“This isn’t small-time blackmail anymore,” she said, flicking across the channels. “This is the big time.” Just then the face of an attractive, vivacious blonde filled the screen. The camera zoomed back to show that the woman was holding a microphone in her hand. With her was a man whom Nancy recognized as the prime minister of Canada.
“That,” Ashley Amberton said, putting down the remote control, “is Annette LeBeau!”
Chapter Three
“I thought this was going to be a quick, simple case,” George said at dinner that night. Nancy had just told her and Ned about her afternoon’s work. George stabbed a bite of Cafe Renoir’s famous spinach salad. “And here we are, up to our eyebrows in crime already. Four blackmailings, one attempted murder—”
“Hey, not so fast,” Nancy warned, finishing the last of her shrimp. George loved to solve mysteries almost as much as she did—the more the merrier. But it never hurt to be careful. “Let’s not leap to any conclusions. We don’t know for sure that somebody actually tried to kill Monique. She claims it’s true, but it may not be.”
“Yeah,” Ned agreed in his usual, cautious way. “Maybe she actually was sleepy and just lost count of her pills.”
Nancy turned to Ned. “What’d you dig up at the Journal this afternoon?”
“ ‘Dig up’ is right,” Ned said, pulling out a notebook. “It looks like there’s plenty of dirt in this case.” He tore out a couple of pages and handed them to Nancy. “Annette LeBeau, as you already know, is a prominent TV personality up here. Sort of a cross between a gossip columnist and an investigative reporter. She makes a lot of money finding out who’s up to something dirty and then tattling on them.”
George grinned. “Sounds to me like an ideal blackmail victim. Poetic justice, you might say.”
“What about Dutch Medina?” Nancy asked.
“The plot thickens. Medina, it turns out, is a big-time mobster, a real creep. The police have been after him for years, but he’s slick, and they’ve never been able to pin anything on him.”
“According to the blackmail note,” Nancy said thoughtfully, “Annette LeBeau kept Dutch Medina out of jail.”
“So,” Ned said, “things are getting a little more complicated. Looks like we’ve jumped from bargain-basement blackmail up to the real thing.” He took a bite of his broiled fish. “I wonder what Annette LeBeau is like.”
“Well, we’ll know tomorrow,” Nancy told them. “I’ve got an appointment with her at eleven—courtesy of our not-so-friendly client, Ashley Amberton.”
“Why ‘not-so-friendly’? What’s she like?” George asked eagerly.
“Brisk and businesslike,” Nancy replied. “If it weren’t for the flowers she took to Monique and the money she’s lent Jacques, I’d say she was as warm as an Arctic glacier. Now, who knows?” She grinned and pulled out the typewritten blackmail notes she had collected. “How about an assignment for the two of you?”
“Sure,” George agreed with a shrug. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to get to run in Olympic Stadium, anyway. The track’s there, but it turns out that it’s covered with Astroturf most of the time. They only uncover it for track meets. So, what do you have in mind, Nancy?”
“Typing detail,” Nancy said, spreading the notes on the table in front of them.
“Oh, I get it.” Ned picked up one of the notes and studied it. “You want us to check out the typewriters and letter-quality printers at Cherbourg Industries, to see if the blackmail notes were typed there.”
“You got it,” Nancy replied. “I’d say that these notes were all typed on a typewriter rather than done on a word processor. Anyway, it’s possible that the blackmailer is connected with Cherbourg since three of the victims are company employees. We need samples from all the machines in the building—and that’s going to take quite a while. You’d better polish up your typing skills.”
“ ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party,’ ” Ned murmured, flexing his fingers.
George gave Ned a disdainful glance and laughed. “Speaking of parties,” she said, leaning toward Nancy and Ned, “how about trying out that club down the street? Chez Soda, it’s called.”