Carolyn Keene - Easy Marks

With a last, desperate twist, Nancy gave the valve all she had. Suddenly bursts of water sprayed down from the small sprinkler heads mounted in the ceiling.

In minutes the flames were dying and Nancy could see the doorway clearly. Coughing and feeling sick, she staggered across the smoky office, collapsing into the arms of a helmeted firefighter, who was just arriving.

When Nancy opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a clear sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. She blinked, then turned her head. She was lying on a stretcher in the school parking lot, just outside the open door of an ambulance. On one side of her was an alert paramedic with an oxygen tank in his hand. On the other was Victor, more serious than she had ever seen him.

“Am I okay?” she croaked in a husky voice that surprised her. “The fire’s out?”

“I was going to ask you that,” Victor replied. “And don’t worry about the fire. You had it out so fast they’re going to make us go back to class soon.”

Nancy sent questioning messages to various parts of her body. Once she had received the answers she told him, “My hands hurt. And it aches when I breathe. Everything else seems to be all right.”

“We’ll be taking you to the hospital in a few minutes for examination and treatment,” the paramedic said. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions from the fire marshal before we go?”

“Sure.” Nancy started to sit up, then thought better of it when the parking lot started swirling around her. She would have to stay lying down for now.

The fire marshal was a man of about fifty with a deeply lined face and kind brown eyes. He squatted down next to the stretcher and asked her to tell him what had happened. “Then it was you who turned on the sprinklers. That was quick thinking, young lady. That probably saved your life, as well as kept the fire from doing serious damage. We’re not sure yet why the heat sensors in the sprinkler system failed. Brewster may be in for some heavy fines for having faulty safety equipment.”

“It was arson, wasn’t it?” Nancy said in a low voice.

“What makes you say that?” the fire official asked her, frowning.

“The way it started, all at once, and spread across the floor,” Nancy replied. “It seemed to flow, and to me that sounds like some kind of liquid was burning, not just a bunch of old papers.”

“We don’t know what else may have been stored in that room,” the fire marshal said. “We’re looking into that now. Thanks for your help, Ms. Stevens. If I have any more questions, I’ll be in touch with you.

“Okay, Bill,” he added, straightening up and turning to one of the paramedics. A few moments later Nancy’s stretcher was secured inside the ambulance, and the vehicle sped away.

Her father was already at the hospital when Nancy arrived. So was Harrison Lane. They joined her in her examining room. After she and the paramedic assured them that she was basically in good shape, Lane said, “Sally called and told me what happened. I called your father. Nancy, I feel terrible that I put you in such danger. I never expected anything like this. I want you to drop this investigation.”

“Not yet,” Nancy told him, shaking her head.

“I beg you,” the banker continued. “If there has to be a scandal at Brewster, so be it. We’ll live it down somehow. At least we won’t be putting you in further jeopardy.”

Nancy shook her head again.

“I told you you were wasting your time,” Carson Drew said to Lane. “Once she’s made up her mind, it’s impossible to talk her out of it.”

“I can’t give up now,” Nancy insisted. She paused while a doctor examined the burns on her hands and put a soothing ointment on them. As he began to wrap them loosely with gauze, Nancy continued.

“The reason the file room was torched is that I’m getting close to a solution to the case—too close for somebody. But I don’t think that I was meant to be trapped like that. If I had gone to the file room when I said I was going to, I would have found the fire department on the scene and the file room already gutted. But I was impatient to check something, so I went early.”

Her father gave her a sharp look. “Then you think the person who set the fire is someone who knew when you were planning to go to the file room. There can’t be too many people like that.”

Nancy thought a moment. Who did know she would be there? There was Friedbinder and Ms. Arletti. Phyllis Hathaway might have been in her office and overheard Nancy asking to check the files. It was possible a student had been in the office with her at the time. And, she recalled, she had suggested to Victor that someone might think to check the grade rosters.

“That’s a strong possibility,” she said. “Of course, the fire’s timing could have been a coincidence. The fire could even have been an accident.”

“You can rule out that possibility,” Lane told her, frowning. “I spoke to the fire marshal a few minutes ago, and he told me unofficially that he’s planning to list it as arson. There’s also strong evidence that someone tampered with the sprinkler system so it wouldn’t go off as it should have. Isn’t there anything I can say to persuade you to give up this case, Nancy?”

Nancy managed a grin. “You could tell me you’ve found the grade-changer. Other than that, I can’t think of a thing that would make me quit now.”

Forty-five minutes later Nancy was released from the hospital. She talked her father into driving her back to Brewster. “I have to get back there, Dad,” she coaxed. “The grade-changer is getting scared. The arson proves that. Who knows what he or she is up to at this very moment—probably scrambling like crazy to cover up this scam in any way possible. I. Wynn could disappear altogether if I don’t get to him soon.”

“Okay, okay,” Carson gave in. “Let’s hear what you’ve got so far.”

As they drove toward Brewster, Nancy laid the case out for her father. “I haven’t decided that Phyllis and Dana are guilty yet,” she said, after listing all the clues that pointed to the pair. “And I have to admit, I’m wondering more and more about the headmaster now. Walter knew that I was planning to check some of the records, and he knew when.

“By the way, Dad,” she added with a grin. “I’ve figured out that Dana was your client.”

“I had a feeling you would,” her father told her, a proud gleam in his eyes.

A few minutes later he pulled into the Brewster parking lot. Nancy thanked him for the ride and the emotional support and promised that she’d call him to drive her home later.

As she walked into the school, the smell of smoke made Nancy’s stomach turn. It was almost three o’clock, but the halls hadn’t filled up yet with crowds of students going home. She went straight to the office, where Ms. Arletti clucked over Nancy’s burns, her narrow escape, and the mess the fire had made of her office.

It was a mess. Much of the furniture had been scorched, and the carpet was soaked with chemicals from the fire extinguishers. Nancy swallowed twice and looked into the file room. The walls and ceiling were dark with soot, and a thick layer of charred, water-soaked papers and books covered the floor. But the file cabinet appeared to have suffered little more than scorched paint.

“One of the maintenance staff will be in to clean out all that rubbish,” Ms. Arletti explained. “With any luck, we’ll be back to normal by tomorrow. Thank goodness the computer system wasn’t damaged. If we lose that, we might as well close the school.”

“I hate to bother you,” said Nancy, “but it doesn’t seem as if the grade rosters were burned. Could I look through them?”