes closed, and she collapsed onto the floor!r />
  “Marilyn, quick—get some cold water!” yelled Nancy, taking control.

  The senator jumped up from the sofa and ran to the kitchen. When she returned, Nancy took the glass of water from her and sprinkled some on Teresa’s face. Then she shook Teresa’s shoulders.

  “Come on, Teresa, wake up!” the older woman pleaded.

  When she did come to, Teresa sat bolt upright and cried, “No! No! They’re going to kill me! They’re after me!”

  The senator grabbed Teresa’s arms and looked into her eyes. “It’s all right,” she said, forcefully. “It’s all right, Teresa—somebody was just trying to scare you.”

  Nancy crouched next to Marilyn. “Give her a minute,” she advised.

  Sure enough, after a few deep breaths, Teresa was able to respond a little more calmly. “I thought they were through bothering me. What can they want? They’ve already taken everything.”

  Then Teresa reached over and squeezed Nancy’s hand. “Nancy,” she murmured warmly, “what are you doing here?”

  “At the moment? Helping you pack,” said Nancy. “You can’t stay here tonight.”

  “Absolutely,” Senator Kilpatrick agreed. “I want you to come back to my apartment. I have plenty of room. There’s a pull-out couch in my study, and you can stay as long as you like. Nancy’s staying with me, too.”

  “You are?” Teresa’s face brightened a little when Nancy nodded.

  “Then we’ll all be roommates for a while. It’ll be fun,” said Marilyn Kilpatrick, with as much of a smile as she could manage.

  “Thank you, Senator. I don’t know what I’d do without your kindness.” Wiping a little mascara from her face, Teresa got up and went to the bathroom.

  When she was out of earshot, Nancy turned to Marilyn. “If Beverly Bishop’s book comes out,” she said softly, “Teresa will never be safe again, anywhere.”

  “I know,” Marilyn replied with a worried nod. “We’ve got to stop Beverly, and I don’t think we’ve got much time!”

  • • •

  That evening, seated on the comfortable rose-colored velour club chairs in the den of Senator Kilpatrick’s elegant town house apartment, Nancy and Teresa caught up on each other’s news. As they talked, Nancy watched Teresa carefully—every gesture, every bit of body language, every habitual movement. She had lost some of her accent in the past few months, and Nancy was glad. It would make her work easier.

  Teresa had a way of touching her fingers to her lips when she was thinking. She tended to throw her head back when she was excited about something. Her smile could be shy, with her head down and her eyes focused off to one side. Those were the details, and Nancy was drinking them in. She’d have to imitate them exactly in her interview with Jillian Riley the next day. Not that she was going to give Jillian an actual interview or anything—she just needed to make her think that she was. Nancy hadn’t told Teresa what she planned on doing, mainly because Teresa had enough to worry about already. Also, Nancy had a feeling that the less Teresa knew, the better for her—at least for the present.

  “I love that braid in your hair,” Nancy said to Teresa, leaning toward her to examine it. “Could you show me how you do that?”

  “Sure. Want to try it right now?” Teresa tilted her head forward and her hair cascaded down. “You just take this piece here, and twist it—No, come sit on the floor in front of me and I’ll braid your hair. Then you’ll see how it’s done.”

  Nancy reviewed her plan as Teresa worked on her hair. First, she would get her Teresa Montenegro look together and then she’d go straight to Beverly Bishop’s office. She would try to persuade the columnist not to publish what she knew. Of course, Nancy wouldn’t be too specific—she didn’t want to give Beverly any information she didn’t already have. Then she’d go see Jillian Riley and—

  “Finished!” Teresa exclaimed. “Go see,” she said, pointing at the large mirror over the sofa. They both rose and walked over to examine Nancy’s reflection. Looking at the two of them standing side by side, Nancy felt certain she could pass for Teresa anywhere—with just a little makeup, which she’d apply early in the morning.

  “You like the braid?” asked Teresa.

  “I love it. But I think I’ll turn in now. It’s been a long day.” Nancy smiled. “Oh, one more thing, Teresa. Could I borrow a top for tomorrow? Marilyn’s housekeeper sent that sweater I had on to the cleaners.”

  “No problem. Just take whatever you want. My things are in the study.”

  “Thanks. Well, good night,” Nancy called as she went off to the guest room. “Sleep well, Teresa!”

  She doubted that Teresa would get much sleep after what had happened that day. And as Nancy lay down and put her head on the soft pillow, she suspected that the senator wouldn’t be able to close her eyes, either.

  Nancy began to drift off to sleep. But two phrases kept sounding in her mind: “Silence or death”—“if you publish, you’ll perish”—“silence or death. . . .”

  • • •

  Nancy’s travel alarm buzzed at eight o’clock. Opening one bleary eye, she tried to shake off the fog in her head. Time to get moving.

  With a sigh, Nancy rolled across the bed, stood up, and rubbed her eyes. After taking a shower, she carefully applied a temporary rinse to her hair to darken it a bit. Then she applied an olive-toned base to her skin, along with the heavier eye makeup Teresa favored. Wrapping a robe around her, she walked quietly into the living room. The sun filtered in through the vertical blinds in bright stripes, and the room was just as she’d left it the night before.

  “Marilyn?” she called softly in the direction of the senator’s bedroom. There was no reply.

  In the kitchen, Nancy found her answer in a note.

  “Nancy—help yourself to breakfast. My housekeeper comes at ten. Call me! Love, M.K.”

  Nancy flicked on the gas under a white enamel kettle. Then she walked back through the living room to the senator’s study. After tapping on the door as lightly as she could, she peeked inside.

  Teresa was sleeping peacefully, all her anxiety and terror forgotten for the moment.

  Without a sound, Nancy made her way across the room and lifted a lavender sweater from among Teresa’s things. Her own charcoal pants would go perfectly with it.

  After lightly walking over the rose carpeting and closing the door quietly, she made her way back to the kitchen. Normally, Nancy started the day with some orange juice. Today, though, she was opting for strong coffee—the kind Teresa drank in the morning—because, for now at least, she had to be Teresa Montenegro. And the sooner she started, the more convincing she’d be by the time she walked into Beverly Bishop’s office.

  Clipping her hair back with the barrette Teresa had put into her hair the night before, Nancy stepped back and regarded herself in the mirror. “Good morning,” she murmured, with a hint of a Spanish accent. “My apologies—I have no appointment, but I would like to see Ms. Bishop as soon as possible. I have important information for her.”

  She could do it. She knew she could. She had to.

  • • •

  “Good morning. My apologies—I have no appointment, but I would like to see Ms. Bishop as soon as possible. I have to speak to her.”

  “Of course, Ms. Montenegro.” Beverly Bishop’s secretary, a pleasant-looking woman of about fifty, seemed convinced that she was talking to the famous tennis player and not to Nancy Drew, the famous detective. “May I say I admired you tremendously in your last matches. I play tennis myself, and how you can do what you do is beyond me—”

  Nancy strained to see through the frosted-glass door into Beverly Bishop’s office and could make out two women in there. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could tell that one of them was Beverly. The other woman had a high-pitched voice, laced liberally throughout with a southern accent.

  “But why must you bring this out in the open?” she heard the southern woman saying. “It won’t help anyone, but it will hurt me a great dea
l. Please, don’t!”

  Nancy didn’t get a chance to hear Beverly’s answer.

  “How did you master that fabulous backhand?” the secretary asked eagerly.

  “Lots of practice. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll sit down for a moment and look at today’s paper,” Nancy said, backing away from the secretary’s desk. Whatever was going on in Beverly Bishop’s office was too interesting to miss! She took a seat on a small couch and picked up the Washington Courier. Pretending to read the day’s news, Nancy tuned back in to Beverly’s conversation.

  “This is a free country, that’s why!” Beverly was saying.

  “But it will ruin my life! Don’t you understand? And it will ruin other lives, too!” The woman sounded even more desperate now. Her voice was becoming louder and higher, and her accent kept moving farther and farther south.

  “Well, you should have thought of that before, dear,” came the columnist’s acid reply. “After all, you can’t deny it’s the absolute truth.”

  The door to the office suddenly swung open, and a woman swept out like a gale. Her raven hair fell to just below her shoulders, and her exquisitely beautiful face was washed with tears of frustration. At the secretary’s desk, she stopped and turned around to give Beverly a parting comment.

  “You witch!” she snarled. Rage filled her perfect gray eyes. “You think you can play with people’s lives? Well, you’re going after the wrong person this time. If you destroy me, I’ll kill you! Don’t think I won’t!”

  Chapter

  Four

  NANCY STARED AFTER the beautiful raven-haired woman as she hurried out of the office. Who was she and what did Beverly Bishop know about her? Nancy knew she’d seen that face before somewhere.

  “Oh, dear,” the secretary muttered, trying to be light for her guest’s sake. “You know, in Beverly’s business, feelings run high. Don’t worry, Miss Montenegro. Mrs. Hawks didn’t mean what she said. Nobody’s going to get killed around here.”

  Hawks—wasn’t that the name of the person who’d thrown a party both the senator and the columnist had attended? Nancy wondered. Had Beverly Bishop told Della Hawks the same thing she’d told the senator—that soon the whole world would know her secret?