Cold as Ice (3 page)

“It was really nice of her to let us stay here,” George commented as she and Bess rolled out their sleeping bags on the floor.

Nancy draped her parka over the back of the desk chair, then began to go through her bag for her nightgown. “I hope she doesn't feel uncomfortable having us here now that she knows we're friends with Rob.”

“It's not like we're on anyone's side or anything,” Bess added.

“Mmmm.” As they drifted off to sleep, Nancy thought ahead to the next couple of days. She was thrilled to have a few days of fun with no case to worry about.

• • •

“Dedication is one thing,” Bess said, shivering as she added a handful of snow to her snow castle. “But nobody said anything about getting up at seven in the morning!”

“Oh, come on. It wasn't that bad,” George said. Her cheeks were bright red and her breath made a cloud in the early morning air. She was concentrating on keeping a thick, snowy wall of her fort from falling down.

“Ned said there's a lot going on today. This might be the only chance we have to work on these.” She glanced at her watch. “He and Rob and Jerry ought to be here any minute.”

A snowball hit Nancy in the back, and she whirled around to see Ned and the others coming toward them.

“Okay, Nickerson, you asked for it,” Nancy threatened, bending to grab some snow.

He put up his hands and made a face of mock horror. “No, don't! I give up.”

“Cut it out, you guys,” Rob said in a serious
voice. “We have to get going if we don't want to be late for the boat house dedication.”

The girls brushed the snow from their gloves, and they all set off on the snow-covered path that curved around the lake to the boat house.

It was warm inside the new cement addition, so they took off their jackets, piling them up with others on a table against one wall. Nancy studied the addition. It was a big square room enclosing what looked like a shallow swimming pool. Fixed in the center of the pool was the middle section of a racing shell, with eight seats for the oarsmen and one seat, facing forward, for the coxswain.

Nancy was going to ask Rob a question, but he was staring moodily down at the floor at the end of their row.

“It has recirculating pumps,” Jerry was explaining to George. “It's supposed to feel as though you're rowing on a real lake or river. You can even adjust the speed of the current.”

“Oops,” Bess said, “I think I see some more speeches coming.” She nodded toward a group that had just come in. Nancy recognized Garrison Butler, the president of Emerson College.

After welcoming the audience, President Butler turned the microphone over to the crew coach. Nancy found herself tuning out his
speech, until a familiar name caught her attention.

“To Rob Harper, who went on believing in this dream when the rest of us were ready to give up. Where are you, Rob? Take a bow.”

Nancy looked at the end of their row, but the chair where Rob had been sitting was empty. Where
was
he? He must have slipped away. Under the circumstances, Nancy couldn't blame him.

“I'll pass on our appreciation to Rob the next time I see him,” the coach continued. “Finally, I'd like to thank one of our most steadfast supporters, a great sportsman, and one of our crew team's biggest fans, Mr. William Whorf.”

As Whorf stepped forward and waved, George leaned over and whispered to Nancy, “If this guy keeps up his donations, Emerson will probably be changed to
Whorf
College before long.”

Nancy chuckled but stopped when someone behind them said,
“Shh!”

The coach was announcing that the junior varsity crew would demonstrate the new tank. As nine guys wearing sweatpants and shirts bearing the Emerson emblem clambered into the shell, Nancy sniffed the air, frowned, and looked around her. A few feet away was a door that must
lead into the old part of the boat house. From under the bottom edge of the door came a few thin wisps of gray smoke. As she looked, the wisps thickened and darkened, and an acrid smell reached her nostrils.

“Fire!” someone near her shouted.
“Fire!”

T
HE AUDIENCE LEAPT
to their feet as frantic cries echoed back and forth in the big room. Someone a few rows over let out a single bloodcurdling scream. Someone else gave Nancy a shove that almost knocked her off her feet. Fear and panic rippled through the crowd, and Nancy knew that could be as dangerous as the fire itself. Keeping her voice steady, she began to direct people to the exit. Gradually, people calmed down a little and started toward the outside door.

“Stick together,” Nancy told her friends in an urgent tone. Ned was right behind her, his arm linked with Jerry's. Bess, looking pale, took Nancy's and George's arms.

“Everybody, remain calm,” the amplifier boomed. President Butler had grabbed the microphone. “Just proceed to the exit in an orderly fashion and everybody will be safe.”

People had stopped shoving and were moving in an orderly fashion toward the open door. The members of the crew, easy to recognize in their Emerson sweats, had lined up near the door to direct traffic.

After what seemed like forever, Nancy found herself outside. Taking a deep breath, she looked around. “Where's Rob?” she asked.

“He left earlier,” Bess replied. “All of a sudden he just got up and stormed away. He looked pretty upset.”

Nancy quickly explained about Rob's having been suspended from the crew, then turned her attention back to the fire. Smoke was rising into the air from the older part of the building, but it looked as though it was coming from just one window. She didn't see any flames.

In the distance sirens wailed. A handful of campus police had arrived and moved the crowd farther from the building.

“Let's go around to the front of the boat house,” Nancy said. “There's something about this fire that doesn't feel right to me.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Jerry.

“The timing,” Nancy told him. “Does it seem
like a coincidence that the fire broke out right in the middle of the dedication ceremony?”

Two fire engines roared up and stopped in front of the boat house. A pair of fire fighters dragged a hose, while others, wearing breathing masks, attacked the nearest set of doors with axes and crowbars before rushing in with foam extinguishers.

Black smoke billowed out the open doors, causing the crowd of spectators to back up. As Nancy watched, the smoke changed to gray, then to white. A few seconds later two fire fighters armed with long pikes dragged a smoldering mass out the door and threw it on the lawn before spraying it with foam.

“That was the fire?” Bess said. “What is it?”

“It looks like some kind of cloth,” George said as the fire fighters used their pikes to spread out the red-hot pile. “Towels or something.”

Nancy frowned. “I never heard of towels catching fire all by themselves,” she remarked. She was becoming more and more positive that her suspicions about the fire were correct.

A man in a fire chief's uniform spoke to two of the fire fighters before joining President Butler.

“I'll be right back,” Nancy murmured to Ned. She edged her way through the crowd until she was within hearing distance of the college president and the fire chief.

“We'll have to wait for the results of our investigation,” the fire chief was saying. “But unofficially, I don't think there's any question about it. This was arson.”

Nancy nodded. She had been right—someone
had
set the fire on purpose.

“That's terrible,” Butler exclaimed. “We could have had a real tragedy on our hands.”

“Yes, sir. Though if I'm right, I don't think the perpetrator meant to do much damage. The fire was more of a gesture. But like most people, he might not have realized that the worst danger is from smoke. We could have had a very deadly situation on our hands.”

President Butler took a deep breath. “Well, thank you, Chief Culliver. I appreciate the information. You'll keep me informed?”

“Of course.” The chief turned and went into the boat house.

Nancy returned to her friends. “I was right about the fire,” she announced.

“You mean somebody deliberately set it?” George demanded, her dark eyes open wide. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“I don't know,” Nancy answered. “But it seems pretty clear that whoever did it intended to disrupt the dedication ceremonies.”

“It must have been some nut,” Jerry put in. “You don't try to burn down a building full of
people just because you got out of bed on the wrong side.”

Nancy shrugged her shoulders. Suddenly she realized that she was freezing, and she rubbed her arms vigorously.

“Need this?” Ned asked, holding out her parka. “One of the fire fighters brought our jackets out while you were gone.”

Nancy put on her jacket, her mind still on the fire. “Whoever set it could be somebody who has a lot of resentment against the new building, or maybe against the college as a whole. Somebody who feels unfairly treated.” Somebody like Rob, she thought, but her instincts told her he wouldn't have done it. She did have to admit that he had a motive—and the opportunity.

“I can't imagine—” Bess began.

Just then Rob came running up and grabbed Ned's arm. “What happened? What's going on?” he demanded breathlessly.

“Where were you?” Ned said. “Did you miss the fire?”

Rob stared at him. “Fire? In the boat house? The shells! Were they damaged?”

Nancy watched him closely. He seemed genuinely surprised—and upset. “The fire chief says that there was hardly any damage,” she assured him.

“Thank goodness!” Rob said. He took a deep
breath, then wiped his forehead. Nancy noticed he was damp with sweat in spite of the cold.

“You must be frozen,” Bess said sympathetically. “Where's your jacket?”

Rob looked down at his sweater and frowned in confusion. “I guess I left it inside,” he said, glancing around vaguely. “I had to get out of there, so I went for a run. I didn't think about my jacket. I guess I'd better go get it. I'll catch you guys later.”

Now that the fire was obviously out, the crowd in front of the boat house began to disperse.

Jerry looked at his watch. “What now, gang? We've still got some time before lunch.”

“We could put in a little more work on our snow sculptures,” Nancy suggested.

“Good idea,” agreed Bess. “Mine needs some serious work. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, part of it flakes off.”

“That's why they're called snowflakes,” Jerry quipped, causing the others to groan.

A few people were working on their sculptures when Nancy's group returned. One of them was Susan, who was sculpting a mound that resembled a car or sled.

When Nancy called out a greeting, Susan jumped nervously. “Oh, hi,” Susan said with a halfhearted smile.

“Susan,” Nancy began. “I don't mean to pry or
anything. It's just that I don't want you to feel uneasy about our spending time with Rob. We didn't realize you two didn't get along—”

“It's no problem,” Susan cut in. “I don't mean to be a drag. If you guys want to hang out with Rob Harper, it's fine with me.”

As Susan bent back over her sculpture, something else caught Nancy's attention.

“Hey,” she said. “Someone's been messing with my snowman.” Her two huge snowballs were cracked and lopsided.

“Mine, too,” Bess said. She pointed to a hunk that had been knocked loose from her snow tower. “Talk about nerve!”

“At the risk of sounding like a broken record,” George added, “someone's been messing with
my
sculpture, too. I think I can fix it, though.”

Nancy walked slowly around the snow-covered meadow, then returned to her friends. “It looks to me as if about half of the sculptures have been damaged,” she reported.

“I wonder why?” George asked. “Accident? Thoughtlessness? Or just plain malice?”

“Maybe someone wants to win the contest, no matter what it takes,” Bess suggested darkly.

Ned shook his head and chuckled. “If it meant winning a new car or a trip to Europe, I could see it. But as chief judge, I can tell you that all the winner gets is a handshake.”

“Oh, well, it doesn't matter,” Nancy said optimistically. “I just hope whoever did it doesn't do it again.”

“Uh-oh,” Ned said, cocking his head to one side. “Do you hear that? I hope our arsonist hasn't struck again.”

From somewhere in the distance came the wail of sirens. “I think they're coming this way,” George said.

“That's not a fire engine,” Jerry reported, pointing up the hill toward the road. “It's a police car—no, make that
two
police cars.”