Cam Jansen and the Valentine Baby Mystery

by David A. Adler

  “That’s the big problem in hospitals,” the white-haired woman said. “People here always want to know if you’re sleeping. I was a patient here once and I was sleeping and a nurse shook me. ‘Are you sleeping?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Oh,’ she told me, ‘then you won’t need this pill.’ It was a pill to help me sleep. ‘Well,’ I told her, ‘I need it now!’”

  The man opened his eyes. All the loud talk had wakened him.

  “We’re looking for my mother’s purse,” Eric said.

  The man rubbed his eyes.

  “Did you see it?” Eric asked.

  “My eyes were closed. I was asleep,” the man said, and sat up. “I didn’t see anything.”

  When he sat up, his coat fell onto the floor. Mrs. Shelton’s purse wasn’t by his legs. Eric bent to pick up the man’s coat. When he did, he looked under the couch. The purse wasn’t there.

  “Thank you,” the man said when Eric gave him his coat.

  Eric went back to his seat. He pushed his coat aside and sat down. His mother and Cam sat beside him.

  “Are you sure you had it with you?” Eric asked. “Maybe you left it in the car.”

  “I think I had it.”

  Cam closed her eyes. She said, “Click!” and looked at the picture she had in her head of Mrs. Shelton when she walked into the hospital.

  “It’s a green bag,” Cam said with her eyes still closed.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Shelton said. “It matches my coat.”

  “You carried it over your left arm.”

  “When you came into this room you said, ‘It’s hot here,’” Eric said. “You put your purse on the couch, and then you took off your coat.” Eric smiled, and said, “I have a good memory, too.”

  Cam opened her eyes. She looked around the waiting room at the man and the couch and the two old women and said, “They didn’t take the purse.”

  “The only other people in here were the two doctors,” Eric said, “Dr. Berger and the man.”

  “That’s strange,” Mrs. Shelton said. “We know Dr. Berger’s name, but not the other doctor’s.”

  Cam closed her eyes again and said, “Click!”

  “Dr. Berger wore a hospital tag,” Cam said with her eyes still closed. “It had her name, Judith Berger, MD. But the other doctor had no tag.”

  “He said your mom was not one of his patients,” Mrs. Shelton remembered.

  “If he’s a doctor, he should have a tag,” Eric said.

  Cam opened her eyes.

  “He must be a fake,” Cam told Mrs. Shelton, “and while we were talking to Dr. Berger, he stole your purse.”

  “Now what do we do?” Mrs. Shelton asked.

  “We look for him,” Cam said. “When we find the fake doctor, we’ll find your purse.”

  “I’ll call security,” Mrs. Shelton said.

  There was a telephone by the door. She lifted the handset, pushed a few buttons, and said, “I need to report a robbery.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Yes,” Mrs. Shelton said into the telephone handset. “I can describe the thief.” She thought for a moment. “He has blond hair and is wearing a white doctor’s jacket, and . . . and . . . and that’s about all I remember. Oh, and he has my purse. It’s big and green.”

  “Wait,” Cam said. “I remember more.”

  Cam closed her eyes and said, “Click!” Then, with her eyes still closed, she described the man to Mrs. Shelton.

  “He has a round face, curly blond hair, blue eyes, and a small scratch on his right cheek, and he’s wearing a silver ring with a blue stone on the middle finger of his right hand.”

  Mrs. Shelton repeated Cam’s description to the security guard. She listened for a moment and then put the telephone handset back on its cradle.

  “The security guards will look for him,” she said, “and they’ll call the police.”

  Cam opened her eyes.

  “What about us?” Eric asked. “What should we do?”

  “We can look, too,” Mrs. Shelton said. “We’ll look for my purse. Maybe the thief dropped it. But if we see the thief, we won’t say or do anything. He could be dangerous. We’ll just come back here and call security.”

  Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton left the waiting room. Mrs. Shelton went directly to the nurse’s station. She told the nurse about the fake doctor.

  “I still have my cell phone,” she told the nurse. It was in a holder on her waist. She gave the nurse her cell phone number and said, “We won’t be in the waiting room, but we want to know just as soon as you have any news about Jane Jansen.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll call you just as soon as she’s taken to the delivery room,” the nurse said. “And I hope you find your purse.”

  Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton walked down the hall. A man wearing a white jacket hurried past, but he had long dark hair and a name tag. A man in a white jacket came out of an office, but he didn’t have blond hair. He had no hair. He was bald. Then two men in white jackets got off the elevator. Neither was the fake doctor.

  “Oh!” Eric said, and threw up his hands. “They all wear white jackets and none of them is the thief!”

  “Maybe he went downstairs,” Cam said when they reached the elevator. “Maybe he left the building.”

  “All my credit cards are in my purse,” Mrs. Shelton said, “and my driver’s license, library card, and medical insurance card. First I’ll have to cancel all those cards. Then I’ll have to replace them. There’s money and keys in my purse. This is terrible.”

  “Don’t worry,” Eric told his mother. “Cam will find your purse.”

  But how will I find it? Cam wondered. Then she had an idea.

  “What would you do if you were the thief?” she asked Eric. “What would you do if you had just stolen someone’s purse?”

  “I would never steal,” Eric answered.

  “Please,” Cam said. “Help me with this. Pretend you’re a thief.”

  Eric folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling. Then he shook his head and told Cam, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Well, I can,” Cam said. “The thief must know people will be looking for a man in a white jacket carrying your mom’s green purse. First he would take off the jacket. Then he’d empty the purse, get rid of it, and run.”

  Cam looked up and down the hall and asked, “Where would he leave the jacket and purse?”

  “I’d throw it in a trash can,” Mrs. Shelton said, and went to the nearest one. She took off the lid. She looked in, moved some papers, and said, “It’s not in here, but there are lots more trash cans.”

  Mrs. Shelton went to the next one and lifted the lid.

  “Yuck!” she said.

  Cam and Eric looked in.

  It was filled with papers, bread, tuna fish, and tomato juice.

  “Someone didn’t like his lunch,” Mrs. Shelton said.

  She carefully pushed aside some papers but didn’t find the white jacket and green purse.

  “I’ve been trying to do what you said and think like a thief,” Eric told Cam. “I don’t think a thief would want someone to see him throw good things away. He’d go where no one would see, and then get rid of the stuff.”

  “You’re right,” Cam said. “Let’s look for an empty room or a stairway.”

  “We didn’t pass any empty rooms,” Mrs. Shelton said, “but there’s a door marked Stairs just across from the elevator.”

  Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton hurried to the stairs. They opened the door, and on the floor were a white jacket and an open green purse.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Shelton said as she took her purse. “I’m so glad we found it.”

  Eric smiled and said, “I knew Cam would solve this mystery.”

  “Nothing is solved,” Cam told Eric. “We have to see what was stolen from your mom’s purse. Then we have to help security catch the thief.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mrs. Shelton opened her purse. She took out her wallet and found all her credit cards and driver’
s license. Then she opened her billfold and said, “My money is gone.”

  “Please, keep looking,” Cam told her. “Maybe he took something else.”

  Mrs. Shelton took a tube of lipstick, hand cream, and toothpaste from her purse. She gave them to Eric to hold. Then she took out a can opener, two pens, a shoehorn, a box of raisins, an envelope filled with coupons, and a pack of chewing gum.

  “It’s all here,” Mrs. Shelton said. “He took my money, but nothing else.”

  “What about your keys?” Cam asked.

  Mrs. Shelton looked in her purse again.

  “They’re gone,” she said. “He took my money and my keys!”

  Ring! Ring!

  Mrs. Shelton took her cell phone from the holder on her waist.

  “Hello.”

  She listened.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Shelton said. “We’ll be right there.”

  Mrs. Shelton quickly left the stairwell. Then she turned and called to Cam and Eric, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Cam’s mom is having the baby!”

  “What did she say?” Cam asked as they hurried down the hall.

  “Your mom was taken to the delivery room. The nurse said we should go to the waiting room and wait there. Someone will come in and tell us as soon as your sister is born.”

  Mrs. Shelton pushed open the door to the waiting room. The man was still asleep on the large chair in the corner. The two old women were still reading magazines.

  “How long do we have to wait?” Cam asked.

  Mrs. Shelton smiled. “The only one who might know that is your sister, and she’s not talking.”

  “She probably won’t be talking for a long time,” Eric said. “She’ll just cry and wake you up at night.”

  “I’m going to teach her to talk,” Cam said. “I’ll hold her, talk to her, and read her my favorite books.”

  Eric said, “You can teach her to say ‘Click!’”

  Cam smiled. “First I’ll teach her to say ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ and ‘Cam-Cam.’”

  Just then the door opened. Dr. Berger came in and told Mrs. Shelton, “I have good news. It’s a strong, healthy boy.”

  “Are you sure it’s a boy?” Mrs. Shelton asked.

  “I’m a doctor. I know the difference between a boy and a girl.”

  “But I’m having a sister,” Cam said.

  “Are you the Normans?”

  “No,” Cam said. “I’m Jennifer Jansen.”

  “Oh, where are the Normans?”

  “We’re right here,” the blonde woman said.

  The two women put down their magazines and went to Dr. Berger.

  “I’m Mildred Norman,” the blonde woman said. “I’m the baby’s grandmother.”

  “And I’m Betty Walters,” the other woman told Dr. Berger. “I’m his grandmother, too.”

  “He is beautiful. In a few minutes you can see him. He’ll be in the nursery.”

  “How is my daughter?” Mrs. Walters asked.

  “She’s fine, just a little tired.”

  The two women left the waiting room. Dr. Berger was about to follow them when Mrs. Shelton stopped her and asked, “How is Jane Jansen?”

  “She’s in the delivery room,” Dr. Berger said on her way out, “but I don’t know when she’ll have her babies.”

  Just then Mildred Norman hurried back into the room.

  “I forgot my camera,” she said, and grabbed a bag she had left on her seat. “I brought it here to take pictures of the baby, and I forgot it.”

  “Yes!” Cam said. “People take things for a reason.”

  “Of course we do,” Mildred Norman said. “He’s just so beautiful. I plan to take lots of pictures of him. That’s why I brought my camera.”

  Mildred Norman left the waiting room.

  Cam went to the window and looked out. “I hope it’s not too late,” she said, “but I think I know how to catch the thief. We have to call the security guards.”

  Mrs. Shelton picked up the telephone handset. She started to press the buttons. Then she stopped.

  “What do I tell them?” she asked.

  “People take things for a reason,” Cam explained. “The thief took your money because he wants to spend it. He took your car keys because he wants to use them.”

  “But he doesn’t know where to find my car.”

  “Yes he does. It’s where all the people here park their cars. It’s in the hospital parking garage.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mrs. Shelton smiled. “He can’t steal my car,” she said. “He won’t know which one it is.”

  “He doesn’t have to know,” Cam said. “He’ll just push the clicker and see which car’s lights blink.”

  “Oh, you’re right. What do we do?”

  “We call the guards.”

  Mrs. Shelton picked up the telephone handset again and called the security guards. “I’m calling about my stolen purse.”

  She listened for a moment and then said, “Yes, I’ll wait.”

  “We can’t wait,” Cam said. “The thief is getting away!”

  Cam rushed out of the room. Mrs. Shelton put down the telephone. Then she and Eric followed Cam.

  “Where are we going?” Eric asked.

  “Downstairs,” Cam said. “We’ll tell the guards to go to the parking garage and look for the thief.”

  Cam pressed the button for the elevator.

  “The police are here,” Mrs. Shelton said. “That’s why the guard told me to wait.”

  “Good,” Cam said as the elevator door opened. “We’ll talk to the police. Maybe they can catch the thief.”

  Cam pressed the button for the main floor. She waited. When the doors didn’t close, she pressed the button again. She was in a hurry.

  The doors closed. The elevator was on its way down.

  “You can describe the thief,” Eric said.

  “And I’ll describe my car,” Mrs. Shelton added.

  The elevator stopped on the second floor. Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton moved to the back of the elevator as a young man pushed on a woman in a wheelchair.

  Cam tapped her foot.

  “Hello,” the man said, and pressed the button for the main floor. “I’m Bob and this is Gail.”

  Cam squeezed past the wheelchair and pressed the button a few times.

  “We’re in a hurry,” Cam explained as the doors closed.

  “You should never hurry,” Bob said.

  “That’s right,” Gail added. “I hurried and crashed into a telephone pole.”

  “Her car was ruined,” the man said, “but Gail is fine now.”

  The elevator doors opened. Bob slowly wheeled Gail out. Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton followed them.

  “There they are,” Cam said. She pointed to a security guard and two police officers who were by the hospital entrance. Cam ran to them.

  “Don’t run!” Bob called out. “Don’t run!”

  Eric and his mother slowly followed Cam.

  “The thief,” Cam told the police officers and security guard, “the one who stole the purse, may be in the parking garage.”

  “I think she’s right,” Mrs. Shelton said. She told them about the keys and the clicker. Then she described her car. “The car is on the fifth level, so it will take him time to find it.”

  “But once he does,” the officer said, “he just drives to the exit, takes the ticket off the dashboard, pays the parking fee, and drives off.”

  “Oh, no,” Eric said. “I have the ticket.”

  Eric took the ticket from his pocket and showed it to the police officers and the guard.

  “That’s great! He’ll have to fill out a lost ticket form,” the security guard said, “and that will take a while.”

  The two police officers quickly left the hospital and walked toward the parking garage. The guard took the walkie-talkie off her belt and called the garage attendant. She told him about Mrs. Shelton’s car.

  “He just left!” the guard said. Then she quickly returned
her walkie-talkie to her belt clip and ran out of the hospital.

  Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton went to the large window and looked out.

  “There’s my car!” Mrs. Shelton said.

  Her car was leaving the parking garage. The guard caught up to the police officers. She pointed to Mrs. Shelton’s car. The officers got into their car and turned on the siren.

  Rrrr! Rrrr!

  The police sped off after the thief.

  Ring! Ring!

  “Mom,” Eric said. “It’s your cell phone. It’s ringing.”

  Mrs. Shelton pressed a button and spoke into her cell phone. “Hello,” she said, and listened. Then she asked, “Are you sure?”

  She put the phone back on her waist clip.

  “It was the woman at the nurse’s station,” she told Cam. “She said your brother was born. I think she mixed us up with the Nor-mans again.”

  “Maybe she didn’t mix us up,” Cam said. “Maybe my parents were wrong when they told me I was getting a sister.”

  Cam, Eric, and Mrs. Shelton took the elevator to the fourth floor. The doors opened and Mr. Jansen was standing there, waiting for Cam.

  “It’s a boy,” he said. “He was born first. And a girl. Mom had twins!”

  “Wow! That’s double great!” Cam said. “That’s why Dr. Berger told us she didn’t know when Mom would have her babies. She said ‘babies’ because she knew Mom was having twins.”

  “We knew it, too,” Cam’s father said. “You asked Mom if you would be getting a sister and she said, ‘Yes.’”

  “And you said I would be surprised.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes!” Cam said and hugged her dad. “I’m more than surprised. I’m so very happy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cam and her father and Eric and his mother all went to the nursery. They stood behind a large window and looked in at a room full of newborn babies, each in a small bassinet. On the side of each bassinet was a card with the baby’s name.

  “There they are,” Mr. Jansen said, and pointed to the back of the nursery.