by Gail Sattler
“Time marches on. Now march that video on. I want to see who’s been playing games with us. I need to get that trophy back into Becky’s yard before snowfall.”
“It’s a long way from winter. We haven’t reached the hottest part of the summer yet.” Before hitting the button, Stan ran his hand over his back pocket, which held the newest note. They’d been so excited about catching the Gnapper that neither of them felt the note was important. They were about to find out the Gnapper’s identity, yet he wasn’t as relieved as he should have been. Even though chasing the gnome had been a lot of gnonsense . . . nonsense . . . he’d thoroughly enjoyed all the time he spent with Amber. Except when she keeled over and nearly sent him into cardiac arrest. However, going on a wild goose, or rather, wild gnome chase, gave him the excuse to be with her nearly every day, which made him recognize that he wanted to see her every day. When life returned to normal he would no longer have an excuse to drop by unannounced or spend an evening together just to kill time. Even when they didn’t talk, he enjoyed simply being with her, which didn’t make sense, but that was how he felt.
With mixed feelings, he hit the button. “Here goes,” he said, trying to sound cheerful.
He set it to fast-forward, but it was still boring. Since they didn’t know exactly what time Gnorman showed up, they started at the beginning to watch eight hours worth of the yard in the dark of night. By morning the yard was still bare, which was what he’d expected.
Not long after sunup, his mother entered the yard wearing baggy sweatpants and rubber boots with her weeding tools in her hands, and proceeded to start weeding the flower beds.
“I don’t feel right about watching this,” Amber mumbled. “It feels wrong when she doesn’t know she’s being recorded. But it is kind of amusing watching it on fast forward. I wish I could get my weeding done in fast-action like this.”
As his mother made her way along the length of the bed, soon they had a close-up view of her rear end. Right in front of the camera, she got on her hands and knees and stretched to reach behind the bushes with her hand-held hoe.
“I don’t want to see this,” Stan muttered, and covered his eyes with his hands. “Tell me when she’s done.”
“She’s done.”
Just as Amber spoke, his father walked into the picture. Judging from the light, it was first thing in the morning, and he was leaving for work. He walked up to Stan’s mother and gave her a long kiss, with one hand making a journey down her back, pulling her close to him. She went willingly, and her shovel dropped to the ground.
Stan groaned and covered his face again. “This is something else I don’t want to see.”
He could feel Amber’s glare through his hands. He widened his fingers, looking between them to see Amber staring at him, her eyes narrowed, giving him the same look he used to get from his teacher in grade school when she caught him passing notes in the classroom.
“How dare you. It’s so sweet that they still do that after all these years together. They’re so in love after all this time. I wish I could see my mother and father like this.”
A wave of guilt washed through him. Not only were his parents still in love after more than thirty years of marriage, but they were both alive and active. Maybe when Gnorman and the trophy were recovered, he’d take both his parents and Amber out for a nice dinner to celebrate together.
He lowered his hands and turned back to the screen. “You’re right. After seeing so many marriages fail, I do appreciate the relationship my parents have. I just don’t want to watch it. After all, they’re my parents.”
“You’d watch if this was a movie, and two strangers were doing that.”
Instead of picturing strangers doing the same thing, he pictured himself with Amber.
He shook the thought from his head and returned his attention to the screen. His father left for work, and his mother returned to her weeding.
With the weeding complete, she went back into the house, and they watched the empty yard. It was almost as boring as watching the blackness of night, but not quite. It would have been more interesting if he’d turned the camera a bit more skyward, so they could at least watch the clouds move.
“Can you make the fast-forward go any faster?”
“No. There’s only one speed. I had to buy this thing without a lot of notice, and there was only one kind available. It was this or nothing. There isn’t a huge demand for surveillance equipment in Bloomfield.”
Suddenly the picture swayed. With it Stan’s stomach lurched, like he was seasick. The picture moved, and suddenly they saw the grass, from up close.
“What happened?”
Amber turned and snapped at him. “So much for your plan. That rattletrap conglomeration must have been too top-heavy, and got knocked over in the wind.”
He turned to her. “There’s no wind today. I had all the shop doors open. I would have felt any wind. I think someone knocked it down. “
From his peripheral vision, he detected more movement and turned back to the screen. When he did, Amber did too. The same movement of the camera happened in reverse, and the camera once again encompassed his parents’ yard, only this time Gnorman was there.
“This is just great,” he sighed. “The Gnapper knocked the statue over on the way into the yard, then very graciously righted it on his or her way out.”
Amber stared at the screen. “Don’t you think that was a little convenient?”
“No. It was top-heavy and we knew it. It would be easy to knock over.”
“I’m wondering if the Gnapper knew it had a camera hidden in it, and knocked it over on purpose.”
“That’s impossible. No one knew.”
“One person knew. Where did you buy the camera? Was it someone you knew?”
“That’s a difficult thing to answer. Lots of people bring their cars into my shop and they remember me as their mechanic, but to me, from behind the counter, most of the people I meet jumble into a sea of faces. I meet over a hundred people every week. Some I only see once, some come six months later for the next oil change, and some are regulars. Maybe it was someone I met before. I don’t know. But if it wasn’t someone I knew well, they wouldn’t know about me helping you try to find Gnorman and recover the trophy.” As he spoke, he tried to remember if he’d ever seen the woman who sold him the spy camera, and he honestly couldn’t.
“That’s not true. They could have seen your name in the Gazette.”
“While this is a lot of excitement for the garden club, this isn’t an event that’s going to make the local news in the paper.”
“But you said when this first started that the Gazette was running a contest, with prizes to see who could guess Gnorman’s next costume.”
“Right. I forgot about that.” He’d even read the article and groaned at how the reporter had worded the story. He or she had put a funny spin on it and had made it quite entertaining. Stan would have enjoyed it more if the story had been about someone else, but it was impersonal enough that he’d not felt it too invasive. Until now. “I’m sure I’d remember if I’d seen the woman before at the garden club.” Almost sure, anyway. Truth be told, he didn’t watch the women at the garden club. The only woman he watched was Amber. He wasn’t really interested in talking to other single women, but a lot approached him to ask about car trouble. To that, he always told them to bring their car to the shop so he could have a proper look, then he got one of his three employees to do it.
“In other words, you don’t know for sure.”
“Something like that. But I’d certainly know if it was someone who came in often. Anyone who didn’t wouldn’t care enough to be interested.”
“Did you use your personal charge card or your company charge card?”
Automatically he covered his wallet in his back pocket with his palm. “How did you know
I used my credit card?”
“Because if it was over $20, you never carry enough cash.”
Busted. “So what? You don’t either.”
“That wasn’t the point. The point was that the person who sold you the spy camera knew your name and your business. If they were following the contest, they probably would have recognized your name and made the connection.”
At the time the article had come out, he’d convinced himself that since the reporter had also mentioned the name of his business, it had been good free advertising. Hayden had been the first to mention it, but after that a number of people who came into his shop in the week following the article had also talked to him about it. Some he knew, some he didn’t. Then he’d dug the issue out of his recycle bin and read it.
“I concede. Maybe the woman who worked there figured it out. But I say it’s a long shot.” He stared blankly at Gnorman the hippie, and sighed. “We have no choice. We have to tell my mother about the camera. It’s the only way we can be sure we’re going to catch whoever this is when Gnorman is removed.”
Amber groaned. “Then for sure we’ll be chasing Gnorman until it snows.”
He reached into his back pocket for the envelope, then froze.
Reading it now would be admitting defeat. He couldn’t do that.
He imagined his mother’s reaction when she found out that they had video of her backside. “This is something we should do in person. On the way we need to stop at the grocery store. This probably calls for chocolate cheesecake.”
Chapter Twenty
Amber followed Stan and the cheesecake as they entered Kathy and Frank’s home.
It felt odd walking in without knocking, but it probably would have felt even stranger if Stan had knocked. For Amber as well, since she’d spent considerable time here. For many years their mothers had traded day-care arrangements while both worked part-time jobs, coordinating their schedules. When her mother was working, Stan’s mother cared for her and Stan, and when Kathy was working, Amber’s mother cared for the two of them.
For all the time they’d spent together until they went their separate ways after college, they should have had a severe case of separation anxiety. They’d nearly been joined at the hip.
Kathy sat at one end of the couch knitting, while Frank sat in the recliner watching a basketball game. She smiled brightly at Stan as they entered the living room.
“This is a surprise.” Her gaze dropped to the cheesecake, and her smile transformed into a deep frown. “What did you do?” she asked, her voice taking on an accusing edge.
Amber turned her head so Kathy wouldn’t see her trying not to laugh. She’d told Stan his mother would know something was up, but he’d insisted on buying the cheesecake anyway.
Like a little boy who’d just been caught with his fingers in the cookie jar, he blushed. “We need your help, so I brought a peace offering.”
She could see the juxtaposition of thought as Kathy tried to connect the concept of help with an apology.
“It’s about Amber’s squirrel statue.”
Kathy’s smile returned. “I know it’s not her usual caliber, and the colors don’t coordinate with my garden, but it certainly doesn’t need a cheesecake to apologize. As long as no one sees it, I’m fine. But I’ll take the cheesecake anyway.” Kathy set her knitting down, stood, and extended her hands to take the cheesecake from Stan. Her eyes lit up when she saw the label and noted that it was her favorite kind.
As soon as she closed her fingers around the box, Stan said, “Mom, we have a hidden camera in the statue.”
It was a good thing he didn’t let it go. Kathy’s hands went limp, and her arms dropped to her side. “What are you talking about?”
Stan looked down at the cheesecake, as if intently reading the label. “We saw you doing your gardening, and we saw you and Dad, well, you know. I’m sorry.”
Kathy’s eyes lost focus, and Amber could see the exact moment Kathy figured out what she and Stan had seen because her cheeks turned a deep red.
Stan chose that moment to look up. When he saw his mother’s red face, he blushed as well. “What we wanted to see was the person who keeps moving Gnorman around, but they knocked the statue over when they came into the yard and set it right when they left. It didn’t catch who is doing this. So we need your help.”
“What do you want me to do? I can’t make sure they don’t knock it over again, but they probably won’t. I would think whoever knocked it over was afraid they broke it and won’t go near it the second time.”
“I need to anchor it so it won’t fall, and I need to make sure it’s aimed right at Gnorman so we can catch them red-handed. Or red-gnomed.”
“I don’t see a problem with that. Do you, Frank?”
Frank shook his head without taking his attention off the game.
“We’re pretty sure it’s someone in the garden club, and you know how fast news travels around there.”
Amber bit her lower lip. Kathy showed no sign of acknowledging that she was the largest perpetrator of spreading said news, otherwise known as gossip. All she did was nod.
Stan and Kathy walked into the backyard while Amber took the cheesecake into the kitchen and cut it into slices. It was already dark outside, but enough residual light from the house and the glow of the streetlights allowed her to watch as Stan showed his mother where the lens was hidden. She poked and prodded, nodding as Stan explained how it worked before stepping back inside.
Frank picked up one of the plates and returned to the television, while Amber stayed in the kitchen with Stan and Kathy making small talk only for as long as it took to eat the dessert without rushing.
On the way back to her townhouse, Stan was silent for so long that she began to get nervous.
“What’s wrong?” she finally asked as they rounded the last corner to her house.
“Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out what we’re going to say when we confront this person once we know the truth. Have you thought about the possibilities?”
“Yes, and I haven’t a clue who it is. But we have a good start on who it isn’t. It isn’t Naomi; we found Gnorman behind her place first.”
Stan pulled into her driveway and turned off the ignition, but he didn’t exit the truck. “It’s not Ronnie or her mother, Minnie. We found him dressed like a pirate at the theater.”
Amber held out one hand and counted down the non-suspects on her fingers. “It’s not Libby; we found him dressed like a clown at her place. And it’s not Sylvia. That’s where he was the octogenarian rock star.”
She kept counting on her fingers while Stan continued. “It’s not Andy; that’s where we found him dressed as Santa. And it’s not my mother.”
“We also know it’s not Becky because Gnorman was stolen from her yard in the first place.” She held out both hands. “That’s seven who it’s not. And it’s not you or me.” Her whole body sagged as she did the mental math.
“Nine down, seventy to go.”
She sighed, not feeling the least bit encouraged. The hidden camera had to work. “You don’t have to see me to the door. I’m tired, I just want to go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It was six excruciating days before Gnorman disappeared. Amber figured out that the Gnapper did the opposite of making up for lost time by taking extra time to compensate for moving Gnorman quickly out of some of the other yards. Either that, or besides having something against her, the Gnapper also had something against Kathy, because Gnorman’s outlandish costume clashed so badly with Kathy’s color scheme of the year.
Every day they diligently went into Kathy’s backyard to reset the recorder to erase the memory card and start again. That way they wouldn’t have to watch as much nothingness when Gnorman finally disappeared again. Now, finally, they had the answer.
Kathy had phoned Stan to say that Gnorman vanished while she went to the mall. Even though the screen was smaller than his PC, Stan arrived with his laptop to pick Amber up, and they went straight to Kathy and Frank’s, although Stan made a quick trip at the drive-thru to pick up burgers for everyone’s supper.
Amber was in no rush to eat. She knew they would have to watch an entire night’s worth of video, and into the afternoon, and she already knew how long it would take. While prepared to eat leisurely, she hadn’t expected Stan to watch her like a hawk to make sure she ate every crumb.
“Doesn’t this thing go any faster?” Kathy asked.
Amber rested one hand on Stan’s forearm. “It only goes one speed. All we can do is wait it out.”
To kill time, knowing they would have their answer soon, Amber thought she could make a game out of it. After all, if the Gazette was holding a contest, she could do the same, on a much smaller scale, of course. “Tell me, Kathy, who do you think it is?”
“I think Stan should guess. After all, you two are the ones who have been chasing Gnorman around Bloomfield.”
Stan’s expression surely was the same as her own. She’d been positive that Kathy would be anxious to share her opinion, with a full story of why she considered that person her prime suspect.
“I have no idea,” Stan replied. “We’ve been trying to figure this out all season. All we know is that it’s a member of the garden club.”
Also, someone with a terrible pentameter.
Finally the image on the screen lightened, and the strip of visible sky showed the glorious colors of the sunrise. In a way, it was a shame that Stan hadn’t gotten the whole sunrise, but then again, at this speed, it was over in under a minute. The sky was blue and the morning had begun.
This time, when Kathy came out to weed the garden, she was dressed in good jeans, her hair was combed, and she wore makeup. As she weeded her garden, she kept turning around and waving at the camera. Every time Kathy saw herself waving in fast-action, she blushed, but she kept watching. Then she picked up her tools and disappeared.
