Danger in Disguise

  Chapter

  One

  I’LL BE FOLDING FLYERS in my dreams tonight,” George Fayne said, running her fingers through her short dark curls. She stretched to ease the kinks brought on by bending over a desk.

  “Just remember you got us into this,” said Nancy Drew with a grin that made her blue eyes sparkle. “Being a public-spirited citizen can be hard work.”

  George grinned back. She’d been doing volunteer work on Councilman Tim Terry’s reelection campaign for the last couple of months. Occasionally her friends helped her out. That night they were using the councilman’s office to organize a voter-registration drive.

  “Well, this is the last of these,” Nancy said, relieved. She tossed back her shoulder-length red-blond hair and stuffed the last flyer into the last envelope.

  “Bess was smart to opt for the store distribution detail. Folding and stuffing isn’t very inspiring.” George pulled a denim jacket on over her blue button-down shirt.

  “I have a feeling she had her strategy planned from the start,” Nancy replied. She remembered how her friend Bess Marvin had grabbed the first batch of flyers from the copy machine; She had said she’d take them around to the shops in the neighborhood—including the video arcade where Jeff Matthews, her latest crush, sometimes hung out. That was Bess’s idea of public-spirited volunteer work.

  “I have to lock up, then we’ll go find her,” said George.

  Nancy picked up the Emerson College varsity jacket her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson, had given her. Although it was early September and the days were still warm, the nights could get cool.

  George piled envelopes into a shopping bag for mailing. “This really is a good cause,” she said, “especially if people register and then vote for Tim Terry.”

  “You’re really in the councilman’s corner, aren’t you?”

  “He’s a great guy and a decent politician. I’m not the only one who thinks so. He has some very influential people supporting him. He’s even got big guns like Bradford Williams looking at him.”

  “That is impressive, all right.” Nancy had often heard her father, attorney Carson Drew, talk about Williams. The Chicago businessman had become quite powerful in the past few years.

  “It’s important too. It takes more than stuffing envelopes to run a political campaign. With the right financial backing Tim Terry can go straight to the top.”

  “Where exactly is that?” Nancy looked quizzically at her friend.

  George pondered for a moment. “After this reelection, I’m not quite sure,” she said, “but he’s on his way.”

  “And we should be on our way too.” Nancy slipped into the varsity jacket. “I’ll go turn off the copy machine while you finish up here.”

  Nancy was surprised to hear voices as she walked down the dimly lit hallway. She’d thought she and George were the only ones in the office—the last of the staff had left an hour earlier.

  The voices grew louder as Nancy got closer to the copy room. She made out two men talking. One spoke in an unusually deep bass, and he sounded very angry.

  “How could you have done something so stupid?” he rumbled in the first words Nancy could hear clearly.

  Nancy ducked out of the hallway into a shadowed recess, so that she was near the copy room door but not visible through it. She’d made the move almost without thinking—something told her the two men inside might not appreciate any interruptions. She peeked around the edge of the niche at the frosted glass panel of the door, but all she could see were blurred shapes. Quickly a second voice piped up.

  “You made me nervous. All those threats on the phone—I rushed in here and out again and didn’t think to check the basket of the machine. I must have left one of the copies in it by mistake.” The second voice sounded pinched and shaky.

  “You weren’t supposed to copy them in the first place. You were supposed to turn the originals over to me and disappear.” Nancy heard scuffling and then a squeal. “You were trying to pull a fast one, weren’t you?”

  “Let go of me!” The voice was choked as well as sounding nervous now, as if someone had the man by the throat.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” The rumbling bass words dripped with sarcasm. “Did I mess up your fancy suit? I guess I was thinking about how you might have gotten away with it—if I hadn’t searched your briefcase and found those extra copies.”

  “I—I thought I needed them for protection.” Squeaky wasn’t choking now. The other guy must have let him go.

  “The kind of protection you need, buddy, is from yourself. First, you try to double-cross me. Then you lose track of one of your copies,” said Deep Voice. “Then we come here, and the copy isn’t where you said it would be. Check the count one more time to be sure.”

  Nancy heard papers being riffled.

  “There’re only five here. I made six copies. I’m positive about that, and this is the only place I could have left the other one.”

  Suddenly the smaller of the two blurred forms came into sharp focus as Deep Voice pressed Squeaky up against the door. Nancy could see black hair and a gray sports jacket, and as Squeaky tried to wriggle away from his captor, she caught a glimpse of his hawk-nosed profile.

  “Are you sure there were only six? You’d better not lie to me,” the bass voice threatened.

  “I swear I’m not lying!”

  Nancy heard a sharp intake of breath. She could almost see the speaker being strangled. She peered around her in the gloom, looking for something she could use as a weapon. Poor Squeaky might need rescuing, but she didn’t dare barge in unarmed.

  “Why should I believe you?” Deep Voice was saying. “You made those copies after I told you I wanted those papers so I could get rid of them.”

  “But I admitted I’d done it.”

  “Not until I slapped it out of you.”

  “And I don’t want you to slap me around anymore. I’m telling you the truth. There were only six copies.”

  That response was close to sobbing. Nancy tensed for action. She couldn’t let this go on.

  “I believe you, buddy. You’re too scared to lie.” The bigger man gave a sneering chuckle. “So what happened to number six?”

  “Somebody must have taken it out of the copier basket by mistake.”

  “Or on purpose. Maybe somebody else besides me found out you’d been poking your nose in where it didn’t belong. Maybe somebody else got more curious than it’s healthy to be.”

  “No, I’m sure that didn’t happen,” came the hasty reply. “Nobody but me would have understood the significance of that printout. There’d be no reason for anyone to take it on purpose.”

  “I’ll have to check that out for myself. I don’t like loose ends.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Somebody who works here must have taken that last copy. So I’m going to search the offices to see if I can find it or figure out who was here last.”

  Nancy slipped out of the recess. If he searched the offices, he’d find George. Nancy couldn’t let that happen.

  She hurried down the hall and around the corner, moving quietly along the wall and keeping low. Every nerve was taut in dread of hearing that deep voice boom out after her.

  Easing open the office door, Nancy slipped inside and crooked a finger at George. “Come with me,” she whispered urgently. “Don’t ask any questions. Just hurry!”

  George didn’t argue. She followed without a word as Nancy darted out of the office and through a fire door into the back stairwell.

  Nancy motioned for George to get behind her, then flipped off the light switch and eased the door back open a crack.

  They’d made it to their hiding place with only a moment to spare. Nancy heard footsteps enter the office
she and George had just left. The fire door had squeaked on its hinges when they had opened it. If she opened it wide enough to see, the man with the deep voice might hear it. She had to content herself with listening at the crack.

  She and George hadn’t picked up anything but their purses or turned out the lights behind them. The men would probably conclude that whoever had been using that office was the last to leave the building and had done so in a hurry. Nancy had no doubt Deep Voice would find that suspicious. Still, he’d have no way of knowing it was George and Nancy, since they were volunteer workers, not regular staff.

  “What’s happening?” George murmured just audibly.

  Nancy raised a forefinger to her lips and pressed her ear closer to the narrow opening. A long moment lapsed before she silently eased the door shut and slumped back against the wall.

  “What’s happening?” George whispered again, close to Nancy’s ear.

  “They were talking about someone named Kathy Novello. Who is she?”

  “She’s a secretary—that’s her office we were working in. What did they say about her?”

  Nancy straightened up and answered in a tone that she forced to remain calm.

  “One of them ordered the other to get rid of her.”

  Chapter

  Two

  WHAT?” GEORGE GASPED.

  “Can you find her phone number? We have to get in touch with her right away,” Nancy said grimly.

  George searched hastily through the file, looking for Kathy Novello’s card. Nancy filled her in on what had happened in the copy room, finishing up as she punched the phone buttons for Kathy’s number.

  “I’ve got her answering machine,” said Nancy after a short wait. “She’s not at home. We have to go to her place.”

  “She may actually be there right now,” said George. “She lets the machine take messages even when she’s home.”

  “Hello, Kathy Novello, are you there?” Nancy said to the recording. Then she covered the receiver to ask George, “Why would she do that?”

  “She always screens her calls. You know, in case she doesn’t want to talk.”

  “Kathy, if you’re there, please pick up the phone. This is urgent!”

  “She won’t necessarily hear you either,” said George. “She turns down the volume, too, so she may not even know there’s a call coming in. She says she hears more than enough jangling phones here in the office.”

  Nancy flashed an exasperated look at George. “Kathy, this is a friend calling. You are in danger. Please listen—get out of your house immediately.”

  “You have to meet Kathy to understand,” said George. “She really keeps to herself. Sometimes she just turns the phone off for privacy.”

  Nancy slammed the receiver down and headed for the door. “Well, this time it could turn out to be the biggest mistake she’s ever made.”

  George snatched the file card with Kathy’s address on it and hurried after Nancy. “I hope not,” she said with a worried frown.

  • • •

  They were on the way out of the office complex when they saw Bess, her long blond hair swinging over her shoulders as she bobbed her head in animated conversation with a security guard.

  “It’s after hours, miss,” he was saying as Nancy and George hurried up. “Nobody’s supposed to be in there after six o’clock.”

  Bess pulled herself up to her full five-feet-four inches, plumping up the shoulder pads of her red jacket in an effort to look authoritative.

  “Here are my friends. They’ll tell you. We have permission to be here.”

  “There’re more of you? What’s going on here?” asked the guard, who was beginning to sound aggravated.

  “We’ve been up in Councilman Terry’s office working on the voter-registration drive,” said George.

  “We’re on an urgent errand,” Nancy explained. “It could be a matter of life and death.”

  “Tell me another one.” The guard moved to block the glass doors that led to the elevator and the underground garage where Nancy had parked her car. “I’m supposed to be notified of any nonofficial people on the premises after hours. I’m going to have to call the councilman about this.”

  “Of course you are,” Nancy said quickly, cutting off George’s protest before she could utter it. “You have to do your duty. In fact,” she said, thinking fast, “that’s just what I want to talk to you about.”

  Bess had a sheaf of flyers in her arms. Nancy grabbed a handful.

  “River Heights really needs the help of a man like you who knows what has to be done and does it.”

  The guard had his mouth open to respond but couldn’t get a word in.

  “I want you to take these.” Nancy pressed the flyers into his hands. He tried to push them away, and a few fell to the floor. “Oh, don’t let those get damaged—they are crucial to the future of our community.”

  Looking bewildered, the guard stooped to retrieve the flyers, and Nancy gestured for Bess and George to move around him to the glass doors. “Thank you, thank you. You don’t realize what a service you’re performing for the public,” she said. “I’ve got to run—good night.”

  Waving a cheerful goodbye, Nancy left the guard with his mouth hanging open and hurried to catch up with Bess and George. Her heart was beating fast. “Keep moving,” she said.

  “What was that?” asked Bess. “Some kind of comedy routine?”

  “Something like that,” said Nancy.

  “What’s the joke?” Bess looked confused. “I want to be in on it too.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re in on it.” George grabbed Bess with one hand and shoved her along with the other. “But if you don’t run as fast as you can right now, we’ll all get stuck here cooling our heels till that outfit you’re wearing has gone out of style.”

  “What’s happening?” Bess scurried along as George nudged her to move faster.

  “Don’t talk. Run,” said Nancy.

  They’d left the guard in a pool of paper but knew he wouldn’t be far behind.

  They reached the elevator, and Nancy jabbed at the Down button. She doubted they’d have time to wait for it to arrive though.

  She could hardly believe it when she heard the whoosh of the elevator doors parting. All three girls stormed the elevator, nearly mowing down a woman with a maintenance cart who was trying to get out.

  “Sorry, ma’am. We have to take you out of your way for a minute,” said Nancy as the woman opened her mouth to complain.

  She saw the security guard rushing toward them and jabbed the Door Close button. The brushed steel portals eased shut just in time to keep him on the other side while George assured the cleaning woman that this really was an emergency, and—no, she wasn’t being taken hostage.

  Moments later they were in Nancy’s blue Mustang, racing toward Kathy Novello’s. The evening traffic rush had subsided and they were making fairly good time.

  As they drove, Bess was filled in on what Nancy had overheard. “Nancy!” Bess wailed. “You’re the only person I know who could turn stuffing envelopes into trouble. Believe me, this is going to become another case.”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Nancy replied grimly.

  They pulled up in front of a grimy brick building and jumped out of the car.

  Kathy’s apartment building wasn’t in the best part of town, and it didn’t have an elevator. The yellowing card by her downstairs doorbell said she lived on the third floor. Nancy and George took the stairs two at a time while Bess brought up the rear, puffing with each exertion. As they reached the third-floor landing, they heard a distant clatter, as though someone was clanging garbage-can lids together outside.

  “Oh, no,” George gasped as she dashed to the door with Kathy’s apartment number on it.

  Nancy’s heart sank—the door to Kathy Novello’s apartment was slightly ajar. That looked like trouble. She doubted that a young woman living alone would leave her front door unlocked.

  Nancy gingerly pushed the
door farther open and called out, “Kathy, are you here?”

  There was a single, drawn-out metallic clang in the distance but not a sound from inside the apartment.

  “Maybe she went out,” George suggested.

  Nancy didn’t answer. She pushed the door wide and looked around the living room. It wasn’t fancy: the furniture was worn and faded, and the off-white walls looked as if they could use a fresh coat of paint.

  The window on the opposite wall had been pushed all the way up. Nancy walked over to it and looked out, down through the metalwork of a fire escape.

  The body of a woman was lying facedown on the pavement below. Nancy knew from the grotesque angle of the figure that the person was dead.

  “Oh, no.”

  It was the second time George had made that exclamation in the past few minutes. She was leaning out the window beside Nancy, and the shocked expression on her face told Nancy her guess had been right.

  It was the body of Kathy Novello.

  • • •

  Nancy and her friends had just started telling their story to Detective Hicks when the ambulance pulled up with its siren wailing and lights flashing.

  Nancy told the detective about the conversation she’d overheard in the councilman’s office, and he wrote it all down, but instead of leaping into action, he remained in Kathy’s apartment and questioned George about Kathy. George told him that Kathy had been dissatisfied with her job and that she’d also just broken up with her boyfriend.

  Detective Hicks snapped his notebook shut. “Well, ladies, I’d say we’ve got a tough case here,” he said, wearily massaging the back of his neck. “It seems to me that three scenarios are equally possible.”

  “Excuse me,” Nancy said, trying not to sound impatient. “What are the three possible scenarios?”

  Hicks walked over to the window. “One, Ms. Novello was murdered. Two, it was an accidental death. She slipped and fell. Or, three, she killed herself. In light of what this young lady”—he gestured at George—“has been telling me, I’d say suicide is as good a possibility as either of the others.”

  Leaning out, he called down for an officer to come up from the alley. “I want to see if they found anything unusual down there.”