002 Deadly Intent (7 page)

T
HE PIECES OF
the puzzle were finally beginning to fall into place. “This explains why there was no ransom note,” Nancy continued. “Barton’s kidnappers weren’t interested in getting money, just in keeping him from spilling the beans. I bet all this has something to do with his wanting to talk to me after the concert.” Nancy leaned back against one of the cabinets, digesting the implications of the new discovery.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her that made her blood go colder than an arctic ice floe. “George,” she said, “if Barton’s kidnappers don’t want a ransom for him, maybe they don’t intend to free him at all.”

George’s ruddy complexion drained to pale.

The two girls stood in silence, the horrible realization sinking in until the stillness in the room was shattered by the soft but unmistakable squeal of the door opening. Nancy gasped.

A sandy-haired man with a mustache stepped inside. There was no place to escape his gaze in the small room. “Who are you?” he asked gruffly. “No unauthorized personnel allowed in here.”

Nancy thought quickly. “We, um . . . we’re with the NYU group.”

“Film students,” George added, backing up Nancy’s story.

“Oh. Well, what are you kids doing in here? Your group is over in one of the editing rooms.” He motioned for them to leave. “Down this hall and to the left.”

For a moment, Nancy was flooded with a sense of relief. “Oh. Thank you, sir.” She and George moved toward the door.

But as soon as they were safely out of Oraye Sound and outside again, Nancy’s relief dissolved in a flood of nerves. What if she couldn’t locate Barton before it was too late? Or was it already too late? Who was at the bottom of the sordid mess, and how much did Alan know about it? How safe was Bess if she inadvertently had been caught smack in the middle of a record pirating conspiracy?

Stop!
Nancy admonished herself. Standing in the middle of a busy New York street thinking
about all this wasn’t going to get her any closer to answering the questions that were gnawing at her. She took several breaths, taking the air deep into her body and breathing from her stomach, the way she’d been taught in karate class.

“Okay,” she told George, “the first thing to do is to find out which people have access to the room with the masters in it, and then find out what they know.” Nancy made a beeline for the nearest pay phone, fishing around in her jeans pocket as she ran.

A loud, jarring crackle came out of the earpiece as she picked up the receiver. “Broken.” She slammed down the phone and moved over to the next one. “Good,” she told George. “This one’s got a dial tone.” She pulled her little notebook out of her shoulder bag and quickly turned the pages until she found Roger Gold’s number.

Be home. Please be home.
She punched out his number on the pushbutton telephone.

“Hello?” Roger’s voice came over the wire.

“Roger. It’s Nancy Drew. Thank goodness you’re there.”

“Nancy, what’s wrong? Is it about Barton? Do you know where he is?”

“Not yet,” Nancy replied, trying to keep from sounding frightened, “but I think I’ve got my first solid lead.”

“Was he kidnapped?” Roger sounded nervous.

“Yes, I think so.”

“I knew it! No way did Barton go off on his own. He was too involved in those concerts.” Roger paused. “So what do you think’s going on?”

“I think someone’s pirating Bent Fender’s records. And probably other groups’ records, too.”

“Pirating our records?” A string of angry words streamed out of Roger Gold’s normally soft-speaking mouth. Nancy waited for him to calm down. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “Listening to me get mad isn’t going to help Barton, is it?”

“That’s okay, Roger. I’m not exactly a bearer of good tidings. But there is something you can tell me that will help get to the bottom of this.”

“Anything.”

“Who has access to the cabinets in the masters room at Oraye Sound?”

“Well, all the techies—the recording technicians—at Oraye, for starters. And they usually give a key to the musicians who record there.”

“Like you and Barton and the rest of the band?”

“Right. I mean, we do most of our work at our own private studios, but we do some mixing and stuff there sometimes. Yeah.”

“Anyone else?” Nancy asked.

“The top executives at World,” Roger said.

“Harold Marshall?”

A moment of silence, then Roger exploded. “Is that creep in on Barton’s disappearance?”

“Well, he has an interesting reason for why Barton didn’t make the concert.”

“I don’t buy it,” Roger said firmly, after hearing Harold Marshall’s story. “Barton would want the sales of our records to center around our music, not around gossip about where he is. Besides, he doesn’t like the idea of people poking around in his private life. Nope. Marshall’s story just doesn’t make sense.”

Nancy wasn’t surprised by Roger’s opinion. Marshall’s story had too many holes in it for her to swallow it completely. “Roger, thank you. You’ve been a big help. Oh, and one more thing. How does Harold Marshall get along with his secretary?”

“Vivian? They’re a perfect team. The witch and the warlock. Marshall thinks she’s the greatest thing since stereophonic sound. The rat has had his eye on her since the day she came to work for him. And she’ll do anything he asks. And I mean anything.”

“Roger, would Vivian do Marshall’s dirty work?” Nancy pictured Vivian sneaking into the masters room.

“Sure.”

“And would Marshall be low enough to pirate his own company’s records and pocket the profit?”

“That toad is low enough to do anything,” Roger answered.

“You know, it’s possible that we might have our man,” Nancy said. “But we have to catch him in the act to make sure.”

“You just tell me what I have to do to help,” Roger offered. “I’d be only too happy to nail that bum.”

“The best thing you can do is act as if nothing’s happened. Meet us at the club tonight, work on your new songs, do whatever you would normally do. We don’t want Marshall to think we’re on to him.” Nancy inhaled sharply. “Because if Barton’s disappearance is any indication, what we know could be hazardous to our health!”

She hung up the phone and looked at George. “Come on. We’ve got to find out a lot more before we crack this case.”

“Action!” George rubbed her hands together. “This is the part I like the best.”

Nancy shook her head. “I’m not so sure this is action you’ll enjoy . . .”

• • •

“Ugh. I feel like I’m back in school again,” George moaned.

“School was never a life-or-death situation,” Nancy responded gravely. “Now read.”

The girls were seated in the research room of the Jefferson Market Library, a brisk walk from
the studios of Oraye Sound. Books and back copies of magazines were piled next to them on the old wooden tables.

Nancy skimmed through an article in
Allegro,
the monthly newspaper of the musicians’ union. “George, listen to this.” She read out loud, keeping her voice low, so as not to disturb the people around her. “ ‘One billion dollars per year are lost in residuals, due to pirated sound and video recordings in the United States and abroad.’ One billion dollars worth of royalty money! Can you believe that?” she exclaimed. “Wow, I had no idea what a huge black market there is for pirated recordings. There’s certainly enough money at stake to make some crook want to get rid of anyone in the way.”

Nancy’s stomach did a slow somersault as she thought about Barton’s safety.

“Nancy, here’s something,” George whispered a moment later. “Certain countries have no copyright laws at all. They simply obtain existing printed or recorded materials from other countries and publish or manufacture copies of their own, or they purchase pirated copies at a cost far below the market value. No revenue from these sales goes to the artist or company that holds the copyright.”

Nancy listened intently. “Wow! You mean somebody could take records that were made illegally here and sell them in certain other places where there are no copyright laws?”

“Right.”

“And these foreign governments wouldn’t consider it a crime?”

George nodded and continued, her brown-eyed gaze gliding across the page as she read. “The one major country to operate without copyright laws is the People’s Republic of China.”

“China!” A bell went off in Nancy’s head. “George, that wallet I found backstage during the concert—it had a dragon on it—a Chinese dragon! I wonder if that’s more than just a coincidence.” Nancy rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin on the palm of her hand.

“Do you think Harold Marshall might have some connection to the Chinese?” George asked. “Or Vivian? Somehow, I can’t imagine her trudging through rice paddies in those high-heeled shoes.” George let out a giggle, despite the severity of the situation. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Nan.”

But Nancy wasn’t at all annoyed with George. “You’re a genius!” she said excitedly, trying at the same time to keep her voice down. “Maybe Vivian wouldn’t be able to wing it on a tour of the rice fields, but I know someone who would.”

“Nancy, what are you talking about?”

“That picture you had of Vivian reminded me of a poster I saw of Chinese workers harvesting rice. I saw it just this morning . . . hanging on the
wall in Ann Nordquist’s office!” Nancy grabbed George’s arm. “Ann is Bent Fender’s agent. And she just came back from China. She was telling my dad and me about her trip.” Nancy’s pulse was racing. “What if that wallet belongs to her? And what if she wasn’t just sight-seeing?”

“But what about Mr. Marshall?” George reminded her.

“Yes, then there’s Harold Marshall.” Nancy pondered that for a few moments. “You know, he and Ann Nordquist both made a point of telling me how much they disliked each other. But what if they did that just to throw me off the track? It’s possible they’re working together.”

“But Nancy, you told me that Ann Nordquist seemed like a nice woman.”

“She did. I mean, she does. I liked her. And I don’t see why she would own a wallet with the initial L. Still, I don’t think we can rule her out entirely. You can never be too sure.”

“I guess not. We thought Alan was playing straight with us, and look what happened. If he drags Bess into this, he’s going to be really sorry.”

Nancy nodded. “Speaking of which, let’s get back to the hotel. I want to pick up Ned and get to the club. Bess’s wonder boy and I are in for a little heart-to-heart.” She gathered up the books and bound volumes of magazines and began replacing them on the shelves. “And,” she
added, “I think I ought to do a little checking up on Ms. Ann Nordquist.”

“Yeah,” George said. “Maybe she got tired of earning her ten percent and decided to make a real killing.”

“I hope it hasn’t gone that far.” Nancy hesitated before going on. “. . . As far as murder.”

N
ED!” NANCY THREW
her arms around the tall, broad-shouldered young man. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Have you been here long?” Nancy had found Ned sitting on the plush velvet sofa in the hotel lobby.

“Got here just about five minutes ago,” Ned said, bending down to give her a powerful hug. A lock of thick dark hair fell forward over his eye, and Nancy brushed it away.

“I want you to know,” she said, her mind still reeling from her frenzied afternoon, “your visit is the one bright spot in this entire trip.”

“Uh-oh. Sounds like my favorite detective is
wrapped up in a tough case. What’s happened since we talked on the phone?”

Nancy let out a sigh. “First I had so few real clues that I didn’t even know if I had a mystery or not. Now, all of a sudden, there are all sorts of leads . . . and I don’t know which ones to follow first.” Nancy could see George coming across the lobby with the room keys she had picked up from the front desk. “Listen, why don’t you come upstairs, and I’ll tell you everything?”

A few minutes later, the three friends were seated around the table in the main room of the suite, drinking the Cokes they had ordered from room service. Nancy and George recounted the day’s events, from the newspaper headlines about Barton to their library research.

Ned looked thoughtful. “So you think the trail of evidence could lead to that record producer—”

“Harold Marshall,” George supplied.

“Right, or the Nordquist woman, or even Alan?” Ned’s voice dropped as he uttered Bess’s boyfriend’s name. “So, I’m sharing a room with one of your suspects, Nancy?”

Nancy shrugged. “I haven’t even seen Alan since you called, so I haven’t had a chance to ask him about sharing his room. And once I confront him about his lie, I’m not sure how generous he’s going to feel about doing any favors for my friends.” Nancy twisted a strand of hair around
her index finger. “But don’t worry. There’s a couch in Dad’s room. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having you stay with us.”

As if on cue, the door to the suite opened, and Carson Drew stepped inside. “Ned! Well, hello. I thought I heard your voice. It’s good to see you again.”

Ned stood up, and they shook hands. “Good to be here, Mr. Drew.”