My Deadly Valentine (10 page)

• • •

“The tea was disastrous!” Kristin told Nancy, Ned, and Bess as they sat in the corner booth of a Mexican restaurant in Emersonville.

Ned and Kristin had joined the girls at the hospital around five o'clock. They had stopped in to see Rosie but had had to leave after just a few minutes. Visiting hours resumed at seven that night.

“We tried to get Mindy out quietly,” Nancy said, dipping a tortilla chip into a bowl of salsa.

“No one noticed,” Kristin said. “But somehow the talk turned to the attack on Rosie and the graffiti. Even though Fitz painted over it, some of the rushees had seen it earlier in the day. They started asking a lot of awkward questions.”

“News travels fast on campus,” Ned said. He stretched his long legs out in the aisle so that Nancy could see his purple and orange team sneakers. He had basketball practice later that evening.

Kristin raked her fingers through her sandy blond hair and sighed. “It didn't help that Marina Dombrowski showed up and started blabbing about how my brake lines had been cut. I can't imagine how she found out about that—but as Ned says, bad news travels fast.”

“Marina Dombrowski came to the rush?” Bess said incredulously. “Does she think she'll get a bid after she threatened the sisters last year?”

Kristin frowned. “I think she just came to cause trouble. Since it was an open rush, we couldn't turn her away.”

“I'll bet she put a damper on the party,” Nancy said.

“That's an understatement,” said Kristin. “She started joking that we were a cursed sorority. By the end of the rush, people were calling Theta Pi the house of horrors.”

“What a shame,” Bess said. “The rush seemed to be going so well.”

“It's a good thing you snagged that candy before we served it,” Kristin told Nancy. She looked puzzled. “I was sure the box was sealed when it arrived, though.”

Nancy nodded. “It looked factory-sealed, but thinking back, I realized that anyone could have
unwrapped one end, slipped the box in and out, then sealed it again with glue.”

“Talk about premeditated,” Ned said.

“Yes,” Nancy agreed. “And I think the poison must have been injected into the candy,” Nancy said. “The stalker must have a scientific mind. He or she can rig an electrical switch, locate a syringe and poison, cut brake lines  . . .” Her voice trailed off as she thought of Max and Casey. “Ned, do you know what Casey's major is?”

He gulped, then answered hesitantly, “Chemistry. He wants to be a science teacher.”

Nancy's blue eyes flashed with interest. “We'd better pay him a visit tomorrow. I'd like to check out his room in the dorm.”

“Breaking and entering, Nan?” Ned asked.

“I'd rather not,” she said. “Can you talk your way in?”

Ned shifted uncomfortably. “I feel like a traitor. He's my teammate. But if he's the stalker, he has to be stopped. We can go by his dorm in the morning.”

“Okay,” Nancy said. “And I want to check the handwriting on the secret admirer's card when we get back to the house. I need to know if that poisoned candy came from Cupid.”

“I saw that card,” Kristin said. “Are you talking about matching the handwriting?” When Nancy nodded, Kristin shook her head. “It won't
work. The secret admirer used a typewriter. I remember it because it struck me as strange at first. Then I just figured he didn't want to give himself away by his handwriting.”

“Hmm,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “If the candy was from Cupid, he or she was clever enough to think ahead. We never would have touched the poisoned candy if we knew it came from him.”

“Rat poison!” Bess shivered. “That's disgusting.”

“Can we change the subject?” Ned asked as their waiter approached and began serving sizzling fajitas and steaming rice and beans. “I'd hate to lose my appetite.”

“Good idea,” Nancy said as she dug into her chicken fajita.

After they finished eating, Ned headed to Emerson for basketball practice, and the three girls walked back to the hospital.

“I wonder if Mindy's been checked into Rosie's room yet,” Bess said as they stepped off the elevator on the second floor.

Glancing down the hall, Nancy noticed someone dressed in a green surgical gown and mask. “That's weird,” she said aloud. What would a surgeon be doing on this floor? The operating rooms were upstairs. Perhaps the surgeon was just checking on a patient, she thought.

But when Nancy saw the man pause at the door to Rosie's room, she was even more curious. He
stared at the ground, as if nervous, then pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.

That was when Nancy noticed the purple and orange hightop sneakers under his green gown.

That was no surgeon! It was Casey Thompson—and he was sneaking into Rosie's room!

C
ASEY
!” N
ANCY SHOUTED
after him, but he'd already ducked inside.

“Where?” Bess asked, blinking.

Nancy was already running down the corridor when she shouted, “In Rosie's room!” Her shoes squeaked against the linoleum floor as she went.

Nancy pushed open the door to the room. Bess and Kristin were right behind her. Casey was standing at Rosie's bedside. Both he and Rosie seemed shocked by the girls' intrusion.

“What are you doing here, Casey?” Nancy asked.

He pulled off the green surgical mask and shrugged. “I know this must look pretty silly, but I wanted to see Rosie, and I was afraid someone would recognize me. So I snatched this disguise from the closet down the hall.”

“The police told you to stay away from Rosie,” Kristin reminded him,
“completely.”

“That's true,” Rosie said, wagging a finger at him. “You're breaking the law—although I'm glad you came to see me.”

“I wanted to apologize,” Casey said, squeezing Rosie's hand. “I was a jerk to argue with you the other night. I'm so sorry you got hurt. If only I'd been there . . .”

Nancy rolled her eyes. Romance was wonderful, but there was a stalker on the loose!

The girls hung back while Rosie and Casey talked, though Nancy picked up bits and pieces of the conversation. “I've been too possessive,” Casey admitted. “Can you forgive me?”

“If you want to be my boyfriend, some things have to change,” Rosie said firmly.

Casey mumbled something and then sat down on the bed beside Rosie, still holding her hand.

By the time Casey left, Nancy sensed that the couple had begun to patch up their relationship. Nancy was torn between rooting for Casey and feeling that she was right to be protecting Rosie from him.

“You know,” Nancy told Rosie, “the police still think Casey might be the person who attacked you. And he might be the Theta Pi stalker.” The girls told her what had been happening in and around the sorority house.

“That's horrible!” Rosie said. “But it's not
Casey. He has a bad temper, but he's not vicious.”

“Please,” Nancy told Rosie, “don't let down your guard until this investigation is over.”

Nancy and Rosie were still talking when Mindy was wheeled into the room and helped into the bed beside Rosie's. The girls stayed until Mindy was settled in, then drove back to Emerson College.

The Theta Pi house was quiet as the three girls traipsed in. The flickering light in the den indicated that the TV was on. There they found a few of the sisters curled up on the sofa and floor, sharing a big bowl of popcorn.

Bess looked down at her red outfit, then nodded toward the stairs. “I'm going to change into my sweatsuit and hang out down here.”

Nancy nodded. “Sounds like a good idea.” On the way up the stairs, Nancy turned to Kristin and asked, “Can we go over the records of girls who wanted to pledge Theta Pi in the last few years? Maybe a rejected rushee has something to do with the attacks.”

“Sure,” Kristin agreed. “I'll ask Denise to join us, since she was rush chairperson last year. She has all the old files in her room.”

Ten minutes later Nancy and Kristin were sitting in their room, going through index cards with Denise Slavin.

“The Panhellenic Council asks us to give them
a list of all the girls who attend our rushes, all the girls who receive bids—stuff like that,” Denise explained.

“I'm interested in Marina Dombrowski—or any other girl who didn't get a bid,” Nancy said. “It's possible that the sorority is being stalked by someone who wanted to pledge but was rejected.”

“That definitely describes Marina,” Kristin said. “She was a gung-ho rushee, but when it came time to extend bids, a few sisters voted against her. There was bad blood between Marina and last year's Theta Pi president, a senior named Wendy Allen.”

“Why?” Nancy asked.

Kristin frowned. “Wendy didn't want to let a local girl—a ‘townie'—in the sorority.”

“That's cruel,” Nancy said.

“I know,” Kristin agreed, “but every sister has a vote, and Wendy campaigned hard against Marina.”

“Hmm.” Nancy understood why Marina had become so bitter. “And it's probably a sensitive point for her. She may be embarrassed about her father's job as a maintenance worker on campus.” She glanced at Denise, who was flipping through the file. “How many other girls were turned away last year?”

Denise pulled out a stack of cards. “There were several dozen girls who wanted to pledge but didn't get bids from us, but most of them ended
up pledging other sororities.” At last Denise narrowed the stack down to three cards. “That leaves Marina Dombrowski, Jessica Watson, and Dinah Ryan. We were their first choice, and none of them ended up pledging any other sorority.”

Nancy wrote their names down on a notepad. “We know about Marina. Do either of you remember the other two girls?”

The two sorority sisters shook their heads.

“Not really,” Kristin said.

“I'll talk with Dean Jarvis in the morning,” Nancy said. “We may find some clues in their student records.”

• • •

Friday morning was clear and sunny. After breakfast, Nancy placed a call to Dean Jarvis. In her hand, she held the secret admirer's valentine card, which appeared to have been typed on an electric typewriter.

“Good morning, Nancy,” Jarvis said. “Sergeant Weinberg tells me you intercepted a deadly valentine last night. And your instinct was right—the police lab confirmed that the candy was tainted with Rodenticide. It turns out that's exactly the brand of mouse and rat poison our maintenance department uses.”

Nancy paused as she digested the new information.

“I have the card that came with the candy,” she said, “but it's typed—unlike Cupid's notes.”

“The police will need that for evidence,” the
dean said, adding that he'd make sure an officer came to the Theta Pi house to pick it up.

Then Nancy gave him the names of the three girls who had not received bids from Theta Pi nor pledged any other sorority.

“Marina Dombrowski,” Dean Jarvis said, the surprise evident in his voice. “No wonder Max was so hostile when I called him in yesterday. He kept insisting that he was being set up. But now that we know his daughter was rejected by the Theta Pis, Max has a reason to dislike the girls.”

The clues were adding up! Nancy felt a familiar surge of adrenaline that always came when she knew a case was just about to catch fire.

“But, Nancy,” the dean began, “a motive is one thing. Besides the fact that Rosie was dragged through the boiler room, we have no hard evidence pointing to Max.”

Cupid sure covered his tracks, Nancy thought. “I'll have to dig deeper if we're going to prove that the Dombrowskis are playing Cupid.”

“In the meantime,” the dean said, “let me check out the names of the other two girls.” Nancy waited while he punched the names into his computer. “Both girls withdrew from the college after last year,” he said. “Dinah Ryan transferred to a college in Iowa, and Jessica Watson dropped out.”

Strike that theory, Nancy thought. The next thing she had to do was follow up on Marina, Max, and Casey.

Nancy was saying goodbye to Dean Jarvis when she spotted Ned outside. He was whistling as he turned up the front walk. She hung up the phone and hurried to the front door.

“Morning, gorgeous!” he said as he stepped inside. “It's a beautiful day, and I'm free until the afternoon. What do you want to do first?”

“I thought we'd start with that visit to Casey we talked about yesterday,” Nancy said. “By the way, he made a surprise appearance at the hospital last night.” She told Ned about the disguise Casey had worn to sneak into Rosie's room.

“So that's why he didn't show up for basketball practice,” Ned said. “He must really care about Rosie.”

Bess came out of the den with a box of party decorations. “I'm going to stick around and help the Theta Pis set up for the auction this afternoon.” She gave Nancy a nudge. “Time is running out. When are you going to work on
your
valentine?”