063 Mixed Signals (11 page)

“Thanks, buddy.” Randy stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll catch you guys later.” He gave them a thumbs-up sign. “Wildcats all the way!”

“Good luck!” Nancy watched as he walked away. She was about to turn back to her breakfast when something struck her. Quickly glancing back at Randy, her eyes traveled from his jacket, to his jeans, and down to his sneakers.

Purple high-top sneakers! Just like the shoes worn by the knife-wielding mascot!

Chapter Fifteen

“
O
H, NO
!” Nancy gasped as a horrible idea occurred to her. Could Randy have been the one to attack her?

“Nancy, what’s wrong?” asked Bess. “You look as if you’d just seen a ghost.”

Nancy blinked and turned back to her friends. “Not a ghost, a pair of sneakers. Randy was wearing purple high-top sneakers.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve got them, too,” Jerry volunteered, slinging one foot out from under the table.

Nancy stared in disbelief. “You, too?”

“Everyone on the team has a pair of these babies. A local sportswear shop had them specially made for the football players. I know they’re kind of weird, but they gave us purple because of our school colors.”

“The mascot who attacked me was wearing purple sneakers,” Nancy explained. “That’s how I knew it was a guy, because his feet were so big.”

“You’re kidding!” Bess gasped.

Jerry frowned. “That sort of narrows down your list of suspects, doesn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it does,” Nancy agreed. “Now I’m convinced that one of the guys on the team is behind this mess.”

A heavy silence fell over the table. Finally Jerry broke it.

“It makes me sick to think someone on the team would do all this stuff. But if it’s true, he has to be rooted out and punished.”

“We’ll find him,” Nancy assured him, “even though it means investigating twenty or so guys in just a few hours.”

“Whoa! I hope you’re not counting me,” Jerry said, alarmed.

Bess giggled. “You’ve got a good alibi. You were with me when Nancy was attacked by that mascot!”

With a smile, Nancy said, “It’s the other players I need to zero in on—especially Josh.”

“But Josh was attacked, too,” Ned pointed out.

“True, but that whole incident was suspicious.” Nancy told the others her theory that Josh might have staged the attack at the library to direct suspicion away from himself.

“Sounds awfully extreme,” Jerry commented.

Nancy nodded. “I’ve been bothered by that, too. I can’t help but think our culprit must have some bigger motive than just jealousy or a vendetta against Randy. Whoever’s responsible is risking going to jail for attempted murder. That’s a pretty high price to pay just to get back at Emerson, or at Randy.”

“I see what you mean,” Ned said thoughtfully.

“But we still need evidence and motive that Josh is our man,” Nancy said, leaning forward in her chair. “Dean Jarvis is looking into his background, but this situation calls for some emergency measures. Here’s my plan—”

“Go, Wildcats, go!”

The cheerleaders shook their purple-and-orange pom-poms in time to the cheer, and the crowd responded with rousing applause. Bundled up in sweaters and jackets, Nancy and Bess were in the stands at the big game. Nancy cheered with the rest of the fans, but her whole body was tense with anticipation.

When the referee blew the whistle, a line of Emerson players ran across the field. The kicker positioned in the center sent the ball flying down toward the end zone, where the Russell team waited.

“That’s the kickoff,” Nancy whispered to Bess. “Time for us to go.”

As they descended the bleachers, Nancy’s eyes swept over the crowd. Was someone watching them? But no one seemed to notice as the girls climbed down from the stands, exited the stadium, and headed toward the sports center.

Nancy went over the plan with Bess as they walked. “Remember, I need you to guard the outside door while I’m in the locker room. Jerry says that the coach sometimes sends someone back to the locker room for extra equipment during games. If that happens, try to warn me. Think you can handle that?”

“A big, hulking football player?” Bess laughed. “No problem!”

“In the meantime, Ned should be checking in with Dean Jarvis right about now. Who knows, he might have already come up with some helpful information.”

Bess grabbed Nancy’s arm as they reached the outside door to the locker room. “Be careful, Nan,” she warned.

Nodding, Nancy pulled open the door only far enough for her to slip inside.

She paused just inside the door to make sure the coast was clear. All she could hear was the groan of the boiler echoing against the tiled walls. No one was there.

She crept to the far side of the room and glanced over at the inside door, which led to the rest of the sports center. Jerry had told her that it was unlikely for anyone to come in that way during a game. Since there was no way for Nancy to lock the door, it would have to remain unguarded.

Hurrying across the locker room, Nancy went directly to Coach Mitchell’s office, her sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor. Rows of shiny lockers were reflected in the glass of the coach’s office.

The office door was locked when Nancy tried it. Pulling her lock-pick kit from the pocket of her jacket, Nancy went to work. Every clink of the metallic tool sounded loud to her ears. She kept glancing nervously toward the outside entrance, but no one appeared.

At last the lock clicked open, and Nancy pulled on the door. Her heart racing, she slipped into the office and went over to the desk. One by one, she searched the drawers. In the bottom of the deepest drawer, wedged between some files, she saw something that caught her eye.

“Bingo!” Nancy whispered, tugging at the black woolen ball and shaking it out. A ski mask! So Josh
had
staged that episode at the library. And Coach Mitchell had helped him by playing the masked attacker.

When Coach Mitchell appeared on the scene right after the attack, no one suspected that he’d been in the library all along. He had probably ripped off the mask, ducked out of sight, then returned to the scene a few minutes later.

Moving away from the desk, Nancy surveyed the rest of the office. There was a file cabinet, a few chairs, a water cooler, and an electric typewriter!

It was right in front of her on the desk. Nancy’s palms were sweating as she turned on the typewriter and inserted a piece of paper. First she pushed the CAP button, then typed a few words. She held her breath as she hit the letter
E
.

The bottom of the letter was broken off.

This was it! The threatening notes had been typed on this machine!

Nancy froze as she heard the whoosh of a door—the inside door from the sports center. Then came the steady squeak of sneakers on the tile floor. Someone was coming toward her.

She searched frantically around the office, but she already knew there was no way to get out without the person discovering her. And she was clearly visible through the office’s glass paneling.

She was trapped!

Chapter Sixteen

W
ITHOUT A MOMENT
to spare, Nancy ducked down behind the coach’s desk. She could hear the footsteps grow louder as the person approached. She just hoped whoever it was didn’t come close enough to see her!

The footsteps stopped, and Nancy heard the person begin to whistle absently.

Maybe it’s just a maintenance man, she thought hopefully. As silently as she could, Nancy crept around the desk and over to the side of the office. With her nose to the wall, she inched up enough to peer through the glass partition.

Josh Mitchell was walking down the aisle between two rows of lockers, his back to her. He was wearing jeans, a leather jacket, and purple sneakers. In his hands was a cardboard box.

Of course! Nancy thought to herself. Since Josh was on probation, he wasn’t even allowed to sit on the bench with the team. But she was still a little surprised to see him there. If the game was so important to him, why wasn’t he outside watching it?

As Nancy watched, Josh placed the box on a bench and gingerly removed the lid. He pushed back the sleeves of his jacket. Then he reached into the box and lifted out a strange object. The jumble of wires and clay seemed odd to Nancy—until she saw the face of a clock attached to it.

Adrenaline surged through her as she realized that Josh was holding a bomb!

Gently he lowered the bomb to the bench. He checked his watch, then worked the hands on the timer. He was probably setting it. How long until the thing exploded?

Turning away from the window, Nancy slid back down to the floor. She had seen enough. It was time to call the police.

She crawled back behind the desk and groped for the phone. When her hands closed on it, she pulled it down and crawled into the knee space beneath the desk.

Quickly she punched in the emergency police number. The phone rang twice, then an officer answered.

“This is Nancy Drew,” she said in the barest whisper. “I’m at Emerson College. Someone is setting a bomb in the football team’s locker room.”

The officer started asking her questions, but Nancy was afraid she’d give herself away if she spoke any longer. “This is an emergency!” she whispered. “Please, send help.”

As she replaced the phone in its cradle, she felt something strange above her head. Looking up, she noticed a manila envelope taped to the underside of the desk.

What was that doing there? Why would the coach tape something under his desktop—unless it contained information he didn’t want anyone else to find.

Reaching up, she lifted the metal prongs on the envelope and slipped out the contents. The envelope contained only a single sheet of cardboard.

Nancy squinted as she studied the print on the cardboard in the dim light under the desk. The date of each Emerson game was listed in a column on the left. Emerson’s opponent for each game was listed in a column in the center of the page. The third column was full of numbers, that could have been final scores for each game.

She shook her head. The chart seemed pretty basic. Why would the coach bother to hide it in a secret place? She was about to slide the chart back into the envelope when the numbers at the bottom of the page caught her eye.

Hey, wait a minute—why were scores filled in for games that hadn’t been played yet?

Running her finger down the chart, Nancy checked the listing for that day’s game: Emerson versus Russell University. The numbers in the third column read: 6–10.

Nancy’s gaze lit on a word printed at the top of the third column:
Spread
. The numbers in that column weren’t scores at all—they were point spreads. And point spreads were what people used when they bet on sports games. Emerson was supposed to score between six and ten points in that day’s game. This was a betting sheet.

“That’s it!” she whispered.

Suddenly it all made sense. The Mitchells needed the Wildcats to lose so that they could make money gambling! Nancy had suspected that there had to be a deeper motive for the attacks on Randy. Now she knew what it was.

The coach was involved in a point-fixing operation. That was why he desperately wanted Randy out of the game, and why he had tried to convince Dean Jarvis to let Josh play. That way, he could make sure that the team finished with a score in the right range.

Then something else occurred to her. That first day, when Randy had brought her and Bess to talk to the coach, he’d been talking on the phone. What was it he’d said? Something about it all being on Sunday’s game. She’d assumed he was talking about putting all their energy or hopes into the game. Now she realized he must have been talking about money he was betting.

He’d mentioned some numbers, too. The same ones as were listed for that day’s game—6–10.

Nancy stared at the scores for Emerson’s first three games, which had already been played. I’d be willing to bet that Emerson’s final score in those games fits into the point spreads on this chart, she thought to herself. There was one thing she still didn’t understand, though. If Randy
had
agreed to lose the game, the coach still wouldn’t win unless he scored within the spread range. She couldn’t help wondering how Coach Mitchell had been planning to deal with that.

A noise in the locker room reminded Nancy that she wasn’t alone. She had all the evidence she needed against the Mitchells. But she still had to address a more immediate problem.

Would she make it out of the locker room in one piece?

Scooting out from under the desk, she sneaked another peek through the glass partition. Josh was carrying the bomb in his hands. He paused at an open door next to the showers, leaned down, and placed the bomb inside.

That’s the boiler room, Nancy recalled. Why is he putting the bomb in there?

Josh stepped back, and Nancy saw that the expression on his face was sad and tortured. In that second she actually felt sorry for Josh. He seemed so unhappy, so confused. For a moment he simply stood there. Then he turned and strode down the dim hallway that led to the locker room’s outside door.

Nancy dashed out of the coach’s office, then suddenly stopped short. She was no expert on explosives, but she knew enough to wonder whether this bomb could be set off by a sudden movement.

She could hear its timing device counting off the seconds, the sound echoing ominously through the empty room. Tick, tick, tick . . .

Chapter Seventeen

N
ANCY GULPED
back her fear. She had to find away to get Josh to deactivate that bomb.

“Josh, come back!” she shouted.

She saw him start, then snap his head around to look over his shoulder. The instant his gaze lit on Nancy, he began to run.

He plunged into the dark end of the hallway. There was a flash of daylight as he threw open the door. A moment later Nancy heard him groan as his arms and legs flailed in the air.

Running to the doorway, Nancy saw that Josh was lying prone on the ground. He was hugging his chest and gasping for air. Bess stood over him, her arms folded across her chest.