The E-Mail Mystery (Nancy Drew Book 144) Read online

  “Shh . . . I think I hear someone in the hallway,” Nancy whispered. “Get in here.” She pulled Bess into a small closet off the reception area.

  “What is this?” Bess whispered.

  “It’s a utility closet,” Nancy replied. “The fuse box, electrical panel, phone switches, and computer cables are all in here. I didn’t want to go in the coat closet,” she explained, “in case someone was leaving and wanted to get a coat.”

  Through the crack at the edge of the door, Nancy could see her father press a button next to the doors and wait a few seconds while the automatic lock disengaged. Then he exited the reception area doors to the elevator lobby.

  “That was too close,” Nancy said. “Let’s take off our shoes, so when we go out we’ll be really quiet.”

  Once Mr. Drew was gone, the two girls emerged from their hiding place and tiptoed up the hall toward the library in their stocking feet. They could see Blaine working at her desk by the light of a small desk lamp. The girls slipped into the dark silence of the law library. They hid underneath the long oak table housing the computer stations, concealed at the far end by the metal filing cabinets.

  “Now what?” Bess whispered.

  “Now we wait,” Nancy whispered back.

  They had a long wait. After nearly two hours, they heard the metallic click of the outer door.

  “That must be Blaine leaving,” Bess whispered. “I guess she’s not doing anything tonight. Can we go now?”

  “Shh,” Nancy said. “That wasn’t Blaine leaving. That was someone coming in!”

  The door to the library opened softly, and a figure slipped into the darkened room. The girls saw Byron click on a small desk lamp, and power up one of the computers. He looked around nervously, slipped a disk out of his pocket and into the disk drive, and tapped away at the keyboard. The girls heard the telltale whine of a computer modem dialing out.

  Then the overhead fluorescent lights came on. Byron jumped out of his chair and turned off the computer.

  “Byron,” the two girls heard Blaine angrily say. “When did you come in? I’ve told you not to sneak around here at night and use our Internet link. What are you up to, anyway?”

  “N-nothing, Ms. Warner,” Byron said. “I just came back to enter these, um, notes. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m s-sorry.”

  “I’m leaving for the night,” she said brusquely. “Did you check to make sure you didn’t pick up my disk last night?”

  “I left before you last night,” Byron replied simply, “and I’ve been at the courthouse all day.” He turned off the desk lamp and started for the door.

  “I’m going to the ladies’ room, and then I’m leaving,” Blaine called out as she turned off the light and moved up the hallway. “I’ll lock up when I’m done.” The girls stayed hidden until they heard the outer door lock click shut.

  “Great,” Bess said. She wriggled out of her hiding place. “Everyone’s gone home for the night. Our stakeout’s a bust, and I can get home in time for my chat group.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nancy whispered urgently. She reached out to grab Bess by the arm. “What about Henry?”

  “Exactly.” A deep male voice came from the darkened hallway. “What about Henry?”

  Bess gave a little cry of surprise as the lights came on once again to reveal Henry standing in the doorway to the library.

  “Henry!” Bess cried. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask the same of you, but I already know the answer,” he replied smugly. “You’re here to help Nancy catch whoever sent that E-mail on those settled cases. But you’re too late. I, Henry the Great, have figured it out,” he whispered. “The E-mail mystery is solved, and the culprit is . . . Ms. Marian Hanson!”

  14

  The E-mail Trail

  “What?” Nancy cried. “Ms. Hanson would never do anything to hurt my father, or help another firm—especially not Williams and Brown.”

  “Well, look at this,” Henry said, waving a piece of paper at them. It was a printout of the E-mail log file that Nancy had discovered. “Her log-on is all over this E-mail that was sent to Williams and Brown on the same day the cases came into our office,” Henry said triumphantly.

  “Hold on just a minute, smart guy,” Bess said. “That’s the first thing I noticed, too. But you can pretend to be anyone you want in cyberspace, remember? You could have sent that, and just used Ms. Hanson’s log-on name and password to cover your tracks.”

  “And you know everybody’s password, Henry,” Nancy said. “Remember when I forgot mine, and you told me what it was?”

  “That’s true,” Henry admitted. “Your father insisted that we all have each other’s passwords in case we need to access material in each other’s files.”

  “You stick to the law, Mr. Hotshot Paralegal,” Bess said, “and leave the investigating to us.”

  “I still think—” Henry began.

  Nancy cut him off. “I think we should look at the disk that Byron forgot when Blaine surprised him here a few minutes ago to see if he’s really the poet he claims to be—or if he’s something else, altogether.”

  “Good idea, Nan,” Bess said.

  “I saw them both head out of the office,” Henry said.

  “You don’t think they’re working together?” Bess asked.

  “No way,” Henry replied. “Those two are like oil and water. They do not mix.”

  The three turned on the computer where Byron had been sitting and waited for it to boot up.

  “Shh,” Nancy whispered. “I think I hear something.”

  “Naw,” Henry said. “That’s just the computer warming up. So, what happened? Byron was sneaking in here to go on-line, and Blaine caught him?”

  Nancy nodded, and once the computer screen showed it was ready, called up the first file on Byron’s disk. Its contents scrolled down the screen.

  I dream in bits

  and bytes

  Of you

  My shining light

  My dream of day

  My unknown cyber love . . .

  “Enough!” Henry said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve seen enough.”

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Bess said, glaring at Henry. “I’ve never seen a computer love poem before.”

  Nancy continued to scan the files, just to be sure, but it was all poetry or notes on Web-page design and memos to Internet writers’ groups. It appeared that Byron was just what he claimed to be.

  “Bess and I were pretty sure already,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “But this confirms it. If your interest in these settled cases is for real, and if Byron’s activities on-line are truly about his poetry, then Blaine’s our main suspect.”

  “And she might be dangerous,” Bess warned. “Nancy was attacked last night, outside the Cyber Space Café—and we found Blaine’s missing disk right there, where she was attacked.”

  “Blaine’s missing disk?” Henry exclaimed. “She’s been screaming about that all day. Let’s take a look at it.”

  “We already did,” Nancy said. “There’s nothing on it but files from the Harris case.”

  “She shouldn’t be taking that out of the office anyway,” Henry said. “That material is highly confidential and very important to the case. Boy, this really does make it look like Blaine’s the one behind all this. Sorry I ever doubted you, Ms. Hanson,” he called out to the empty reception area.

  “Well, Mr. Know-it-all, do you know Blaine’s logon password?” Bess asked.

  “Of course I do,” Henry replied.

  “Then let’s go into her office and have a look at her private files,” Nancy said. “We need solid proof that she’s the one who’s been sending information to Williams and Brown.”

  The trio turned off the computer and the lights in the library, and walked across the hall to Blaine’s office. There they switched on her small desk lamp and computer, and waited for it to warm up.

  When the screen prompt glowed, Henry entered Blaine’s log-on passw
ord, and they started to scan all the files and directories relating to E-mail, file transfers, and communications.

  “She’s got Williams and Brown’s E-mail address on her modem address book,” Henry pointed out.

  “That’s not necessarily suspicious,” Nancy said. Her eyes darted over the information on the screen. “She could have that for legitimate purposes. What else is there?”

  Henry started pulling floppy disks out of Blaine’s storage file and feeding them into the disk drive one after the other. “Why would Blaine do something like this?” he asked.

  “She went to Walker Law with John Brown Junior of Williams and Brown,” Nancy said. “And they do know each other. I saw them having lunch together at the deli yesterday. Maybe he’s paying her to get him information he can use to settle these cases, save money for Williams and Brown’s clients, and impress his father.”

  “Does he have curly brown hair?” Bess asked.

  “He sure does,” Nancy replied.

  “Then he was with Blaine when we saw them at the Sacred Cow the other night,” Bess added excitedly. “I saw him at Williams and Brown today when I delivered those papers for your dad. I knew I’d seen him before.”

  “But this is all just speculation,” Nancy said. “I need hard evidence.”

  “What’s this?” Bess interrupted, pointing at something far down on the list of files in the directory of the last disk Henry had fed into the drive.

  “It says ‘phone bills,’ ” Henry read aloud.

  “But everything else in this directory is legal files and case notes and office correspondence,” Nancy noted. “Why is there a file of phone bills in here?”

  “Let’s take a look,” Henry said, opening up the file labeled “phone bills.”

  And there, in the mislabeled file, were personal background notes on all the clients who had settled early.

  “Look at this,” Nancy whispered. “This information comes from their old criminal case files. I remember some of this from when I read through the records in storage. Bob Jamison’s old injury, Jeannette King’s false theft charge, Harriet Wasser’s indictment for withholding heat from her tenants. This is all information that they’d want kept quiet.”

  “Wow, Councilman Fox had a drunk-driving conviction?” Henry exclaimed. “Mister Get-Tough-on-Crime? No wonder he settled fast. He wouldn’t want that to be made public, especially not right now, when he’s running for mayor.”

  “And look at the bottom of this file,” Bess said. “It’s a list of dollar amounts and dates. I’ll bet that’s what John Brown Junior paid her for sending him this information.”

  “This proves it, all right,” Nancy said. “This information could definitely have been used to pressure those clients into accepting early settlements.”

  “But how can we prove she’s been working with John Brown?” Bess asked. “That E-mail log file just shows Williams and Brown as the destination phone number. It doesn’t give any receiver names.”

  “That log file shows only the information covered in our communications program,” Henry explained. “Like the fact that MHans made the transmission.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I fell for that. Blaine must have changed her screen name in our in-house E-mail logs.”

  “I knew Ms. Hanson wouldn’t do this,” Nancy said. “And look at the transmission times. They’re too late at night for her.”

  “We need the base information stored in the mail server,” Henry said. “Give me some dates,” he said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  The two girls watched in fascination as the screen filled with letters, numbers, names, dates, abbreviations.

  “What is all that?” Nancy asked, mystified.

  “Most mail programs filter out all this stuff,” Henry said. “But it’s what tells the mail server how to route the mail, identifies each computer user who sends E-mail out, and where it went. Take a look.” He pointed to what looked to Nancy like a coded language.

  From [email protected] Fri May 22 19:26:03 1998

  Received: from drew.com by willbr.com with SMTP (1.39.205.11.15.3) id AA21901 (4.1/SMI for [email protected]); Fri 22 May 1998 19:29:05 -0400

  Date: Fri 22 May 9819:29:05 -0400

  From: Blaine Warner

  To: John Brown Jr.

  Subject: Phone bills

  “You see?” Henry said. “The original transmission shows it was sent from Blaine’s computer after nine o’clock at night,” Henry said. “You have to know an awful lot to cover your tracks on a computer.”

  “Now we’ve got the proof we need,” Nancy said. “It’s time to call my father and tell him that his new associate has been up to no good.”

  Nancy picked up the phone and dialed her home number. While she waited for her father to pick up, Henry and Bess read through more of the material in Blaine’s secret mislabeled file.

  Mr. Drew answered. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Dad,” Nancy said. “Bess and I are still in the office.”

  “I wondered where you were,” he said. “Ms. Hanson told me you left before me. Hannah was starting to get worried when you didn’t come home. Did something come up at the office?”

  “Yes, Dad. Something serious. We just discovered files in Blaine Warner’s computer disks that strongly indicate she sent privileged information from the old criminal cases of those clients who recently settled their cases.”

  “What?” Mr. Drew said, shocked.

  “There’s a summary of notes from the old cases, with either compromising or delicate information,” Nancy went on. “And there’s also a list of dollar amounts and dates that seem to show she was paid for getting this information.”

  “I can’t believe this happened in my office,” Mr. Drew said. “How did you find out about it?”

  “Henry was suspicious, too. That’s why he made that list I told you about. He helped us get into Blaine’s computer system, and then he went into the mail server information, where we discovered Blaine had sent E-mail to John Brown Junior at Williams and Brown.”

  “This is serious, Nan—”

  Before her father could say anything more, the phone went dead, the computer screen went black, and the entire office was plunged into darkness.

  15

  An Inside Job

  Bess screamed. Nancy and Henry shushed her.

  “Be quiet, Bess,” Nancy said firmly. “Blaine must have come back. I’ll bet that was the noise I heard before.”

  “She must have overheard everything,” Henry whispered. “We’ve got to try to stop her from getting away.”

  “I can find my way around here, even in the dark,” Nancy continued in a whisper. “Follow me.”

  They all held hands, and Nancy led them silently around Blaine’s desk and through the door. They walked up the darkened hallway to the darkened reception area.

  Some light from the elevator area shone in through the thick double glass doors. Bess whispered, “I’ll wait here and stand guard. You guys go ahead and get the lights turned back on.”

  “Okay, Bess,” Nancy said, still holding on to Henry. “We’ll be right back. Don’t let Blaine get out.” Nancy steered Henry carefully into the small utility closet off the reception area, where the electrical panel was located.

  “I can’t see a thing,” Henry said.

  “Here,” Nancy said. “I keep a penlight on my keychain.” She held the button at the tip of the flashlight that looked like a ballpoint pen, and a faint beam of light shone onto switches and wires in the electrical panel.

  “Someone’s thrown off the main power switch,” Henry said, looking closely. “I’ve just got to turn it back on and—”

  Before they could do anything, they heard a scuffle. Bess screamed and cried, “She’s out here!”

  Quickly Henry and Nancy turned the main power switch back on, and ran out into the reception area to find Blaine Warner holding a silver award cup over Bess’s head, about to hit her!

&nbs
p; “Stop!” Nancy called.

  Blaine turned around, clearly startled. Bess tried to jump away. Blaine grabbed her by the arm, and Bess shrieked again.

  “Let me go,” Bess cried, struggling with the tall, angry woman.

  “Let her go!” Nancy echoed her friend.

  Blaine froze and eyed Nancy with hatred. “You!” Blaine snarled. “I thought I’d scared you off at the Cyber Space last night. I heard you at the restaurant when you planned to go on-line with your little friend here and look for help tracking E-mail.”

  “You are SEEK!” Bess gasped. “And you’re the one who attacked Nancy last night.” She tried to pull away, but Blaine’s grip was too tight.

  Blaine laughed. “Yeah, I sent you that note about the rose. I thought that would grab you, Little Miss Romance. And I set up the meeting when you’d have to run off to your precious chat group, so Nancy would be all alone.”

  She turned to Nancy. “I thought I’d be able to get you out of the way for good.”

  “We found the floppy disk with the file you called ‘phone bills,’ ” Nancy said.

  “Your father’s always bragging about what a super-sleuth his daughter is,” Blaine went on. “I was worried you might figure out my scheme. Henry here couldn’t find his brains without a map.”

  Nancy heard a sharp intake of breath from Henry, and then he said, “You fooled me with Ms. Hanson’s password, Blaine. But we found the original E-mail information, and we know what you and John Brown Junior have been doing.”

  “Good for you,” Blaine snapped. “Now you’ve got to catch me. I’m out of here, and you can’t stop me.” She shoved Bess away from her forcefully, and Bess fell over the low coffee table. She scattered the magazines to the floor and moaned.

  “Bess!” Nancy cried. She ran over to her friend. Henry followed close behind.

  Blaine took advantage of the moment and headed for the office door. With one hand, she pressed the button for the automatic lock. With the other, she threw the heavy cup behind her.