candid shot—like the picture was a surprise. His face was unshaven in a scraggly way, but his expression was pleasant, and he wore dirty work clothes, as if he’d just finished a day on the job, working construction or mowing the lawn.
“Anything?” Eric eased down beside her, not setting his knees on the dirty floor.
She showed him the photo, and said to Bailey, “Any idea who this is?”
“Nah. Never saw it before. Never saw him, either. Only guy Alicia was ever with was Ricky.” She snapped her fingers. “Unless this was the dude she had a picture of in her purse. Guess it could be him.”
“You have a copier?”
“In the office. I’ll make a copy when you go. I can just tell Karl I want one before we give this stuff to the police. Now, let’s get to the guys before Karl oozes out of his lair.”
They followed her into the steamy kitchen. Casey tried not to gag at the mixing smells of bacon and burnt eggs, and purposely kept her eyes forward, not even glancing into the actual cooking area, where she could detect someone in her peripheral vision, moving around.
Death drifted in as the saloon-style door flapped shut, swishing through the cracks and materializing again in mid-air. “I am not touching anything in here. Who knows what I might contract? In fact…ugh. You have back-up. You two are on your own. But take notes—I want to hear every detail.” And Death was gone, blowing through the doors, making them flap back and forth. Bailey jerked around, then put her hand on her chest when no one appeared. “I thought it was Karl. He’d have my head.”
“You mean he’ll fire you if he sees us?”
She gave one of those sarcastic head moves young women are so good at. “Hardly. You think he’s going to leave himself with no waitresses? He can’t find one to replace the one he already lost. So nah, he’d just make my life hell for a few days. As if working here could be any worse. Now, come on.”
The dishwasher—Sammy or Samuel, depending on which of the old ladies you wanted to listen to—was along the far wall, spraying off a rack of plates to put through an industrial-sized, stainless steel machine. Water misted everywhere, making the floor a slippery, dangerous mess, despite the rubber mats. Sammy was small, as the group of women had implied, but he wasn’t puny. Just…short. He was probably eighteen or nineteen, and very obviously still living through those days of acne and sparse facial hair. Casey supposed it hardly seemed worth the effort to shave when all you had were scraggly little patches at random spots. He wore a rubber apron, elbow-length yellow rubber gloves, and a burnt-orange bandanna over his hair. He looked like a human-sized rubber duckie.
“Sammy.” He didn’t hear Bailey calling him, so she spoke again, raising her voice over the sound of the sprayer. He jerked his head around, and she motioned for him to come over.
He shoved the rack into the washer, locked the sliding steel door, and squelched over in his soggy tennis shoes, the one part of him that wasn’t encased in waterproof gear. “What?”
Bailey hooked a thumb toward Casey and Eric. “These folks want to know about Alicia.”
His expression remained impassive. “What about her?”
“Anything you could tell us.” Casey tried to ignore the steamy, smelly atmosphere and look pleasant. She doubted she was succeeding. “I’m Casey. This is Eric.”
Eric and Sammy gave each other one of those nods that seem to come naturally to guys. Sammy gave Casey only a cursory glance, which wasn’t surprising. Casey knew she wasn’t the most charismatic person in the world, plus teenage boys generally didn’t know how to talk to women and look at them at the same time.
“Casey is Ricky’s sister,” Alicia said. “You know, the guy who was Alicia’s boyfriend.”
“Sure, I remember him,” the kid said. “Sounds like he wasn’t such a good choice, after all.”
Casey bristled. “He didn’t do it.”
“Whatever.”
“Are you saying she had other choices? You? Are you even out of high school?”
He looked at the ground and poked his toe at something that wasn’t there, making Casey think of a puppy who’d just been told he wouldn’t be getting any more treats. She should have felt bad, she supposed, for embarrassing him, but if he was going to talk that way about Ricky, her heart wouldn’t be bleeding for him. She waited for him to stop sulking.
“Anyway,” Bailey said, “Casey