Undercovers #3
She angles the phone so we can see just as Norm shows up, standing in the laundry room. He stares at Jane’s dryer with her
pink mesh laundry bin marking it on top.
He stands a good two feet away, not moving an inch. It starts to feel like time has stopped and we’re stuck in a tunnel. My
heartbeat and Jane’s breathing are so loud they take over the world.
Finally, he seems to decide something because he turns to face the washers (and the phone we’d set up) on the opposite side
of the room. He places his laundry bag on top of the machine, the fabric blocking out half the screen now. Shit.
Jane holds her free hand over her mouth as we see him open what must be the washer below him and load it with his clothes.
Lots of T-shirts and socks.
Finally, he closes the lid and removes the bag from the top of the washer. The sound of water pulling into the laundry room
gushes through the walls and echoes from Jane’s phone.
With a measured lightness, Norm exits the screen. His footsteps make their way back up the hall and up the stairs.
We sit in stunned silence before Jane lets out a gasp. “I’m going to piss my pants!”
“What is all this about?” Carmen asks. “Why are you spying on Norm?”
“We’re not!” Jane half whispers. “We’re trying to find the panty thief.”
And shit. Letting Carmen in on our investigation like this is not ideal, but I digress. Jane is so keyed up, and Carmen isn’t making any moves to leave.
“And you think that’s Norm?” Carmen continues, like this is the maddest thing he’s ever heard.
“Only one way to find out!” Jane pockets her phone and stands. I follow her lead; my legs are wobbly and cramped from hiding like a sardine behind the table.
We make our way to the laundry room, a curious Carmen stalking behind us. Jane throws open her dryer and begins to unload
while I collect my phone.
Apparently, Apple charged me $10.99 for unknown reasons again. It might be cloud storage that I’m not sure I even need, but
frankly I can’t go down that rabbit hole right now.
A new message from Olivia also came in. A link to an article about Lana in a “Top 40 Under 40” profile of business owners
in Calgary. She captioned it with: You one day.
I heart it, although my stomach flips uneasily. Why couldn’t I have kept my big mouth shut about Lana? If it doesn’t work
out, I’ll be so humiliated.
“My pandies are missing!” Jane croaks.
“Your what?” I pocket my phone and turn to the sight of Jane having laid out all her undies side-by-side on the shitty fold-up
table in the center of the room.
Jane’s voice drops. “My panties with the panda bears on them. They’ve disappeared.”
“No way,” Carmen mutters behind us.
She holds out her phone toward us for confirmation. On the notes app, she listed all the underwear she was including in this
load. And third from the top reads:
Pandies
Jane looks deep in the dryer. “There’s no way. We didn’t see him touch the dryer.”
I search behind all the machines fruitlessly. “The camera was kind of obscured, you think he could do it that discreetly?”
“He saw us in the rec room,” Jane says, staring distantly at her undergarments as she considers this. “Maybe he was being sneaky.”
“Maybe, but that would be really tricky?” I retort. “There weren’t many chances, and we could see the dryer the whole time.”
Carmen is leaning against the wall, watching both of us in utter befuddlement. “There’s no way. The guy’s a weirdo, not a
magician.”
I’m not so sure. I mean, he could be both.
“Yeah, and I kind of never suspected Norm,” Jane huffs as she spins the dryer hull. “I mean, I once got his mail by accident
and when I dropped it off, he complimented the book I’d just picked up from the library. He seemed way too nervous to even
talk to me, and that’s not a man who steals panties.”
“Right,” I say. That really doesn’t prove anything good to me. “And we’re sure he was loading his laundry the whole time the
dryer was blocked?”
“Pretty sure.” Jane extracts herself from inside the dryer.
“We for sure saw those panties go in here?” I prompt.
“Yes, I remember them for sure,” she says. “Or was that when we loaded the washer?”
“No, I think I saw them too,” I say. “Yes, I remember them cause they had pandas.”
“Well, either Norm has sticky fingers, or my pandies evaporated into thin air!” Jane screeches, so serious that Carmen and
I both whip our heads toward her.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Carmen attempts, holding his palms up. “You’re getting worked up, and it might be nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!” I’m surprised to see her eyes are starting to look a little glassy. She blinks heavily, then looks down at her undies spread
across the table. “You know what, forget it. I just want to go to sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” I say a bit breathlessly as she begins throwing her undergarments back into the bin.
She looks at me sincerely. “Thanks, Mona, for trying to help. Maybe we can try this again?”
She looks so scared, and I wish we’d actually caught the fucker. Somehow this outcome is the worst one possible.
“Yeah . . . for sure,” I say, voice breathless. “We might have to watch the washers too.”
Jane nods solemnly.
We head up the stairs in silence. Carmen is still holding his weird metal dog statue, but I’m too disappointed to deal with
that right now. He gives us one last baffled look before splitting off to go back to his suite.
Jane is quiet the rest of the way up, clinging to her laundry basket. I didn’t mean to make her stay out so late when she
has to get up for work tomorrow. Suddenly, I’m so mad at myself.
When we reach our hall, Jane pulls out her keys and pushes them into the lock.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.”
She gives me a tiny, sad grin. “Goodnight, Mona.”