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“A job,” Alvarez repeated. Bells rang indicating another car had pulled into the pumps.
“Yeah. He, um, got turned off when I told him Corky, that’s the boss, insists on background checks and drug tests.” The clerk pulled a face. “Funny thing, y’know. He didn’t look like a druggie.” She lifted a shoulder. “But then everyone smokes weed these days. Oh. Sorry,” she added quickly, having forgotten she was talking to cops. “Not me. I don’t. I couldn’t. Corky would fire me. Corky, he’s not into that. Not just for the liability. He just don’t like any drug stuff. Won’t even sell papers for rolling your own.”
Good for him, Pescoli thought, wondering how her son had held a job here because she suspected that Jeremy, if not a habitual user, had dabbled with weed more than a time or two. However, it seemed he’d grown out of that phase of his life, or somehow managed to hide it from her.
“Do you remember this guy’s vehicle?” Alvarez asked, pointing to the picture of Ryder.
“Beat up old pickup, maybe? It had out of state plates, I think. I kinda noticed that because sometimes it gets a little boooring around here, if ya know what I mean. But it didn’t have any special marks or bumper stickers or anything on it, that I noticed. It was kinda like the type everyone else around here drives.” She glanced out the plate glass window as a man in ski gear filled the tank of his sedan.
She slid her gaze back to the picture of Ryder on the counter. “With him though it fit, y’know. He looked like a cowboy type. Well, again, like everyone else around here.” She rolled her expressive, mascara-laden eyes and then thought of something. “Wait a minute.” Her gaze zeroed in on Pescoli. “Aren’t you Jeremy’s mom? Jeremy Strand? I think I read about you in the paper awhile back. He, like, saved your life, shot a guy who was trying to kill you.”
Pescoli nodded. She was proud of Jeremy, how responsible he’d become, and she did owe him her life.
“Tell him ‘hi,’ from Jodi,” the girl said as a big bear of a man walked into the convenience store, a gust of freezing wind and snow following after him. “Brrr. It’s soooo cold.”
“Do you remember anything else about the guy in the picture?” Alvarez asked.
Jodi shook her head and the top knot wobbled precariously again. “He was in here for, like, half a second.”
She was about to turn her attention to the next person in line when Pescoli said, “Hold on a sec.” She took two steps to the candy counter and returned with an oversized package of Peanut M&M’s. “I’ll take these. You want anything?” she asked Alvarez and when her partner declined, paid for the bag. “I don’t need a receipt.”
Jodi rang up the sale, then turned her attention to the older man with the silvery stubble, rimless glasses, and a baseball cap with a John Deere logo. He was fishing in his back pocket for his wallet so that he could pay for gas, a pack of Rolos, and some chewing tobacco.
“For my grandson,” he said, half-flirting with the clerk.
“Oh, I like Rolos, too,” the girl said as Alvarez opened the door and Pescoli opened her bag of candy with her teeth.
“The Rolos? Those are for me.” The old geezer winked at Jodi and started pulling bills from a slot in the well-used wallet. “The tobacco? That’s for Josh.”
Perfect, Pescoli thought as the bag popped open and peanuts threatened to spill out every which way. She managed to corral them and thought, Way to go, Gramps. Get the kid hooked. Great idea.
Maybe it was a joke, the old guy’s way of flirting. Pescoli hoped so as she winced against the bitter cold, plopping a couple candy-coated chocolate peanuts into her mouth. Together, she and Alvarez half-sprinted past the gas pumps, where two cars were being refueled, to the spot where her Jeep was parked, already collecting snow.
“Want some?” she asked again as they climbed inside and she held the open bag toward her partner where Alvarez was dutifully snapping on her seat belt.
“No.”
“God, they’re great,” Pescoli threw a few more into her mouth, then tossed an empty coffee cup onto the floor in front of the back seat and dropped the open bag into her vacant cup holder.
“Maybe to ten-year-olds or pregnant women.”
“Especially ten-year-olds and pregnant women. But trust me, they’re for everybody.” Pescoli jammed her key into the ignition and sent her partner a don’t-even-go-there stare which Alvarez ignored as her cell phone rang sharply.
Plugging one ear to block out the ambient noise of the Jeep’s engine, she answered, “Alvarez.”
Pescoli strapped her seat belt into place, cranked the heat to the maximum, then slammed the gearshift into reverse and backed out of the gas station.
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . Okay, I got it,” Alvarez said. “We’re on our way.” She hung up. “Looks like we’re going to the River View Motel. One of the deputies on the search found out where Ryder’s been staying. The River View is on—”
“I know where it is. Just down the road.” Pescoli wouldn’t admit it to Alvarez, of course, but a few years earlier when she’d first started her affair with Santana, they’d sometimes stayed in little out of the way no-tell motels where they would have complete privacy. Away from her family. Away from her job. Away from Brady Long, the rich pain in the ass Santana used to work for. The River View, as well as a few other motels scattered around the outskirts of town, had been a great little rendezvous spot.
“We’re too late. He’s already checked out.”
“Damn.” Pescoli pulled into traffic which, because of the storm, was light. “Always a day late and a dollar short. But maybe he left something behind.”
“Maybe.”
Her partner didn’t sound too convinced or even hopeful, but surely something would break in the case. It damn well had to.
