A Drop of Hope

by Keith Calabrese

  His mom called after him as he flew through the front door and down the street. She called after him again from the front steps, but Ernest, who was fed up with his parents, fed up with his friends, fed up with the well, fed up with himself, just kept running.

  MR. EARLE IS UP TO SOMETHING

  Tess and Mr. Earle brought Ryan to the big bay window in Mrs. Haemmerle’s living room. Looking through it was like having a front-row view of the Wilmette house, which now had two police cruisers, lights flashing in the rain, parked out front.

  At first Ryan panicked, thinking they were looking for him. But then he remembered that he hadn’t actually broken into the house. “I don’t understand.”

  “Wait for it,” Mr. Earle said.

  The front door opened and a police officer stepped out, leading a handcuffed Andrea Chase. She was not happy.

  “That’s your reporter girlfriend.”

  “Former girlfriend,” Mr. Earle clarified. Then, with a look toward Tess, “Very former.”

  Ryan’s brows furrowed. They were sharing that moony look two people give each other in the movies so you know they’re falling in love. But there was something else behind it as well. Something … What was the word …

  “Conspiratorial!” Ryan blurted out.

  “Come again?” Mr. Earle said.

  Ryan understood what was happening here, but he was still having trouble working it out. “You two,” he said, pointing out the window at the arrest in progress. “You guys made that happen.”

  THE BEST STORYTELLER IN CLIFFS DONNELLY

  Andrea Chase had been right when she said that Marcus Earle was sweet. But he was something else, too.

  Marcus Earle was a storyteller.

  And a couple of hours ago, he had told her a doozy.

  The previous evening Marcus Earle had gone to the Columbus airport to pick up Tess Haemmerle, who had just flown in from San Francisco to begin making the funeral arrangements for her grandmother. Marcus and Tess had been close friends in high school, and on the hour drive from Columbus to Cliffs Donnelly, she gave him the inside scoop on her grandmother’s little sock monkey adventure, which just happened to involve three of his favorite students.

  So when Andrea showed up in his classroom and ambushed him with her distorted but not entirely baseless conspiracy theories, Marcus Earle was ready to tell her what she wanted to hear.

  “It’s … it’s bigger than you realize, Andrea,” he’d started. “This goes back three generations, and it could affect the whole town.”

  Andrea got out her tape recorder, but Mr. Earle shook his head vehemently. “There can’t be any proof that I told you what I know about the Holyoke Red Diamond.”

  Andrea nodded and handed over the tape recorder to prove it was off.

  Mr. Earle continued, “Ben Mattingly didn’t work alone.”

  “I know. He worked with Orson Muldoon out of Chicago.”

  “No, Muldoon was just the buyer. He was a criminal, but he wasn’t Mattingly’s fence.”

  “Okay, so who was Mattingly’s fence?”

  “Edgar Wilmette.”

  “Edgar Wilmette? As in Wilmette Stamping, Tool & Die?”

  “You know how you said Lizzy was at the retirement home with two boys? One of those boys was Ernest Wilmette, Edgar Wilmette’s great-grandson.”

  Andrea gasped. “So Edgar Wilmette and Ben Mattingly …”

  “Were partners in crime? Yeah,” Marcus said.

  Andrea was catching on. “He used his factory to launder the money they made from Mattingly’s heists.”

  “And he used his house to hold all the loot from those heists,” Marcus added.

  Andrea’s eyes lit up. “That’s it! That’s the cover-up. Jack Hought couldn’t have found the sock monkey among his mother’s old things because it was hidden in the old Wilmette house all this time!”

  “Right. Edgar Wilmette had kept it all hidden in his house. The house he bequeathed to his son, Eddie Wilmette, who lived there until he died, a few months ago.”

  “And that’s where the kids come in, isn’t it? They found the Holyoke Red Diamond.”

  Mr. Earle nodded. “There is a false wall covering an old coal room in the basement. It’s still filled with all kinds of jewels and money from Mattingly’s old heists.”

  “You’re kidding! But how did your students find it? Did Eddie Wilmette tell them?”

  Mr. Earle shook his head. “No. I really don’t think he ever knew about it.”

  Andrea looked perplexed. “Then how would the kids know to even look for the room? Someone else had to have been helping them.”

  She looked stumped for just a moment, and then the penny dropped. “Edgar Wilmette and Ben Mattingly had a third partner, didn’t they?”

  Mr. Earle nodded. “They needed someone to provide protection.”

  “Detective Stanley Donan!” Andrea said. “He was the third partner!”

  “Right. Up to a point.”

  “You mean, he turned on Wilmette and Mattingly?”

  “I mean that Orson Muldoon didn’t kill Ben Mattingly.”

  Andrea gasped. “Stanley Donan did!”

  Marcus Earle nodded ruefully. “Ambushed him in Chicago the day after Mattingly stole the Holyoke Red Diamond. But Mattingly had already sent the diamond to Edgar Wilmette inside the sock monkey. Donan couldn’t go after Wilmette: He was untouchable in Cliffs Donnelly. Still, he always knew the diamond was hidden somewhere on the Wilmette property. After Edgar Wilmette died, Donan tried to buy the house from Eddie Wilmette, but Eddie wouldn’t sell.”

  “Then Eddie dies and Donan sees his chance.”

  “Yep. He makes Eddie’s grandson, Ernest, do the looking for him. Threatens Ernest and his friends if they don’t help him find the diamond.”

  “Then he returns the diamond to the Holyoke Foundation and collects the reward.” Andrea shook her head in amazement. “And Lizzy told you all of this.”

  “She did. After you started asking questions.”

  “And you haven’t gone to the police?”

  “How could I, Andrea? Donan might still have friends on the force. Who knows how high up this goes?” Mr. Earle just shook his head. “No, better to just give the old man what he wants.”

  “He’s a murderer, Marcus!”

  “All the more reason!” he shot back, panic in his voice. “Look, I don’t care about diamonds or jewels or cash or whatever happened sixty years ago. I just want those kids safe.”

  “And they will be,” Andrea Chase said, grabbing her bag and making for the door. “Trust me.”

  She was off like a shot.

  STANDING IN THE FOYER

  Lizzy had been standing in the foyer with her backpack for the last twenty minutes. Though Aunt Patty probably wanted Lizzy out of her house just as much as Lizzy did, she wasn’t going to make it easy for either of them. So instead, she told Lizzy to wait there, went into the kitchen, and called Lizzy’s mom.

  Finally, the doorbell rang. Aunt Patty marched into the foyer without so much as a backward glance at Lizzy and opened the door.

  Lizzy’s mother stepped through the doorway. When she spoke, she didn’t even look at Lizzy. She just said in a quiet voice, “Go wait in the car.”

  RYAN HAS A LOT TO PROCESS

  “So you knew she’d try to break in and find the loot?”

  “I figured that if I could convince her that Stanley Donan was a dirty cop, then she wouldn’t go to the local police for fear that he still had allies in the department. That left finding the stash room herself.”

  Ryan worked that through. “Okay,” he said. “I get that. But how did you know about me and Ernest and Lizzy, and how we really found the diamond in the sock monkey? That much was mostly true.”

  Ryan followed Mr. Earle’s gaze over to Tess.

  “Nana and I talked on the phone at least a couple of times a week. She told me all about it.”

  “So Miss Chase breaks into the house to find a stash room tha
t doesn’t exist while you guys are sitting here waiting to call the police on her,” Ryan said, getting it straight in his head. “Man, you totally played her, Mr. Earle.”

  For the briefest of seconds Ryan’s teacher betrayed a smile that was, almost, a little wicked. “No one messes with my kids, Ryan.”

  Ryan looked back out the window. Andrea Chase sat in the back seat of one of the cruisers as the cops led out some angry guy with a digital camera.

  “So, Ryan,” Mr. Earle said. “Maybe now you should tell us just what you were doing tonight.”

  DR. SHAY

  Lizzy stepped outside and saw a black Mercedes sedan parked where she’d expected to find her mother’s car. And standing by it, under an umbrella, was a tall, distinguished-looking man in a suit.

  “Hello, Lizzy,” the man said, extending his umbrella to cover her as well. “I’m Dr. Shay. I work with your mom.” He offered his hand. “You can call me Tom,” he added. “If you want.”

  Lizzy took his hand warily. This guy had to be someone from the hospital. Did this mean her mom was in trouble for leaving work?

  “Tom,” Lizzy said. “Are you going to fire my mother?”

  Dr. Shay gave her a funny look and then laughed. It was a big, booming roar that startled Lizzy. “Wow. I don’t even know how to begin to answer that.” He thought for a moment. “Okay, well, first of all, your mom doesn’t work for me. I’m a cardiac surgeon and we do work together at the hospital, but I’m not her boss.”

  “So she’s not going to get in trouble over this?”

  “Lizzy, I’m not here in a work-related capacity,” he said, fidgeting a little with his tie. “Your mom called me because …” He paused, thinking of the best way to say it. “Well, because she was too angry to drive.”

  He chuckled then, which confused Lizzy. Then it occurred to her that Dr. Shay was answering her questions in the way adults do when they want to remain technically honest but not entirely forthcoming.

  “Wait a minute,” Lizzy said, suddenly a little less confused. “Are you two dating?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Shay said very slowly. He looked like he was about to say more, but seemed relieved when the front door opened and Lizzy’s mom marched out. Lizzy saw her aunt Patty standing in the doorway, trembling with the singular rage that comes from badly losing a verbal altercation.

  When Lizzy’s mom reached the car, she closed her eyes and took a long, slow, cleansing breath. Then she folded Lizzy’s hand in her own and smiled.

  “I don’t know about you two,” Lizzy’s mom said, brushing some of the rain out of her hair. “But I could just murder a cheeseburger right now.”

  RYAN TELLS HIS STORY

  Ryan told Mr. Earle and Tess everything, starting with Winston and Tommy in the lunch yard. Then he told them about him and Ernest finding the little cave in the woods that led to the bottom of Thompkins Well. And what happened with the art set and the Colorforms. And the fire extinguisher. And finally the sock monkey with the jewel inside.

  Then he told them about the quilt, and finding Mrs. Haemmerle. That part was hard.

  Mr. Earle and Tess didn’t say anything. They didn’t once interrupt, not even to ask questions. Ryan could see on their faces that they weren’t sure what to make of his story, but they believed him. Or at least believed he wasn’t lying to them.

  “After the sock monkey and the reporters, things started to get quiet again; we thought it was all done. But then your girlfriend—”

  “Very former girlfriend. A lifetime ago.”

  “She showed up and wanted to … What’s the word for proving something’s fake?”

  “Debunk,” Tess offered.

  “Yeah, that’s it. She wanted to debunk the well and make everyone look like idiots for believing in it. If she’d succeeded, sooner or later everyone would know we’d listened to their wishes and think everything that happened was all a hoax, a prank. That none of it was real. But it was real. And even if it wasn’t, Ernest only ever wanted to help people …”

  He trailed off, thinking maybe he could stop there. But he wasn’t finished, and they all knew it.

  “Then I remembered how in class you were teaching us about scapegoats. And I realized that’s what we needed. So I figured if I got caught inside Ernest’s grandfather’s house, everyone would just make me the scapegoat. And maybe there was a way to be the scapegoat and keep the miracle at the same time. People do like happy endings, as long as someone pays for them.”

  “Really, Marcus,” Tess said. “What are you teaching these children?”

  “So I’d say I stole all the stuff—the art set, Colorforms, all of it—and that I hid it in Mrs. Haemmerle’s garage. Everyone buys that, because it’s easy enough. Then I say that Mrs. Haemmerle, who was, no disrespect, getting a little senile, found my stash and started spreading it all over town.”

  “So you’re the villain and she’s the accidental hero.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Mr. Earle looked like he didn’t know what to say. “That’s very clever, Ryan. Very shrewd. Incredibly noble. And unbelievably stupid—”

  “Hey! If I had known you already had a plan to get rid of your nosy girlfriend—”

  “Very very very former nosy girlfriend! And if you had come to an adult for help—”

  “Like you?”

  “Well, sure. Me or—”

  “Why, so you can call me stupid?”

  “—or your parents, or Lizzy’s mother, or—”

  “She wasn’t senile,” Tess interjected, surprising Ryan and Mr. Earle. “My grandmother, she wasn’t senile.” She looked at Ryan and smiled warmly. “I know, Ryan. I know she never paid you. You always told her that she already had, but she knew the truth. She always knew.”

  THE PROBLEM WITH DRAMATIC EXITS

  The problem with dramatic exits is that they happen so quickly a person rarely stops to consider the weather. Four blocks away from his house, Ernest was winded and coming down from the rush of adrenaline that had carried him this far, and he arrived at two key observations: (1) It was raining, and (2) it was cold.

  What he wouldn’t give to have his windbreaker right about now. As soon as he thought about it, he felt his stomach drop. Where was his windbreaker?

  Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen it for a few weeks now. There’d been a warm spell and he hadn’t been wearing it to school. He tried to remember the last time he’d worn it, but all he could think of were those times he wore it to Thompkins Well, and how he kept forgetting it inside the cave.

  What if it were in there now? And what if someone like that Andrea Chase discovered the cave and found his windbreaker?

  With his name written inside it.

  Ernest started running to North Side Park. He forgot about being cold and wet. He had to get to the cave. He had to get that windbreaker back before it was too late.

  IRONY WITH A SIDE OF FRIES

  Dr. Shay had gone up to the counter to pay the bill.

  “I know, I know,” her mother said before Lizzy could speak. “I should have told you.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” Lizzy asked, more curious than upset.

  Her mother shrugged sheepishly. “I was worried how you might take it.”

  And just like that, Lizzy realized how wrong she’d been about her mother—about everything—since her father had left. She hadn’t been seeing her mother clearly at all.

  Lizzy’s natural instinct was to blame Aunt Patty and Chelsea (about whom her mother hadn’t said one word all night, and wouldn’t for another four days) for making her think less of her mother since the divorce, for letting their opinion sway her into believing that her mother wasn’t pretty or feminine or strong enough to keep a man.

  But Lizzy realized that what had actually set her off this afternoon was that she was mad at herself. Aunt Patty and Chelsea had been horrible, sure, but Lizzy was the one who had let them in her head.

  Someone once famously said, “It’s not what they call you;
it’s what you answer to.” For the last several months, Lizzy had been answering to whatever her aunt and her cousin called her. Even worse, she’d been answering for her mom, too.

  But she had it all wrong. Lizzy could finally see what she had been missing the whole time. Her mom didn’t lose her dad. She got rid of him. Lizzy had assumed that her mom had wanted him back. But that wasn’t why her mom cried at night. It was because he wouldn’t come back for Lizzy.

  “You really like him?” Lizzy asked. “Dr. Shay?”

  Her mom looked at her. “I really do,” she said with an unspoken question in her voice.

  “Okay, then,” Lizzy said. “Good enough for me.”

  TESS JINXES IT

  “She knew you cut her lawn for free. And took care of her trash bins. And shoveled her walk. And more. And that every week you’d trick her into not paying you. She thought the world of you, Ryan. In fact, she …” Tess stopped herself, changing gears. “Well, that’s a conversation for another time. Right now I think we should enjoy the present moment, yes? I mean, with Marcus’s babe out of the picture—”

  “Years and years—oh, forget it.”

  “—Ryan and his friends appear to be in the clear.”

  Ryan and Mr. Earle looked at each other. She had a point.

  “There is just one more thing,” Mr. Earle said after some careful thought. “By now your parents are probably wondering where you are. What are we going to tell them?”

  Together, Ryan and Mr. Earle decided on a story that stuck pretty close to the truth. Leaving out Ryan’s thwarted break-in, they would say that Ryan went back to Mrs. Haemmerle’s to make sure he’d put the gas can for the mower back in the garage, at which time he noticed the burglary in progress across the street. Slipping into Mrs. Haemmerle’s house to call the police, he came across Tess and freaked.

  “Do we have to say freaked?” Ryan asked.

  “Would you prefer fainted?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  Mr. Earle made the call and delivered the story. Ryan’s mom was very anxious and worried but turned understanding and grateful once Mr. Earle, who really did spin a convincing yarn, finished his account.

  He was just about to wrap up with her when she asked him to hold while she answered the door. A few moments later she came back on the line.