Hidden Meanings (13 page)

The girls went out to a table in the meeting room to study the contact sheet. Half a dozen other students were busy with various projects, but Sally and Nancy were too excited to notice them.

Sally picked up a small circular magnifying glass. Tucking her curly hair behind her ears, she bent over the tiny images. “It was a thirty-six-exposure roll of film, and I'd shot only five pictures on it in Florida,” she recalled. “So I was just snapping away that afternoon. That's the only way to get a really good candid shot. It looks like I've got thirty or so shots here. Look.” She handed the magnifying loupe to Nancy.

Nancy studied the sequence of photographs. She could see Evan Sharpless waving to the students and stepping onto the escalator. In four successive shots, he moved steadily up the escalator, looking all around. Then he stepped off at the mezzanine-level café and Harold Karabell entered the picture.

“They're not all great photos, artistically speaking,” Sally said. “That's why I printed only five of them. Only one shot I printed had Karabell in it. Once Mr. Sharpless got to the mezzanine, he was too far away for me to get much, even with my telephoto lens. But there are several more shots on the contact sheet. Do you really think they might hold a clue?”

Nancy peered intently at the sequence of images through the magnifying glass. She could see Evan Sharpless looking over his shoulder—nervously, she thought. In the next shot, he pulled a thick envelope out of his suit pocket. In the shot after that, he handed the envelope to Karabell.

In the next shot, Karabell was looking inside the envelope, while Sharpless looked anxiously behind him.

And in the next shot, Karabell pulled a thick wad of money out of the envelope!

S
ALLY AND
N
ANCY STARED
at the photos in uneasy silence. “Why would Evan Sharpless be giving this Karabell guy so much money?” Sally finally asked.

Nancy swallowed hard. “There could be lots of reasons,” she said, speculating. “A gambling debt, a blackmail payment, a payoff for an informant. A
Chicago Post
editor I talked to said Karabell often depends on secret sources for his stories. Maybe Mr. Sharpless needed to use one of Karabell's sources, and Karabell was the middle man.”

“Or maybe it's like Gina said the other day,” Sally put in. “Maybe Mr. Sharpless paid off the judges to award him the Hazelden prize.”

Nancy looked skeptical. “I really don't think its judges would take bribes,” she said. “They're very well-known journalists. And from what I learned, I doubt Karabell would be a Hazelden judge.

“Let's go back to the idea that it's a blackmail payment,” Nancy continued, looking over her shoulder. Suddenly she was very aware of not letting the others in the room overhear their conversation.

“Karabell apparently is the sort of journalist who's good at digging up dirt on people,” she went on quietly. “Maybe he dug up something on Evan Sharpless and then asked him for money in exchange for keeping quiet. The word is that Karabell's career hasn't been going so well lately. Maybe he needed the money.”

Sally frowned. “That's blackmail.”

“Exactly,” Nancy replied. “That's why Karabell doesn't want those pictures around. He could be arrested for extortion. That's a serious charge.”

Sally looked down, awed, at her contact sheet. “What do we do next, Nancy?” she asked.

“I think we should go to Ms. Peabody, the general manager, and ask her to call in the police,” Nancy suggested. “They can interrogate Karabell and get to the bottom of this case.” She glanced at the tiny images on the sheet. “Too bad those pictures are so hard to look at. If we want to force a confession, it would be more effective to have big, clear photos.”

“I can't enlarge them very easily without the original negatives,” Sally said. “But we could use an opaque projector to show them on a wall or something. Mr. Ruxton may have some ideas.”

“Great,” Nancy said. “Find Mr. Ruxton and tell him what happened—show him the contact sheet and everything. Then see if you can get the enlarger. Meanwhile, I'll try to track down Karabell.”

Leaving the meeting room, Nancy hurried straight for Maureen Peabody's office. The secretary there told Nancy that the general manager was in the Riverview Lounge. The new rooftop lounge was to be opened at a gala Saturday night, she said, and Ms. Peabody was checking out the last details. She added that the elevators had been programmed not to go up there yet, but Nancy could take the elevator to twelve and walk one flight up the fire stairs.

Following the secretary's directions, Nancy soon found herself walking out into a circular restaurant, with windows on all sides. The views of River Heights were spectacular. The tables nearest the windows were set on a lower level, giving the center tables a full panorama. Soft carpeting and upholstered chairs set an elegant tone.

Maureen Peabody was standing by the windows with two men in suits. Seeing Nancy, she excused herself and came over. Nancy quickly told her what she and Sally had found. “We think this man may be extorting hush money from Evan Sharpless,” Nancy said. “He probably broke into Sally's room and set both of the fires. He may even have been responsible for those deadly skewers at the banquet the night before last. I'd like to call in the police.”

Ms. Peabody frowned. “You have very little evidence on which to arrest somebody,” she pointed out.

“I'm not asking for him to be arrested—just to be brought in for questioning,” Nancy said. “If he's innocent, he should be glad to help us.”

Reluctantly, Ms. Peabody walked over to a phone and called the police. Then Nancy and Ms. Peabody hurried down to the lobby to meet them. Ten minutes later, they accompanied two police detectives to the sixth floor and hammered on Karabell's door. There was no answer. “We can't spend all day waiting around for a guy who
might
be responsible for two tiny fires and a couple of small break-ins,” one of the police detectives told Nancy.

“But he might also be a blackmailer,” Nancy said.

“You've got no proof of that yet,” the detective answered. “Call us when you do.” The two men headed back downstairs.

Frustrated, Nancy went back down with Ms. Peabody to her office. “Maybe I could look on the billing computer and see if he made any more phone calls,” Nancy suggested, standing by the manager's desk. “That might explain what he's still doing here. After all, Bess and I both saw him yesterday
after
the display burned. There must be a reason why he's hanging around.”

“Fine with me,” Ms. Peabody said.

Her secretary called up Karabell's name on the computer. “Room 637?” she said. “He checked out at eight-fifteen this morning.”

• • •

Seething with frustration, Nancy trudged back up to the banquet room, where she grabbed a roast beef sandwich. Nancy asked Bess, who was waiting tables, to look out for Sally and tell her that Karabell had checked out. Then Nancy went to the darkroom, looking for Sally, but she wasn't there.

Next Nancy stopped by the pool. Sitting dejectedly in a deck chair, she told George about the morning's discoveries. When she got to the part about Karabell checking out this morning, George sat up in her chair.

“Eight-fifteen?” she repeated. “Nancy, he was here at the pool this morning. It was around eleven o'clock, long after he'd checked out.”

Nancy stared at George, amazed. “Are you sure?”

George nodded. “Positive.”

“Then he
is
hanging around for some reason,” Nancy said excitedly. “Maybe we can still catch him!”

• • •

At six o'clock Nancy returned to her room, disappointed again. She had spent the afternoon hunting for Karabell. Armed with a layout of the hotel, she'd posted people at every strategic point—Bess at a side door just off the Muskoka Lobby, Ned in the meeting area, George at the employees' entrance down in the basement, Stan Wasilick in the underground parking garage, and Ralph at the front entrance. She'd even convinced Ms. Peabody to offer Paul his job back and ask him to cover the loading docks where trucks delivered supplies.

With Ms. Peabody's help, Sally had used the office copier to enlarge the best shot of Karabell from her contact sheet. That way, Nancy was able to show a usable picture to each of the people on guard. Then Nancy had stationed herself in the lobby, next to a house phone, so that her various pairs of “eyes” could contact her.

But by five o'clock, when the student editors came flocking back through the lobby, heading for their rooms, there had been no sign of Karabell. Reluctantly, Nancy headed upstairs to dress for the final banquet. Evan Sharpless would be giving his keynote speech there, and the newscaster might be the reason Karabell had lingered at the hotel. It's our last hope, Nancy thought dejectedly.

As she slipped into a hot-pink linen dress with a flared skirt, Nancy wondered wearily if Karabell wasn't already long gone. She had his address in Chicago, but she doubted that the Chicago police would be willing to call him in for questioning. After all, the River Heights police hadn't seemed interested in the case.

Standing before a mirror, she pulled a brush through her reddish blond hair. I guess I could have put more effort into my appearance, she thought. Gina's sure to be dressed to kill. But time was running out. If Karabell showed up at the banquet, she had to be there, not in the shower. Ned would understand, she decided.

As she stepped into the hallway, Rosita Ortiz came bustling up. “Miss, you ask me to tell you when I saw the man who had me use my passkey,” Rosita said breathlessly. “I saw him leave a room on the ninth floor. I followed him. He went into the big room where the students have dinner.”

Nancy tensed up. “The Riverview Ballroom?” she checked. “Up the escalator from the Muskoka Lobby?”

Rosita nodded. “He is wearing a gray coat and pants, and a—” She pantomimed knotting a tie with her hands.

“A necktie,” Nancy said. “That's great, Rosita, thanks!” She rushed down the corridor, eager to follow the lead. Karabell was still here!

Nancy hurried from the elevator to the Muskoka Lobby and strode swiftly up the escalator steps. She dashed into the ballroom and began to look around for a man in a gray suit.

She saw Gina and Sally, seated at a table near the podium, with Ned standing against the nearest wall. Nancy crossed over to them and told Ned to watch for Karabell, who was wearing a gray suit. Ned nodded and started to prowl the perimeter of the ballroom.

Just then Gary Ruxton stepped up to the podium. “Good evening,” he said. “While you're eating, we'd like to show you some of the entries in this year's photography contest. We've had some fine work this year.” He stepped aside as a machine projected the first picture onto a screen behind a long front table. It was a soft-focus shot of a boy playing a guitar.

Nancy spotted Evan Sharpless at the end of the front table. Paul was at his shoulder, handing him his dinner plate. Then Nancy froze.

Evan Sharpless was wearing a gray suit and a necktie!

So it was Sharpless who had “borrowed” Rosita's passkey! Everything clicked into place in Nancy's mind. Sharpless could have had as much reason to destroy Sally's photos as Karabell had. If Karabell was blackmailing him, there must be some terrible secret the newscaster wanted to hide. He certainly didn't seem like a man who would stoop to crime to protect himself, but what if that was all a cunning facade?

Nancy shifted her gaze to the screen. There, enlarged against the wall, was a picture from Sally's contact sheet, showing Sharpless going up the escalator! Nancy prayed he wouldn't see it. But as a murmur of recognition rose from the crowd, he looked up, twisted his head around, and saw himself onscreen.

Nancy, acting on instinct, started across the ballroom toward Sharpless. Ned, on the far side of the room, began to move, too. But Sharpless had already sprung from his seat and was lunging for Sally. Everyone in the room turned toward the commotion.

Grabbing Sally by the arm, Sharpless tore her from her chair and jerked her over to the doors leading to the pantry. He held Sally in front of him, a gun pointed at her head.

“No one had better stop me!” he shouted wildly. Then he spun around, shoved Sally through the doorway, and followed her out of sight.