The Wrong Chemistry (9 page)

“Well, I guess so,” the nurse said uncertainly.

“I'll pay for the call,” Karen burst out. The nurse nodded and went inside.

Karen stood silently next to Nancy, avoiding her eyes.

“Is it your dog?” Nancy asked lightly, trying not to put Karen off.

Karen shook her head. “I found it. I was hiking all morning, and when I returned I saw it beside the highway on the edge of the campus.”

“And you carried it here?” Nancy was surprised.

“Does everyone think I'm crazy to help this dog?” Karen challenged. “If it was your dog, you'd be happy.”

“Sorry,” Nancy offered. “You did the right thing.”

The nurse returned, smiling happily. “I reached a vet, and he said he was going out and would stop by here.” She bent down and put her hands on the dog's side. “He said to check his
gums to make sure they aren't too white or too red, take his pulse, and keep him warm.”

As Karen bent to stroke the injured animal, Nancy backed away. Karen was certainly sincere in her love for animals. She was even softhearted about animals that didn't belong to her. Perhaps Nancy was wrong to distrust POE and its members. Ned might be confusing his concern for Angela with his feelings about the group.

There was too much going on, Nancy told herself with a sigh. First the CLT mystery, now the trouble with Angela and POE. At least she felt closer to solving
one
mystery now.

Nancy decided against tackling the tunnels under Emerson without more information. She went to the library and buried herself in a pile of books about the architecture of Emerson. After two books, she found what she was looking for—a series of drawings showing the extensive tunnel system. It spread to every one of the original buildings on campus. The map also confirmed that none of the tunnels went beyond the campus. The thief had to be holding the stolen CLT somewhere on the grounds, Nancy decided.

She was eager to begin her search of the tunnels, but an uneasy feeling nagged at her. She had to check a little further. On a hunch, she went to the section where microfilms of the
local newspapers were kept. In the
Emersonian
, the school's paper, she found a feature article on Josef Maszak. It mentioned that he had come from Jamison College, another midwestern school, where he had taught for three years. The Jamison students had given him the Beller Award for excellence in teaching three years in a row.

Nancy remembered the loyalty both Sara and Angela had shown toward Maszak. He really did inspire his students, she realized. Jamison College was in the same sports league as Emerson, and the library kept a record of its rival's papers. Nancy searched that microfilm, too, stopping at the issues that came out when Maszak was at Jamison.

A headline caught her eye: B
ACTERIA
D
ESTROYED IN
L
AB
. She felt a tingle of excitement as she read.

One of the school's most important experiments involving five different kinds of bacteria had to be destroyed yesterday in the science lab. A sample of rheumatic fever, a disease caused by bacteria, had begun growing out of control. Professor Aaron Miller, who was in charge of the project, was quoted as saying, “We have no idea what happened. The bacteria grew so quickly that we had to take extreme measures
to destroy it. Unfortunately, by destroying the bacteria, we also destroyed the cause of its abnormal growth. Now we'll never know what brought this about.” No damage or injuries were reported.

There was no mention of Josef Maszak, but he had been at Jamison at this time. Nancy flipped through the rest of the film. Toward the end of the reel, an ad caught her eye. It announced a lecture series on Third World countries. Dr. Pranav Mohammed would discuss famine relief that Tuesday, and consumer advocate Philip Bangs would lecture on the evils of chemical weapons. The lecture series was sponsored by POE.

Nancy froze. Environmentalist groups were probably common at schools, but she was sure Philip Bangs had said Karen Lewis had created POE at Emerson. He had even said there were no other POE groups! He had been lying.

With a start, Nancy remembered the earring Sara had found in the lab. No one had ever claimed it. Was it because its owner couldn't admit to having been in the lab?

This was more than a coincidence, Nancy thought with certainty. The same secret group, the same speaker, and the same professor—they had to be connected, but how?

N
ANCY NEARLY FLEW
across campus. She held her purse steady, glad she had taken the time to make a copy of the tunnel map.

On the map, she noticed the tunnels led to a dorm only fifty feet from Adams Cottage, where Professor Maszak lived. Nancy intended to take that route herself. If it was unblocked, Maszak would have both a motive and an opportunity for stealing the CLT himself. He'd have a lot of explaining to do, Nancy thought grimly. Philip Bangs might very well be part of his explanation.

After heading straight for the science building, Nancy picked the lock on the freight elevator
and stepped inside. The elevator creaked down to the basement. Nancy slid the door open and stepped out cautiously, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the weak light. She pulled out her map and held it under the bare yellow bulb mounted on the cement wall.

According to the drawing, the tunnel in front of her led back toward the center of campus, winding under the gym, toward the administration building. The tunnel opposite went to the dorm next to the professor's house. Nancy pulled out the flashlight she had brought along and played it along the uneven ground. The light was just bright enough to show her the way.

Moving to the mouth of the tunnel, she bounced the small circle of light along the walls. Stepping carefully, her pumps slipped a little on the rocky foundation. From somewhere she heard a dripping noise. A broken pipe? she wondered. She touched the wall gingerly. It was dry.

There was an odd rustling in the corridor. Nancy swung the flashlight around her but saw nothing. The sound didn't repeat itself. Cautiously, she continued. There was a faint light ahead and she could tell that she was approaching another building.

The tunnel opened up and Nancy stepped
into another basement area, lit by a makeshift light, which was no more than a bare bulb attached to a long orange extension cord. The ground was sandier here. Bending down, she made out scuff marks in the dirt. So someone had been here before her! Nancy examined her map. She should be standing directly under the English building.

Could the scuff marks mean someone had come down from
this
building? The basement was empty, without even a fuse box to bring a maintenance worker there on legitimate business. Nancy tried the door. It was sealed shut.

The English building was the last exit before the long, dead-end corridor toward Adams Cottage. She tried to look down the tunnel, but the beam from the flashlight didn't penetrate very far into the darkness. The weak basement light illuminated only the first few feet of the tunnel, but she saw that the footprints led into it. Her muscles tensed.

As silently as possible, Nancy crept down the corridor. She doubted there was anyone down there with her, but she remembered the rustling she had heard. She wasn't going to take any chances. Gingerly, she stepped over the small rocks in the foundation floor.

It was getting harder to see, Nancy realized
suddenly. The light from the flashlight had dimmed considerably. She shook the flashlight but nothing happened. The batteries were fading. Looking behind her, she could no longer see the bulb from under the English building. She decided to forge ahead, anyway.

Shining the light ahead of her, she could see only two or three feet at the most. The tunnel unrolled before her in endless blackness.

The flashlight dimmed even more, and after she had gone only a few more feet, it flickered twice and died. With a sense of dread, Nancy fished out the penlight she always kept in her purse. Its thin beam barely pierced the blackness around her. She stood absolutely still, trying to picture the map in her mind. She couldn't be too far away from the dorm, she reasoned. It would be best to save the penlight for an emergency use and grope her way down the rest of the tunnel.

In the darkness the rustling sounded again behind her. Nancy's pulse pounded in her neck. Was there someone following her? The rustling stopped, but to her horror, Nancy heard a squeaking sound. It could only mean one thing: There had to be mice—or rats, even—in the tunnel with her.

She stopped and reached for the penlight, at the same time telling herself to stay calm. The rats weren't going to attack her, especially if she
kept moving. She shone the thin beam ahead of her down the corridor.

Almost running now, she stumbled along the corridor. Her shoes made so much noise against the rough stones she couldn't tell if the rats were running with her. Stay calm, she told herself. You've been in worse situations. It wasn't a very comforting thought.

A rough stone caught the toe of one shoe. Before she could throw out a hand to stop herself, Nancy tripped and sprawled out, face forward, on the damp tunnel floor. The penlight flew from her hand and skidded over the stones. The faint light wavered and died as the tunnel was plunged into total darkness.

Nancy scrambled to her feet. With a sinking heart, she realized she had to keep moving. Unless . . . Trying to squelch her rising panic, she felt in her purse. She took out the map and folded it in half over and over until she had formed a little column of paper. Then she began to twist, until she had made a sort of paper candle. She dipped into her purse for the matchbook she had picked up when she and Ned and Angela were talking in the cafeteria. There were only two matches.

Cautiously, Nancy struck the first match. She heard a hiss and smelled sulfur, but nothing happened. She tried it again. Still the match wouldn't light. Blindly, she touched the match
with her fingertip and felt the cardboard stem. She must have knocked the tip off when she struck it.

She had only one match now. She tore it out of the book and struck it on the flint strip. A tiny flame sprang up in front of her face. With great care, she touched it to the folded map and a glow grew into a light just big enough to see by. Holding up her hand to shield the makeshift candle from a draft, she scrambled through the corridor as quickly as she could.

The paper burned quickly. Soon there were only a few inches left. Then Nancy felt the ground even out under her feet. Something glinted dully off to her left. Breathlessly, she ran toward it. Just as she reached the source of light, the flame hit her fingers. She dropped the burning paper, and it fizzled on the cement. The darkness fell around her like a curtain, but it didn't matter now. She knew she was in the dorm basement.

Groping toward the dim reflection, Nancy found the door to the basement elevator. She tried the handle, but it didn't turn. This door hadn't been used lately; the elevator shaft was still sealed.

Nancy realized there might not be a way to get into the dorm from the tunnel. If not, she would have to retrace her steps back the way she had come, with no light this time, taking her
chances with the rats. It wasn't something she looked forward to.

Nancy closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. Now she
was
panicking, she thought. From the ceiling to her left she spotted a very faint crack of light. Feeling her way in its direction, she banged her leg badly on something cold and hard. Cursing herself, she rubbed the sore leg, then explored whatever it was she'd bumped into.

Iron stairs! Leading up out of the tunnel. Relief flooded through her as she clambered up them. The glimmer of light she had noticed before formed the outline of a box now—a hatchway cover, Nancy realized. Holding her hands above her head, she fumbled for the latch. Her fingers scraped along the ceiling but finally she found it. She threw it to one side and pushed.

Light flooded the stairway. Squinting against the sudden shock of it, Nancy scrambled out and threw the trapdoor shut.

She was on a quiet lawn, outside the dorm. Resting for a moment, Nancy tried to quiet her pounding heart. Only a few yards from her was the tall, wrought iron fence that surrounded Emerson. Through the fence she could see the thick line of trees that separated the POE headquarters from the college.

As she rounded the corner of the dorm,
Nancy was more determined than ever to speak to Josef Maszak. The tunnel was the thief's most logical escape route, it had obviously been used recently, and it led almost to Maszak's door. One of those facts could be a coincidence—but all three? Nancy didn't think so.

Emerson's main entrance lay about one hundred yards away. And halfway between it and Nancy was Professor Maszak's house.

She marched up Maszak's steps and knocked briskly on the door. A face peered out through the curtains. Nancy lifted up her hand to knock again when the door swung open.