Update On Crime (13 page)

Desperately she tried to remember the last time she had driven this road. She seemed to recall seeing a turnoff near the bottom of the hill. It was barely more than a dirt lane, but it might provide her with a much-needed escape route. The challenge would be making the turn at high speed without losing control and tumbling into a dangerous rollover.

The truck's air horn blasted again, and Nancy knew it was closing in for the third, and possibly fatal, impact. She searched the road ahead of her for signs of the turnoff—there it was!

Nancy eased her foot just slightly off the gas. If she braked too much, the truck would smash her into oblivion. Too little, and she would crash while trying to make the turn.

Her heart leapt into her throat as she felt a sharp jolt. The truck had caught up with her! Taking a deep breath, she wrenched the wheel powerfully to the right.

The Mustang's back end swung out wildly as Nancy veered into the turn. She gasped as the car spun completely around before coming to a stop. She found herself staring at the road she had just left, feeling shaken but unhurt.

Nancy could hear the truck's brakes squeal and gears grind as the driver tried to slow the truck, but it was already well past the turnoff. Then, with a roar of the engine, the truck took off again down the road. Nancy guessed that the driver didn't want to risk her seeing him.

Now that the immediate danger was past, she let out a huge sigh of relief. She felt her hands on the steering wheel begin to tremble slightly.

“Steady, girl,” she told herself sternly. “This is no time to fall apart.”

Throwing caution to the winds, Nancy slammed her car into gear and peeled out onto the main road. She was determined to catch up with the truck and get its license plate number! She sped down the road for several miles until it fed into a major thoroughfare.

Nancy passed several intersections. The truck could have turned off at any one of the crossroads, but she kept traveling east, following a
hunch. KSM Express was located in that direction.

Her pulse quickened as she spotted a yellow truck in the distance. She darted in and out of traffic to catch up with it. Pulling alongside, she saw that it was a moving van. Then she pulled ahead to look at the truck's front bumper—but there was none of the fancy pinstriping she'd seen on the other truck.

“Rats,” Nancy muttered, then slowed down.

The truck's driver noticed her staring at his truck. He smiled and gave her a friendly wave. Nancy waved halfheartedly in return. “He probably thinks I'm flirting with him.” She groaned and moved into the lane behind him.

She turned off the main road. Her next plan was to look for the truck at KSM Express, but first she wanted to let someone know where she was going in case something happened to her.

Nancy spotted a gas station that had a telephone and stopped to call Ned. She hoped he had gone straight home. He picked up on the fourth ring.

“This is a surprise,” he said when he heard her voice. “I was just walking in the door. Couldn't stand being away from me, huh?” he teased. His warm tone quickly turned to concern when she told him what had just happened and that she wanted to search for the pin-striped truck.

“I want to come with you, Nancy,” he said.

“You don't have to come,” she protested. “I'll be all right.”

“I'm going to stick to you like glue for the rest
of the day,” he said firmly. “Bess just called here looking for you. I'll pick her up on the way, and we'll both meet you. It's too dangerous to go poking around KSM Express by yourself. Besides, you'll need a lookout, won't you?”

Ned had a point, Nancy had to admit. It would take him a while to make the drive from Mapleton, so she agreed to wait at the gas station for him and Bess to arrive.

After hanging up, she tried to call Otto Liski to tell him what had happened, but the receptionist was unable to locate him for her. He must have already left on his night off, Nancy realized. Hal wasn't available, either, since he was anchoring the four o'clock news, so she wouldn't be able to tell him about the latest incident.

About an hour later, Ned and Bess arrived in Ned's car, which he parked on the street.

“Nancy, are you all right?” Bess asked anxiously, running up to Nancy's Mustang. Ned didn't say anything. He simply wrapped Nancy tightly in his arms.

“Don't look so worried, you two,” Nancy said lightly. “I'm fine—see?” She twirled around for them to see.

“I wish I could say the same for your car,” Ned said. He pulled off Nancy's smashed muffler pipe, which had been mangled by the encounter with the truck.

Nancy sighed. “This car saved my life today,” she said. “So what if it needs a little repair work.”

The three teenagers piled into Ned's car for the
trip to KSM Express. “Are you sure you want to go back there after what happened today?” Bess asked. “Maybe you should just report the incident to the police.”

“They can't do much unless I give them something to go on,” Nancy pointed out. “I'm looking for evidence that could tie today's assault to the attacks on Hal.”

“That bumper seems like pretty strong evidence to me,” Bess said. As she closed Ned's passenger door, she glanced uneasily over her shoulder at Nancy's ruined fender.

“Who do you think is behind this attack by the truck?” Ned asked Nancy. Following the directions she gave him, he headed toward KSM Express.

“It had to be someone who overheard my conversation with Hal, then relayed my whereabouts to Milhaus or whoever was driving the truck,” Nancy said. “Marilyn is certainly a possibility, or even Gary Krieger. I haven't ruled him out yet. In any case, they must be aware somehow that I have the tape. That's probably why they attacked
me
this time instead of Hal.”

They drove east until they reached the commercial-industrial section where KSM Express was located. From a distance, Nancy could see several trucks backed up to the KSM loading dock. The yellow truck with blue pinstriping wasn't among them.

“I want to get behind the warehouse to see if the truck is parked back there,” she said.

Ned pointed to a large wire gate that stretched
across the parking lot. “That may be difficult,” he said. “The driveway is blocked.”

Looking around, Nancy spotted a truck that was stopped on the street in front of KSM Express. It had been left parked with its motor idling.

“The docks in front are all taken up by the other trucks, so maybe they're about to move this truck to the back for the moment,” Nancy guessed, thinking out loud. She looked at Ned and Bess. “You two keep an eye out. I'm going to ride the truck in,” she said. She hopped out of the car and started walking toward the truck.

“Be careful, Nancy!” Bess called after her.

“Wait, Nancy!” Ned called, running up to her. “Remember what happened last time you sneaked in there. It's too risky!”

But Nancy had already reached the parked truck. The door at the rear of the truck pushed up, like a garage door. With Ned's help, Nancy opened it just enough to wriggle under it. Once her eyes adjusted to the dark interior, she saw that it was loaded with crates of fruit.

Ned looked around, hesitating for a moment. Then he jumped in beside her, pulled down the door so that it was just open a crack, and then settled down between two boxes of pineapples.

“The things I find myself doing when we're together,” he said, shaking his head.

They waited quietly for several minutes before they heard the driver return to the truck. The driver unlocked the door to the cab and put the truck into gear. Nancy, Ned, and the pineapples
were jostled as the truck lumbered up the driveway to KSM Express.

“Ouch! Now I know how you get to be a bruised banana,” Ned joked, keeping his voice low.

A moment later the truck ground to a halt as the driver waited for a couple of workers to swing open the wire gate that blocked off the rear section of KSM. The truck started up again, and Nancy felt herself sway as they rounded a corner. Then the engine was switched off.

Evidently no one was in a hurry to offload the fruit crates, because Nancy and Ned heard the driver and workers' voices fade away as they left for another part of the warehouse.

Nancy peeked under the door and cautiously looked around, then she and Ned slowly raised it and jumped down to the ground. At first she couldn't see anything resembling the truck that had tried to run her down earlier that afternoon. The sun was beginning to go down as she and Ned poked around a stand of trees and bushes at the rear of the lot. There, tucked behind the KSM warehouse, was the pin-striped truck!

“That's it!” she whispered excitedly.

Ned took a deep breath. “Great. Now we're positive we're in total danger,” he said nervously.

Nancy looked around to make sure that none of the workers inside the warehouse could see them watching. Then she darted to the far side of the pin-striped truck, followed by Ned. She pulled out her lock-picking tools and quickly got the truck's door open.

“Do we really need to do this?” Ned asked. “Just the truck's being here proves that Kurt Milhaus is tied to these attacks.”

“I just want to check it out,” Nancy said. She searched the truck's compartments and ran her hands under the seats. “The truck looks pretty clean, though. We may not find anything—”

She paused as her hand hit something behind the seat cushion. “Hmm, what's this?”

Nancy pulled out a faded pamphlet that had been wedged between the seats. It was an old brochure for KLM Express, with a picture of Kurt Milhaus on the cover. Using her penlight, Nancy peered at the caption that ran under Milhaus's picture. She blinked and read the caption a second time.

“Look at this, Ned,” she whispered urgently. “The name under Milhaus's picture is Kurt
Steghorn
Milhaus. I think he must be related to Bill Steghorn—the Channel Nine engineer!”

N
ED WAS LOOKING
at her as if she were speaking Swahili.

“The
S
in KSM Express stands for Steghorn,” Nancy explained. “Now I realize why Milhaus looks so familiar to me—he and Bill Steghorn both have the same kind of bushy eyebrows and heavy features. They must be related. Maybe they're even father and son.”

Nancy shook her head. “I
knew
there was something about Milhaus I should have recognized. He must have given Steghorn the trick pen. Then Steghorn accidentally dropped it in the feed booth when he planted the threatening tape.”

“If they're father and son, then why would Steghorn and Milhaus have different last names?” Ned asked.

“Steghorn could have divorced Milhaus's mother when he was very young,” Nancy said, working it out in her mind. “And Milhaus could have taken his stepfather's last name—that's not so uncommon.”

Nancy stuffed the brochure into her pocket. “I've got to show this to Hal Taylor and Otto Liski. As engineer, Steghorn could easily have rigged the live-wire booby trap that almost killed Hal. And it would have been easy for him to create the threatening tape.” She frowned, then added, “I still need more proof of Steghorn's involvement in the attacks, though. Something that will stand up in court.”

Ned had been looking around the gated parking area while Nancy spoke. “That leaves us with just one problem—how do we get out of here?” he asked. “They're not exactly going to throw us a bon voyage party when we try to get past the gate.”

Nancy sneaked a peek through the truck's window. In the distance, she could see two of Milhaus's workers leaning against the locked gate. Glancing around the truck's cab, she spotted a pair of mirrored sunglasses and a baseball cap that was imprinted with the KSM logo. “Ned, do you think you could drive this truck?” she asked.

“I think so,” he said. “I drove one of those big
rental trucks last summer when I was moving some stuff for my parents. I could probably fake it. What do you have in mind?”

Nancy handed him the hat and sunglasses. “Put these on,” she said. She stifled a giggle as he obeyed. “Ned, you really
do
look like a truck driver,” she said. “Now you'll have to play the part to get us out of here.”

She quickly described her plan to Ned. “We'll drive this truck right out of here—just long enough to make our getaway,” she said. “When we get to the gate, just tell the workers that Merrick wants you to move the truck. He's that crazy foreman I told you about who attacked Bess and me. I don't think they'll question an order from him.”

“Okay,” Ned said, climbing into the driver's seat. Nancy hunched down onto the floor so that she couldn't be seen from the ground. “Here goes,” he said, turning the key in the ignition.

The truck's engine roared to life, but it drew little attention from the workers standing by the gate. They were obviously used to the sound of trucks coming and going.