“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.”
