Danger for Hire

  “I’ll do it, then,” Cindy promised. “Boy, it sure is creepy to suspect one of my own neighbors! I feel like a traitor.”

  “When you’re a detective,” Nancy said, “you have to ignore your personal feelings and be objective about everyone.”

  • • •

  When Nancy went downstairs for dinner that evening, her father was waiting for her. She had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to talk to her about.

  “I guess you saw my car, huh?” she asked in a small voice.

  Carson nodded gravely. “I did. Would you like to tell me what happened?”

  She told him.

  Carson wearily rubbed his eyes. He was still in his business suit and looked tired. “Nancy, it isn’t worth the risk.”

  “Yes, it is. Dad, listen—” Nancy began.

  Her father cut her off with an angry wave of his hand. “No, you listen. I won’t let you risk your life. This time you’re up against professionals, Nancy—ruthless, violent men!”

  “Yes, but . . .” Nancy’s voice trailed off. She knew he was right.

  “Nancy—” Carson’s voice softened. “It looks to me like you’re trying to prove something with this case. What? Does it have something to do with your young assistant?”

  “With Cindy? No. What makes you think that?” Nancy asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “I thought that maybe you were trying not to let her down—to be professional yourself. A professional detective, that is.”

  “No, that’s not it—not exactly,” Nancy said. The truth was, she hadn’t felt that there was anything special about this case—until now. But now that her father had pointed it out, she realized that there was something different. She sighed. “I guess it started when I spoke at the Career Fair on Saturday. Remember that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Nancy went on. “Well, I hadn’t realized it until now, but it got me wondering about my own career—you know, what I’m going to do with my life. I want to know what it would be like to be a real detective—a full-time, career detective.”

  “So you decided to try it out?” Carson guessed.

  Nancy nodded. “Sort of. You see, on this case I’ve tried to be totally professional. I’ve tried to treat Tom like a client.”

  A smile grew on her father’s face. “I understand. But, sweetheart, remember you’ve got plenty of time to choose your career. Years, in fact. You don’t have to rush.”

  “No, I don’t suppose I do.” Nancy smiled, too. In a way, she felt a whole lot better thinking that. “But, Dad, now that I’ve started this case, I have to finish it. I’m not a quitter. You taught me that.” But would he let her continue her investigation? She held her breath while he thought.

  “Okay, finish the job,” Carson said after a minute. “But promise me something—”

  Nancy hugged him. “Anything!”

  “From now on take Bess or George with you when you patrol the warehouse district,” he requested.

  “I promise,” Nancy said.

  • • •

  That night Nancy positioned herself on a platform high up the side of a grain silo near the river. She was bundled in a thick wool sweater and her leather jacket.

  George was with her. “Tell me again why we’re up here?” her friend asked.

  “Because it’s a good surveillance point. And because this time I can stay still and let the robbers do the moving around,” Nancy explained. She reached into her knapsack.

  To help her she had borrowed a piece of equipment from Chief McGinnis. It was a Night Vision Device—an NVD, for short. It had a lens like the zoom lens on a camera, a slim rectangular body, and a binocularlike eyepiece. By adjusting the brightness control on its side, she could turn night into a high-contrast, green-colored day.

  It was cold and windy on the platform, but the view was perfect. Peering through the NVD, she began to survey the rooftops below. Most robberies, she knew, involved a lookout. Where better to station one than on a roof?

  For more than an hour she scanned the area, moving methodically up and down the grid of streets. She was already familiar with most of the buildings. From this angle, though, they looked vulnerable. Many had easy points of entry on their roofs.

  Then Nancy caught a sudden movement. Swinging the NVD back, she searched a rooftop half a block away.

  There!

  She caught the movement again. By the stairwell door. She focused. Nancy was looking at a hideous face. Its skin was rotted and blackened. Teeth and jawbone showed through a ragged hole in its cheek. Dried blood caked its empty eye sockets.

  Then the face turned. Pupils shone from deep in the bloody sockets. It was staring right at her.

  Chapter

  Nine

  NANCY GASPED. Her heart began to pound. Then she forced herself to think rationally. Dead men did not move around. It was a rubber Halloween mask on a robber. And she was sure he couldn’t see her in the dark.

  “Nan, what’s wrong?” George asked, but Nancy just waved her to silence.

  Nancy continued to follow him as he looked over the edge of the roof. After scanning slowly right and left, he waved his arm. It was a signal—all clear.

  The thieves were about to strike! Nancy repacked her knapsack and tore down the ladder to the street, George close behind.

  When they reached the street, Nancy tossed her keys to George. “Start the car and wait here. Keep the passenger door open. I may need to get in in a hurry.”

  “Where are you going?” George asked.

  “Just to verify there’s a robbery in progress. As soon as I’m sure, I’ll be right back—then we’ll drive to a phone.”

  It took only a minute to reach the corner of the building. She crouched low and risked a peek. No trucks, no robbers, no open loading bays. Everything was shut tight. What was going on? Nancy slid around the corner and started down the street, hugging the wall and darting between shadows.

  Except for her, there was no movement at all on the block.

  Suddenly forty yards ahead of her a door flew open. A figure darted out and ran down the street at top speed. Nancy could plainly see the rubber mask pulled over his head. It was him!

  She took off. Her knapsack made running awkward, so she shucked it off and tossed it into a shadow. She would get it later. Right now it was more important to follow the Dead Man.

  The chase lasted for five blocks. It was the same guy she had chased two nights earlier, Nancy realized excitedly. She recognized the way he pumped his arms and lifted his knees. Track athletes ran that way. She saw that she was falling behind. Rats! She couldn’t lose him—not now! She speeded up.

  Then, halfway up the hill, Nancy saw a swirling red light bouncing off the buildings ahead. A police car was around the corner! The Dead Man saw it, too, and quickly darted down an alley. When Nancy reached it, she saw him sprinting up a fire escape to a roof above.

  She decided not to follow. He was trapped, she knew. Catching him would only be a matter of surrounding the building and tightening the net. She ran to the corner to flag the approaching police car.

  There were three of them speeding toward her. Nancy skidded halfway into the street and began to wave her arms. The first two whizzed by her at high speed. The third screeched to a stop. Chief McGinnis was in the passenger seat. He rolled down his window and shouted, “Nancy, get in! There’s a five-five-oh at Uptown Electronics.”

  “No! It’s back at All-County, and one of the guys is on the roof of that building!” She pointed. “I chased him there!”

  “What?”

  Rapidly Nancy explained. The chief ordered his driver to dispatch four cars to trap the Dead Man. Satisfied, Nancy climbed in the backseat.

  “But, Chief, I thought we were going to All-County Moving and Storage!” Nancy said as they pulled up in front of Uptown Electronics. “I saw the lookout signal an all-clear from that roof.”

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Nancy—see?” the chief said.

  A pair of me
dics was wheeling out a stretcher. Strapped to it was a young man in a Hayward Security uniform.

  “I don’t understand,” Nancy muttered. “This doesn’t make sense, unless—”

  “Unless what?” the chief asked.

  “The lookout wasn’t a lookout at all, but a decoy,” she said dejectedly.

  After Nancy returned with George, they quickly learned the facts. The gang had keyed off the alarm, grabbed the guard, knocked him out, and made their getaway with fifty thousand dollars’ worth of laptop computers. The police had been called by the guard after he came to.

  The chief’s men had not found the decoy. The man was obviously familiar with the area and had an escape route ready. Nancy felt terribly frustrated.

  Nancy turned to Tom and the chief. “The laptop computers they took were worth a lot, but they could easily have taken more. They took only twenty-five boxes.”

  “It’s almost as if they’re robbing for the sport of it,” George remarked.

  The chief shrugged. “Usually profit is the motive behind a robbery.”

  Nancy excused herself to call Cindy Larson. It was late, but Cindy was still awake, watching out her bedroom window.

  “Mr. Masterson came home at six o’clock and he’s been inside ever since,” Cindy reported with obvious relief.

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow after school,” Nancy said. “Oh, and Cindy—wear old clothes that you don’t care about.”

  “Why?” Her assistant was curious.

  “It’s probably better if I don’t tell you. See you then.”

  Nancy hung up and bit her lip thoughtfully. That Neil Masterson had an alibi didn’t completely clear him, she knew. But it helped.

  • • •

  The following morning Nancy called Neil Masterson’s office and found that Adam Reeves had not been on duty the night before.

  Checking Stanley Loomis’s whereabouts was even easier. The business section of Today’s Times carried an article describing a speech he had given to the River Heights Retail Merchants Association the night before. In it he had stressed the need for reliable security. The alibi didn’t clear him, but it did indicate he couldn’t have taken part in the robbery.

  Next she phoned Chief McGinnis to ask if there had been any sign of the stolen goods. The chief told her nothing had surfaced.

  Nancy spent the rest of the morning focusing on the profiles of her three strongest suspects.

  She went to check out Adam Reeves’s apartment building. It was clean and well maintained. Not fancy, but nice. The refuse area behind the building was orderly. She had no trouble finding what she needed. After loading it in her trunk, she drove home.

  She was studying Adam Reeves’s credit report when Cindy arrived.

  “So soon?” her assistant asked, pulling over her seat. “I thought it would take weeks for that to get here.”

  “I asked them to fax it to my father’s office,” Nancy told her.

  “What does it tell us?” Cindy asked.

  “Plenty. When you add up everything he’s spending, it totals up to more than he’s making.”

  “Where does he get the extra money?” Cindy wondered.

  “Good question. This credit report lists only one employer, so it’s a pretty good bet that he hasn’t got a second job,” Nancy said.

  They went to the garage then, and Nancy backed out her car so they’d have plenty of room to work. After opening her trunk, she lifted out the plastic garbage bag she had taken from Adam’s garbage can.

  Cindy gulped. “Nancy, are we going to do what I think we’re going to do?”

  “Uh-huh,” Nancy confirmed, spreading newspapers on the driveway. “That’s why I asked you to wear old clothes.”

  They both donned gardening gloves, and Nancy slashed open the bag.

  “Oh, gross!” Cindy said, her face twisted in disgust.

  “Dig in.” Nancy smiled. “We need to make a list of everything we find.”

  When it was done, the list was quite revealing. Adam dined on sirloin, and liked expensive cologne. The most interesting discovery, though, were several copies of a magazine for entrepreneurs.

  “It could be that Adam is planning to open a business,” Nancy surmised.

  “How can he do that if he’s spending more than he makes?” Cindy wondered.

  “He may be expecting to get a big lump of money soon,” Nancy explained. “Now, let’s review. Both Neil Masterson and Stanley Loomis could have masterminded these robberies,” she summarized. “They both have the expertise, and they both have motives. Stanley Loomis wants to hurt his competition—Neil Masterson has hospital bills to pay.”

  “But what about all the money Adam Reeves is spending?” Cindy asked.

  “If you ask me, he is the strongest suspect,” Nancy said. “He had more opportunities than the others to be involved.”

  “So where do we go from here?” Cindy asked.

  “You go back to the telephone,” Nancy said. “A line on those stolen goods would help a lot. I’m going to do something I should have done two days ago.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tail Adam Reeves,” Nancy declared.

  • • •

  Adam left work at five o’clock. From the warehouse he drove to his apartment building. Nancy followed at a discreet distance. Parking down the street from his building, she watched him go inside. Then she settled down to wait.

  At ten minutes after six Adam returned to his car. He had changed from his uniform into a suit and topcoat. He looked sharp.

  To Nancy’s surprise, he then went to a house several streets from hers, where he picked up a date: an attractive blond girl.

  They went to Chez Louis, an expensive waterside restaurant. Nancy went in and sat at the bar and sipped a soda—slowly. She secretly kept her eyes focused on Adam’s table. The girl looked utterly bored.

  At least, she did until Adam presented her with a long, flat box from a jewelry store. Her face lit up, and she opened it with a cry of delight that Nancy could hear all the way at the bar. Inside was a gold necklace.

  Nancy had seen enough. This reinforced her conclusion that Adam was living beyond his means. In fact, she now had enough evidence to confront him. And once confronted with some hard facts, he might make a confession.

  If he didn’t, he would nevertheless feel the pressure, and crooks under pressure tended to make mistakes.

  Nancy walked to the parking lot and unlocked the door of her car. As she was bending down to get in, she was suddenly jerked up and off her feet.

  She was caught from behind in a choke hold!

  Chapter

  Ten

  NANCY COULDN’T BREATHE. She struggled, but it was pointless. The arm around her throat was like steel. She managed to squeeze out the words, “Put . . . me . . . down!”

  “Not until you say why you’re following me.” The voice belonged to Adam Reeves.

  “I can’t—aagh!—breathe!”

  Adam relaxed his grip. Nancy’s toes met the ground, but he didn’t let her go. She gulped in air. What should she say? If she blew it, Adam might kill her on the spot.

  She decided to stick to the truth—part of it, anyway. “You worked at two of the warehouses that got robbed. Of course I’m following you—what did you expect?”

  “Standard procedure, huh?” Adam mocked. He tightened his grip a notch. “You’ll have to do better, Nancy.”

  “Okay.” Nancy’s windpipe hurt. She recited some facts. “You’ve got high balances on your credit cards. Your car payments are six hundred and forty-six dollars a month. You’re planning to open a business, but you’ve got nothing in the bank. Get the idea?”

  Adam suddenly released her, and Nancy slumped to the ground, gasping. But in a moment she was back on her feet and facing him with a cold stare.

  “How do you know that stuff?” he demanded.

  It was amazing how easily you could put someone off balance with a little research and intuition.
>
  “Never mind how I know,” she said, sounding more assertive than she felt. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Adam.”

  “Baloney. That’s not what he says.”

  “He?”

  Adam caught himself. “Never mind who. Get to the point.”

  “The point is, my evidence shows that you’re involved in something illegal. You’d better start cooperating.”

  Adam sneered. “You don’t have anything solid on me.”

  Nancy was stuck. He was right. Surprising a confession out of him depended upon convincing him that she knew the whole story. But she didn’t. Worried, she tried a new tack.

  “Okay, Adam, I’ll go easy. Just tell me where you did time.” She mentally crossed her fingers.

  Adam staggered back a step, as if struck. Nancy couldn’t believe her luck. She had guessed right. A little more pressure and he might confess!

  “You’ve done crimes before. And that choke hold—it’s a mugger’s move. Was that your game?”

  “No! I—” Once more he stopped himself. He had amazing composure, Nancy realized in dismay. “You can’t prove any of this.”

  Not yet, she couldn’t. But she thought she knew how to. If only she could get his fingerprints.

  Her eyes still locked on Adam’s, Nancy reached behind her and began to open her car door.

  Adam’s hand shot out and shoved the door closed.

  “Hey!” he growled. “I’m not done with you yet.”

  “Sorry,” Nancy said sarcastically. “Look, since we aren’t getting anywhere with this conversation, let’s drop it.”

  For a moment Adam didn’t move. Nancy was afraid he would grab her again, but he must have decided against it. Perhaps, she thought, he was remembering his date in the restaurant. What would she think if she was watching? With a hostile glare, he brushed past her and went back inside.

  Nancy breathed a sigh of relief and got into her car. She wanted to get out of there—fast!

  At home she immediately dusted the door of her car with a fine black powder.

  • • •