Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

Author:Blue Balliett
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2003-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

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“Whoa! Petra, there’s something else we’ve got to do — we’ve got to rescue Tommy.”

Calder and Petra spent most of the weekend baking brownies and selling them on Harper Avenue. They explained to the neighbors that they were raising money for Tommy Segovia and his mom, Zelda, to come home because Tommy’s new stepfather had deserted his family in New York. “There one day, gone the next,” was Calder’s way of putting it. Everyone was sympathetic, and everyone bought.

Late Sunday afternoon, as the grand total of $129 was being stuffed into several coffee cans to go to the bank, there was news about the theft.

The news was local.

According to the evening broadcast, an elderly woman in Chicago had just notified the authorities about receiving a strange delivery. That delivery was a letter that arrived back in October, and that woman was Louise Coffin Sharpe. She was asking for police protection.

“WHAT?” shouted Petra and Calder together. They dropped the jar of quarters they’d been counting and rushed around the corner to where Calder’s parents were watching TV in the next room.

The broadcaster read the letter aloud. Petra and Calder stared at each other. It sounded exactly like the letter Ms. Hussey had described to her class. The broadcaster explained that “For an older woman living on her own, it had required an act of great courage” to finally take the letter to the police. The broadcaster clearly had never met Mrs. Sharpe.

“Oh my God — the letter was delivered right down the block.” Calder’s mom clapped her hand to her forehead. “And Calder, you were just over there!”

“Mrs. Sharpe is involved,” Calder said to Petra in a low voice. “Do you think she was waiting all that time for the thief to get back in touch with her?”

“Who can tell? And think of Ms. Hussey’s letter — this can’t be pure coincidence,” Petra said. “It’s too close.”

“Do you remember that Louise Sharpe’s husband was a Vermeer scholar?” Calder’s dad said to his mom.

“What?” Calder and Petra asked in one voice.

Calder’s dad said he remembered hearing that Mrs. Sharpe’s husband had been murdered in Europe many decades ago, and that he had been doing research on Vermeer at the time of his death.

Calder and Petra stared at each other.

“Murdered how, Dad?” Calder asked.

“I don’t remember, but I think it was considered a random street crime, a horrible case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They never arrested anyone.”

“Poor Mrs. Sharpe,” Petra said. “Well, that could explain some of her odd behavior.”

“And maybe more,” Calder added.

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