From the stage came a loud chord. The audience cheered as a folk-rock group from Montreal charged full-tilt into a fast tune. It sounded half Irish and half French. Both halves rocked.
• • •
After turning Lance over to the local police, Nancy and her friends returned for the rest of the concert. Cyril had saved them seats down front. Nancy loved hearing the different groups from around the world. It was a real education. Cuban, Dominican, and Haitian musicians, from within a hundred miles of each other, had distinctive sounds. Yet all of them had so much in common with the harmonies and rhythms of the West Africans and Latin Americans. Maybe there really was a Worldbeat!
Nancy’s favorite moment came during the Rai Rebels’ set. Cheb Rachid began a haunting tune backed by a techno mix. In the middle he came to the front of the stage. Kneeling by the edge, he sang the rest of the song looking straight into Bess’s eyes. The words were in Arabic, but his gaze spoke a universal language. Bess practically melted into her seat.
After the concert Nancy and her friends joined the members of the IFC steering committee at the student center. Cyril was the last to arrive. He came in wearing an odd smile and shaking his head.
“I was just on the phone to the police station,” he said.
“What’s happened?” Joann asked. “Did Lance confess?”
“Some hope!” Cyril said. “He’s not talking. His lawyer claims the whole thing is an honest mistake. Lance took the money to his room to protect it. Then he spread the tale that it had been stolen as a way of bluffing any thieves who might be after it.”
Nancy let out a snort of disbelief. “What about pushing me off the platform this afternoon?” she asked. “Was that an honest mistake?”
Cyril gave her a sympathetic look. “Well, luv, he’s not charged with that, is he now? And it’s not as if you got a look at him.”
“You mean, he’s going to get away with it?” George demanded indignantly.
“I didn’t say that,” Cyril replied. “Speaking for myself, I doubt it. The courts aren’t daft. But it is quite a cute tale, isn’t it?”
“But what’s the real story?” Dina asked. “Was it Lance the whole time? What was he after?”
Cyril gave Nancy a nod.
Nancy cleared her throat. “Some of this is guesswork,” she admitted. “But it fits the facts as we know them. This case started a couple of months ago, when Lance inherited a fair amount of money from an uncle.”
“Lucky Lance,” J. P. murmured.
“Yes and no,” George told him. “He has expensive tastes. Now he could indulge them. So he did. Clothes, gourmet meals . . . ”
“Sounds good to me,” Vlad said. “What is the problem?”
“What’s called probate,” Nancy replied. “It can take weeks or even months before you actually collect money you’ve inherited. And Lance didn’t want to wait. He started spending money he didn’t have.”
“You mean, credit cards?” Joann asked.
“Worse,” Bess said. “The deposits people gave him for the bicycle trip this summer. Instead of putting them in a bank account, he spent them.”
“I don’t think he thought of it as stealing,” Nancy added. “He meant to replace what he’d spent as soon as he got his uncle’s money. But that was taking longer and longer. And he had to pay a big sum to the travel agency next week.”
“That’s the reason he decided to make off with the proceeds from the picnic and the dance,” George said. “He could use that money to make the payment on the bike trip, then pretend to discover it once he had his inheritance.”
“Or not,” Ned said. “If you ask me, we would never have seen that money again.”
After a short silence Dina said, “I am still confused. What was the reason for the e-mail and the telephone calls and the computer bug and the rest?”
“What magicians call misdirection,” Nancy explained. “If the disappearance of the money had been the only incident, Lance would have been the obvious suspect. The commotion over the IFC election was ideal for him. If he could get you and Vlad at each other’s throats, everybody would assume that the theft, like all the other incidents, was part of your battle.”
“So Lance did it all?” Joann asked.
“We think so,” Nancy said. “He probably doctored the two dishes before they were even brought to the gym. As for the virus that hit Dina’s computer, that should have tipped us off. Lance was one of the few real computer experts in the club. He threw us off the track by infecting his own files as well . . . or pretending to.”
“That also gave him a way to get rid of the bike trip records, which might have incriminated him,” George pointed out.
“You know,” Cyril said slowly, “what happened to Lance is a bit like what happens when countries fall afoul of each other. He simply kept digging himself deeper into a hole. By the end he was so far gone that he was ready to push Nancy off that platform.”
Vlad stood up. “I am ashamed,” he announced. “If I had not been so ready to believe the worst of Dina, Lance could not have carried out this vile scheme. Dina, I apologize. I will withdraw my name from the presidency race and urge everyone to vote for you.”
“No, no,” Dina said. “It is I who must apologize. I let myself be imprisoned by outworn ideas. I am not fit to lead the IFC. I intend to support you for president.”
Vlad scowled. “I cannot allow such a gesture,” he declared. “You must be president!”
“No, you!” Dina retorted angrily.
Nancy looked over at George and Bess. All three started to laugh. Dina and Vlad glared at them. Then, as the others in the room joined in, they relaxed and managed to smile.
“Perhaps a co-presidency,” Vlad suggested.
“Excellent proposal,” Dina replied. “It must be given serious consideration. Are you free after supper?”
Nancy turned to Ned and winked. “You know,” she murmured, “there may be some hope for international friendship after all!”
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Aladdin Paperbacks edition February 2003
