004 Smile and Say Murder (4 page)

Mick was glaring at Nancy. “So Yvonne got herself a spy who knows about photography. Great. The least I can get out of you is some decent work.”

Mick flicked on the tape deck as Danielle took her place against the white backdrop. An old Rolling Stones song came blasting out of the speakers. “Okay, Danielle,” Mick cried. “Let’s see some spider action!”

He started clicking his camera as Danielle began moving to the pounding bass beat. She jumped, she wiggled.

“More to the left,” Mick called, still shooting. “Beautiful, beautiful. Another jump . . .”

Nancy had to admit Mick knew his stuff. It looked as if he were getting some fantastic shots. Danielle was a great subject to photograph, too. She was very energetic and seemed to have no inhibitions in front of the camera.

With so much action, Nancy barely had time to do any detective work, but she did get a chance to talk to one of the other interns during a five-minute break.

Leslie was a tall black girl about Nancy’s age.
She said that she’d been an intern at
Flash
for almost six months. “It’s a great job,” Leslie said, “if you can get past the cattiness, back-stabbing, and general complaining.” She laughed. “Actually, it’s not so bad as long as Yvonne stays in her office. She’s really awful! Stay clear of her if you can.”

“Why is she so terrible?” Nancy asked.

“I think she loves screaming more than anything else in the world. She’ll make you do perfectly good work over again for some petty reason. And she’s not above nasty personal comments.” Leslie made a face. “I mean, I’m willing to put a lot into my job, but my bosses definitely cannot buy me body and soul—not for
this
lousy pay.”

Nancy laughed. “How do the other people here feel about her?”

“Oh, about the same, I guess,” Leslie answered. “She makes working here real hell. To tell
you
the truth, I think any one of us would gladly kill that woman if we had the chance.”

Nancy caught her breath sharply. You might be more accurate than you know, Leslie, she thought. But she let the comment pass. “I’ll try not to let her bother me,” she said. “Hey,” she added, “I met the editor in chief today.”

“Oh, David Bowers. He’s another nasty one. He likes pushing people around. He and Yvonne are a perfect pair.”

“I thought I’d met him somewhere before,” Nancy told the intern. “Do you know anything about him?”

“Yeah—I know he’s a big bore. He just came back from two weeks in Rio. And if I hear one more South America story, I’m going to barf.” Leslie sighed. “I don’t believe that guy. He started working here a few months ago and immediately began trying to impress Yvonne. He had some hot job before he came to
Flash,
but no one knows what it was. He’s a mystery man. Where do you think you saw him?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy said slowly. “I wish I could remember.”

“Let me know if you do. I’m dying of curiosity,” Leslie said with a smile.

After another hour of nonstop shooting, Mick hit the power button of the tape deck. The studio suddenly went silent. “Okay, Danielle, take a break. Everyone else, get those creepy rubber web-makers off the set as fast as possible. I want to photograph Danielle while she’s singing, and I’ve had just about enough of those things.”

Nancy, Sondra, Scott, and a few others got to work cutting down the spiders. Meanwhile, Nancy listened in as Mick talked quietly to the young singer. “Tired?” he asked gently.

“Pooped,” Danielle admitted.

“You worked hard and well! You’re a natural, Danielle. You’ve got talent—and not only as a musician. Anyway, we’re almost done. Push yourself for just a little longer and then you can rest. You deserve it.”

Nancy was surprised to see this considerate
side of Mick. Until then, he’d been nothing but awful. Well, you never know about people, Nancy told herself.

Once the spiders were down and the cameras reloaded, Mick asked Nancy to bring over Danielle’s red guitar. Danielle decided to sing a song she’d written called “Give Me Freedom to Speak and a Nice Warm Bed.” Nancy thought she really rocked out, too.

When the final strains of Danielle’s guitar had faded, Mick ordered the others to take down the seamless. “And you, Nancy,” he said, “I want you to stash these spiders in the props closet—way in the back, where I won’t have to look at them again.”

Nancy dutifully picked up the box of spiders. This time she didn’t even notice Mick’s rude tone. She was too busy trying to figure out where she’d seen David Bowers before. Suddenly it came to her. Her father, being a famous lawyer, was a regular contributor to
The Midwest Law Review.
About five months earlier, Nancy had gone into the magazine’s offices with her father. She’d met David there briefly. He’d been editor in chief at the time. No big deal. Except that, if Nancy remembered correctly,
The Midwest Law Review
was owned by none other than MediaCorp!

That seemed like a very important link to Nancy, since the company was presently trying to buy out
Flash
and was causing big problems between Yvonne and Mick because of it. Was
David’s last job common knowledge? Was he still connected with MediaCorp? This could be a key to the case!

Suddenly Nancy was no longer so sure that Mick was behind the letters. The evidence against him was purely circumstantial. Since the threatening song was on the radio a couple of times every day, it wasn’t so strange that Mick should sing it. And Mick wasn’t the only photographer on the
Flash
staff. Lots of people could have doctored the movie still. Nancy herself was capable of it. Furthermore, from the way Leslie had talked, just about everyone in the office had a motive!

Nancy headed for the props closet. “Make sure you put those things
all
the way in the back,” Mick called after her.

Nancy opened the closet door and pushed past wacky costumes, designer clothes, and a strange collection of miscellaneous objects that had been used as props for other shoots. But what was that on the floor? Drops of blood?

Nancy moved aside a few evening dresses— and saw something that made her crawl! Sitting on top of an old chest of drawers was a severed head! A finely honed ax was suspended in the air next to it.

As Nancy looked up, the ax began to fall— right toward her face.

N
ANCY STARED IN
horror as the ax fell toward her head. At the very last moment, she jumped out of the way like a race-car driver bailing out before a crash.

The ax hurtled to the floor—and bounced! It was made out of rubber!

Nancy gasped. A queasy mixture of anger, fear, and relief washed over her. She bent down and examined the toy ax. The blade was rubber, but the handle was hard wood. Some practical joke, Nancy thought. If that thing had hit her, the handle could have knocked her out, rubber blade or no rubber blade. She reached up to touch the “severed head” and found that it was an incredibly convincing mask. She picked up the ax and quietly walked out to the studio.

When she appeared, Mick started laughing
wildly. “Mick, the remote control whiz kid, strikes again,” he joked, oblivious to Nancy’s distress. “Simple but brilliant,” he bragged. “I rigged a remote control device to the handle of that ax. Then all I had to do was push a button to make it fall.” He laughed again and pulled a small control box out of a jacket pocket.

“Hey, Mick,” Sondra called to her brother, “what’d you do? Pull another one of your sick practical jokes? Why don’t you cut that junk out already? People get upset by it.”

Mick snickered. “Oh, Nancy didn’t mind too much, did you, Nancy?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued, “This one was really great, if I may say so myself.” He turned to Nancy and gave her a twisted smile.

Self-possessed as always, Nancy didn’t show how much Mick’s joke had bothered her. But she wondered whether it was a gruesome warning to stay off his tail, or just his way of asserting his power. After all, Nancy told herself, he
is
co-owner. Maybe he likes letting the staff know he can do anything he wants around here, anything at all. If so, Mick was treating
Flash
like his personal playroom.

One thing was for sure. Mick’s violent side was becoming more and more obvious.

Mick threw Nancy another sharkish grin. Then he turned to the rest of the staff. “Good shoot,” he told them. “You all worked hard.” He motioned to Danielle to come with him, and together they left the studio.

As soon as her brother was gone, Sondra hurried over to Nancy. “I’m really sorry about that,” she said. She seemed sincere, but still a little wary of Nancy. “What did he pull this time?”

Nancy described what she’d seen in the closet. “I don’t scare easily,” she said, “but I have to admit, I was pretty flipped out just now.”

“Wow, that sounds awful!” Sondra murmured apologetically, her blue eyes opening wide. “I wish that hadn’t happened.”

“Me, too!” Nancy exclaimed.

“Mick’s into sick jokes,” Sondra explained. “I know it’s a drag, but don’t take it personally. He does stuff like that to all the new interns.” She sighed. “The trouble is, lately, he’s been taking his jokes too far.” She looked at Nancy with embarrassment. “I . . . I’m sorry.”

Nancy smiled graciously. “I’m okay, Sondra. And, by the way, I appreciate the apology.”

By that time, the backdrop had been removed and all the equipment put away. Nancy and Sondra left the studio together. “Mick asked me to take you to the darkroom so we can develop the film from today’s shoot,” Sondra told Nancy.

“Okay,” Nancy replied. “That sounds like fun. I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot working here.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the best things about this company,” Sondra agreed. “Anyway, I’ll show you where we keep everything and help you
with the first few rolls. And if you do a good job, I’ll let you finish up alone. I’ve got a lot of other work to do.”

Nancy found that the darkroom was beautifully designed and extensively equipped. After developing one roll of film, Sondra could tell that Nancy knew what she was doing and left her to finish the rest by herself.

Nancy developed film all afternoon, following the written instructions Mick had given Yvonne. He wanted certain rolls developed differently than others, colors brightened or changed. At the end of his letter, he’d added a note to Nancy.

Make sure your careful not to breathe in the chemicals. Their dangerous if you spend too much time in the darkroom. Takes breaks if your feeling funny.

Nancy was once again surprised at the more considerate side of Mick. What did it all mean? Had the incident in the studio really been just a joke? Was the violence in Yvonne’s office only a reaction to Yvonne’s own rudeness? Or was Nancy dealing with a psycho? Everyone had heard about cases of split personality, people who could switch from being kind and calm to maniacs in just a moment. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure
what
to think of Mick.

Nancy read Mick’s note over and started to laugh. “Wow,” she couldn’t help saying out loud. “This guy has the worst spelling in the
whole world!” He didn’t know the difference between
your
and
you’re
or
their
and
they’re.

Nancy rolled up the sleeves of her sweater dress and continued to work on the pictures. She had to admit that Mick was a great photographer. He’d really captured Danielle’s spirit— her energy and personality—on film.

It was almost five o’clock by the time Nancy finished her work. As she passed the door to the publisher’s office, Yvonne appeared. “Come in for a minute,” she said with a smile. “I want to know how your first day went.”

“Pretty well,” Nancy replied. She closed the door behind her. “I think my cover works. But one of your reporters, Brenda Carlton, knows who I am.”

Yvonne shrugged. “No problem. She’s hardly ever around the office.”

“One more thing,” said Nancy. “Do you think there might be an extra intern’s job for a guy named Ned Nickerson? He’s my assistant.”

Surprisingly, Yvonne wasn’t keen on the idea. Nancy had figured she’d be thrilled to have an extra pair of detective’s eyes searching for the killer, but she wasn’t. Still, after a little hard selling from Nancy, she agreed.

Nancy also copied the threat letters and checked a few of the computer printers in the offices to see if the type matched that of the letters. Sure enough, it was identical. And that meant that, if they had been written at the
Flash
offices, it would be impossible to trace the letters to any one person.

Nancy cleaned up the darkroom. After she’d put everything away, she said goodbye to several people and got ready for the train ride back to River Heights.

But when Nancy stepped out of the building into the fading afternoon sunlight, she noticed a familiar figure waiting for her. Tall, toned, and terrific-looking, it was Ned Nickerson. “Hey, honey!” he called.

“Ned!” Nancy cried, melting happily into her boyfriend’s arms.

“Mmm,” Ned said, giving Nancy a long, lingering kiss.