“What do you expect to find out from this clerk?”
“Ventures like this, Kay, are like looking for the prize inside a box of Crackerjacks. I don’t know the answers in fact, I don’t even know the questions – until I start digging.”
“I really don’t think you should wander around out there alone late at night, Abby.”
“If you’d like to ride shotgun,” she replied, amused, “I’d love the company.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. I decided to do it anyway.
4
The illuminated sign was visible half a mile before we reached the exit, a “7-Eleven” glowing in the dark. Its cryptic red-and-green message no longer meant what it said, for every 7-Eleven I knew of was open twenty-four hours a day. I could almost hear what my father would say.
“Your grandfather left Verona for this?”
That was his favorite remark when he would read the morning paper, shaking his head in disapproval. It was what he said when someone with a Georgia accent treated us as if we weren’t “real Americans.”
It was what my father would mumble when he heard tales of dishonesty, “dope,” and divorce. When I was a child in Miami, he owned a small neighborhood grocery and was at the dinner table every night talking about his day and asking about ours. His presence in my life was not long. He died when I was twelve. But I was certain that were he still here, he would not appreciate convenience stores. Nights, Sundays, and holidays were not to be spent working behind a counter or eating a burrito on the road. Those hours were for family.
Abby checked her mirrors again as she turned off on the exit. In less than a hundred feet, she was pulling into the 7-Eleven’s parking lot, and I could tell she was relieved. Other than a Volkswagen near the double glass front doors, it seemed we were the only customers.
“Coast is clear so far,” she observed, switching off the ignition. “Haven’t passed a single patrol car, unmarked or otherwise, in the last twenty miles.”
“At least not that you know of,” I said.
The night was hazy, not a star in sight, the air warm but damp. A young man carrying a twelve-pack of beer passed by us as we went inside the air-conditioned coolness of America’s favorite fixes, where video games flashed bright lights in a corner and a young woman was restocking a cigarette rack behind the counter. She didn’t look a day over eighteen, her bleached blond hair billowing out in a frizzy aura around her head, her slight figure clad in an orange-and-white-checked tunic and a pair of tight black jeans. Her fingernails were long and painted bright red, and when she turned around to see what we wanted, I was struck by the hardness of her face. It was as if she had skipped training wheels and gone straight to a Harley-Davidson.
“Ellen Jordan?”
Abby inquired.
The clerk looked surprised, then wary. “Yeah? So who wants to know?”
“Abby Turnbull.”
Abby presented her hand in a very businesslike fashion. Ellen Jordan shook it limply. “From Washington,” Abby added. “The Post.”
“What Post?”
“The Washington Post,” Abby said.
“Oh.”
Instantly, she was bored. “We already carry it. Right over there.”
She pointed to a depleted stack near the door.
There was an awkward pause.
“I’m a reporter for the Post,” Abby explained.
Ellen’s eyes lit up. “No kidding?”
“No kidding. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“You mean for a story?”
“Yes. I’m doing a story, Ellen. And I really need your help.”
“What do you want to know?”
She leaned against the counter, her serious expression reflecting her sudden importance.
“It’s about the couple that came in here Friday night a week ago. A young man and woman. About your age. They came in shortly after nine P.M., bought a six-pack of Pepsi, several other items.”
“Oh. The ones missing,” she said, animated now. “You know, I shoulda never told ’em to go to that rest stop. But one of the first things they tell us when we’re hired is nobody gets to use the bathroom. Personally, I wouldn’t mind, especially not when the girl and boy came in. I felt so sorry for her. I mean, I sure understood.”