Timothy Johnston - The Current

Don’t even say it , she said after a moment, and he didn’t. But then he did: “Just one more stop,” he said, and turned the key in the ignition.

THERE WAS A pay phone at the corner of the station but when he went to pick up the receiver there was no receiver, no cable, and he moved on, passing the window—the woman sitting there, at work on her puzzles, much as he’d pictured her—and stepped inside.

“Oh,” she said, looking up from her work. “I didn’t see you pull up.”

Sutter turned and looked out the pane of glass and said, “No, I guess I parked out of view, didn’t I?”

“That’s all right. I guess you can park anywhere you like, Officer.”

She sat on her stool behind the counter, soft-faced and blond. The pin tag on her chest said pamela. He took in the cluttered countertop, the disposable lighters and ChapStick and other plastic junk for sale.

“Is it about the accident again?” the woman said. “Those two girls? Just so awful.”

Sutter shook his head—somber, dumbfounded. “It doesn’t get much more awful, does it?”

“No, sir. It just chills me to the bone to think about it.”

“It had to be mighty cold in that water.”

“Well, yeah, that—but I mean seeing those two girls just a few minutes before, right here? Right where you are standing now? I still can’t hardly believe it.”

“I guess you remember that night pretty clearly, ma’am.”

“I guess I’ll never forget it.”

He stood a moment, giving the comment room. Then he said, “I know they’ve already asked you questions up and down, ma’am, but I just want to ask one or two more, if you don’t mind.” He watched to see if she would look more carefully at his sheriff’s jacket, but she did not. Good warm jacket for a cold night, if anyone cared. Beneath it he wore a plain khaki shirt, no tie, and he wore jeans and a plain leather belt and his old leather workboots. His sheriff’s hat and belt and holster, his badge, were all back home in his bedroom closet. The county-issue .45 was back with the department, turned in one year ago on his last day, as per regulation.

The woman said, “I’ll answer whatever you want to ask me, Officer. If it’ll help, I’ll answer.”

“Thank you, ma’am—Pamela, is it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can call me Tom, Pamela.”

She placed her hands in her lap and waited. He glanced about the cramped little store. In a dark recess at the back an exit sign glowed above a metal firedoor. Adjacent to that door was a narrow wooden door leading, he guessed, to some kind of storage room or back office.

“You tend to be here by yourself, Pamela?”

“Yes, sir. Six to midnight on weeknights.”

He’d already looked for security cameras and seen none. “It doesn’t seem like the safest of shifts for a woman alone, if you don’t mind me saying.”

She laughed. “You’d have to be crazy to come here looking for money, or any other kind of nonsense. For one thing, Ron—that’s my boss—he takes all the day cash away at five p.m., and most folks use cards for the gas anymore. Heck, I asked for this shift. It’s nice and quiet, mostly.”

“And the other thing?”

“Sir?”

“You said for one thing,” he said. “Sounded like there was another thing.”

“Oh.” She glanced toward the back, the shadowed recess, and he saw the color come to her face like a sunburn. She flung a hand and said, “I was just gonna say that Ron, my boss, comes in kind of regular. At nights. He stops by to check on things.” She fussed with the ChapStick dispenser.

“But he wasn’t here that night?” Sutter said. “He didn’t stop by?”

“No, sir. Not that night.”

Sutter nodded. “You get a lot of regulars, then?” he said, and she looked up at him big-eyed and hot-faced and he added, “Customers, folks filling up.”

She gave a breathy laugh. “Oh, sure. Plenty. I mean, we’re the only station out this way you know, so.”

“How about a boy—a young man named Bud?”

She shook her head. “It’s like I told the sheriff before, I don’t know anyone named Bud around here. I mean he might’ve been in here, but I didn’t know him by name.”

“Did you know him by sight—him or the other boy?”

“When?”

“The night of the accident.”

Her face crimped in confusion. “Well, I mean, I already told the sheriff, Officer. I never saw those boys.”

Sutter watched her face, her eyes.

“Yes, I know. I know that’s what you told them.” He gave her a smile. “But just to be clear, Pamela: You saw nothing of those two boys whatsoever?”

“No, sir.”

“They never came into the station while you were here?”

“No, sir. I’ve seen plenty of boys come in here at night. I’ve seen some pretty sketchy characters. But no real trouble, ever, and I’ve been here, oh gosh, two years come March.”

He watched her. “What about their truck?”

“What about it?”

“Well, ma’am, what kind of truck was it?”

“I couldn’t tell you, Officer. I couldn’t even say it was a truck.”

Sutter looked out the window. “I guess it’d be hard to miss a truck pulling into the station, if you were sitting right here the whole time.”

“I was sitting here, all right. The whole time. I went to use the ladies’ once, but that was a good hour before those girls ever got here.”

“And you saw the girls’ car—the RAV4?”

“Yes, sir. They pulled up for gas right there at pump number one.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Sutter. “And how do you figure you never saw that truck?”

The woman sat up a little straighter. Somehow, the softness had left her face.

“Well, Officer, either that truck was never here, or else it was parked off to the side, same as you did.”

Sutter coughed into his fist.

“That’s sensible, Pamela. That helps a great deal. Thank you very much.”

“I’m only trying to help, Officer. I feel awful bad for those girls. But the first I ever heard of those two boys was when the sheriff came asking about them earlier, and I’ll tell you what I told him: if those boys were here, they’d of had to park where you parked, off to the side, and then they’d of had to walk around the back of the station to get to the restrooms on the other side. Otherwise I’d of seen ’em go by the window there.”

Sutter looked to the firedoor at the rear of the building. “You reckon they went tramping through the snow back there?”

“No, sir. There’s no snow back there. We’re required by law to keep that sidewalk clear of snow and ice. It goes clear around the building. But I don’t know why anybody would go back there, unless they just plain didn’t want to be seen.”

Sutter stood looking at the back door. Then he looked out the window again.

“Did you see the girls leave?”

“I sure did.”

“How did they look?”

“Sir?”

“Did they seem frightened, upset?”

“They just seemed in a hurry. I figured they were trying to get out of the weather. It was sleeting pretty good. As you know.” She shook her head. “I sat here a good half hour before I realized they never brought the key back, and by then every sheriff’s car and ambulance and fire engine in the county was going by, and I just sat here wondering what in the world—”

“I’m sorry, Pamela—the key?”

“The key to the ladies’,” she said. “They took off without ever giving it back. Ron had to put in a whole new lock, cost him forty-five dollars.” She lifted the new key from below the counter to prove it.

“May I?” he said, and she handed it over. The new key was attached by a loop of shoelace to what looked like the sawed-off stick-handle of a plumber’s helper drilled through with a quarter-inch bit. ladies inked along the shaft in a blocky, near-angry hand.