Easy Marks

by Carolyn Keene

  “It was arson, wasn’t it?” Nancy said in a low voice.

  “What makes you say that?” the fire official asked her, frowning.

  “The way it started, all at once, and spread across the floor,” Nancy replied. “It seemed to flow, and to me that sounds like some kind of liquid was burning, not just a bunch of old papers.”

  “We don’t know what else may have been stored in that room,” the fire marshal said. “We’re looking into that now. Thanks for your help, Ms. Stevens. If I have any more questions, I’ll be in touch with you.

  “Okay, Bill,” he added, straightening up and turning to one of the paramedics. A few moments later Nancy’s stretcher was secured inside the ambulance, and the vehicle sped away.

  • • •

  Her father was already at the hospital when Nancy arrived. So was Harrison Lane. They joined her in her examining room. After she and the paramedic assured them that she was basically in good shape, Lane said, “Sally called and told me what happened. I called your father. Nancy, I feel terrible that I put you in such danger. I never expected anything like this. I want you to drop this investigation.”

  “Not yet,” Nancy told him, shaking her head.

  “I beg you,” the banker continued. “If there has to be a scandal at Brewster, so be it. We’ll live it down somehow. At least we won’t be putting you in further jeopardy.”

  Nancy shook her head again.

  “I told you you were wasting your time,” Carson Drew said to Lane. “Once she’s made up her mind, it’s impossible to talk her out of it.”

  “I can’t give up now,” Nancy insisted. She paused while a doctor examined the burns on her hands and put a soothing ointment on them. As he began to wrap them loosely with gauze, Nancy continued.

  “The reason the file room was torched is that I’m getting close to a solution to the case—too close for somebody. But I don’t think that I was meant to be trapped like that. If I had gone to the file room when I said I was going to, I would have found the fire department on the scene and the file room already gutted. But I was impatient to check something, so I went early.”

  Her father gave her a sharp look. “Then you think the person who set the fire is someone who knew when you were planning to go to the file room. There can’t be too many people like that.”

  Nancy thought a moment. Who did know she would be there? There was Friedbinder and Ms. Arletti. Phyllis Hathaway might have been in her office and overheard Nancy asking to check the files. It was possible a student had been in the office with her at the time. And, she recalled, she had suggested to Victor that someone might think to check the grade rosters.

  “That’s a strong possibility,” she said. “Of course, the fire’s timing could have been a coincidence. The fire could even have been an accident.”

  “You can rule out that possibility,” Lane told her, frowning. “I spoke to the fire marshal a few minutes ago, and he told me unofficially that he’s planning to list it as arson. There’s also strong evidence that someone tampered with the sprinkler system so it wouldn’t go off as it should have. Isn’t there anything I can say to persuade you to give up this case, Nancy?”

  Nancy managed a grin. “You could tell me you’ve found the grade-changer. Other than that, I can’t think of a thing that would make me quit now.”

  • • •

  Forty-five minutes later Nancy was released from the hospital. She talked her father into driving her back to Brewster. “I have to get back there, Dad,” she coaxed. “The grade-changer is getting scared. The arson proves that. Who knows what he or she is up to at this very moment—probably scrambling like crazy to cover up this scam in any way possible. I. Wynn could disappear altogether if I don’t get to him soon.”

  “Okay, okay,” Carson gave in. “Let’s hear what you’ve got so far.”

  As they drove toward Brewster, Nancy laid the case out for her father. “I haven’t decided that Phyllis and Dana are guilty yet,” she said, after listing all the clues that pointed to the pair. “And I have to admit, I’m wondering more and more about the headmaster now. Walter knew that I was planning to check some of the records, and he knew when.

  “By the way, Dad,” she added with a grin. “I’ve figured out that Dana was your client.”

  “I had a feeling you would,” her father told her, a proud gleam in his eyes.

  A few minutes later he pulled into the Brewster parking lot. Nancy thanked him for the ride and the emotional support and promised that she’d call him to drive her home later.

  As she walked into the school, the smell of smoke made Nancy’s stomach turn. It was almost three o’clock, but the halls hadn’t filled up yet with crowds of students going home. She went straight to the office, where Ms. Arletti clucked over Nancy’s burns, her narrow escape, and the mess the fire had made of her office.

  It was a mess. Much of the furniture had been scorched, and the carpet was soaked with chemicals from the fire extinguishers. Nancy swallowed twice and looked into the file room. The walls and ceiling were dark with soot, and a thick layer of charred, water-soaked papers and books covered the floor. But the file cabinet appeared to have suffered little more than scorched paint.

  “One of the maintenance staff will be in to clean out all that rubbish,” Ms. Arletti explained. “With any luck, we’ll be back to normal by tomorrow. Thank goodness the computer system wasn’t damaged. If we lose that, we might as well close the school.”

  “I hate to bother you,” said Nancy, “but it doesn’t seem as if the grade rosters were burned. Could I look through them?”

  Ms. Arletti sighed. “You’re a determined young woman, aren’t you? Go ahead.”

  Nancy opened one of the cabinet drawers and found Kim, Victor, and Sally’s files. She winced from the pain as she grabbed them, balancing them gingerly in her arms. Then she took another small stack of student files at random. “Thanks,” she told Ms. Arletti as she left the office. “I’ll return this stuff tomorrow.”

  Wanting a place to sit down and go over her materials, Nancy went upstairs to the learning lab. Before opening the files, she decided to check her E-mail.

  Three messages were waiting for her. All of them amounted to get-well notes, one each from Walter Friedbinder and Phyllis Hathaway, and the third from Victor, who added an invitation to join him for a hot fudge sundae at the Roost.

  Nancy smiled to herself and started to compose an answer. Then she noticed a flashing box appear in the upper corner of the screen. Another piece of E-mail was arriving for her. The password of the sender was IW443!

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  NANCY INSTRUCTED the system to print the message on the screen.

  You got away this time. Next time you won’t be so lucky. Get out of here while you still can. This is your last warning!

  Controlling her reaction of shock and rage, Nancy quickly saved the message, then told the computer to refuse it. Returning message to terminal 29 appeared on the screen. The message had come from the newspaper office again. It had been entered on the system only seconds before.

  Nancy whirled around and dashed out the door. The person who had sent the threat would have no way of guessing that Nancy would read it instantly, and not minutes or even hours later. The chances were that he or she was still at the terminal.

  Nancy stopped running just before she reached the corridor that led to the office of the Academician and began to walk softly. She wanted to catch the guilty person in the act. If he or she tried to leave the office before Nancy got there, it didn’t matter. She would still see the culprit at close enough range to identify him or her, and that was almost as good.

  Her heart pounding, Nancy tiptoed up to the door. It was standing ajar. This was it—the moment of truth. She cautiously peeked in. Randi! She was seated at the same terminal where Nancy had seen her the week before. Her back was to the door, and she was typing something on the keyboard.

  Stepping into the room, Nancy sa
id, “More threats, Randi? You might as well save computer time and make them in person. I’m here now.”

  “Nancy!” Randi jumped up from her chair so quickly that it fell over backward as she spun around to face the doorway.

  “You startled me,” the student reporter continued. “What are you doing here?”

  “Catching you red-handed,” Nancy replied.

  Randi gave her a puzzled look. It was almost convincing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “But I don’t think I like your attitude.”

  “What were you writing just now?” Nancy demanded. She pushed past Randi and approached the terminal.

  “A story for the paper, about the girls’ soccer team,” Randi replied. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Nancy looked at the monitor and read: “Paced by star forward Lisa Mongiello, the team rolled over the Deerfield Falcons, 10-2, last Thursday, clinching their first pre-season game.”

  “I want to know what’s going on here,” Randi insisted. “Either tell me right now or get out of my office.”

  “About two minutes ago someone sent me a threatening message, from this terminal,” Nancy said. “Do you have anything to say about that?”

  Randi’s face turned red. “That’s a dirty lie! I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but I’ve been right here, working on the paper, for the last half-hour. And no one—no one—has been anywhere near this terminal except me!”

  Randi seemed completely sincere. But what about the message that had come from this room? Since she was the only one there both times Nancy had received messages, she was clearly implicated in the scheme.

  Or was she? Nancy suddenly thought of another possibility. “You say you’ve been using this terminal steadily for the last half-hour?” she asked in a softer tone. “Did anything unusual happen during that time?”

  Randi frowned. “Unusual? No. Well—the computer locked up on me for a few seconds at one point, but that’s not so unusual. It happens every day or so. I keep meaning to ask someone about it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘locked up’?” Nancy asked eagerly, a tingle of excitement spreading through her.

  “It quits working, sort of,” Randi explained, shrugging. “The screen blanks out, the keyboard goes dead, and then a few seconds later, everything is back to normal. Listen, what’s going on? What’s all this about threats? What kind of case are you working on?”

  “I can’t tell you now,” Nancy replied, “but I think I’m beginning to see some of the answers. I promise I’ll tell you everything I can, when the time comes. Right now, I’d better get moving. I need to find Victor Paredes.”

  “Why don’t you see if he’s logged onto the system?” Randi suggested. She bent to set her chair upright again. “Knowing Victor, he probably is, unless he’s asleep or in the shower.”

  Sitting down in front of the terminal, Randi pressed some keys. “I was right,” she said after a moment. “He’s in the computer room. Do you want to use my terminal to talk to him?”

  Nancy didn’t want her conversation with Victor to be open to everyone who happened to be using the computer system. “No thanks. I’ll go down there in person.”

  “Suit yourself,” Randi told her. “I’ll tell him you’re coming. And remember, I’m expecting to hear what this is all about. Otherwise, I’ll have to start an investigation of my own.”

  Just as Randi had said, Victor was at one of the computer room terminals. “You look pretty good for someone who just got back from the hospital,” he commented. “How do you feel?”

  “I’ve been too busy to tell,” Nancy said. “Listen, I have an important question for you. Is it possible to send a message from one terminal in the system to another, but make the system say that it came from a different terminal?”

  “Hmm.” Victor leaned back in his chair and stared into space as he considered this. “I don’t see why not,” he answered at last. “It shouldn’t be that hard to program the computer to accept a message for retransmission from a different origin. But you’d leave a trail, of course.”

  “You mean, a record of where the message really came from?” Nancy demanded, her blue eyes widening. “Do you know how to find a record like that?”

  Victor studied her face for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. A message to whom, received when?”

  Nancy smiled at his half-joking use of whom and then gave him the information he needed. He busied himself at the terminal, humming the refrain from a hard-rock tune under his breath. Finally, just when Nancy was sure she couldn’t stand to wait a second longer, he pushed his chair back and said, “Okay, I got it. The message was actually entered a couple of minutes earlier than it said, and the real place of origin was the work station in Ms. Hathaway’s office.”

  “You’re sure?” Nancy exclaimed.

  “Not a hundred percent sure,” he admitted. “There might be a second layer of tricks. Call it eighty percent.”

  “Good enough!” Nancy started for the door, then paused to look over her shoulder. “Thanks, Victor,” she added. “You’ve been super.”

  “You’re welcome. And don’t forget that hot fudge sundae.”

  • • •

  Ms. Arletti’s office was almost back to normal, except for the lingering smell of burnt and wet wood. She looked up from some work on her desk as Nancy came in. “Ms. Hathaway?” she replied to Nancy’s question. “Oh, what a shame, she just walked out this second. She had an urgent phone call a few minutes ago and told me she had to leave. You can probably catch her in the parking lot if you hurry.”

  “Thanks,” Nancy called, jogging out the door.

  Nancy’s car was in the visitors’ parking lot because she hadn’t been assigned a permanent teacher space yet. She climbed in, wincing as her hands touched the wheel, and drove around the back of the building, where faculty members parked. A red sedan that looked like Phyllis’s was just pulling out into the street. Nancy waited a few seconds, then followed.

  The car turned right at the next corner, then left a couple of blocks later. Nancy followed, far enough back to stay unnoticed, she hoped. She was beginning to think she knew where Phyllis was going.

  A few minutes later her hunch was confirmed. As Phyllis’s car approached Archer Street, the right turn signal started to blink. Sure enough, Phyllis’s car slowed as she reached the bank branch, about halfway down the street. Nancy slowed, too, then pulled in behind a van parked on the street. Its bulk would help hide her car from anyone in the bank.

  Nancy watched as Phyllis parked in the lot and headed for the bank. While she observed her, Nancy’s attention was drawn to a dusty blue car that she knew was Dana MacCauley’s. Nancy ducked down in her seat until it, too, pulled into the bank lot, then slid over to the passenger seat and removed a small pair of binoculars from the glove compartment. From there she could just see around the bulk of the van.

  Dana was pulling into a spot near Phyllis’s car. It was obvious that they had a prearranged meeting. Dana’s must have been the urgent phone call Ms. Arletti had referred to.

  Dana called to Phyllis, who was waiting for her at the entrance. Together they continued toward the bank. Dana put her bank card in the door slot and the two women entered the twenty-four-hour lobby. Nancy longed to get out of her car and move closer. But she didn’t dare. The glass walls of the lobby made it too easy for the women to notice her.

  Nancy picked up her binoculars and peered into the window. With a happy, almost triumphant look on her face, Phyllis handed Dana something.

  It was a wad of cash!

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  NANCY HELD HER BREATH and adjusted the focus on the binoculars. That money had come from Phyllis’s purse, not the machine. She couldn’t tell the denomination of the bills, but even if they were twenties, the amount would be large. Dana studied the wad a moment, then smiled and shook Phyllis’s hand. Dana wrote out a deposit slip, put the cash and the slip in an envelope, an
d deposited the envelope in the automated teller machine.

  Nancy watched the women a while longer. They seemed happy when they left the bank, got into their respective cars, and drove off. Nancy’s mind was racing. Normally two people didn’t meet at a bank just to make a deposit. Obviously they were up to something. Was Phyllis giving Dana her cut of the illegal money?

  When both cars were out of sight, Nancy got out of her car and went to a phone booth near the bank.

  Luckily she was able to reach Harrison Lane in his office. After Nancy explained what she wanted to know, he took the number of the telephone she was calling from and promised to call her right back. In fact, it was almost ten minutes before the telephone rang.

  “I’m sorry to have taken so long,” the banker told her, “but I wanted to be absolutely sure of my facts.”

  “What did you find?” Nancy asked. “Was I right? Was a big deposit just made into the I. Wynn account?” She held her breath and waited for his response.

  “I’m afraid not,” said Lane.

  Nancy’s mouth fell open. “There wasn’t?”

  “No,” he replied. “I’m sorry, but the only recent activity in that account was that withdrawal yesterday afternoon. By the way, I gather your little trap was a success.”

  “Yes and no,” said Nancy. “I got answers to some questions, but the big one is still a mystery. If anything, it’s more of a mystery now than ever. You’re positive that no one put money into that account from the Archer Street cash machine in the last fifteen minutes? Maybe your records are running a few minutes behind?”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Lane said once more. “The only activity at that cash machine in the last quarter-hour was a deposit of two thousand dollars into the account of PointTech Computers. Hmm—I think that’s the company that installed the system at the school.”

  “PointTech?” she repeated. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. “Thanks, Mr. Lane. I’ll let you know if I get any closer to a solution.” Then Nancy said goodbye and hung up.