Free Hiding in Plain Sight by Valerie Sherrard

if I should say anything. I couldn’t pretend I knew nothing about it, but commenting would be likely to give me away. Fortunately, others were arriving just then and they all had some-thing to say about the new development.
    â€œYou
can’t
be serious,” Stuart Yaeger said while his wife shook her head disbelievingly. Apparently they were hearing the news for the first time. “They actually laid charges?”
    â€œI’m sure she’ll be cleared,” Darla spoke from the doorway. “The evidence is all circumstantial. In the meantime, the best thing we can all do is focus on our work. That way, when she returns, everything will be running smoothly.”
    â€œMaybe there’s more than just circumstantial evidence,” Debbie Yaeger remarked. “The police must feel that they have a strong case if they’ve gone this far with it. Who knows, maybe they’ve learned something new. Has anyone heard anything … like if they’ve found an eyewitness or something?”
    No one had. I would have been surprised if there’d been anyone around in the middle of the night in this particular part of town. I thought Debbie’s idea was a bit silly, but maybe she was just trying to make sense of an arrest that went against everything she knew about Mrs. Thompson.
    On the other hand, what did
I
honestly know about her?
    Lying in bed the night before, thinking and thinking, that exact question had come to me, and the more I thought about it the more I had to admit that I really know very little about Mrs. Thompson. She’s my friend’s mom, yes, but aside from saying “hi” and answering the usual parent questions (like, where are you girls going and what time will you be back) I never even talk to her.
    Well, I figured that the best way to learn a bit about what kind of person she was would be to get the people she works with talking about her. I couldn’t come right out and ask if they thought she was capable of committing a crime, but maybe I could come up with something a little less direct. Something that wouldn’t make it obvious I was fishing for information. I needed to find some way to get them talking.
    Aside from the morning’s discussion about the arrest, the day was fairly uneventful. Janine actually did some typing and filing while I continued getting the month’s bills ready to go out. She seemed much quieter than the day before, which may have been because she was busier but was more likely because she was absorbed with thoughts of her boss’s problems. I thought it was nice that she was so concerned.
    When closing time arrived I was hungry, so I decided to grab something to eat before going to see Mr. Stanley. I wanted to drop off the book he’d asked for, which I’d picked up at the library at lunchtime. I was going to get a six-inch sub, but then I thought of the hospital food and instead ordered a foot-long — steak and mushroom with lots of veggies. I hurried to the hospital and got to his room while it was still nice and warm.
    â€œBless your heart,” he said half a dozen times, happily munching down his half. “Now
this
is food!” His own meal, just like the day before, sat almost untouched beside a cup of melting ice chips.
    After we’d eaten, we talked about Ernie (there seemed no need to mention the accident with the peacock), then I gave him
Seventeen
, fetched his glasses from the bed stand, and said I’d be by again the next day.
    My next stop was Betts’s place, and after such a fruitless day I dreaded going there. Mrs. Thompson seemed happy to see me, though, and in slightly better spirits than the day before.
    â€œI have a copy of the file here, just like I promised. And you know, Betts has so much confidence in you that it’s starting to be contagious. She tells me you’ve solved other crimes in the most amazing way, and, why, I suppose some people just have a certain