Hiding in Plain Sight

by Valerie Sherrard

  I’d been waiting for her to ask how I’d known that the plant had ever been in the conference room, having realized my mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth. For some reason, and to my relief, that did-n’t seem to occur to her. I changed the subject quickly, just to be on the safe side.

  Janine gave me a few tasks to complete, simple chores that took neither brains nor concentration. It was while I was in the middle of one of these little jobs that a niggling thought started to worm its way up. You know the kind, when you can actually feel a thought or word or idea coming to the surface, and you know it’s the answer to some question you’ve been trying to puzzle through — and then something happens to distract you and you lose it.

  In this particular case, what distracted me was Janine knocking over a paper clip holder, scattering what looked to be a thousand of them all over the floor. She claimed that she couldn’t pick them up because of her nails, so I got down on my knees and scrounged around the carpet until I’d gotten them all. All that I could see, anyway.

  After that, no amount of concentration would stir up whatever idea had been trying to form. I guess something had triggered it, and without whatever that had been, it just wasn’t going to happen.

  The rest of the day was uneventful, and by the time I’d made my way to see Mr. Stanley and then gone on to Betts’s place, I’d forgotten all about the nagging thought that had been trying to come to the surface.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “That cat,” my mom said as I walked into the kitchen when I finally got home, “is the strangest animal I’ve ever seen.”

  “What did he do?” I asked, not at all eager to hear the answer.

  “Well, for one thing, he got up on the couch when I was doing the crossword this afternoon, up on the back of the couch to be exact, and then he tried to drape himself on my head.”

  “On your head?” I tried but failed to suppress a giggle.

  “On my head. Then, not half an hour later, Julia Pernell stopped by for a visit and he took some kind of fit, positively hurled himself from the room and hid, if you can believe this, behind the toilet of all places. Wouldn’t budge an inch until she’d left, and even then I had to coax him out with a smoked oyster.”

  “You fed him a smoked oyster?” I wondered but didn’t ask whether she’d opened a can especially for him. “Did he like it?”

  “I’d say he did, since he almost head-butted a dent in my leg demanding another one. I told him they were too rich for him to be eating a bunch of them but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “So, how many did you end up giving him?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Three.” At least she looked embarrassed admitting it.

  “Uh-huh. Well, if he gets sick, I’m not cleaning it up. I’ve been good about feeding and brushing him and cleaning his litter, but I can’t be held responsible for what other people do.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry. He started to wash up after the last one and then dozed off on your father’s recliner. He’s been passed out ever since.” Mom’s face looked all fond and proud talking about him, even before she added, “He’s really quite, well, unusual.”

  “Maybe after Ernie goes back home, we could get a pet,” I said. It seemed like the best possible time to approach the subject.

  “Maybe,” was all she said in reply. “Ernie is a kind of unusual name for a cat. I wonder how he came to be called that.”

  “I dunno, I’ll ask Mr. Stanley tomorrow when I go to the hospital.”

  “You go to see him every day?” Mom looked surprised.

  “Yeah. He doesn’t have many visitors — mostly just his daughter when she can find time to go there. She works and has kids so it’s kind of hard for her.”

  “Well, that’s really sweet of you, dear. I’m sure it means a lot to him. Time can go by pretty slowly when you’re in the hospital. There’s so little to do, the high-lights of the day are meals, and they’re not always what you’d call great.”

  “That reminds me — I wanted to take him some fruit and other snacks. He doesn’t care too much for the food, and from what I’ve seen of it, I really don’t blame him. Can you help me make up a nice basket?”

  Of course Mom agreed to that. She’s a bit of a do-gooder, so she loves any chance she gets to do something nice for someone, whether she knows them or not.

  She happened to have a wicker basket that was perfect for what I wanted, so a quick trip to the grocery store was all we needed. Then she arranged the stuff — pears, apples, oranges, bananas, kiwi, grapes, a few kinds of chocolate, wafers, and fancy crackers. It looked beautiful when she was finished and had done it all up in cellophane and ribbon.

  “I’ll pick you up after work tomorrow and drop you off at the hospital with it, if you like,” Mom offered.

  “That’d be perfect — thanks!”

  “No problem. Oh, it almost slipped my mind. Greg called a while ago. He left a number if you want to call him back.”

  “Of course I do! Where is it?”

  “In the kitchen, on the fridge. I put it under the frog magnet.”

  I ran to the kitchen and snatched the number out from under the magnet and punched it into the dial pad. I was so excited to be calling him that I had to do it three times before I got it right.

  “Shelby, I feared you had forsaken me,” Greg said, by way of answering the phone.

  “I take it they have call display,” I giggled.

  “Perhaps they do, or perhaps my loneliness has sharpened my senses and heightened my…”

  “I miss you too,” I sighed. “A lot.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s what I was trying to say when you so rudely cut me off. I’ll have you know that I was even going to work in the word bereft.”

  “Good word,” I said. “Were you going to say how you were all bereft without me, or what?”

  “Well, you’ve ruined it now, so I guess you’ll just never know, will you?”

  “I guess not,” I said, strangely unperturbed by the loss. “So, are you guys still having a good time? And has your dad decided anything about when you’re coming home?”

  “Yes and no. We’re having a good time, except for the one of us who’s bereft, and even he is managing to put on a brave front. And no, nothing definite about the return trip, but I suspect we’ll likely be on the road by Monday or Tuesday.”

  “So you’ll be home early next week, probably?” It was Wednesday, and I counted the days on my fingers. Six or seven more days! It seemed so far away.

  “Probably. But he could just as easily decide to stay for the rest of the month. I’m just guessing.”

  “I’m not even going to let myself think about that,” I insisted. “Talk about something else!”

  “Uh, okay. How’s the investigation going? Any headway?”

  “Not yet. I just can’t seem to get anything to come together in my head. Honestly, the closest thing I have to a clue is that there were a couple of plants in the room when the robbery happened.”

  “And they’re not there now?”

  “No. They were moved later on. But it’s not as though they could have anything to do with the robbery anyway,” I sighed. “I wish you were home. Missing you is probably affecting my ability to think straight.”

  “So, you find that your thinking is muddled and out of focus when I’m not there to influence you?”

  “Yeah, sure. That’s exactly what I said, all right.” I waited for him to make a quick comeback, but there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line. It lasted for nearly half a minute.

  “Boy, would I ever like to kiss you right now,” he said suddenly. His voice was all husky, and it made me feel weak in the knees and stomach.

  “I don’t find this is helping,” I said when I could finally get some words out. “It’s hard enough being apart without you going and saying stuff like that.”

  He agreed, so we wrapped it up and said good-night. I looked at the phone for a long minute before sett
ing it back in the cradle. I thought of how I’d done the sensible thing instead of letting the conversation get all sloppy and sad. We’d only have ended up feeling way worse.

  I could cheerfully have kicked myself.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “We are going to be killed for sure this time.”

  This was Janine’s greeting remark to me the next morning when I arrived for work. I must say that I really prefer a simple good morning.

  “What have we done that demands our execution?” I inquired, following her lead in forfeiting the standard hello.

  “We totally forgot to do up the July quote sum-maries. Now Darla is waiting for them and they’re not even started.” She dropped her head between both hands and lamented, “We’re dead.”

  “How long will it take to do up these, uh, sum-maries that our lives apparently depend on?” I asked. I didn’t bother pointing out that we hadn’t forgotten to do them — she had forgotten to do them. It would have been hard for me to forget them, since I’d never even heard of them in the first place.

  “Hours and hours. Most of the day, probably, depending on how many interruptions there are. And Darla just buzzed me for them.”

  “Did you tell her they’re not done?”

  “Are you crazy?” Janine looked at me as though I’d just escaped from a mental institution. “Of course not. She’d have a fit.”

  “Don’t you think she might notice when you don’t take them to her?”

  “I was going to think of some reason to stall. Like, tell her the printer is acting up or something, and that they’re ready but I can’t print them out yet.”

  “Don’t they all have printers in their own offices?” I asked, thinking of how Angi had finagled an ink cartridge out of me for a plain old boring mint.

  “Yeah, but they’re not connected to my computer.”

  “But if you lie about it, aren’t you running the risk that she’ll just tell you to load the information on a disk and she’ll print it herself?” I knew from experience that lies have a way of turning on you. Besides, Darla didn’t strike me as all that fierce.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Janine moaned pitifully. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  “How about just telling her the truth — that you forgot and you’ll get them done as quickly as possible?”

  “The truth?” She sounded incredulous. “Do you think that might work?”

  “I’ll tell her if you want,” I said. “The sooner that’s over with the better. Then we can actually start doing them.”

  “Okay,” she looked doubtful. “I hope she doesn’t bite your head off.”

  I figured she was overreacting, but Darla was far from happy at the news once I’d delivered my message.

  “Janine knows those are to be done at the start of every month without fail. There’s no excuse for her not having them ready.”

  “It probably slipped her mind because she was busy training me and all,” I said. I felt no relief at all that she was putting the blame fully on Janine, even though it was her fault.

  “I’m sure she remembered to do her nails and play with that mop of hair and make personal phone calls,” Darla said shortly. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Tell her I want them by the end of the day and no excuses. I can’t run a business if things aren’t done properly and on time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I was only too glad to get out of there and go back to the reception area. I noticed, as I passed the offices along the way, that the Yaegers’ door was open and they weren’t in yet. The temptation to just take a quick peek in there was strong, but picturing what would happen if I got caught stopped me.

  It was just as well, since they arrived only seconds after I’d passed Darla’s message on to Janine. With barely a nod in our direction they headed down the hall, neither of them looking overly happy.

  “Trouble in paradise,” Janine whispered. “They don’t fight often but when they do anyone could tell just looking at them. I bet it’s about a baby.”

  “A baby?”

  “They’ve been trying to start a family for years, but with no luck. So every once in a while Debbie gets on this kick that she wants to adopt a foreign kid from, I dunno exactly, a Third World country or something. Only Stuart doesn’t want to. He gives her all these excuses, but she thinks it’s really because it’s expensive and he tends to be kind of tight with money.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked, curious.

  “Oh, Debbie and I have had some long heart-to-hearts over lunch. She needs someone to talk to, because she has no family around here and she and Stuart don’t socialize enough for her to have close friends. Little River is originally Stuart’s home, not hers.”

  “Where’s she from?”

  “Pickering, Ontario. But her mother was the last person left there from her family, and she moved to a retirement community somewhere near Sudbury, in Northern Ontario. Elliot Lake, I think. Anyway, now Debbie feels kind of adrift, like her background is all wiped out or something. She told me that makes her want a baby even more, though I can’t quite under-stand what one thing has to do with the other.”

  “Do they know if there’s some reason they haven’t been able to have a baby of their own?” I felt kind of creepy asking something that personal about people I hardly knew, but it had occurred to me that there were medical procedures available for couples in that situation, and some of them could be pretty expensive. Of course, I had no way of knowing whether or not Debbie would steal in order to get the money for some-thing like that, but it did sound as though she was get-ting desperate to have a family.

  “I don’t really know. I got the impression that they were still trying, though.” Janine seemed to have tired of this particular conversation, since she reached into her purse and drew out her manicure kit, a small burgundy case that held clippers, a tiny pair of scissors, a nail file, emery boards, and whatever those things are called that push back cuticles.

  “Uh, Janine, did you want me to start on those summaries?” I asked.

  “The summaries!” She tossed the kit back into her bulging purse and slapped herself on the forehead. “I can’t believe I was going to forget about them again! What is wrong with me?”

  The phone rang before I could respond to that, which was probably just as well. She answered it, put a call through to Angi’s office, and then started tapping on the keyboard. Her fingers flew as she typed, and I was struck once again by how fast and efficient she was when she actually did some work.

  While she did that I busied myself with a bit of dusting. There’s a cleaning person who comes in on Monday mornings, but the job he does wouldn’t earn him any awards, that’s for sure. I wiped off the desks and filing cabinets and window ledges in the reception area, then did the lunchroom and conference room. When I’d finished, I stood and surveyed the conference room for a few minutes. While I did that, I pictured the photos from the robbery, willing something to click into place.

  Nothing.

  CHAPTER EIGTEEN

  At around eleven o’clock, while Janine was working furiously on the summaries (I still had no idea what that meant, and it didn’t look as though she intended to fill me in), a couple of men in suits came into the reception area and asked for Darla. Well, actually, they asked for Ms. Rhule.

  I was dispatched to let her know they’d arrived, and she told me to escort them into the conference room and make them comfortable. Just how I was supposed to make them comfortable she didn’t say. I didn’t want to go overboard, so I just offered them a seat and asked if they would like coffee.

  “A bottle of club soda for me,” the taller of the two said without looking at me.

  “I’ll have a diet soda. Preferably Pepsi, if you have it,” said the other, also without so much as a glance in my direction.

  I told them certainly and then dashed back to the reception area and asked Janine if we had a stash of various beverages anywhere. On learning we didn’t, I hurried downstairs,
outside, and across the street to a near-by convenience store.

  All told, it must have taken five minutes for me to deliver their drinks. It was a warm day, too, and I think I looked a little flushed from hurrying, but since they acted like I didn’t even exist, I didn’t worry about them noticing. I sat the bottles, along with ice-filled glasses, on the table in front of them. They were opening briefcases and getting out folders and notepads and neither thanked me nor even acknowledged that I’d given them anything.

  I couldn’t help thinking that my mother would have been appalled at their rudeness, but I guess if you’re some kind of a bigshot in the business world, you might get the idea that you’re too good for common manners. Mom says people like that have gotten a bit too big-feeling.

  Anyway, I was about to exit the room when Darla came in. She looked at the drinks and then at me with a sort of questioning expression that was quickly chased off by a smile of approval.

  “Can I get anything for you, ma’am?” I asked her.

  “Thank you, Shelby, but I’m fine.” She stepped forward to greet the men, who both rose and extended hands toward her.

  I nearly bumped into Joey on the way back down the hall. He was coming out of Angi’s office, talking and walking backwards. I managed to stop in time, but just barely, and I nearly lost my balance in the process.

  “Oops, sorry about that,” he said, grabbing my arm to steady me. “I should have been watching where I was going, but if you’ve had any dealings with Angi, you already know it’s best never to turn your back on her.”

  “She did cheat me out of chocolate yesterday,” I said solemnly.

  “I’m not surprised. That’s just like her. If I was-n’t working on a project with her right now, I’d stay barricaded in my room with fresh garlic hanging in the doorway.”