Lost (Stolen) and Found

Written by William Shepard

Who would have thought that this intolerable job would give me the chance to show my skills as a detective? Not me! The paper is sending someone over to interview me shortly, so I’ve got just enough time to tell you what happened.

I’m Sam Jaspers, and I work the night shift, cleaning up and washing the dishes here at the Palace Diner. Some Palace! The counters are so old that the yellow stains are permanent. The regulars would miss them if they ever got scrubbed away, my boss said. Oh yes, the boss (and chef) is Tom Greene. He has owned the place for years. Some say he won it in a crap game. If you ask me, I bet he lost the crap game, and had to take it over!

But, as I was saying, I clean the place during the night shift, from 11:00 p.m. to six o’clock in the morning. There’s nobody here after 2:00 a.m., except the occasional trucker, or student pulling an all-nighter to study for exams. My work is really done by around 3:00 a.m., so I get to put in a couple of hours studying, too. I catch up on sleep in the afternoon, after classes. I’m at the university on the top of the hill. But my “scholarship” comes from working at the Palace Diner!

Anyway, last night Tom Greene left early. There was just one regular, Mary Ingram, in the restaurant then, around midnight I’d say. The waitress on duty was Louisa Perry. Typically, after Tom leaves, she does whatever short order cooking is necessary, from a grill behind the counter. Well, last night a college student I know, John Beddington, came in to have a cup of coffee, and to fill me in on an assignment that I had missed. I was there in class, but slept through the lecture! Let’s see, the only other person there wasn’t a regular, but she struck up a talk with Mary, and then shared her table. She said her name was Sarah Upton.

At one o’clock things had calmed down considerably, so I decided to clean the rest rooms, the one chore I really hate. But it’s a matter of pride to do it right. I did the men’s room first. Then, as usual, I checked with Louisa, and she went into the ladies’ room, opening the door and calling to make sure the room was empty. It was. Then Louisa went back to the counter, and I put my sign on the outer door, then went in and started to clean, the sinks and whatnot.

Well, when I do a job, I do it carefully. So it wasn’t long before I saw, hanging on a hook inside the last toilet stall on the other side of the faucets, a handbag. Actually, it looked like a tapestry bag, rather large, with colorful designs. I took a peek inside the bag. It was full of money! I didn’t want to count it then and there. I was on the verge of coming out, when I remembered -- there had been an old lady earlier, who had trouble getting around. She had a walker. I remembered seeing her with that tapestry bag. Her bag was hung up on the back of her booth. Then it hit me -- it had still been there when she left!

I didn’t think anything of it at the time. For one thing, lost and found is not my concern. The waitresses usually take care of that sort of problem, taking possession of anything that has been lost by mistake. And I’m too busy with my own chores to bother looking for new ones. But this was odd.

Then I thought of something else. I hadn’t remembered the old lady going to the ladies’ room. Come to think of it, she couldn’t have gone, even if she wanted to. There are steps that a handicapped person couldn’t climb. I always thought this would get Tom Greene in big trouble, since there are public access laws in this state, but it hadn’t yet. Maybe we were too small and insignificant to bother with. Or maybe the people who do the enforcing hadn’t had the pleasure of real world eating at the Palace Diner!

Anyway, this was an emergency, so I did what Tom always told his new employees to do (but never expected that anyone would really ever do): I got out my cell phone and called him at home. I was in luck. He wasn’t asleep yet. He took it all in, thought a minute, and then asked me to count the money. I did -- it was more than one thousand dollars! There were also some family pictures in the bag, one of them of the old lady herself. And, of course, there was a name and an address. She would have no trouble getting her property back.

Tom was pleased. He told me to take possession of the bag, and that he’d be back at the diner inside an hour. I wrapped the tapestry bag up in some large vacuum cleaner bags that were on my cleaning cart. I unlocked my locker, got out a history book, put the tapestry bag into my locker, and went to a back table with my history book. I planned to get in some reading for class before Tom returned.

When I looked around, there was Louisa at the counter, with a clear view of both rest rooms. She was doing some inventory work for the day shift, orders to be made for butter, hamburger, rolls and cheese, probably. We sell a lot of cheeseburgers during the night shift, and Tom monitors all supplies carefully.

John came back to say good night, and with a yawn, said he was heading back up the hill, to his dormitory. I thanked him again for his help with the assignment. He said it was nothing, and also mentioned that we served the worst cup of coffee he’d ever had!

Mary Ingram finished her third cup of coffee, then went back to the ladies’ room. Had I remembered? Yes, I had taken the “No Admission” sign off the door. Wearing fresh makeup, Mary came out a few minutes later, said a cheery good night to Louisa and me, and left the diner. “See you again tonight,” she waved. She was always there. We were, she pointed out, her family, after all.

That left Sarah Upton, and I felt almost sorry for her. She clearly didn’t want to leave, and seemed to have no place to go. She seemed to postpone leaving as long as she could. After Mary left she went up to the counter, but Louisa’s foul mood discouraged conversation. Sarah Upton tried to pull herself and her remaining dignity together, and with a shrug of the shoulders, waved a goodbye to me, and left the diner.

At that point, Tom Greene entered. He quickly came over to me. I nodded, to assure him that I had the tapestry bag, safe and sound. “But I can do better than that, Tom. I know who the thief was, too!”