“If Christine was watching me right now, it would be the final evidence that she officially has no life!” Ken faced the camera and waved. “Hi! Get a life!”
Alex laughed and shook his head. “I don’t want you to get fired, bro. You need to put it out.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Ken waved his cigarette in his hand. “I’ve outlasted everyone here. Christine’s the third store manager I’ve had since I started. And she’s not going to be my last one.” Ken’s smoke was now starting to loft across the store.
“I thought you were sick, by the way.”
“I was.” Ken hopped to his feet, extending his hands out in a ta-da fashion. “And now I’m healed.”
“Dude, Molly had to cover for you last night. She had to bust her tail to cover your lazy butt. It’s already been a tough enough week for her with Amy and everything.”
“Oh, give me a break!” Ken said, as he walked over to the candy counter and snagged some Junior Mints. “It just gave her one more shift to try to win the sales competition. Not that anyone is catching up to me, of course.” He mashed out the cigarette and threw it in the trash. “How can Christine expect me to work a closing shift and then turn around and open right after that? I’m the only one she schedules like that. I swear, that chick is out for me. She’s trying everything to get me to quit.”
“You’re delusional. Why wouldn’t she just fire you?”
“Because Billy and Leslie love me.” Ken smiled. He opened up the candy and threw some back in his mouth.
Billy and Leslie were the store owners. They rarely came around, though. Probably once a month at the most. Movie Madness was one of four businesses they owned in town, along with a liquor store, a pizza joint, and the little coffee shop in the downtown square. They’d opened the video store years ago for their oldest son, Carter, a big movie fan—and a childhood friend of Ken’s. Now, Carter was grown and had moved out of town. Ken, on the other hand, took a job from them when he was at a low point and had been there since then.
Even though they weren’t around a lot, Billy and Leslie loved movies and loved the community rapport that Movie Madness had established in its time in Pecos. In an era of automated technology, the video store forced people to interact together. It caused locals to rub shoulders with each other. On Saturday nights in the summer, Movie Madness was the most crowded place in town. And the owners loved it.
They let Christine run the store, for the most part, just weighing in time to time to make sure everyone was happy and satisfied. The only time Alex ever saw either of them was on the rare occasion that Leslie came in to check on things and rent a Doris Day flick.
“Christine feels trapped,” Ken continued. “She doesn’t want me around, but she can’t fire me. She knows how Leslie sees me as like her second son. So she just gives me crappy work schedules every week and hopes I quit. That’s also why she didn’t choose me to be the A.M.”
Alex laughed at this. “Ken, you would be horrible as the assistant manager! You literally cuss in front of customers! And eat all the food. And smoke in the store.”
“Well, someone has to!”
Alex cracked up as he headed for the back of the store. With one hurl, he threw Friday night’s trash into the dumpster. It was odd that it hadn’t been taken out the night before. Peter always did it on his way out the door since he was the last to leave. And he was usually the dependable one.
As Alex slipped into the employee room, he noticed a few things that were different than normal. Clutter was everywhere. Movie boxes sat on stacks across the room. Peter’s work shirt sat on the counter. The name tag was still on it. Had he left the night before without a shirt on? Weird.
Alex’s mind wandered as it loved to do. He pulled out his notebook and jotted down a few things. Maybe Peter was secretly the killer and changed into his killer costume on the way out of work. Maybe he intentionally left it behind as a clue. An invitation to a game of cat and mouse.
“Bro!”
Alex popped out of his daydream. Ken stood at the door, cigarette in mouth. “Can you cover register for a bit?” Ken lit up. “I need to call my girlfriend. We got in a big fight.”
“How long are you going to be?”
Ken shrugged. “Love has no time table, bro…”
Alex rolled his eyes and went inside. Not a customer in sight. They always opened too early in Alex’s opinion. He pulled out his phone and scrolled away on his social media accounts.
Subject: Hey Alex! Are you ready to finish your Watkins Film Institute application? It was the second automated email he’d received that week. Delete. Close app.
One of the store’s regulars walked in, a young teenager who always rented Kung Fu movies. Alex recognized him from school but didn’t know his name. Before he could greet him, his phone buzzed. A text from Molly.
“Thanks for last night. I definitely feel a lot better.”
Alex smiled. He’d been thinking about her all morning but didn’t want to creep her out by texting her the day after. He barely slept the night before, thinking about their first dinner together and what he needed to do to make sure that it would happen again.
He slipped back to the classic movie section to text her back without interruption. “Me too. A great way to finish off our last night of freedom before the curfew kicks in!” Racing back to the front, he checked out the sole customer and gave him his Bruce Lee movie.
It had now started to snow pretty heavily. Alex wondered if the store would have to close early for the winter storm. And then he wondered what movies he would watch that day if he did get to go home early. Trying to pass the painfully slow shift, he looked down at his phone to see if Molly had texted him back. Nope.
“Dude…” Ken was now back up front, stiffer than normal. He looked over Alex’s shoulder through the front glass and into the parking lot. “Why is there a cop car here?”
9
Detective Bolin
Saturday, December 18 – 9:22 A.M.
Harvey Bolin poured all of his energy into his job, with his own marriage taking the expense. He was hungry for a real case. Something with more punch than petty pot dealers and teenagers blowing up mailboxes on Friday nights. He wasn’t deaf to the comments around town. Unfair criticism for the local senior citizens who complained about their tax money going to his salary.
That’s why he was the only one in town excited that Amy Powers had gone missing. Not because of his insensitivity to the family, but his eagerness to solve the crime. To finally solve a real crime. To prove his position was important to the town.
Harvey had lived in Pecos his entire life, minus the seven months he spent in Police Academy. In sixth grade, he met a police officer at Pecos Middle’s career day. That was the day he decided to go blue. He never looked back. Then came Law and Order and all the other crime shows of the early 2000s. He consumed them all before binge-watching was even a term, vowing that if the Pecos Police Department could ever afford a detective, he would be the first to get the job. His dream came true four years later when the sheriff came in and offered him the promotion after some additional funding had come in from the state.