Carolyn Keene - Trial By Fire

Nancy’s mouth dropped open. “They’ve set your pretrial for five days from now?”

“That’s really rushing things, isn’t it?” Ned asked.

“Indeed it is,” Carson Drew said. “But in comparison to the next item I have to tell you, the pretrial date is the good news.”

Nancy steeled herself. “What’s happened, Dad?”

“The police found an envelope with ten thousand dollars in cash in Jonathan’s office safe.”

“And?” Nancy said, feeling a sudden chill.

“My prints were all over it. And the envelope had been addressed to Jonathan on one of our office typewriters. I might as well slap a label on my forehead and mail myself off to prison.”

Nancy rolled out of bed the next morning. Her eyelids felt gritty, and her head ached. Time was against her, and she couldn’t decide what to do. She only had part of the day free. The memorial service for Jonathan Renk was that afternoon, and she wanted to attend.

She wondered if she should go back to her father’s office that morning to try to figure out how this last stunt had been accomplished. The stationery was kept in Ms. Hanson’s office. Her father had told her and Ned that he would have no reason to handle an envelope at all.

“Ms. Hanson types the letters and brings them to me to sign,” he told her. “I never even see the envelopes. I don’t remember handling a blank one they could type a name on.”

It was a puzzle, to say the least, but Nancy finally decided that visiting the office again that day would be a waste of time. Instead, she’d go to Gold Star. The truth had to be there.

Ned had protested that it was much too dangerous. And Nancy did agree with him, but she also felt she had no other choice. With the pretrial date right around the corner, she had to go with what she had. And what she had was the Gold Star Cab Company.

The girl who walked into the garage of Gold Star Cab an hour and a half later had a mop of short, mahogany-brown curls and enormous round glasses. She was chewing gum as if she hadn’t eaten in a week, and the outfit she wore-an oversize top and baggy jeans-disguised her slender figure.

Even Bess and George wouldn’t recognize me, Nancy told herself, making her gum sound off in a series of firecracker pop-pop-pops . It was a part of her new character. She was about to do the acting job of her life.

Gold Star used half of the street-level space of a five-story parking garage, and a business called Fleet’s had the other half. The garage had been built with two entrances, one on McConnell Street and the other on the street behind, Bennett Avenue. The cab company and Fleet’s used the entrance on McConnell, so after Nancy left her Mustang on the third level of the public garage, she had to walk around the block to get to Gold Star.

Just inside the door was the dispatcher’s office. Nancy ambled into it, eyeing the stocky redheaded man who was bellowing at a cabbie over a two-way radio. The voice was the same one she had heard when she was on the floor of that car.

I’m definitely in the right place, she thought. While she waited for the dispatcher to finish, she examined the cabs parked along the walls on the side.

Four were old, dented, and rusty. The rest-she counted thirteen before the man finished-were late models, clean, bright, and shiny, and their gold paint glistened under the fluorescent lights. There were more cabs, but only the front half of the space was lit, so she couldn’t see the ones along the rear wall.

Here was another interesting mystery. According to the Hacks Bureau, Gold Star was a small business with only ten cars in its fleet.

“Need a cab?” the man asked, and Nancy turned around.

“Huh-uh,” she said with a saucy smile. “A job. I’ve worked as a dispatcher since I was sixteen. Want references?”

“No. Don’t want another dispatcher, either.”

Nancy arranged her face in an expression of deep disappointment. “Hey, you aren’t going to cry, are you?” He jammed a long, fat cigar into his mouth. “It won’t get you a job as a dispatcher, but smile and you may get a job as a cabbie. How old are you, anyway?”

“Eighteen.” Nancy looked hopeful-she hoped.

“Got a driver’s license?”

“Sure, but it takes time and money to get a hack license and I need the job now .”

The man winked. “We’ll take care of that for you.” Then he began testing her familiarity with River Heights and its surrounding areas. Nancy knew her hometown like the back of her hand. When he had finished questioning her, she knew he was impressed.

He ran a wooden match along the surface of his battered desk and lit the cigar. A cloud of foul yellow smoke drifted around his head. “What’s your name?”

“Nancy Nickerson. Here’s my ID.” She began rooting in her bag, made from a pair of old jeans. She removed a large yellow comb and put it on his desk. Then came a tube of lipstick, a paperback book, half a sandwich, a two-way mirror, and a candy bar. “It’s in here somewhere.”

“Never mind. Nancy Nickerson,” he mumbled, writing it down. “My name’s Brownley. I’m the boss.”

They were suddenly interrupted by a deep, male voice calling for him. “Mr. Brownley?”

“What is it, Dayton?” A good-looking, young blond cabbie appeared in the doorway-the same one who had picked up Nancy two days before.

“My lunch is over, and I’m going back out. Which car should I take?” Dayton looked over at Nancy. She could tell he was trying to decide if they’d ever met.

“Take the one you used earlier,” Brownley answered.

“Okay, see you later.”

Brownley grunted, “So long,” and then turned back to Nancy.

“We’ve got to get your picture taken. Follow me.”

Heaving himself from a swivel chair that creaked loudly, he led her into a storage closet behind the office and stood her against a white wall. Taking a Polaroid camera off a shelf, he said, “Smile.” Before she could do it, the flash went off in her eyes.

“Okay. You start tomorrow, eight to four.”

That was a problem. It would be harder to poke around in broad daylight. “Uh, couldn’t I work at night? I take a couple of classes during the day. I could even start this evening.”

“We don’t need night drivers.”

It took five minutes of haggling before Brownley agreed to let her work from four to midnight.

“Gee, thanks,” she said, popping her gum. She looked out the window of his office at the cabs. “Any of those have stick shifts? What kind ya got, anyway?” She was out into the garage, trotting past the lines of cars before Brownley could get through his office door.

He followed, panting. “Hey! You’ll be using one up front. I choose, you don’t.”

Nancy had already walked half the length of the space and from there could see all the cabs and the vehicles she had not been able to make out before.

“Oh. Okay,” she said and strolled back toward him. “See ya tonight. Thanks again.” And she ducked under the rollup door.

Nancy congratulated herself on an Oscar-winning performance, especially the last sixty seconds of it. It had been very difficult to hide how excited she was after she had seen the vehicles at the rear of the garage.

Parked in the left corner, almost invisible in the gloom, was a dirty white van, with strips of tape over the lettering on its sides-and a bent right fender.

Judge Jonathan Renk’s memorial was well-attended. The church was filled with the most respected members of the community and a few nationally known political figures.

The media was barred from the service itself. Ann, feeling awkward about attending, had decided not to come. But it looked as if every other reporter in the Midwest was standing outside the church, waiting to pounce on key figures as they left. The Drews, Bess, and Ned avoided them by leaving through a rear door.