Danger in Disguise

  Nancy was holding her breath, as she made a silent wish that he wouldn’t turn the light on now. She could just see his shiny patent leather evening shoes as he stepped forward to search for something on the desk.

  What if he looked for one of the missing file folders? She’d only taken three, hoping he wouldn’t notice they were gone, but what if he did? Worse yet, she hadn’t checked all of the desk drawers. Could there be a gun in one of them?

  She was still imagining the unpleasant possibilities when the patent leather shoes turned aside and Turner walked back out of the study, closing the door behind him.

  George let out a soft sigh of relief. Nancy unfolded herself from her hiding place and flexed the cramps from her legs. Still, she remained on guard, making a shushing sound in George’s direction.

  Nancy watched the crack under the study door till the line of light turned dark and she could hear no more movement in the rest of the apartment. Turner had probably gone into the bedroom.

  Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. A slight shimmer of gray light came through the white drapes which covered the wide window behind the desk. She could make out the shape of the telephone console and reached for it.

  The dial tone seemed very loud in the hushed room as she lifted the receiver. Just as she’d guessed, a light came on beneath the array of clear plastic buttons. She could see perfectly well to punch out a number if she wanted, but she didn’t do that.

  She was interested in the row of buttons down the right side of the console. Those would be the preset numbers. Turner had pressed one of them to make his call, but there were no labels to indicate what they were. And—this Nancy could barely believe—there was no Redial button. If only she could press one, she’d know instantly who Turner had called.

  “What are you doing?” George whispered a little frantically as she crept from her corner. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “In a minute,” Nancy whispered back as she pushed the top button in the preset row.

  “Who are you calling?” George sounded even more frantic now. “There’s a pay phone on the corner!”

  Nancy raised a finger to her lips to silence George. Her face was eerily illuminated by the phone light.

  A woman’s voice answered on the other end of the phone line. “Yes,” she said with a refined lift to her tone. Then she waited a moment. “This is the Turner residence,” she added, unruffled as could be. “Celia Turner speaking. May I help you?”

  Nancy pressed the receiver cradle to disconnect. That must have been Turner’s mother. Nancy doubted that was who he’d been speaking to just now.

  Nancy punched the next button. The wait for an answer was longer this time, and she heard the phone fumbled and nearly dropped on the other end before a young woman’s voice responded with a sleepy “Hello.”

  Definitely not. Once again, Nancy pressed the cradle.

  “What are you doing?” George repeated, more frantic than ever.

  “Something important,” Nancy whispered as she punched the third button. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes longer.”

  She could feel George’s agitation and hoped for a swift answer this time, but that wasn’t what she got. The phone rang and rang, but no one picked it up. The same thing happened with the next two buttons. George grew more agitated by the second.

  “Markson’s Custom Tailoring,” came the answer to the next call. “This is a recording. Please, leave your message at the beep.”

  The voice was even more refined than Mrs. Turner’s had been, and with a definite British accent. Nancy smiled ruefully. From what she’d heard about Turner, she wasn’t surprised that he thought it necessary to have his tailor on a preset button. She pressed the cradle and held it long enough to disconnect.

  As she dialed again, George grabbed her arm. “I don’t care how important this is. I want to get out of here right now!”

  “Just one more, I promise.” Nancy gently peeled George’s grip from her arm. The fingers unclenched reluctantly, and Nancy pushed the remaining button.

  Three rings followed by a click and a hum. Nancy could tell she’d come up with another recording.

  “You’ve reached 555-8280,” said a rather bored female voice while music played in the background. “State your name, number, and the reason for your call.”

  As she’d done with Markson’s tailoring shop, Nancy hung up before the beep. She silently repeated the number she’d heard to memorize it as she moved quietly away from the desk. She could see just clearly enough through the gloom to avoid falling over furniture as she tiptoed across the thick carpet with George in her wake.

  Nancy listened at the door, then turned the knob ever so gently and eased it open. Like the dial tone, even the tiniest noise seemed magnified in the stillness of the apartment. Nancy forced herself to move slowly and carefully though her heart had begun to trip faster with each step. She’d pressed their luck by lingering so long. Now she was very much aware that they had to get out as fast as they could.

  Nancy didn’t breathe normally again until they were approaching her car. They’d made it out of the apartment, down the service stairs, and through a rear exit without incident. Then they hurried along alleys back to the street.

  They kept close to the buildings and away from the streetlights as they scurried toward the car. They were almost there when Nancy pulled her friend abruptly into a doorway.

  “Look,” she said and gestured toward Turner’s apartment complex, which was still visible from where they stood.

  The doorman had acted fast. A tow truck had been backed around the semicircular driveway to get it into position in front of the limo. The tow chain stretched taut from the boom on the back of the truck to the bumper of the limo. A loud, metallic rasp shattered the night. George and Nancy watched as the front end of the long, black car was lifted from the ground and tilted steadily upward.

  A few minutes later, the limo was angled high enough to be towed. The truck eased forward around the drive, then into the street with the big car suspended behind, only its rear wheels on the ground.

  They drove right past the doorway where George and Nancy were hiding. As the truck moved off down the street, Nancy noticed a puff of exhaust smoke trailing from the limo’s tailpipe. The big car was still running, its extra-large tank not yet out of gas.

  “I wonder why they don’t just drive the car away,” George commented.

  “Maybe it’s not legal,” said Nancy. “After all, it doesn’t belong to them.”

  “It didn’t belong to us, either, and I’m very glad to be rid of it,” said George with a shudder.

  Nancy didn’t have to ask the reason for that shudder. “Why don’t you stay at my house tonight?” Nancy asked when they reached the car.

  George flashed the first smile Nancy had seen from her in hours.

  “That sounds great!” she said, and the gloom lifted.

  • • •

  Nancy was up early the next morning. She crept quietly out of her room, leaving George breathing softly in the other twin bed. An hour later George went out on the wide front porch to find Nancy engrossed in the file folders on her lap.

  She flipped the top file closed and gazed out across the peaceful, sycamore-lined street as if she didn’t quite recognize where she was.

  “There can’t be any doubt about it now,” she said, more to herself than to George. “Franklin Turner is definitely a blackmailer.”

  Chapter

  Twelve

  WHAT’S IN THERE?” asked George, gesturing toward the folders.

  “Sad stories,” said Nancy, feeling pretty low herself.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Turner has information on these people about things from their pasts. Things that could cause them trouble now,” Nancy explained.

  “Like about Michael using someone else’s name to get a job?”

  Nancy nodded. “None of them are really big offenses, but these aren’t big-name people. That’s one
of the reasons these revelations could be so devastating for them.” She couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. Although they’d done wrong, Turner’s wrong seemed so much worse.

  “How do you know Turner was blackmailing them?”

  Nancy pulled a page from the top folder. “He made out one of these for each person. It lists the date a note was sent, then the amount asked for and the date it was paid. I’ll bet there’s a page like this in every one of those files back in his desk too.”

  George examined the paper. “This amount isn’t that big. I thought blackmailers demanded hundreds of thousands.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said Nancy. “A blackmailer usually gets caught because he gets greedy. He asks for more than the victim can come up with, which sends the victim panicking to the police. Turner was too smart for that.” Nancy felt nothing but disgust for his cleverness.

  “He also asked for only one payment,” she went on. “The blackmailer’s second biggest mistake is that he keeps coming back for more until the victim feels like it will never end—”

  “And panics and goes to the police,” George finished. “Of course, there’s no way to prove he wouldn’t have gone back for additional payments.”

  “It doesn’t look like it,” said Nancy. “These entries begin a year ago, and he hasn’t made return visits on any of them yet. But, of course, these are only three out of many.” She heaved a sad sigh.

  George looked thoughtful. “Do the victims have anything in common?” she asked.

  “They all work for the city or were trying to work for the city when Turner went after them.”

  “I’ll bet I know how he did it.” George walked over to lean against the porch rail. She looked angry. “His starting this a year ago makes it obvious.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s when Councilman Terry assigned Turner to work with the oversight committee.” She came back over and sat down beside Nancy again. She still looked angry. “You see, he’s good with computers. So he was given the job of checking out people whose names came up before the committee—”

  “Because they wanted to work for the city, and the city doesn’t want anyone who could bring scandal with them.”

  “Right.”

  Nancy shook her head in disgust. “They assigned the most corrupt person of all to find out who’s corrupt, and he used the information to line his own pockets.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” George sounded discouraged.

  “Remember what I said about looking gift horses in the mouth?”

  “How could Councilman Terry have known Turner would do something like this?” George rose to her hero’s defense.

  “He should have run one of those computer checks on him,” said Nancy, who was beginning to feel angry herself. “Criminals don’t usually start their life of crime at Turner’s age. I’d be willing to bet there’s a string of petty offenses on his record going back to when he was in diapers.”

  “Unless he was always tricky enough to keep from getting caught.” George looked more discouraged than ever.

  “You’ve got a point,” said Nancy.

  “So what are you going to do?” asked George. “Take those files to the police?”

  “Not just yet,” replied Nancy. “Because of the way I got them, I’d like something to back them up in case they can’t be used in court. I wish my dad were around so I could check it with him.”

  “So you need more proof. Do you have a plan?”

  Nancy made a face. She really disliked this business. “I’m going to have to go see these people. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll be able to persuade one of them to come clean. But I don’t think it’s going to be very pleasant.”

  George looked at the name on the page Nancy had given her earlier. “Marjorie Rothman.”

  “She’s first,” said Nancy with a sigh.

  “What did she do to get herself on Turner’s hit list?”

  “She made a mistake when she was very young. She borrowed from the accounts of the business she worked for. She paid back the money, but she still got fired when they found out what she’d been doing. She didn’t put any of that on her application to do property appraisals for the city. If she had, it might even have been overlooked.”

  “If it’s such a small thing that she did, why would she pay blackmail over it?”

  “Guilt, I guess. She’s probably very ashamed of what she did and doesn’t want anybody to know. Maybe the amount Turner asked was small enough to make it worth her while to pay and avoid the trouble.”

  “She’s going to have trouble now, isn’t she?” George sounded as solemn as Nancy looked.

  Nancy stood up slowly. “Yes,” she said. “She’s going to have trouble now.”

  • • •

  Marjorie Rothman’s house was small and neat. Carefully tended shrubs bordered the brick path to the stoop. The woman who answered the door was also small and neat.

  “May I help you?” she said in a friendly tone.

  “Mrs. Rothman, my name is Nancy Drew. I’m here to talk to you about Wyandot Realty,” said Nancy.

  She’d gotten the name from the file, and mentioning it had exactly the effect she’d anticipated. Mrs. Rothman’s already petite form seemed to shrink even smaller as she opened the door and stood aside so Nancy could enter.

  “Are you the one who sent that note?” Marjorie Rothman asked after she’d sat down very primly on the edge of a chintz-covered sofa.

  “No,” said Nancy. “I’m not the person who blackmailed you, and I’m not here to threaten you now. But I am going to ask you to do something very brave.”

  “What is that?” asked Mrs. Rothman in a voice as small as she was. Her face was pale against her graying hair.

  Nancy had come prepared to use pressure to get the information she needed. Instead, she spoke gently.

  “I want you to help me to keep this man from doing the same thing to any more people.”

  “Was it a man? Do I know him?”

  Nancy nodded yes to the first question. “But I don’t think you know him.”

  “Have there been others like me—that he found out things about?”

  “Quite a few.”

  Mrs. Rothman had been staring at the carpet ever since they sat down. “I’m not really very brave,” she said, bringing her gaze to meet Nancy’s at last. That look told Nancy that Marjorie Rothman was going to help in any way she could.

  “My son, Bobby, was only three years old when my husband died,” she began.

  She told Nancy the whole story, about needing money desperately after her husband had died and left her with a small child to raise. She’d taken some money from the safe at her office in Chicago. She was going to pay it back, but the shortage was discovered before she could. She was fired, and to escape her shame she moved to River Heights. She never was in any trouble again.

  Mrs. Rothman seemed relieved once she told her story. She told it even more willingly a second time, downtown for Chief McGinnis and Detective Hicks.

  • • •

  The police brought Franklin Turner in for questioning two hours later. When Chief McGinnis had heard Mrs. Rothman’s story and seen the files Nancy had, he’d immediately applied for a search warrant. The minute it came through, he’d sent a team over to Turner’s apartment. As soon as they had the evidence they needed, another team went to Councilman Terry’s office and picked up their man.

  The chief had consented to let Nancy observe the questioning from the next room through one-way glass.

  Turner didn’t appear to be the least bit upset by the arrest. He smiled arrogantly at the dark glass opposite him, as if he knew he was being watched and didn’t care.

  Nancy expected him to deny everything. After all, there weren’t any witnesses. Mrs. Rothman had never actually seen him, and most likely his other victims hadn’t either. He could hardly have missed his three top files between last night and this morning. And he didn’t yet know that his ho
me had been searched.

  When the police chief strolled into the interrogation room with the rest of the file folders under his arm, though, Turner barely blinked an eye. Nancy was astonished at the way he admitted to the blackmail charges after almost no pressure at all.

  “Almost everybody lies on resumes and job applications,” he said with a cynical grin. “Some of those lies hide interesting stories. You just have to keep checking the dates and documents till you get to the truth. It’s something like being a detective.”

  He turned his grin toward the mirror across from him. Nancy was certain he knew someone was there.

  When asked about Kathy Novello, Turner showed his one and only glimmer of anxiety. “I wasn’t there,” he said in an agitated tone. Then he seemed to recover his confidence. “I wasn’t there,” he repeated, darting a smug look at the one-way mirror. “I was in a meeting the evening she was killed. You want witnesses? Ask Bradford Williams. Or Jethro Serkin. They were there too. We were discussing Tim Terry’s campaign.”

  As for being in the copy room the night of Kathy’s death, Turner swore he wasn’t there either. Nancy hadn’t dared tell the police all the details, since she didn’t want to betray Michael Mulraney’s confidence. So they didn’t question him about either of Michael’s “accidents.”

  He supposedly didn’t know anything about the tape in Nancy’s car or the rigged limo either. He covered very well and didn’t act surprised that she was still alive. “From what I’ve heard about Ms. Drew,” he said, “I imagine she’s made an enemy or two in her career.”

  That was his story, and he stuck to it, cool as could be, no matter how hard they tried to break him down. Nancy could tell that the police were inclined to believe him, but she had some questions they hadn’t asked.

  Why had he declined his legal right to have a lawyer with him while he was questioned, especially if he intended to confess to the blackmail? And why, since he was so good at stonewalling, did he confess at all? After all, he’d denied everything else.