En Garde (Nancy Drew (All New) Girl Detective Book 17) (6 page)

“My name is Nancy Drew,” I said firmly. “I’m a friend of George Fayne’s.”

Kovacs snorted. “So?”

“So—I happen to have done a little detective work. Just a little, here and there. And I couldn’t help hearing that you suspect one of your colleagues has been acting unethically. A certain . . . Paul Mourbiers?”

Kovacs froze. “This is possible,” he said in a guarded voice.

“I was at the fencing meet yesterday,” I told him. “I was watching DeLyn’s bout against Una Merrick.”

Kovacs stiffened. “And you saw Paul hand her the unstitched gauntlet?” he guessed hopefully.

I shook my head. “No. I wasn’t close enough to see the condition of the gauntlet. But I did see how upset DeLyn was when Una got scratched. I can’t believe that she would have hurt her opponent on purpose.”

Kovacs pursed his lips grimly. “How does this help me, Miss Detective?”

Steeling myself against his rudeness, I said, “We may never know how that gauntlet came open, or when. But maybe we can find out whether Mourbiers set up the interview with the TV reporter. After all, the real problem for you is the publicity. If Mourbiers tricked you into having that fight, knowing it would be covered on TV . . .”

I saw a spark of understanding light up Kovacs’s eyes. “You mean he knew they were going to be there?”

“I don’t know anything,” I said quickly. “But with your permission, I’d like to investigate the possibility.”

Kovacs’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to pay you to snoop around.”

“I never work for money,” I hastened to assure him.

Kovacs relaxed. “That’s good—because I have no money.” Then another thought struck him. “But maybe it is no good to stir up trouble. Our sport is an ancient and noble one. This is not tacky show biz, like”—here his lip curled in scorn—“
professional wrestling
.”

Seeing me grin, he smiled too. “You may laugh, Miss Detective, but you know what I mean. We fencers have our pride. We have our sense of honor. To make a scandal—it might clear my name, but it would not be good for fencing. And I will do nothing to make fencing look ugly.”

“I promise you, I will be discreet,” I said. “Whatever information I pick up, I will bring to you, not to the newspapers or to the police. Then you can do with it whatever you feel is right.”

Kovacs was actually pleasant looking when he smiled. “I am glad you have come to me, Miss Detective. Miss Nancy Drew. Now I change my mind—perhaps this is not the worst day of my life after all.”

“Well, Nancy,” said Mr. Nickerson as he climbed into my car later that day, “what sort of trouble are you getting me into now?”

I grinned at Ned’s dad. He’s a great guy—smart and thoughtful. But he’s also the most experienced
journalist I know. And for this investigation, he was just the man to help me.

“Who do you know in the news department at the TV station?” I asked.

Mr. Nickerson shrugged. “Lots of people. I know the news director, Dave Markus, pretty well. I don’t know too many of the reporters. Some of them think I’m their competition, just because I run the
River Heights Bugle
.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Not really. Broadcast journalism and print journalism have very different goals. Broadcasters have to entertain their viewers. We newspaper folks are simply committed to informing our readers.”

“Even so,” I said, “TV reporters ought to be accurate and fair, right?”

“Indeed,” Ned’s dad agreed.

“In that case,” I said, “there’s a reporter down there who needs a little talking to.” As we drove out to the station, I told him about the unfair coverage of the fencing tournament incident. As I expected, once I appealed to Mr. Nickerson’s journalistic ethics, he was eager to help.

The station receptionist recognized Mr. Nickerson and waved us in past the desk. We found the reporter, Kelly Chaffetz, pouring herself a cup of coffee in the newsroom. Standing next to her was a young male
reporter wearing a backward baseball cap.

As soon as Mr. Nickerson mentioned the fencing story, Kelly Chaffetz looked guilty. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said, holding up one hand. “I feel terrible about that story. But we needed something dramatic for that night’s newscast, and we had such great footage of that brawl between the two coaches! Time ran out before I could find the second coach, the Hungarian guy, to get his side of the story. My bosses rushed the story onto the air too soon.”

The other reporter broke in. “In my opinion, the station should have sent someone from the sports desk. Fencing is a sport, you know.”

Kelly Chaffetz flashed him a look of annoyance. “Come on, Derrick. There are fencing tournaments in this area at least once a month, and the sports department was never interested in them before. I figured it was fair territory—a local color feature. All sorts of eccentric people show up for these tournaments. That’s what first intrigued me when Mr. Mourbiers called.”

Mr. Nickerson and I traded glances. It was just as I had suspected! “Paul Mourbiers called the station and gave you the story idea?” I asked.

Kelly Chaffetz nodded.

Mr. Nickerson gave her his best skeptical editor’s frown. “And then you gave him an exclusive on-camera
interview afterward to tell his side of the story. Was that ethical?”

She bit her lip. “But I couldn’t find the other guy in time!”

Mr. Nickerson put on a look of grave concern. “Is there any chance you’d give Bela Kovacs some airtime another evening, to set the story straight?”

Ms. Chaffetz looked wary. “Possibly. But I’d have to check with my top boss.”

“Dave Markus?” Ned’s dad said. “Why, he’s an old buddy of mine. We used to work in Washington, D.C., together. Could you show me the way to his office? I’d love to stop in and say hi.”

Kelly Chaffetz led Mr. Nickerson down a nearby hallway. I was left with the sports reporter. He couldn’t wait for his colleague to leave so he could get a word in. “That was so clearly a sports story,” he said. “Kelly blew it. Unfortunately, I bet Markus will never agree to put Bela Kovacs on the air. That would make the station look like it’s admitting a mistake. He hates to have the station look bad.”

I thought fast. “There’s another way you could get the truth out,” I said. “Do a background story on the history of fencing. That way, you could give Bela Kovacs a chance to appear on camera, looking like an expert instead of a madman. That might help fix his reputation.”

The reporter looked interested. “That’s a great story idea! I could dig into the archives and see what we’ve got. We have the best sports videotape archive in the state. We must have some footage of Olympic fencing.”

That triggered another idea. “Really? You know, Paul Mourbiers first met Bela Kovacs at the 1976 Olympics—he said so in Kelly’s interview. If you could show these two guys back in their Olympic heyday, it would make a perfect local angle.” And I’ll find out how that feud of theirs got started in the first place, I thought.

The reporter grinned. “You have a real nose for news,” he said. “Ever thought about going into journalism? By the way, what’s your name?”

An hour later my eyes hurt from staring at grainy videotapes. Derrick and I were sitting in a tiny, windowless room, going through the archives on a small monitor. “It’s so much easier with the modern digital tapes.” Derrick sighed, hitting the fast-forward button. “You can jump straight to whatever section you need. Rolling through all this is a drag. Why, we must have ninety hours of footage here, just from the ’76 Summer Games!”

I sighed too. Ninety hours of tape takes a long time to review, even with a fast-forward button. And
we had no guarantee that Bela’s bout against Paul Mourbiers had even been included.

“Wait—here’s fencing!” Derrick hit the play button.

An announcer’s voice came over tiny speakers. “This quarterfinal match should be a crucial one for the Hungarian team. They’ve been a major fencing power for years, but recently France has been striving to unseat them. Today’s match pits Hungary’s brightest hope in the épée, Bela Kovacs, against the up-and-coming Frenchman Paul Mourbiers . . .”

“Derrick, this is it!” I said, excited. All our tedious work had paid off!

It was strange to see Kovacs and Mourbiers as skinny young college-age athletes. Bela’s curly hair was cut in a short, almost military style, while Paul Mourbiers had a long ponytail. Dressed in white, with their masks down, they were otherwise indistinguishable from each other.

Derrick and I watched the tiny, blurry figures jab and lunge up and down the mat. First Kovacs scored a touch, then Mourbiers. They seemed evenly matched.

The score was tied at fourteen points each. “How many points do you need to win?” Derrick asked.

“Fifteen in a direct elimination bout,” I said, pleased that I remembered so much of what Evaline had told me.

And just then I thought I spotted something fishy. “Derrick, stop the tape! Rewind it a few seconds . . . there! Now play.” Derrick’s finger hovered over the buttons. “Now pause!”

The blurry white figures on the screen froze. “See that?” I said, pointing to the monitor. “When Mourbiers lowers his sword? The tip touched the floor, didn’t it?”

Derrick ran the tape back and forth in slow motion, studying it. “It sure looks like it,” he agreed. “Is that bad?”

“You can be disqualified,” I said, remembering again what Evaline had told me. “But the referee doesn’t seem to have seen it.”

“Kovacs did,” Derrick said. “Look at his reaction. And the way he’s staring at the referee, like he expects to hear him call foul on Mourbiers.”

“But they’re not stopping the bout,” I said as the tape rolled on.

“Not only that—they’re awarding the point to Mourbiers,” Derrick gasped. “That means he wins, right?”

“Just look at that expression on Kovacs’s face,” I murmured, pausing the tape. “Like his world just fell out from under him.”

“Why doesn’t he say anything to the referee?” Derrick wondered. “Why doesn’t his coach protest? They can’t just abide by that bad ruling.”

I shook my head. “Different times, maybe. And a different sport. Fencers take pride in being respectful and courteous.”

Derrick picked up the printed-out list of Olympic results that had been taped to the videotape case. “It says here that Mourbiers went on to win the semifinal bout, too. He ended up with the silver medal in épée that year.”

“That must have made Kovacs furious,” I mused.

“But there’s an asterisk after his name.” Derrick frowned. “That means there was a dispute. Maybe Kovacs did protest after all. Let’s fast-forward some more.”

Almost at the end of the tape, we found the news report, dated six weeks after the games. “The ruling has come from the Olympic fencing committee: There will be no revision of the medal awards in this summer’s Olympic games in Montreal,” a news anchor announced. “Hungarian fencer Bela Kovacs lodged a formal protest after his quarterfinal bout against France’s Paul Mourbiers, claiming that Mourbiers should have been disqualified for illegally touching his sword tip to the floor. Kovacs backed up his claim with film of the disputed bout. However, the judges said that Kovacs’s protest was filed too late.”

Next came a head shot of an official from the
international fencing federation, saying in an Italian accent, “By the time we learned of the protest, Monsieur Mourbiers had already won his semifinal bout. At that point, what could we do? We couldn’t assume that Kovacs would have won the semifinals if he’d been there instead of Mourbiers. We couldn’t replay the semifinals, eh? So we had to let Mourbiers proceed into the finals. It is too bad. The film did show the sword touching the floor. But we cannot reverse the referee’s original ruling. Otherwise the Olympic games would be chaos!”

I sat dumbfounded as Derrick stopped the tape. Now everything was painfully clear. “So this is what Bela Kovacs has had to live with,” I said. “Just because he didn’t protest the referee’s judgment soon enough, Mourbiers wasn’t disqualified. That’s why it riled him up when Mourbiers accused him of rigging the bout. If anyone is a cheater, it’s Mourbiers!”

“If I were Kovacs, I’d hate Mourbiers’s guts,” Derrick added. “Especially when the guy named his studio Salle Olympique! That takes some gall.”

I nodded sadly. “Kovacs knows he should have won that bout. He probably could have won the others, too—he could have gone for the gold! And now, for the rest of their lives, Mourbiers can show off his Olympic medal, while Kovacs has nothing.”

I couldn’t wait to tell George what I had learned, so I quickly dropped Mr. Nickerson off and drove straight over to her house. When Mrs. Fayne let me inside, I heard DeLyn’s voice upstairs in George’s room. Good—I bet she’d be interested in learning how Bela’s feud with Paul Mourbiers had started.

“I’ve heard this story many times from Bela,” DeLyn said when I’d finished. She sprang up from George’s bed, where the two of them had been relaxing between classes; George was so into fencing, she was up to two a day sometimes. “But you actually saw the videotape? You saw Mourbiers’s épée touch the floor?”

“Yup. It was crystal clear,” I verified.

“Huh. I always wondered if Bela had just made that up.” She scooped up her loafers and slipped them on. “You know, when you tell the same story for years and years, sometimes the facts get a little hazy. Come on, George, we’d better get moving. We don’t want to be late for our evening class.”

“But how does this change anything?” George asked, fishing around under her bed for her shoes. “If the Olympic committee wouldn’t reverse the ruling back then, they’re not going to take Paul Mourbiers’s medal away now.”

“True, we can’t fix that for Bela,” I admitted. “But if Derrick runs a story explaining the history of their
feud, local folks will understand why Bela lost his cool yesterday. Especially when they find out that Paul Mourbiers got Kelly Chaffetz to cover the meet in the first place.”

“Anything we can do to ease the tension will help,” DeLyn said, striding over to pick up her equipment bag. “We have a college meet coming up this Friday, and nearly half of the fencers train with either Kovacs or Mourbiers. Everybody’s taking sides. Things could get nasty.”