Hiding in Plain Sight

by Valerie Sherrard

  “Boy, that sounds good,” he said, looking wistful.

  “If you want, I’ll make you some. Matter of fact, I’ll make you both some,” I volunteered, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to soften them up a bit before asking if Ernie could stay. It wasn’t until I saw Mom’s frown that I remembered the fruit salad she’d made for Dad. She’s always worrying about his cholesterol and stuff like that.

  “French toast sounds grand,” Dad said. He clasped his hands together prayerfully and turned to Mom. “Am I allowed, Darlene?”

  “Oh, go ahead. You’re going to anyway,” she said affectionately. “But don’t slather it with butter, okay?”

  “I promise,” he said. “You can even come and supervise.”

  “You need supervision,” she said, but she was smiling.

  I let Ernie down before we got to the kitchen and started getting things ready to make the French toast. Mom and Dad sat at the table waiting as I cooked, and I waited for an opening. It wasn’t long coming.

  “Did you find out how Ernie came to have such an unusual name for a cat?” Mom asked.

  “Oh! I forgot to ask,” I said, making a mental note to do it when I went up to the hospital later on in the day. “I guess Mr. Stanley’s news kind of threw me off.”

  “News?” they asked in unison.

  “Yes.” Deep breath. “It seems he’s not going to be returning to his apartment as he originally expected.”

  I’d expected an immediate reaction, but neither said a word. They sat and waited for me to explain.

  “Uh, see, Mr. Stanley’s daughter is afraid some-thing will happen to him, being there alone and all. It seems that he’s fallen and broken bones before this one. Anyway, he’ll be going into a seniors’ home instead. You know, for his own safety and all.”

  “Well, that’s too bad,” Dad said. “I think it’s hard for a person to give up their independence, though it sounds like it’s necessary, all right.”

  “I don’t think it will be so bad,” Mom added. “They have activities and things, and he’ll have lots of company. And in his case, since he’s healthy aside from the brittle bones, he’d be allowed to go out for visits, days or weekends or even longer.”

  “That would be good,” I said, surprised that neither of them had yet seemed to make the connection that Ernie was suddenly without a home to return to in a few weeks.

  Naturally, Ernie chose that moment to amble over to the table and jump up.

  “Hey!” Dad said. He scooted him off while I hurried over with a washcloth. “I don’t think your friend Mr. Stanley overdid it teaching this cat manners.”

  “You’re right,” I said quickly. “I think Ernie would be a whole lot better behaved if he had a bit more, you know, guidance and stuff.”

  “Well, I would certainly hope so,” Mom said, her eyes smiling. “Since it looks like he’ll be staying.”

  And that was it! No pleading or tears or promises or anything. I was too surprised to say anything, which gave Mom the chance to go on.

  “You be sure to let Mr. Stanley know that we’ll be happy to have him visit regularly so he can see this scoundrel. I’m thinking that dinners on Sundays when we don’t have other commitments would be nice. Unless, of course, he’s going to his daughter’s or somewhere else.”

  I was so happy and excited I could hardly wait for the afternoon to come so I could go see Mr. Stanley and tell him the news.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  After the kitchen was cleaned up from breakfast I went and did my room, which I must admit had gotten a bit untidy through the week. I’ve found it’s best to stay a step ahead of Mom when it comes to my room, or she bugs me with comments like “A cow couldn’t find her calf in there, Shelby” or “I’d think a young woman your age would take a little more pride in herself than that” or similar remarks.

  Fortunately, she doesn’t go in there often, but once in a while she’ll knock and pop her head in and if it’s pretty messy I’m in for it.

  Once that was accomplished, there didn’t seem to be much to do. Mom had already told me that while I was working through the summer, all I needed to help out with was dishes sometimes, and of course I was to keep my room clean. I guess she thought that since it was summer holidays for me, having the weekends free was only fair. I didn’t argue.

  With my room organized, I figured it was as good a time as any to compile my scattered notes on the robbery into a more orderly collection. I got out a notebook and started transferring everything that was written in the smaller notepad I’d been carrying around as well as things I’d jotted on various scraps of paper.

  The first thing I finished was the staff list, which didn’t take long. There hadn’t been much to add to the original details Mrs. Thompson had given me, except for a few personality quirks and the fact that the Yaegers had been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby.

  Putting the rest of the notes in order was a bit harder, because a lot of the information didn’t necessarily fall into any particular category. I ended up with a kind of hodgepodge of scattered things related to the business in general, some of which I crossed off as having no significance.

  For example, I’d realized that paying particular attention to any one company that did business with NUTEC was senseless unless there were actual clues to connect it with the robbery. My original suspicions about Dymelle Enterprises hadn’t been backed up by any evidence whatsoever. I saw no point in including it in my outline.

  When I re-examined the file I’d received from Mrs. Thompson’s lawyer, Mr. Zuloft, there seemed to be very little in it that might be helpful. The pictures of the crime scene offered little more than a view of the conference room with the window broken.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true, I thought. There were a few other items that were different in the room that day — a couple of plants that had since been moved and the fridge from the lunchroom with the water stain on the floor beside it — but they weren’t things that could be related to the robbery.

  Or could they?

  I stared for a long time at the pictures, willing them to tell me something. I even jotted down notes about the fridge and stuff, along with the other useless things I’d written.

  After spending a couple of hours reviewing everything I had and failing to come up with a single idea, I decided I might as well put it all away for the time being. It was pointless to keep staring at the same words, looking at the same pictures, and coming up blank.

  Really, the bottom line was that someone had broken the window out from the inside of a locked room, and the only person with a key to access the room was Mrs. Thompson. The culprit, I remembered, had gained entry not only to the room but also to the safe, and by her own admission, Mrs. Thompson was the only one who knew the combination.

  I’d started into this thing with the idea that there had to be clues that would clear my best friend’s mother, but everything kept adding up against her while not one shred of evidence pointed either away from her or toward anyone else.

  What if she was guilty? The thought came to me, as it had a number of times before, but I knew that I couldn’t afford to let myself think along those lines for long. For one thing, it was pretty tempting to just give up. For another, my friend was counting on me, and even if I couldn’t actually help, it was important that I stand behind her and her family.

  I assembled all the papers into a stack, sat them tidily on top of my desk, and decided not to think about the whole matter again for the rest of the weekend. Sometimes not thinking about something can actually help your brain sort it out.

  I was about to head out the door to visit Mr. Stanley when the phone rang and Mom called out that it was for me.

  “Hello.” I tried not to sound too hopeful, though the thought that it might be Greg had already made my stomach start to flutter.

  “Great news!”

  It was Betts, and her words immediately made me think there’d been some sort of break in the case against her mother. Ma
ybe the charges had been dropped or new evidence had come to light to clear her mom’s name. Maybe I was off the hook!

  But she wasn’t calling to tell me anything like that.

  “You are so the best friend ever,” she went on. “I did what you said, and it worked, like, amazingly.”

  “What did you do?” I hadn’t quite switched gears enough to follow what she was saying.

  “I called Derek’s place last night, when I knew he was at work,” she said, sounding happy, “and asked if I could come over this morning and surprise him.”

  “That’s it? You just went over there?”

  “No, no, no. Of course not. I made him breakfast — little letter pancakes spelling out his name. You know how your mom used to make them for us when we were small.”

  “Yeah,” I said, keeping from laughing. I was pretty sure my mom had made those for us the last time Betts slept over, which was within the last few months. It seemed likely, anyway, since Betts always asks her to.

  My mom would never say no. She’d whip up a batch of batter and make the letters in the frying pan, carefully forming them by drizzling thinner batter from a spoon into the pan. If you looked at them then they were backwards. Then, when they’d started to cook, she’d add more batter on top to make a normal-shaped pancake, but when you flipped it over, there would be the letter in the middle of it. You could make hearts and other simple shapes, too, but Betts always wanted her name on hers.

  “Then his mom called him to get up,” she was saying now, “and when he came to the kitchen there we were.”

  “We?”

  “The pancakes and me.” She giggled. “I guess that sounds silly.”

  “And how did he like them?” I asked, enjoying the enthusiasm and cheerfulness in her voice. It was a nice change from everything else that was going on in her life.

  “He thought they were great!” she practically yelled. “I didn’t know how to make them like your mom does, with, you know, actual ingredients like flour and stuff, but I took a box of mix and they were pretty good.”

  “Well, good. I’m really glad,” I said, meaning it.

  “I know! And you know what? I think things might just work out with us after all. He was all surprised and speechless at first, but then he got kind of emotional once it sunk in. It was like he couldn’t quite believe I’d gone and done something special for him that way, and when I was leaving he held onto me real hard for a minute and said it was the best breakfast he ever had, which I doubt, and told me he can’t wait to see me tonight.”

  “That is awesome, Betts,” I said. “And you watch and see if he doesn’t think up something for you next.”

  “I don’t even care, though it would be nice,” she said. “It felt so good to do that for him. It was like it made me like him more again too. Weird, huh?”

  I told her that I thought it made perfect sense, because I knew how I felt whenever I did something for someone else.

  That reminded me that I had good news to share with Mr. Stanley, and as soon as Betts and I finished talking, I headed out for the hospital.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The smell of food lingered in the corridors of the hospital, so I knew that lunch had been served recently. When I reached Mr. Stanley’s room I was pleased to see that most of the dishes on his tray were empty.

  “They serve something good for a change?” I asked, plunking into the visitor’s chair near his bed.

  “Soup. Chicken vegetable with soda crackers. The crackers were in a cellophane wrap that I could hardly get open and there were only two of them anyway, so I nearly gave up. I got them, though.” He smiled proudly. “And I had a chicken salad sandwich with it.”

  A dish of Jello wobbled as he adjusted himself to get more comfortable. It was the only thing he’d left untouched.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re eating better,” I said.

  “It’s not so bad now that I can order my own food. A person gets on to what’s passable after a few days here.” He leaned forward and added in a hushed voice, “If you ever find yourself trapped in this here place, don’t eat the potatoes.”

  “I’ll remember,” I promised.

  “Well, now, I guess you’ve asked your folks about keeping Ernie,” he said.

  “Actually, I didn’t have to ask,” I said proudly. “When I explained things to them, they just offered right off. They’ve gotten pretty fond of him.”

  “Be hard not to,” he said huskily. He cleared his throat.

  “My mom was wondering how he came to be called Ernie. It’s not a typical name for a cat.”

  “I don’t suppose it is,” he agreed. “Well, now, would you believe he’s named for five Ernies?”

  “Five?”

  “That’s right. You see, my littlest granddaughter had first suggested the name, from the character on Sesame Street. You know the one with Bert?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Well, after she put the name into my head, I got pondering on it. I wasn’t sure if it was the right name for the little fellow. Then I got thinking of how so many children had loved watching Ernie Coombs over the years. You know who he is?”

  “Mr. Dressup,” I said, thinking of the many hours I’d spent enthralled with the show when I was a little kid.

  “That’s right. So, there was a good connection with the name and children. That’s important, you know. But that wasn’t all. You see, once I got thinking of the name, I realized there were a couple of other Ernies that I admire a good deal. One was the Blue Jays catcher from back in the eighties, Ernie Whitt. I don’t sup-pose you’ve heard of him.”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “And the fourth was Ernest Hemingway, one of my favourite authors. Have you read anything of his?”

  “Just The Old Man and the Sea. We took it in school.”

  “Mmmm. He won the Pulitzer in 1953 for that one. Great book, though I don’t know that the practice of teaching it in high school is the best idea. Seems to me a person should know a bit more about life before they can really appreciate most of Hemingway’s work.” He paused to take a sip of the ice water that was always nearby.

  “Something you might be interested in knowing about Hemingway is that he was a real cat lover. In fact, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West houses about sixty cats, and some of them are direct descendents from the cats Hemingway had.”

  “Wow! That’s pretty cool.”

  “It is, isn’t it? And that makes it extra fitting that Ernie is named after him, for one.”

  “But that’s only four,” I pointed out. “Didn’t you say there were five?”

  “Ah, yes. That was the clincher. You see, right at that time it happened that I was reading a collection of short stories, and one of them was called ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ by Dylan Thomas. Anyway, there’s an Ernie mentioned in that story. Now, it’s not a significant character and he only appears in one line, but the name jumped out at me.”

  “Because it was a fifth Ernie?” I asked.

  “Well, partly, but partly because his full name was Ernie Jenkins. Don’t you think that sounds like a perfect name for a cat — Ernie Jenkins?”

  I agreed that it did indeed.

  “So, that’s the whole story. Will you be able to remember it to tell your mother?”

  “I think so. But you can tell it to her again sometime, because once you’re in your new place my folks would like you to come over once in a while to visit Ernie.”

  Mr. Stanley didn’t say anything for a minute and I thought perhaps he was uncomfortable with the invitation — my parents being strangers to him and all. But then I saw that it wasn’t discomfort but emotion that had quieted him.

  “You tell your folks that I’d be honoured,” he said when he finally spoke. It was in a kind of choked voice, but I acted like I didn’t notice.

  “How’s the book I brought for you holding out?” I asked.

  “I’m nearly through,” he said, regaining his co
mposure. “I find I tire easily these days, so I can’t concentrate like I used to when I’m reading. It’s a wonderful book, though. Maybe you’ll read it sometime.”

  “I will,” I said. “It’s not due back at the library for a few weeks yet, so I’ll read it before I take it back.”

  “You’re an awfully good girl,” he said, out of the blue.

  The compliment surprised and kind of embarrassed me, the way he’d just blurted it out like that and all. I didn’t know quite what to say back, so I just smiled. I felt kind of the way you do when you’re small and some adult starts saying how cute you are or stuff like that while you’re standing right there feeling like a moron.

  After a moment I asked him if I could get him any-thing else from the library, and he mentioned a few books and left it to me to choose from the list. I wrote the titles down in my little notebook, where I’d already jotted down details about the naming of Ernie.

  A man came in then and took out the lunch tray. Mr. Stanley snatched his water cup from it just in time to keep it from disappearing with the Jello.

  “Can’t go any time at all without a sip of water,” he told me. “The air in here is terrible dry.”

  I’d noticed that already, having had to put lip balm on a few times after even a short visit in there. I wondered what made hospital air like that.

  “The girls come around every morning and again before bed to fill this jug up with ice water,” he said, pointing to a small plastic pitcher. It had a lid that I think doubled as a drinking cup if you wanted to use it. “It’s dandy — cold and refreshing through most of the day. Doesn’t get warm until late afternoon.”

  “I’m sure they’d bring you a fresh jug then, too, if you asked,” I said.

  “Oh, they would, they would all right. Very good nurses and such working here. But they’ve got so much to do, lots more important than that. No, I wouldn’t bother them for that.” He looked mildly alarmed, as though he was worried I’d think he was complaining when he hadn’t meant to. “It’s fine as it is. Just fine.”