Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [30]
The problem was that the woman appeared to have no inclination to pay. While Martin stood ready with two twenty-dollar bills in hand, the woman’s hands were white-knuckled around the handle of her purse, squeezing it shut as if the rabbits inside were attempting a jailbreak. Frozen in place, her eyes shifting from the product being scanned to the computer monitor that illuminated its price, she made no effort to speed up the process.
Martin glanced at his watch, and as he did, his mind filled with numbers. 3:51. 7 items to go. 4 miles back to the Claytons’ house. 10 minutes through the forest, maybe 5 if he sprinted. 4:30 deadline. 5 items to go. $3.14 for the celery.
And still the woman hadn’t moved.
Finally the last item was scanned and bagged, and the cashier announced the total in a voice that sounded as if the boy was battling puberty and losing. “Your total’s $23.58.” Martin watched in shock as the woman still refused to move, standing there for a moment as if she was deciding if the total was acceptable. After an interminable pause, she placed her bag down, opened it up, and began fishing through its contents (Martin imagined a pair of withered hands pushing baby rabbits aside), at last removing a thick red wallet. Wallet retrieved, she placed it down, opened it, removed a checkbook (She’s paying by check! he screamed to whoever might be listening inside his head), and requested a pen from the cashier. The boy paused for a moment, looked across his work area, and then found the pen resting atop his keyboard. Slowly, the woman began to write.
“Is it all right if I make it out for twenty extra?” she asked as she finished filling in the date.
“Yeah,” the cashier replied. “As long as you have a Stop & Shop card.”
“Well, I showed you my card before you checked me out, so you know I have it,” the woman shot back, causing her to pause once again.
“Yes, I know … I just meant… that that’s why I… I mean … you can do it.”
“What was my total again?” she asked, irritation still lingering in her voice.
“If I don’t make it back in time,” Martin thought, “it will be because of this ridiculous conversation.”
Two minutes later the check was finally written. The woman had received her twenty dollars (“Could you please give me three fives and five ones?”). She then began reversing the process. Without surrendering her position in front of the cashier, she recorded the check amount in the check register, closed the checkbook, and returned it to the wallet. She then closed the wallet and returned it to the purse. Finally, she closed the purse and gathered her bags.
Martin was afraid to look at his watch.
Toothbrush in hand and $38.14 lighter, Martin started his car and headed for the parking lot exit, only then daring to look at the time: 4:02. This meant that Cindy Clayton was already on her way home.
When Martin had initially researched the Claytons as potential clients, he found that the final bell at Cindy Clayton’s school rang at 3:50 each day. Children spilled out of the classroom doors, buses pulled away from the building, and about ten minutes later Cindy Clayton would walk across the playground to her car and begin the thirty-minute drive home. In the three weeks that Martin followed her, Cindy Clayton never arrived home before 4:30 and would oftentimes stop to pick up groceries at a small market down the street before coming home, putting her arrival time closer to 5:00.
Martin desperately prayed that this would be one of those days.
There were a total of four traffic lights between the store and the Clayton home, and on the way to the store Martin had gotten very lucky, catching them all green. His return trip was not so fortunate. Three of the lights were red, including the light at the intersection before Route 9, which had a line of cars so long that it took Martin nearly four full minutes to get through. As he sat in