Carolyn Keene - Two Points to Murder

Chapter Sixteen

“C’mon, you guys! We’ve got to find a phone!” Leaping up, Nancy began to push her way to the aisle. Bess and George exchanged puzzled looks but quickly rose to follow her.

The lobby outside the gym was empty. Everyone, including the security guards, was inside watching the game. Nancy spotted a pay phone on the opposite wall and ran for it, digging all her change from her pocket as she did.

Please let him be home! she prayed silently as she punched out a long-distance number. On the other end, the phone began to ring. Please let him be there! If he is, I promise that I’ll never run my credit card over its limit again!

Carson Drew’s voice was calm and steady when he finally answered. “Hello?”

“Dad, thank goodness you’re home! I really need to talk to you!”

“Nancy! What is it?” her father asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Dad, but this case has been driving me crazy. You wouldn’t believe how weird it’s been.”

“Knowing you and your nose for trouble, I think I would.” He laughed.

Nancy laughed then, too. It was such a relief to talk to him!

“Listen, I think I’ve worked out most of the puzzle, but there are still a few blank spots,” she said. “I need your help to fill them in. Have you got the time?”

“Of course! Fire away,” he offered.

Rapidly Nancy sketched the basics of her theory. Her father grasped the situation immediately, and in no time was giving her exactly the information that she needed.

Nancy smiled. Most people knew that Carson Drew was a highly respected criminal lawyer, but few realized that in addition to defending the innocent he also defended the guilty. He knew a lot about crime. Now that knowledge proved highly useful. Her grin broadened as he finished.

“Thanks, Dad. That does it . . . oh, except for one thing. Does the term push mean anything special to you?”

It did. Nancy listened for a few seconds longer, then said a hasty goodbye. Hanging up, she turned to Bess and George.

“Okay, let’s roll!”

“Wait a minute! What’s going on, Nancy?” George demanded.

“Yeah,” Bess echoed. “Aren’t you going to fill us in?”

“There isn’t time. The culprit is probably getting ready to escape right this minute. We’ve got to stop him!”

Nancy paused to check one final fact, however. Opening the directory that hung on a chain below the pay phone, she looked up a number: the number on the scrap of paper she’d picked up in the bookstore phone booth. Then, satisfied, she started down the main corridor, away from the gym. She motioned for her friends to follow her, then zipped down a stairway.

As they walked, the sounds of the game faded behind them. The final buzzer must be near, Nancy knew, but they would have to wait to find out who won. There wasn’t a second to lose!

The final corridor to which they came was just as Nancy remembered it. Like the first time she had gone down it, it was silent. The noise from the gym was no more than a memory here. Stopping at a familiar door, she whispered to her friends.

“You guys are my backup. If things get out of hand in there”—she pointed to the door—“I’ll scream my head off.”

“But, Nancy, who’s inside?” Bess hissed.

“You’ll see. Remember, listen for my scream . . . if you hear it, run for the police!”

This was it. If everything went as she hoped, the case would be wrapped up in a matter of minutes! Nancy took a deep breath. Stepping up to the door, she opened it without knocking, slipped around it, and closed it behind her.

Dr. Riggs was standing behind his desk, stuffing files and notebooks into a gym bag. As she came in, his head snapped up.

“What the—”

“Hello, Doctor,” she said with a smile.

“Nancy Drew! What do you want?”

“I want to congratulate you on the success of your gambling ring,” she said. “Tell me, Doctor . . . how does it feel to retire rich?”

Chapter Seventeen

Silence fell. Dr. Riggs said nothing. Instead he stared at her for a full minute. He didn’t even blink. She had to give him one thing, Nancy decided: He was cool. Very cool.

Finally, the doctor returned to his files and notebooks. One by one he placed them in the gym bag. His movements were slow and deliberate. He was buying time, she knew.

“Well, Miss Drew,” he said at last. “That’s an interesting accusation. I’m running a gambling ring, you say?”

“From this very office. If I were you I’d go to the police right now and make a full confession,” she said.

“Why should I do that?”

“Because they’ll go easier on you if you turn yourself in voluntarily.”

“Really!” He shook his head in amusement. “That’s fascinating.”

Suddenly Nancy’s patience gave out. “Come on, Doctor . . . stop pretending. You’re guilty and we both know it!”

“Do we?” His face grew hard. “All I’ve heard so far is wild fantasies from a would-be detective, Miss Drew.”

“You want proof?”

“If you have any. Frankly, though, I think you’re nothing more than a teenager with an overactive imagination.”

An overactive—! Nancy was furious. Had she imagined the black Camaro? The list in Mike’s locker? Her near-death in the sauna? No way! She crossed her arms.

“I should have realized what was going on my second day on campus,” she began. “I overheard a student called Captain Hook asking for a ten-timer. That’s a fifty-dollar bet, but I didn’t know that at the time.”

Dr. Riggs continued to pack his gym bag, but his eyes never left her.

“Strangely enough, I ran across Captain Hook again,” Nancy went on. “This time he was out cold. He had been beaten up because he couldn’t pay off his gambling losses. Even then I still didn’t guess the truth. I was too busy hunting for the practical joker.”

“Ah, yes! The practical joker! Is that me, too, Miss Drew?”

“No. I’m getting to that. First I want to explain how the gambling worked . . . call it practice for what I’m going to tell the police.”

“Go on.”

“A few days before each Wildcat game you set a ‘line,’ Dr. Riggs. That’s a point spread between the winning and losing teams. Those who bet on the correct side of the line won the amount they wagered. Those who bet on the wrong side of the line paid the amount of their wager, plus a ten-percent ‘vig.’ ”

“ Vig? ”

“That’s short for vigorish, your commission on the losing bet.”

“I see. Please continue.”

“Well, it was a nice scam. You made a lot of money. But you weren’t satisfied, Dr. Riggs. You wanted more, so eventually you began to set the line low. That made people bet above it, since they knew Emerson would whip their opponents by a bigger margin than the line indicated.”

Nancy paused. Dr. Riggs was no longer packing his gym bag.

“After that,” she went on, “all you had to do was make sure that the final scores fell below the line. You did that with the help of certain Emerson players . . . scholarship students like Mike O’Shea, Andy Hall, and Craig Watson. They shaved points in the final minutes of the games, and the result was lots of extra vig.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, and you shared that money with them in the form of watches, clothes . . . even cash. Mike has two thousand dollars in small bills hidden inside his locker.”

“That’s all very well, Miss Drew, but you still haven’t explained the practical jokes . . . where do they fit in?”

“Oh, those . . . they were staged by the players themselves to account for their jitters—and the shaved points.”

All at once the atmosphere in the room grew menacing. Dr. Riggs regarded her coldly, his mouth set in a tight line.