Hotline to Danger (12 page)

Nancy glanced down again at the numbers on
the back of the page from the ledger. They had to be an account number, she told herself excitedly.

The phone rang next to her. Nancy reached for the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, Nancy, this is B.D. I got a message that you called.”

“B.D.,” Nancy said breathlessly, “wait until you hear my news! I think I just found the evidence you need to crack this case.”

B.D. chuckled. “Slow down. We may both have cracked the case.”

“What do you mean?” Nancy asked. “What did you find out?”

“You tell me your information first.”

“Okay.” After taking a deep breath, Nancy launched into her tale about the attacker, finding the envelope, and locating the tape recorder.

“Wow. You really were busy,” B.D. said. “That was good work finding that phone bug. My hunch is we shouldn't disturb it. I'll see if I can get an officer to watch the center. We may be able to nab our culprit trying to put in a new tape.”

“Good. And there's more,” Nancy continued. “There was a check made out to the teen center and a page from an account ledger in the envelope. I figured out that the check was an uncashed donation to the center.” Nancy told the detective her hunch about Paul and a partner working together. “What if the partnership soured?” she added. “Paul might have decided to go straight. Or the partner got greedy, so he killed Paul.”

“Uh-huh. And who might this fictitious partner be?” B.D. asked.

“Kip DiFranco, of course, which means you were right all along.” Nancy told him all the reasons why Kip was a likely suspect.

“Hmmm.” There was silence on the other end. “So maybe Paul was about to double-cross Kip a second time by taking his information about the scam to the police?”

Nancy nodded. “Right. But all this is just speculation. I found one more clue that may finger our killer for sure. Written on the page from the ledger was an account number and the name of a bank—Chicago Bank and Trust. I'll bet if you can trace the holder of that account, we'll have the name of our killer!”

G
OOD WORK,
D
ETECTIVE
D
REW
!” B.D. said on the other end of the phone. “Give me the account number. I should have a name for you by the morning.”

“Now, what's your information?” Nancy asked eagerly.

“This evening the lab confirmed that the mud from Mrs. Thackett's car and a sample of mud from the scene of the crime are a definite match,” B.D. said. “Plus, we just finished questioning Mrs. Thackett. At first she was pretty cooperative, then we told her about the usher seeing her leaving the theater. Well, she quickly clammed up and called some high-powered lawyer. But before she did, we found out one interesting piece of news.” B.D. paused. “That money
stashed in Paul's room? It was a payoff from Rachel's dear mother.”

“You mean Mrs. Thackett paid Paul
not
to see her daughter?” Nancy gasped.

“Right. My guess is Paul met Rachel's mother at the warehouse to tell her he was keeping the money and that he was still going to see her daughter. Might be motive enough for murder, don't you think?”

“Might be.” Nancy frowned. “And that blows my whole theory about Paul's money coming from stolen checks.”

B.D. chuckled. “Yeah. I knew you'd be disappointed. Still, I'll find out about that account number, so you be down at the police station first thing in the morning.”

“Don't worry,” Nancy said, suppressing a huge yawn. “I will.”

• • •

“The account belongs to J. R. Communications,” B.D. told her the next morning. It was nine-thirty, and Nancy was standing in front of the detective's desk. B.D. was leaning back in his swivel chair, his feet in their cowboy boots propped up on the top of his desk. His brown hair was pulled back in a short ponytail.

“J. R. Communications? Who's that?”

B.D. shrugged. “Some company. They have a post office box number in Chicago, but they're not listed in the directory.”

With a frustrated groan, Nancy sat down on a chair in front of the desk. “And I was so sure that account belonged to the killer.”

“It's never that easy.” B.D. chuckled. “But I think with a little more evidence, we'll be able to arrest Mrs. Thackett.”

“You mean evidence like Rachel fingering her own mother?” Nancy asked.

“Right. Which brings me to the really good news—we traced the phone number to a booth on Fourteenth and Main Street. Early this morning, two of my men located a clerk at a hotel near that intersection who thinks Rachel might be staying there. They're waiting for the manager, to see if he can ID her. They should be calling in any minute.”

Nancy's eyes brightened. “Can I come with you?”

“Yes. I want you there since Rachel seems to trust you. We need to get her into the station, take her statement, and close this case.” B.D. pounded one hand on the desk for emphasis.

Outside B.D.'s office, phones rang, and police officers bustled back and forth, but Nancy didn't notice any of it. “B.D., if Mrs. Thackett's the murderer, then how do you explain the
N
slashed on Paul's shirt? And what about the person in black who attacked me and the phone-bugging and the stuff in the envelope?” Nancy shook her head. “If you ask me, it doesn't add up.”

“You're right,” B.D. agreed. “But my job is to take the evidence and make the best sense out of it I can.”

Nancy frowned and, making a steeple with her fingers, rested her chin on them. “That's what I'm trying to do, too. You know one of my theories was that Mrs. Thackett hired someone to help her. I figured—”

B.D. dropped his feet onto the floor and let out a whoop. “That's it, Drew!” He jumped up. “There are tons of private detectives out there who'd do anything for a buck. I'm going to get some officers on it. If we can prove that Mrs. Thackett hired someone to do her dirty work, we'll really nail her!”

Before Nancy could say anything, he gave her the thumbs-up sign and strode from the office.

When he left, Nancy's frown only deepened. A hired detective still didn't explain the information in the envelope.

Reaching into her jacket pocket, Nancy slid out the envelope and reread the name and address on the check. The address was for a posh area in River Heights. Nancy had assumed the thousand-dollar check was a donation. But what if it wasn't?

There was one easy way to find out. Nancy got up and hunted around B.D.'s office until she found a local phone book. Then she looked up Mrs. Johnson's number and dialed.

“Hello. Mrs. Johnson? This is Nancy Drew from the teen center.”

“The teen center!” The woman chirped on the other end. “What a wonderful place. What can I do for you, Miss Drew?”

“We wanted to thank you for your generous donation,” Nancy replied.

“Oh, there's no need to thank me,” Mrs. Johnson gushed. “Thank
you
for all the fine work you folks do at the center. I know my checks for December and January funded some excellent projects. So you tell Mr. A that if he keeps up that wonderful work, my next check will arrive right on time!”

Nancy thanked her, then said goodbye.

She looked at the check again. It was dated February 24. Last month. And Mrs. Johnson had already sent checks for December and January.

Hmmm. December and January were the months covered in the accounting ledger.

Could there be a connection?

Slim chance, Nancy thought, still—

She unfolded the ledger page and scanned the columns. On the accounts payable side someone had written “nls, lmbr, sw, hmmr, Shtrk,” then a monetary amount.

Nancy studied the abbreviations. If you added vowels, the words were
nails, lumber, saw, hammer, Sheetrock,
items that had been bought for the renovation of the dorm in the teen center.

A prickle of excitement raced up Nancy's spine. Was the page from a teen center ledger? If Paul and Kip were partners in some kind of financial scam, what better place to embezzle money from than the teen center? Mr. A had said Paul helped with the paperwork, so he probably had had access to the books.

Nancy grabbed a piece of scrap paper, and started writing down the first four entries in the accounts receivable column, adding vowels as she listed them: Henry Dorset and Family—$2,000; Lions Club—$1,240; G. D. Hopkins—$400; Women's Auxiliary—$560.

It had to be a list of donors, Nancy decided. That meant the page could definitely be from the teen center account ledger!

Quickly, she added up the sums in the accounts receivable column. In two months, the center had taken in over ten thousand dollars in donations. Yet, adding up the accounts payable side showed that the center had spent only two thousand dollars in that same period of time.

Where was the other eight thousand dollars? Nancy wondered. Was Mr. A saving it for the new dorm? Except, when they'd been on the third floor, she clearly remembered the director telling her that funds had dried up.

Again, Nancy studied the accounting page. She made another discovery: Mrs. Johnson's donations for December and January weren't listed on the sheet!

Nancy reached for the phone and dialed Mrs. Johnson. “Excuse me for bothering you again,” she said. “But did we send you a receipt for your donation?”

“Receipt? Oh, that's not necessary,” Mrs. Johnson replied. “That's what I told that fine young man when I gave him the last check.”

“You mean Paul?” Nancy asked, her mouth going dry.

“Why, yes. I told him that the best receipt the center could give me was the assurance that my money was helping send some poor child to college.”

“Thank you,” Nancy said politely. Only I think your money was helping some crook get rich, she thought. Someone could even have stolen checks right out of the teen center mailbox.

Just then B.D. burst into his office. “Mission accomplished. I've got two guys ready to shake down every private eye in the area.”

“Great, B.D.,” Nancy said. “Only look at this.” She held out the page from the ledger. “I think I've finally figured out what Paul was trying to tell us.”

“What's that?” B.D.'s brow furrowed as he glanced down at the sheet she was holding out. But when Nancy started to explain about the missing donations, he strolled around his desk, sat down, and propped his feet up again.

“Look, Nancy,” he finally interrupted. “From
what I'm hearing, someone
was
probably stealing checks from the center, and maybe there was a little creative accounting going on, too. But that's a job for the fraud unit. This is a murder investigation.”

“I know, but this all ties into my hunch that Paul was working with a partner who—”

The phone rang on B.D.'s desk, cutting Nancy off.

“Detective Hawkins,” B.D. answered. “Yeah.” As he listened, the detective's eyes flashed excitedly, and he dropped his feet to the floor. “We'll be there in five minutes.” Grinning, he slammed down the phone. “Let's roll,” he told Nancy as he jumped up and grabbed his jacket from the hook on the wall. “They've found Rachel!”

Ten minutes later B.D. pulled to the curb in front of the Chestmont Hotel. As Nancy climbed out, two plainclothes officers immediately approached the car. While B.D. talked with them, Nancy studied the hotel. It was a narrow, three-story brick structure with ornate molding and cornices that told her it had once been quite grand. Now the paint was peeling, and the bricks were gray with soot.

“She's in room 3B,” B.D. told Nancy. Taking her arm, he escorted her into the lobby of the hotel. “Both the day clerk and the manager have identified her.”

As they climbed the stairs, Nancy's heart
pounded with excitement. When they reached the third floor, B.D. directed one officer to stand in front of the stairs and the other officer to wait at the end of the hall.

“Okay, Nancy. This is where you do your thing,” B.D. said, pointing to 3B.

Nancy nodded, took a deep breath, then rapped on the door. “Rachel?” she called. “It's Nancy from the hotline.”

When there was no answer, Nancy pressed her ear to the door. “Rachel? I know you're in there. And I know you're scared. Let me help. Please.”

This time Nancy heard shuffling sounds, as if someone was walking slowly to the door.

“Nancy?” a voice whispered.

“Hi, Rachel.” Nancy tried to sound cheery. “Won't you let me in?”

There was a long silence. Then Nancy heard the sound of a deadbolt turning. She glanced up at B.D. He nodded, then flattened himself against the left side of the door.

The door opened a couple of inches. Rachel peered through the crack. Nancy could see that the girl's red hair was a tangled mass of curls and that her eyes were bloodshot. “Are you alone?” Rachel asked.