Nancy shook her head. “Don’t apologize. You had no idea what was going on.”
“I certainly didn’t. And I’m still not too clear about one thing . . . how did you know that Riggs was behind it all?”
“Remember the warning spray painted on the window of our dorm room? That happened the first night. At the time, only three people besides Bess and George knew that I was investigating the practical jokes: you, Ned . . . and Dr. Riggs! I should have seen the significance of it sooner, but I didn’t.”
“There’s something else you haven’t told us, Nancy,” Bess put in. “What’s a push?”
Nancy explained, “Craig and Andy were worried that the final point spread would be eight—exactly on the line for tonight. If that happened it would be a push. All bets would be off, and nobody would collect any vig.”
“Is that why they knocked Ned down? To keep him from pushing the score over the line?”
“That’s right.”
George looked over. “I have a question, too. What made you realize that gambling was involved, Nancy?”
“Oh! It was the comment you made after Ned was taken down. You said, ‘I’ll bet the other team is happy.’ Remember?”
“Yes, but—”
“It was the word bet that hit me. I put it together with Captain Hook’s phone call, and voila! Everything fell into place.”
Silence descended in the office. As Nancy relaxed, letting the tension finally dram out of her system, she suddenly realized that there was something she didn’t know.
“Coach Burnett, in all the excitement I forgot to ask. Who won the game?”
“We did, by two points,” he said.
There was no joy in his voice. No doubt he was thinking about the NCAA playoffs, she knew. The Wildcats weren’t going to have much of a chance with their best players out of commission. She felt bad for him.
What a lot of trouble had come out of a few practical jokes!
Ned was waiting for her in the lobby. Without a word, they went out the front doors together and began to wander slowly across the campus. The moon cast blue shadows around them. Nancy felt as if she were walking the last mile.
“Ned, you can forgive me for suspecting Mike, can’t you?” she asked.
Ned shook his head. “I don’t know, Nancy. I just don’t know . . .”
“But he was involved in the point shaving. He made that effigy, too. You accept that, don’t you?”
“Yes. What I can’t accept is the way you handled everything. If you hadn’t confronted him the way you did . . . if you had been more understanding . . . then maybe . . .”
“What?”
“Well, he might have opened up to you. Or to me. Instead he tried to handle everything himself, and look what happened! He’s flat on his back in the hospital. He’ll never play basketball again!”
There was nothing Nancy could say to that. Ned was right. Because she had been angry at him, she had tried to prove him wrong. She had charged ahead without any thought about the consequences.
She could see now that Mike O’Shea wasn’t a bad person. He was simply a vulnerable guy from a poor background who had been offered some easy money. He had listened to his conscience, too, and had tried to break free. But had she taken that possibility into consideration? No, she had not. She had tagged Mike as a criminal.
What had gone wrong? How had she managed to lose her usual good judgment? It had been a stressful case, of course, but that didn’t excuse her. The greater the pressure, she knew, the more important it was for her to stay loose.
Maybe it was something else, she thought. Maybe being a detective was making it difficult for her to trust people. After all, look at her and Ned! In spite of their relationship, she had even suspected him for a while!
Remembering the bracelet he had given her, Nancy asked a question that had been on her mind since early that evening.
“Ned, where did you get the money for that silver bracelet?”