“I’ll ask Cyril,” Ned promised. “I’ll get cards for you and George and Bess, too.”
“Hey,” a voice called from above them. The techie was at the railing of the platform. He looked furious. “I found out what that lowlife was doing up here. He stripped the insulation off some of the light cables and taped them to the metal scaffold.”
“What would that do?” Nancy asked, even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
The guy gestured toward the lights over the stage. “The minute we powered up the spots, we’d have blown every circuit breaker between here and the Canadian border. And I wouldn’t want to be leaning against the scaffolding when it happened. Z-z-z-zap! Just like one of those bug lamps.”
“Can you fix the damage in time for the concert?” Ned asked.
“No problemo,” the technician replied. “I’ll get right on it.”
Bess and George came rushing up. “Nancy!” Bess cried. “We just heard!”
“Are you okay?” George asked with concern.
“I’m fine,” Nancy assured them. “But we have work to do. Our saboteur is getting desperate. It’s just a matter of time before somebody gets hurt.”
“I’ll talk to Cyril, right away,” Ned offered. “We’ll have to tighten our security even more.”
“What should we do?” George asked as Ned left.
Nancy turned one of the folding chairs and sat down. The moment the weight was off her legs, she realized how much her near fall had exhausted her. She waved her friends into chairs facing her.
“We can’t be security guards,” she said. “We have to be detectives. What is this case about?”
“Winning the IFC election by making the other guy look bad?” Bess suggested.
“That’s what I thought, too, at first,” Nancy said. “But how does spoiling someone’s goulash do that? Or sending out a computer virus? Or blowing the lights at the big concert?”
“How about wrecking the Worldbeat Weekend?” George said.
Nancy nodded. “That’s pretty clear,” she said. “But why? Just plain meanness? Somebody is going to a lot of trouble and taking a lot of risks. He has to have a pretty strong motive.”
“I’ll buy that,” George said. “But what?”
“Revenge,” Bess said. “Or rivalry. Some other campus club wants to destroy the IFC.”
“If we stand back and look at everything that’s happened,” Nancy said, “one event stands out, because it’s so different from the others. The e-mails and phone calls and viruses, the salt in the stew, even monkeying with the light cables—they’re all some form of dirty trick. What if their purpose is to distract us from the one real, solid crime?”
“Stealing the money!” George exclaimed.
Bess frowned. “You mean, whoever took the money didn’t do it to wreck the festival? He wrecked the festival to confuse everyone about the theft?”
“That’s what I think,” Nancy replied. “The thread that links all this is that somebody has an urgent and terribly important need for money.”
“Hold on,” George said. She looked troubled. “I thought we decided Joann was telling the truth about where she got that money.”
“Anyway,” Bess added, “she couldn’t have pushed you off the platform just now. I’d been talking to her at her booth for five or ten minutes when I heard about your fall.”
“What about Dina?” George asked. “She is the club treasurer. Maybe that e-mail was right. If she embezzled club money to send to some extremist group in her country, she might have stolen last night’s proceeds to use to cover her tracks.”
“Hey, yeah,” Bess said excitedly. “And then she deliberately destroyed her computer records so no one would find out.”
“The files aren’t destroyed, just harder to get to,” Nancy pointed out. “And I don’t think she faked that threatening phone call the other night. But mainly, I do not believe she would have ruined her goulash. I saw how much that upset her.”
“So who’s your candidate?” Bess asked.
“Motive, means, and opportunity,” Nancy said. “Those are the three things my dad always tells me to look for when I’m investigating a crime. What about the theft? We can come back to motive, and we know the means—that decoy envelope. But who had an opportunity to carry out the substitution?”
“Joann again,” George said.
“Dina,” Bess said. “Plus whoever staged the fight between those two guys.”
“Two guys who were seen by only one person,” Nancy pointed out. “And that person was alone with the real envelope for longer than anyone else.”
George stared at her. “You mean Lance? But he didn’t have a chance to take the money. He was at the gym the whole time. Why do you suspect him?”
“Ned told me he’s here on a scholarship,” Nancy replied. “But Penny is convinced he’s well off. Where is he getting the money to take her to all these fancy restaurants?”
“His clothes cost a lot, too,” Bess observed.
Nancy snapped her fingers. “Bess, that’s it!” she exclaimed. “I knew there was some detail I was overlooking. Listen—when Lance showed up to start collecting money last night, he was wearing a coat and tie. But when he came to tell everyone the money was gone, he was in a maroon polo shirt. When did he change?”
“Maybe he had the shirt with him,” George suggested hesitantly.
“Maybe,” Nancy replied. “But then what did he do with his other shirt and his sport coat? I think he took the money back to his room and changed while he was there.”
“We’d better find him,” George said. “He deserves a chance to tell his side of the story.”
