DUANE SHERRILLEditor

“You’re Duane Sherrill, aren’t you?” a stranger asked as I sat eating lunch a couple of Sunday’s ago at a restaurant in my hometown.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I replied, still chewing my delicious chimichanga.

“There was a man who asked me to give you this,” the stranger continued, handing me a folded napkin. “I’m not sure who he was but he just went out the door.”

I stood, trying to catch a fleeting glimpse of the person but he had already disappeared.

“No idea who?” I asked.

“Nope,” the stranger said. “He just told me to give you this.”

Thanking the stranger, I sat back down and noticed a $20 bill protruding from the napkin. He looked back at the stranger who had handed me the napkin. He shrugged.

I wondered about the mysterious encounter all through lunch and on my way home. Why would a mysterious man leave me a $20 bill wrapped in the napkin? That’s when the investigative reporter training kicked in. Yeah, I know. Why did that take an hour? Hey, I think better on a full stomach.

“What if there’s a clue in the napkin?” I asked myself as I unfurled it, quickly finding the answer to my query.

There, inside the napkin, was a message that simply read “For the Hat” and a crude drawing of a Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hat top hat. I froze. A 25-year-old mystery, its roots going back to the eve of Y2K, had been solved by three words and a crude drawing. The culprit in this cold case had been sitting by me during lunch, close enough I could have hit him with a burrito. Only I and he knew what his cryptic message meant and that it dated back a quarter of a century.

Flashback, Dec. 31, 1999. It was billed as the Party of the Century in my hometown, sponsored by the paper I worked for at the time. Downtown was packed with thousands on what was an unusually warm evening for New Year’s Eve. Music was playing and people were having a great time, all the while not knowing if the world would end at the stroke of midnight thanks to Y2K. It was a very real concern, well, for most. Myself, I was too busy being master of ceremonies for the event to worry about the end of the world. I was clad in Y2K garb from head to toe, decked out like Venus Flytrap (WKRP in the Cincinnati – Google it).  And, my outfit was complete with a Cat in the Hat top hat and flashing glasses.

So anyway, as midnight neared, it came time to count down the final minute of the 20^th Century. So, amazingly sober, I took my place on stage – which was actually a decorated flatbed trailer – and began the countdown. The excitement was palatable as I got to 10 and started down. There was even a ball downtown that was descending. The crowd got louder as the count continued. However, even as I was -seven … six … five – I sensed movement behind me and about the same instant I felt a tug on top of my head.

“Happy New Year!” I yelled as the clock struck midnight and the world didn’t end. I glanced over my shoulder to see someone, in full gallop, leap from the stage and disappear in the crowd.

“What the …” I uttered as I felt for my hat even as Auld Lang Syne played. It was gone! Someone had swiped my hat from my head at the stroke of midnight 2000 in front of thousands of witnesses and gotten away with it. It was the crime of the century – what century is actually still in debate.

It was a five dollar hat so it was no big loss. I was more intrigued by the moxie the guy had to rush up onto stage and swipe the hat from the top of the master of ceremonies’ head and then leap off the stage like John Wilkes Booth jumping from the balcony of Ford’s Theatre.

Following the brazen theft, even the police got involved. It was nothing serious. They, like me, were just curious about the identity of the gutsy bandit and wanted to see if they could get a make on him. No charges or anything like that. They pulled all the downtown security footage – which wasn’t near as encompassing as it is today – but they were unable to get a good angle on his face. They were; however, able to tell he had waited at the bottom of the stairs until the countdown before seizing his opportunity, moving swift as a cat to swipe my Cat in the Hat … um, hat. The case was shuffled into the cold case file, left to gather dust until a couple Sundays ago.

It only took 25 years for the mystery to be solved and his debt repaid. Actually, I made a pretty good profit off the deal, tripling my money since he left me a crisp new $20 bill for $5 hat. I just wonder, maybe on a New Year’s Eve once in a while, if he takes my hat out, puts it on and stands in front of the mirror and recalls how he committed the crime of the century? Oh, as a side note, I used the $20 for a haircut. What comes around, you know.