Let's Talk Terror Page 4

  Chapter

  Six

  NANCY SPRANG FROM her seat in the audience and made straight for the talk show host’s side. Nancy read the message on the TelePrompTer: “You didn’t quit, so now you’ll be blown away. Bomb goes off at 11:23 sharp.”

  Pandemonium had broken out in the studio as the audience pushed for the exits. Nancy, too, could feel panic rising within her. She quickly checked her watch. It was 11:16.

  “Please, don’t panic!” one of the ushers warned everyone. The look of terror on her face didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Nancy scanned the mob for the other usher and saw him speaking into a walkie-talkie. She figured he was warning security to evacuate the building and call the police.

  “George, help everyone get out!” Nancy yelled to her friend. She noticed that the warring parents and teens were helping each other.

  Nancy grabbed Marcy’s elbow and guided her to one of the wide exits at the back of the studio. There, Nancy recognized the security guard encouraging people to get out quickly.

  “Marcy, head for the street!” Nancy yelled, giving her a nudge forward. Across the lobby, she could see George and Brenda Fox holding the doors open to let people exit.

  “Do you need help?” Nancy stopped to ask the security guard.

  “No, just get out. Please,” he urged. “The police will be here any second.”

  Elevators kept opening, discharging hordes of people from the upper floors, and dozens more poured through the fire-stairs doors. The crunch at the front of the lobby was frightening.

  Following the last of the crowd out into the street, Nancy noticed one man strolling outside not far ahead of her. Amid all the panic and fear, his step seemed almost casual. It was Vic Molina! “It’s the fifth bomb scare in two years,” he was telling the man next to him. “Probably some jerk trying to get attention.”

  Just then the police arrived. Six or seven cruisers, sirens blazing, cordoned off the street, and two vans marked Bomb Squad pulled up in front of the building, along with an unmarked police car. Five uniformed officers surrounded a short, heavyset man with a walkie-talkie who emerged from this last car. He wore a white button-down shirt that was too small for his expanded belly and a stained navy tie.

  “Evacuation is in progress,” he said into the device as he strode into the lobby, with his escort clearing the way. “Disposal and I are proceeding to hot spot. Over.”

  The police had already put up barriers just off the edge of the sidewalk. In front of one barrier, separating her from the anxious crowd and gathering onlookers, was Marcy. She was talking to a silver-haired couple who appeared to be in their fifties. As Nancy edged closer she could hear their conversation.

  “You were threatened before this morning?” the woman was saying in a shocked tone. “Why didn’t you tell Jeff and me immediately? We’re your producers, Marcy!”

  From what they said, Nancy guessed that the couple were Janet and Jeff Stern, of Stern Productions, the people Marcy most wanted to hide the threats from.

  “I’m sorry, Janet. All I can say is that I didn’t want to put the show in jeopardy,” Marcy said.

  “Marcy,” Jeff Stern said firmly, his voice rising as he spoke. “A lot of people have a lot of money invested in you and this show, and Janet and I are responsible to them. We have to think about things like lawsuits, security, insurance! Do you realize that if anyone could prove we had reason to anticipate this threat, we could be liable if the Media Center were blown up?”

  By then Nancy reached Marcy’s side.

  “Hi, Nancy,” Marcy said weakly as the Sterns turned their attention to the building.

  George made her way up to them, too. “Brenda’s amazing,” she said. “She really knows how to deal with people.”

  “Has anyone seen Susan?” Nancy asked.

  “I’m here,” came Susan’s voice from behind them. She was with the officer in the civilian clothes. “There’s Marcy, Lieutenant,” she told him, leading him over to their little group. “Marcy, this is Detective Lieutenant Dunne. He wants to speak with you.”

  “That’s right, Ms. Robbins,” said the lieutenant, extending his stubby hand.

  Marcy shook it and said, “These are my producers, Janet and Jeff Stern, and these are friends of Susan’s, Nancy Drew and George Fayne.”

  “Nancy Drew, the detective?” the lieutenant asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes,” Nancy admitted.

  “I’ve read about some of your cases,” the lieutenant said. “You’re pretty good for a kid.” Turning to Marcy, he asked, “How’d you get hooked up with Nancy Drew?”

  “Susan suggested I send for her,” Marcy explained. “She’s been helping me out with a little problem I’ve been having.” Looking around, she asked the lieutenant, “Can we go where it’s a little more private?”

  Just then two uniformed officers came out of the building, one of them carrying a box, which he brought over to the lieutenant. “Lieutenant Dunne, sir,” said the man with the box, “look what we found backstage. It’s a phony. One of those party store jobs.” Using a handkerchief, he pulled out a round plastic toy bomb with a thick rope sticking out the top and the word Kapow written in big letters.

  “There was a note, too, sir,” said the other officer. He handed it to the lieutenant.

  “ ‘Next time it’s for real,’” Lieutenant Dunne read aloud. “Done with a laser printer. Oh, well. As soon as you’re finished scouring the premises, let these people back inside. Meantime, I’m going into the lobby with these folks.”

  Lieutenant Dunne led the small group over to the security guard’s desk. Sitting on the edge of the desk, he spoke to Marcy. “So what was this problem that caused you to contact a detective?”

  “You called in a detective?” Jeff Stern broke in. “Without telling us?”

  “Jeff, let the lieutenant ask his questions,” Janet Stern told her husband. “We can talk to Marcy later.” It was clear to Nancy that the talk would not be friendly.

  “I’d been receiving threats,” Marcy began. Soon she’d told her whole story up to that point, including reading the message on the TelePrompTer. The lieutenant listened carefully, taking notes. The Sterns listened, too, their faces growing darker by the moment.

  “I see,” said the lieutenant. “Anything you can add, Nancy?”

  “The sign-in sheets for yesterday had several pages missing,” Nancy told him. “The guard said he stepped away for only a minute. So, it’s not a sure thing that the picture was torn up by someone who works at Stern Productions.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that,” said Janet Stern under her breath.

  “Let’s have a look at today’s sheets, while we’re here,” said the lieutenant, reaching for the clipboard. After flipping through the first two pages, he stopped short and offered it to Nancy.

  Nancy read the name he was pointing to.

  “ ‘Adam Bomb.’ Hmm. Somebody has a black sense of humor.”

  Just then the doors to the Stern offices opened, and out came Jack Cole with two officers. “Lieutenant, this is Jack Cole,” said one of them. “He led us through the backstage area. He acted very bravely.”

  “Jack!” Marcy said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m impressed!”

  “Aw,” Jack said, his face reddening just a bit. “It was nothing. These guys were back there, too.”

  “Mr. Cole, did you give a statement to the officers?” Lieutenant Dunne asked.

  “Yes, I did, Officer,” Jack said.

  “Okay, then, you can go,” Lieutenant Dunne told him. “But I may want to call you later.”

  “Anything else, Nancy?” Dunne asked her as soon as Jack followed the two officers out of the building.

  “I think I may have found the marker that was used to write the threat,” she said. “It might have fingerprints on it.”

  Nancy reached into her bag and handed it to the lieutenant. “We’ll check it for prints,” he said, pocketing it. “We’ll be talking aga
in soon, eh?” Nodding to them all, and taking the clipboard with him, he walked briskly to the front doors. “You can get on with your taping now,” he called back to the Sterns. Opening the door, he shouted to his men, “Okay, they can come back in now. The place has been checked out.”

  As people began reentering the building, the Sterns and Marcy went inside to the offices. Nancy, George, and Susan remained behind. It was obvious that the Sterns wanted to talk to Marcy in private.

  • • •

  When the taping did start up again, half the audience had gone home. By the time it ended, it was almost five o’clock. Nancy, George, and Susan drove back to Old Town in Susan’s car and had dinner at a little corner restaurant.

  “That was great,” George groaned happily as they paid the check. “I’d forgotten how hungry I was.”

  “Me, too,” Susan agreed. “What a day!”

  “By the way, I checked out the TelePrompTer before we left the studio,” Nancy told them. “Anybody could have written the bomb threat on it. It’s all computerized, very user-friendly, and connected to every other computer in the place.”

  “Not a good day, any way you look at it,” Susan said, shaking her head. “And Marcy was pretty shaken up by her talk with the Sterns.”

  “I thought the show went fantastically well, though,” George said. “Maybe it was because of what happened, but the guests seemed to be a lot more comfortable afterward.”

  “Nothing like a little bomb threat to put things in perspective, I guess,” Susan said as they finished paying the cashier and walked out the door.

  Nancy shook her head. “I’m worried,” she confessed as they walked toward Susan’s building. “Up to now, it’s only been threats. But these things tend to escalate.”

  “The Sterns were awfully upset with Marcy,” Susan said as they entered her building. “I guess Marcy should have told the producers there was a problem when it first came up.”

  “The threats might have turned out to be nothing more than pranks. It was a hard decision for Marcy to make,” Nancy said.

  “I guess so.” Susan unlocked her door and reached in to flick on the lights. “Let’s hope Janet Stern is understand—”

  Susan’s comment was cut short by a gasp. “What happened here?” she said, stepping inside the apartment.

  “Oh, no!” George said from behind Susan. “There’s broken glass everywhere!”

  A quick peek showed Nancy that only a few jagged pieces remained in the frame of the hall mirror. The rest of the mirror lay in shards on the floor.

  “Look! This has your name on it, Nancy,” Susan said breathlessly, reaching down to pick up an envelope.

  Nancy took the envelope, tore it open, and yanked out a piece of paper. What she read made her feel as though she’d been punched in the stomach.

  “Nancy Drew, get out of town or your face will look like this mirror!”

  Chapter

  Seven

  NANCY PASSED the threatening note to George and Susan. “This is pretty ugly,” she said, “but I’m going to look at it in a positive way. Even if we don’t think that we’re getting anywhere, the culprit must—he or she is definitely feeling threatened by us.”

  “Or maybe they are feeling threatened,” George added.

  “Gosh, I never thought of that,” Susan said, giving the note back to Nancy. “There could be more than one person after Marcy—and now they’re after you, Nancy.”

  “It sure looks that way,” Nancy said, and placed the note on the hall table as George went to get a dustpan and broom. “How do they know about me?” Nancy said, frowning.

  “How do they know where I’m staying? You didn’t tell anyone that we were coming to investigate, did you, Susan?”

  The expression on Susan’s pretty face was all the answer Nancy needed. “The day that Marcy got the first threat, I was very upset,” she confessed. “I started talking about what happened to Brenda Fox. I think Dee, the hairdresser, was there, too. I said I knew someone who might be able to help, and I’m pretty sure I said your name, too. Oh, how could I have been so stupid?”

  “Forget about it,” Nancy reassured Susan. “You didn’t know anything like this would happen.” Privately, Nancy made a mental note to question Dee and Brenda the next chance she got.

  When the girls had finished cleaning up, Nancy went to the front door and examined the lock. “This door looks fine,” she said. “No forced entry here.”

  “Maybe the culprit used a key to get in,” George said.

  “I have only two keys,” Susan told her. “I have one, and the spare I gave to George.”

  “It’s in my pocket,” George said, pressing her hand against her hip to make sure.

  “Let’s assume they got in another way then,” Nancy suggested, walking through the living room to the double sliding doors that led out to the terrace.

  “The door is open a crack!” George exclaimed, following Nancy.

  “Watch for prints!” Nancy cautioned before George could touch the handle.

  “Right,” George agreed. She headed into the kitchen and emerged a moment later with a dish towel covering her hands.

  “Susan, why don’t you look around to see if anything else has been disturbed,” Nancy suggested.

  “Okay,” Susan said.

  George slid the door open, and Nancy followed her out to the terrace.

  “This door is all scratched and chipped,” Nancy observed, pointing to the outside edge. “Susan’s going to need a new lock.”

  “And the terrace isn’t so high that someone with a little ingenuity couldn’t have gotten up to it,” George said.

  “Must have been quite an athlete, though, to climb up that bush and then twist over to reach for the terrace railing.” Nancy figured that the chances of anyone witnessing the person were slim since the terrace opened onto a courtyard.

  Susan rapped on the glass just then. She pointed to a scrap of blue paper on the terrace.

  Nancy bent down and picked it up. “It’s got a phone number on it,” she said, “written in pencil.”

  “Well, let’s call it,” George suggested.

  “Nothing else has been touched,” Susan told the girls when they stepped back into the apartment. “Is that paper anything important?”

  Nancy showed it to Susan. “It has a phone number on it.” Nancy pressed in the numbers. “It’s ringing.”

  “Hello!” came a recording on the other end, “You got Pepe’s Garage. Come to Pepe’s where stars park their cars. We’re closed now until six a.m. But leave a message, after the beep. Beeeeep—”

  “We’ll have to look up the address,” Nancy murmured as she hung up.

  • • •

  The next morning the girls took Nancy’s Mustang to the Media Center and went straight in to Stern Productions.

  Marcy was already in her office. “I don’t know who’s going to show up for the show today after that bomb scare,” she said. “Look at all these negative headlines!” As she spoke, she pushed a pile of newspapers across her desk for Nancy and the girls to read. The headlines said things like “ ‘Teen Talk’ Bombs!” “Talk About Trouble!” and “Mad Bomber Stalks Talk Show Star!”

  Closing Marcy’s office door for privacy, Nancy told her about the break-in at Susan’s apartment.

  “That’s horrible! You’ve got to tell Lieutenant Dunne right away,” Marcy insisted.

  “That’s what I’m planning to do.” Nancy dialed the number of police headquarters, but she had to leave a message for Lieutenant Dunne, who was out.

  “I think he said he’ll come by the studio later,” Marcy told them. “He wants to do some more looking around and ask some more questions.”

  “What’s today’s topic?” George asked Marcy and Susan.

  “We’re having an open call-in show today. That means we’ll talk about whatever our callers want,” Marcy told her. “Dr. Helen is going to be here, answering calls.”

  “Dr. Helen is my absolute
favorite,” George said. “I read her book, Being Your Best, and loved it.”

  “Everybody loves Dr. Helen,” Marcy agreed. “She’s incredibly understanding.”

  “America’s best-loved psychologist,” Nancy added, parroting the phrase most often used about the famous doctor.

  “Yikes, I’m late for hair and makeup,” Marcy said, checking her watch.

  “Knock, knock.” Jack Cole’s voice came from the other side of the door just as Marcy was about to open it. “Brenda asked me to tell you that taping has been delayed,” he said, peeking inside. “Dr. Helen had an emergency, and she can’t get here until one-thirty.”

  “Oh, no,” Marcy said. “That’s going to cost the Sterns money. And what are we going to do with the audience? They’ll have to hang around for hours!”

  “I have an idea,” Susan suggested. “I can arrange for them to have a tour of the center, and then order in box lunches. I can even use the time to drum up a fuller house.”

  “Susan, you’re a genius,” Marcy said, beaming at her.

  “I’ll go tell Janet,” Jack said, nodding at the girls.

  When Jack left, Nancy turned to Marcy and Susan. “George and I will see you at the taping,” she said, heading for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Susan called after them.

  “Where the stars park their cars,” Nancy quipped, as she and George strode down the hallway. “Pepe’s, here we come.”

  Nancy and George retrieved the Mustang, but it hardly turned out to be necessary. In less than five minutes they pulled up across the street from Pepe’s Garage.

  “Well, let’s go in,” Nancy said, opening the car door and getting out.

  Walking with George into the freshly painted, well-maintained garage, Nancy noticed that the small inner glass booth was plastered with publicity photos of models, dancers, and actors. Most were signed “To Pepe—With Love.” Several photos showed a heavyset man wearing one gold earring and a wide grin, his arm flung around the shoulder of various celebrities.