This Side of Evil, Page 2

  Nancy opened the envelope and carefully unfolded the single sheet of paper. It was a blackmail letter all right, but it wasn’t for Becky. It was for somebody named Annette LeBeau!

  “Just a reminder that it’s almost time for the third installment,” the letter said. “So you can start getting the $20,000 together. If you don’t pay, all your fans will know that you kept Dutch Medina out of jail, where he belongs.”

  Nancy quickly folded the letter. She hoped her face didn’t betray her surprise as she turned back toward Becky. “I suppose you’ve kept the letters,” she remarked in a deliberately casual voice.

  The girl nodded. “I’ll bring them in tomorrow and leave them with Ms. Amberton.”

  “One more question,” Nancy said. “Do you have any idea how the blackmailer found out about the theft and the sentence you served?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” she replied bitterly. “But I’ll tell you one thing. This last letter—and Monique’s poisoning—are the last straw. When this is over, I’m going to quit my job and get out of Montreal for good!”

  After Becky had left, Nancy sat for a few moments, thinking. She had her first real lead now. The blackmailer had made a careless mistake in mixing up the letters. It proved that Ashley Amberton had been right when she said there might be other victims. But who was Annette LeBeau, and how could she afford to hand over sixty thousand dollars? Nancy read the letter again. The blackmailer mentioned her fans. Was she a movie star?

  On the way back to Ms. Amberton’s office, Nancy looked at her watch. It was only four o’clock, plenty of time. She stopped at a pay phone and called the apartment. Ned answered.

  “I hope you’ve had enough sightseeing,” Nancy told him, “because there’s work to be done. I need you to run over to the Journal morgue and find out everything you can about Annette LeBeau and Dutch Medina.”

  “No problem,” Ned agreed. “Are you on to something already?”

  “I think so. It looks like our blackmailer has expanded his territory,” Nancy explained. “He might even be getting into murder. I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

  “Speaking of tonight,” Ned said, teasing her by speaking in an exaggerated French accent, “I’ve found a great little place for dinner—a romantic dinner just for two.”

  Nancy giggled. “Sounds terrific, Nickerson,” she said. “But don’t forget about George.”

  “Right,” Ned said with a resigned sigh. “Dinner for three.”

  In Ms. Amberton’s office, Nancy reported what she had learned from the blackmail victims.

  “Do you think Monique really tried to kill herself?” Ashley Amberton asked.

  Nancy shook her head. “You’d know that better than I would, but I’d say that her fear is genuine. She really thinks somebody tried to kill her. Of course, it is possible that she just got sleepy and forgot how many pills she’d taken.”

  Ms. Amberton sat down in her leather chair. “I don’t like it,” she said, tapping her red nails on the desk. “This is getting serious.”

  “There’s more,” Nancy went on. She opened her purse and took out the letter she had gotten from Becky. “Do you know somebody named Annette LeBeau?”

  Taking the letter, Ms. Amberton scanned it quickly. Her face became clouded with concern. Then she picked up a remote control and snapped on the TV.

  “This isn’t small-time blackmail anymore,” she said, flicking across the channels. “This is the big time.” Just then the face of an attractive, vivacious blonde filled the screen. The camera zoomed back to show that the woman was holding a microphone in her hand. With her was a man whom Nancy recognized as the prime minister of Canada.

  “That,” Ashley Amberton said, putting down the remote control, “is Annette LeBeau!”

  Chapter Three

  “I THOUGHT THIS was going to be a quick, simple case,” George said at dinner that night. Nancy had just told her and Ned about her afternoon’s work. George stabbed a bite of Cafe Renoir’s famous spinach salad. “And here we are, up to our eyebrows in crime already. Four blackmailings, one attempted murder—”

  “Hey, not so fast,” Nancy warned, finishing the last of her shrimp. George loved to solve mysteries almost as much as she did—the more the merrier. But it never hurt to be careful. “Let’s not leap to any conclusions. We don’t know for sure that somebody actually tried to kill Monique. She claims it’s true, but it may not be.”

  “Yeah,” Ned agreed in his usual, cautious way. “Maybe she actually was sleepy and just lost count of her pills.”

  Nancy turned to Ned. “What’d you dig up at the Journal this afternoon?”

  “ ‘Dig up’ is right,” Ned said, pulling out a notebook. “It looks like there’s plenty of dirt in this case.” He tore out a couple of pages and handed them to Nancy. “Annette LeBeau, as you already know, is a prominent TV personality up here. Sort of a cross between a gossip columnist and an investigative reporter. She makes a lot of money finding out who’s up to something dirty and then tattling on them.”

  George grinned. “Sounds to me like an ideal blackmail victim. Poetic justice, you might say.”

  “What about Dutch Medina?” Nancy asked.

  “The plot thickens. Medina, it turns out, is a big-time mobster, a real creep. The police have been after him for years, but he’s slick, and they’ve never been able to pin anything on him.”

  “According to the blackmail note,” Nancy said thoughtfully, “Annette LeBeau kept Dutch Medina out of jail.”

  “So,” Ned said, “things are getting a little more complicated. Looks like we’ve jumped from bargain-basement blackmail up to the real thing.” He took a bite of his broiled fish. “I wonder what Annette LeBeau is like.”

  “Well, we’ll know tomorrow,” Nancy told them. “I’ve got an appointment with her at eleven—courtesy of our not-so-friendly client, Ashley Amberton.”

  “Why ‘not-so-friendly’? What’s she like?” George asked eagerly.

  “Brisk and businesslike,” Nancy replied. “If it weren’t for the flowers she took to Monique and the money she’s lent Jacques, I’d say she was as warm as an Arctic glacier. Now, who knows?” She grinned and pulled out the typewritten blackmail notes she had collected. “How about an assignment for the two of you?”

  “Sure,” George agreed with a shrug. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to get to run in Olympic Stadium, anyway. The track’s there, but it turns out that it’s covered with Astroturf most of the time. They only uncover it for track meets. So, what do you have in mind, Nancy?”

  “Typing detail,” Nancy said, spreading the notes on the table in front of them.

  “Oh, I get it.” Ned picked up one of the notes and studied it. “You want us to check out the typewriters and letter-quality printers at Cherbourg Industries, to see if the blackmail notes were typed there.”

  “You got it,” Nancy replied. “I’d say that these notes were all typed on a typewriter rather than done on a word processor. Anyway, it’s possible that the blackmailer is connected with Cherbourg since three of the victims are company employees. We need samples from all the machines in the building—and that’s going to take quite a while. You’d better polish up your typing skills.”

  “ ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party,’ ” Ned murmured, flexing his fingers.

  George gave Ned a disdainful glance and laughed. “Speaking of parties,” she said, leaning toward Nancy and Ned, “how about trying out that club down the street? Chez Soda, it’s called.”

  “Sounds like a winner to me,” Ned said enthusiastically. He carefully refolded the notes and put them in his pocket. “Especially if there’s dancing,” he added. “Maybe I’ll even get to put my arms around my favorite girl for a while.” Ned flashed Nancy a grin.

  “Sure,” she said a little absently. She was already preoccupied with thoughts of her interview with Annette LeBeau the next morning. How would Annette feel, being the target of somebody else’s questio
ns for a change?

  But after an hour at Chez Soda, Ned’s arms tight around her and his lips against her cheek, Nancy had nearly forgotten Annette—and the case, too. And George had discovered that she could get along fine in Montreal without speaking French.

  “All I have to know how to say is oui,” she said when she got back to the table after a slow dance with a cute French guy.

  Nancy shook her head, laughing. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that saying oui too much could get you into trouble?”

  George flushed. “Yes, Mom,” she said teasingly.

  Chuckling, Ned reached out to squeeze Nancy’s hand. “How about another dance?”

  And Nancy was delighted to say, “Oui.”

  At the television studio the next day, Nancy met Annette LeBeau. The newswoman was in her dressing room, getting ready to film an interview with a suburban chief of police on the problem of crime in his area. She was just putting the final touches on her makeup.

  “So, you’re Nancy Drew,” she said, turning away from the mirror to look at Nancy curiously. “I’ve heard about you. You’re supposed to be some sort of hotshot supersleuth, aren’t you?”

  Nancy smiled. “I’ve had a few successes,” she said modestly.

  Annette turned back to the mirror and began to brush on mascara with expert strokes. “So, what do you want with me?” she asked. “Ashley Amberton said it was urgent.”

  “It is,” Nancy said. She sat down at the makeup table so she could see Annette’s face in the mirror. “It’s about blackmail.”

  Annette’s hand jerked, and she smudged the black mascara on her cheek. But she recovered immediately. “Blackmail?” she asked in an innocent voice as she wiped away the smear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do,” Nancy replied casually. “I’m talking about you and Dutch Medina.”

  Annette swiveled her chair around, her eyes narrowed. “Listen,” she hissed, “if you think you can come in here and threaten me—”

  “I’m not threatening you,” Nancy assured her. “I want to help, if I can.” She took out the letter Becky Evans had given her. “I think this was meant for you.”

  Annette paled under her makeup as she read the letter. “How did you get this?”

  “The blackmailer sent it to one of his other victims by mistake,” Nancy said. She leaned forward. “How did you help Dutch Medina?”

  Annette’s face became a mask, with her mouth pressed into a tight line. “I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said in a hard voice.

  Nancy stood up. “No,” she replied pleasantly. “You don’t have to say a word to me.” She picked up her blazer, which she had put on the back of her chair. “You can go on making blackmail payments until the money runs out. Or you can go to the police and tell them—”

  “But I can’t,” Annette burst out. Her composure was beginning to unravel. “I can’t go to the police! If I did, everyone would find out that I was involved with Medina—that I faked his alibi!”

  “So that’s what the blackmailer meant when he said that you kept Medina out of jail?”

  The woman slumped in her chair. “It was a long time ago, more than ten years. The prosecutor couldn’t convict him because I swore that Dutch and I were together when a shooting occurred. I was such a fool! I was so sure he was innocent!”

  “And now you can’t afford to have people know about this,” Nancy went on.

  Annette bit her lip. “It would mean the end of my career.” She turned to Nancy, her eyes pleading. “Listen, Nancy Drew, you’ve got to catch this blackmailer. He’s making my life absolutely miserable—and not just my life, either!”

  Nancy looked at her. “You know about other victims?” Of course! Annette had probably gotten Becky Evans’s blackmail letter.

  But she hadn’t. Instead Annette explained, “Her name is Lake Sinclair. She was involved in a hit-and-run accident a year or so ago. She’s been paying the bills for the victim’s plastic surgery, not to mention whatever it cost to fix her own fancy yellow Mercedes. And now she’s paying a blackmailer, too.”

  “How’d you find out about this?” Nancy asked.

  “A few days ago Lake tried to sell me a piece of her family jewelry. I asked her what was going on, and she broke down and told me why she had to have the money.” Annette shivered nervously. “I assumed that we were dealing with the same blackmailer, but maybe we’re not. It could be someone else.”

  “There’s no way of knowing until I check it out,” Nancy said. She stood up. “Thanks for being straight with me, Ms. LeBeau. I hope we can get to the bottom of this quickly.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” George said. The girls were in their bedroom at the apartment. George pulled her red lamb’s wool sweater over her head and threw it on the bed. Then she stepped out of her black jeans. “Another blackmail victim?” She counted on her fingers. “That makes five, doesn’t it?”

  Nancy nodded. “Our blackmailer’s been busy. No wonder he’s making mistakes—like sending his demands to the wrong person.” She scratched her head. “And I wonder what became of Becky Evans’s letter. I thought maybe it would turn up in Annette LeBeau’s mail, but so far it hasn’t.”

  “I think this guy needs a computer,” George said. “Might help him keep his victims straight.” She pulled on her bathrobe.

  “No kidding.” Nancy took off her khaki-colored corduroy blazer and hung it up in the closet. “So how did you and Ned do today?” she asked, slipping off her loafers. She wriggled her toes. “Any luck with the typewriters?”

  George went over to the dresser and took the blackmail notes out of her purse, handing them to Nancy. “I don’t think so. It doesn’t look like these were typed at Cherbourg Industries.”

  “Of course,” Nancy said thoughtfully, “the blackmailer could still work there and have typed these at home.” She pulled out the notes and began to examine them with the small magnifying glass she always carried in her purse. Shaking her head, she looked up. “I don’t see anything special. Oh, by the way, where’d Ned go?”

  Before George could answer, a knock interrupted them. George hurried into the living room to answer the door.

  “Who is it?” Nancy asked.

  “Just the bellman from downstairs,” George called back. “He brought the newspaper up.” She came back into the bedroom, unfolding it. Her face went suddenly white.

  “Nancy,” she gasped. “Look!”

  Nancy looked at the paper in George’s hands. Across the front page, in big black letters, the headline screamed “NANCY DREW DIES IN MONTREAL!”

  Chapter Four

  NANCY DROPPED HER magnifying glass and snatched the paper away from George. She looked at it closely. “Look, George,” she said, pointing, “the letters are all pasted up. And my picture has been cut out of another newspaper.”

  “Really slick,” George said sarcastically, staring at the paper. “Whoever did this is so creative.”

  “Yeah,” Nancy said, biting her lip. “And evil, too.” She picked up the phone from the bedside table.

  “Who are you calling?” George asked.

  “The bellman,” Nancy replied. “I want to find out how he got this paper.”

  The bellman couldn’t tell Nancy anything specific. He said he’d found the paper downstairs, on the desk just inside the door of the apartment building. Somebody must have put it there when he was away. The room number was scrawled on it, so he’d brought it upstairs immediately.

  “No leads there,” Nancy said with a sigh, hanging up. “The street door is only locked at night. Anybody could have walked in and left it.”

  Just then Ned came home. He popped his head into the bedroom. “What’s going on?”

  Without a word, Nancy handed him the paper.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, taking it from her.

  “ ‘Uh-oh’ is right,” Nancy agreed soberly. “Looks like we’ve spooked our blackmailer.”

  Ned sat down on the b
ed, staring at the paper. “Where’d this picture come from, Nan? I don’t recognize it.”

  Nancy frowned. “I’ve been trying to remember. It could give us a clue about who’s behind all this.”

  Ned looked at Nancy. “Well, no matter who the blackmailer is, this case is getting serious. We’re not dealing with somebody who’s just shooting off interoffice memos for spare change. This is a death threat.”

  George frowned. “I wonder how many people—besides Ms. Amberton, that is—know that we’re staying in this apartment.”

  “That’s a good question,” Nancy said grimly. “I’ll ask Ashley Amberton tomorrow.”

  “Correction,” Ned said. “We’ll ask Ashley Amberton. I don’t think you ought to work alone on this one, Nan.” He reached for her hand. “Two will be safer than one.”

  George gave them a quick glance and picked up her cosmetic case. “Well, if you two don’t mind,” she informed them lightly, “I’ve got a date tonight—for a French lesson.” She tossed her head and smiled devilishly. “I’m going to learn to say more than just oui.” She disappeared into the bathroom, humming to herself.

  Nancy sighed. It didn’t take a detective to see that George had found a new friend—a very cute, very male friend. Who was this guy?

  Ned squeezed her hand. “I’m ready for a romantic evening with my favorite girl. Want to try that Chinese restaurant we saw? Maybe go dancing again later?”

  Nancy threw a questioning look in the direction of the bathroom. She hadn’t seen George acting so crazy in months.

  “Nickerson calling Drew,” Ned said, into a pretend microphone. “How about a date tonight?”

  “Affirmative,” Nancy said, turning back to Ned. George would tell her everything later—if there was anything to tell, that is.

  “I suppose anyone could’ve known where you’re staying,” Ashley Amberton said the following morning. “Everyone here at Cherbourg has access to the company apartment; all they have to do is reserve it.”