After the kitchen was cleaned up from breakfast I went and did my room, which I must admit had gotten a bit untidy through the week. I’ve found it’s best to stay a step ahead of Mom when it comes to my room, or she bugs me with comments like “A cow couldn’t find her calf in there, Shelby” or “I’d think a young woman your age would take a little more pride in herself than that” or similar remarks.
Fortunately, she doesn’t go in there often, but once in a while she’ll knock and pop her head in and if it’s pretty messy I’m in for it.
Once that was accomplished, there didn’t seem to be much to do. Mom had already told me that while I was working through the summer, all I needed to help out with was dishes sometimes, and of course I was to keep my room clean. I guess she thought that since it was summer holidays for me, having the weekends free was only fair. I didn’t argue.
With my room organized, I figured it was as good a time as any to compile my scattered notes on the robbery into a more orderly collection. I got out a notebook and started transferring everything that was written in the smaller notepad I’d been carrying around as well as things I’d jotted on various scraps of paper.
The first thing I finished was the staff list, which didn’t take long. There hadn’t been much to add to the original details Mrs. Thompson had given me, except for a few personality quirks and the fact that the Yaegers had been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby.
Putting the rest of the notes in order was a bit harder, because a lot of the information didn’t necessarily fall into any particular category. I ended up with a kind of hodgepodge of scattered things related to the business in general, some of which I crossed off as having no significance.
For example, I’d realized that paying particular attention to any one company that did business with NUTEC was senseless unless there were actual clues to connect it with the robbery. My original suspicions about Dymelle Enterprises hadn’t been backed up by any evidence whatsoever. I saw no point in including it in my outline.
When I re-examined the file I’d received from Mrs. Thompson’s lawyer, Mr. Zuloft, there seemed to be very little in it that might be helpful. The pictures of the crime scene offered little more than a view of the conference room with the window broken.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true, I thought. There were a few other items that were different in the room that day — a couple of plants that had since been moved and the fridge from the lunchroom with the water stain on the floor beside it — but they weren’t things that could be related to the robbery.
Or could they?
I stared for a long time at the pictures, willing them to tell me something. I even jotted down notes about the fridge and stuff, along with the other useless things I’d written.
After spending a couple of hours reviewing everything I had and failing to come up with a single idea, I decided I might as well put it all away for the time being. It was pointless to keep staring at the same words, looking at the same pictures, and coming up blank.
Really, the bottom line was that someone had broken the window out from the inside of a locked room, and the only person with a key to access the room was Mrs. Thompson. The culprit, I remembered, had gained entry not only to the room but also to the safe, and by her own admission, Mrs. Thompson was the only one who knew the combination.
I’d started into this thing with the idea that there had to be clues that would clear my best friend’s mother, but everything kept adding up against her while not one shred of evidence pointed either away from her or toward anyone else.
What if she was guilty? The thought came to me, as it had a number of times before, but I knew that I couldn’t afford to let myself think along those lines for long. For one thing, it was pretty tempting to just give up. For another, my friend was counting on me, and even if I couldn’t actually help, it was important that I stand behind her and her family.
I assembled all the papers into a stack, sat them tidily on top of my desk, and decided not to think about the whole matter again for the rest of the weekend. Sometimes not thinking about something can actually help your brain sort it out.
I was about to head out the door to visit Mr. Stanley when the phone rang and Mom called out that it was for me.
“Hello.” I tried not to sound too hopeful, though the thought that it might be Greg had already made my stomach start to flutter.
“Great news!”
It was Betts, and her words immediately made me think there’d been some sort of break in the case against her mother. Maybe the charges had been dropped or new evidence had come to light to clear her mom’s name. Maybe I was off the hook!
But she wasn’t calling to tell me anything like that.
“You are so the best friend ever,” she went on. “I did what you said, and it worked, like, amazingly.”
“What did you do?” I hadn’t quite switched gears enough to follow what she was saying.
“I called Derek’s place last night, when I knew he was at work,” she said, sounding happy, “and asked if I could come over this morning and surprise him.”
“That’s it? You just went over there?”
“No, no, no. Of course not. I made him breakfast — little letter pancakes spelling out his name. You know how your mom used to make them for us when we were small.”
“Yeah,” I said, keeping from laughing. I was pretty sure my mom had made those for us the last time Betts slept over, which was within the last few months. It seemed likely, anyway, since Betts always asks her to.
My mom would never say no. She’d whip up a batch of batter and make the letters in the frying pan, carefully forming them by drizzling thinner batter from a spoon into the pan. If you looked at them then they were backwards. Then, when they’d started to cook, she’d add more batter on top to make a normal-shaped pancake, but when you flipped it over, there would be the letter in the middle of it. You could make hearts and other simple shapes, too, but Betts always wanted her name on hers.
“Then his mom called him to get up,” she was saying now, “and when he came to the kitchen there we were.”
“We?”
“The pancakes and me.” She giggled. “I guess that sounds silly.”
“And how did he like them?” I asked, enjoying the enthusiasm and cheerfulness in her voice. It was a nice change from everything else that was going on in her life.
“He thought they were great!” she practically yelled. “I didn’t know how to make them like your mom does, with, you know, actual ingredients like flour and stuff, but I took a box of mix and they were pretty good.”
“Well, good. I’m really glad,” I said, meaning it.
“I know! And you know what? I think things might just work out with us after all. He was all surprised and speechless at first, but then he got kind of emotional once it sunk in. It was like he couldn’t quite believe I’d gone and done something special for him that way, and when I was leaving he held onto me real hard for a minute and said it was the best breakfast he ever had, which I doubt, and told me he can’t wait to see me tonight.”
“That is awesome, Betts,” I said. “And you watch and see if he doesn’t think up something for you next.”
“I don’t even care, though it would be nice,” she said. “It felt so good to do that for him. It was like it made me like him more again too. Weird, huh?”
I told her that I thought it made perfect sense, because I knew how I felt whenever I did something for someone else.
That reminded me that I had good news to share with Mr. Stanley, and as soon as Betts and I finished talking, I headed out for the hospital.