The Video Store

by S J Sargent

  “Thanks.” Alex ran over to the register and clocked out before she could change her mind.

  Minutes later, he and Molly were walking outside together. They didn’t say anything at first. So many things had unfolded in the past few hours. Alex was trying to get a grasp on it. Detective Bolin. The missing video. Ken’s departure. And now Molly’s urgent need to talk to him.

  They walked past Bruno’s, waving to Sofia. She waved back, winking at Alex. They walked in front of the insurance agency on the other side of Bruno’s. It was owned by a young suave guy named Jonathan whose hair was too perfectly parted at all times. They strolled in front of his window and leaned against the brick pillar. Alex saw Jonathan inside, looking like he’d just come from a country club. So, no different than normal. Jonathan waved as he was talking to a customer.

  “So…” Alex began.

  “Yeah, I’ll jump right into it,” Molly said, taking a seat on the bench. Alex joined her. “It’s been driving me a little crazy. And I really wanted to tell you last night. But I wasn’t sure if I could...” Long pause, followed by shivering from the snow. “...if I could trust you. And don’t take that the wrong way. I just, we’ve really only hung out a few times and all…”

  “I get it, Molly. Keep going.”

  “Okay. Thanks. So, you know that I was friends with Amy. But what most people don’t know is that Amy...asked me to tutor her a few months ago. She wanted to keep it secretive since she’d always been a 4.0 student. Especially from her parents. She was just struggling with calculus and asked if I would help her with a few of the assignments. Just until she brought her grade back up. It turned into us meeting every week. She just had so much pressure from her parents with her grades and knew that I was the…” Molly stopped herself as she scrambled to think of the right word.

  “...valedictorian.” Alex smiled. “You can say it. It’s not bragging. It’s just facts.”

  Molly rolled her eyes and kept going. “Yeah. She knew I could help her out. So, we met every Wednesday night at the Better Brew Café. And we started to get pretty close. We’d talk about everything, not just school stuff. Friends. Our futures. Pecos. Work. Boys…”

  She kept talking, but he didn’t hear the next few sentences. His mind secretly wondered if his name had ever come up in their conversations. And if not his name, then who? When his brain shut back on and he realized she was staring at him and waiting for a response, he switched back into gear. “So, you tutored her. Why is that a big deal?”

  “Well, if the cops knew that I saw her every week and had that kind of friendship with her, they would come and grill me with all these questions. And that would be...so scary to me. I just don’t want to get caught in the middle of this. I don’t want to be interrogated. Or falsely connected with it. Or have my name in the news. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure. But it’s not like you have anything to hide…”

  Before Molly could answer, they heard a door open behind them. Jonathan said bye to his customer and then came over to them. Hands in pockets. Even though it was borderline-Tundra weather outside, Jonathan looked comfortable in his short sleeve polo.

  “Look who it is. The Movie Madness crew,” he said with his signature charm. “How are you guys doing?” He leaned against the brick pillar next to them. Arms crossed. Accidentally posing for a calendar of beautiful insurance salesmen.

  “Doing okay,” Alex said. “Business is getting slower and slower with everything going on.”

  “Yeah…” Jonathan said. “You’d think people would want to rent a bunch of movies right now. Just to escape from everything. But I guess with Netflix and all the online stuff, they’d rather not leave their house.”

  Alex nodded. “Welcome to our world.”

  “Then again…” Jonathan continued. “It’s been the opposite for me. I guess something about local crime gets people all freaked out. I’ve had five new customers start life insurance plans since the news on Thursday night. It sounds twisted to say it, but tragedy is good for business in the insurance world.” He tried to hide his smile, but couldn’t. “Man, I sound like a jerk for even saying that.”

  “It makes sense, though,” Molly said.

  “Sure does. People get freaked out. They start thinking about family and the future and all that jazz. And that’s what we are to help with. There’s an old saying in the insurance business. Crisis pays the bills.” He half laughed and leaned off the post. “Well, back to work. Got lots to wrap up before this curfew kicks in. That’s gonna be pretty interesting.” He paused to say more, but didn’t. “See you guys later.”

  “Bye, Jonathan,” Alex said. He turned back to Molly, hoping to pick up where they left. “Speaking of Better Brew, want to go get a cup of coffee together? I need to get out of this place.”

  Molly smiled. “That sounds great.”

  13

  First Date?

  Saturday, December 18 – 1:06 P.M.

  So this is where everyone had been. It was packed, the first packed place they had seen all week. It seemed surreal to see this many people crammed into the tiny coffee shop in the town square. The coffee shop comfortably seated eighteen, and there were probably twenty-five people squeezed in together.

  It was the only coffee shop in town, if you don’t count the coffee station at the convenient store. When it first opened several years earlier, people got all up in arms. Just as they did anytime new came to Pecos. The locals rejected it at first, barking about it being too fancy. That narrative died down eventually.

  Better Brew was one of the spots in town that Alex loved to go to because it was one of the few places that inspired his creativity. The energy from the place was hard to find in other spots in Pecos. Sometimes, if he was editing one of his movies or working on a new story, he would come and camp out on his laptop at his favorite corner table. Molly loved to do the same with her open-ended solo study nights.

  Most of the people there seemed to be one large group having a big pow-wow. Several tables were pushed together as they all fixated on one guy talking in the middle.

  “What do you think these people are doing?” Alex asked the barista after he ordered.

  The barista shrugged. “They’ve been there for an hour now. I think it’s something related to the missing girl…” The barista handed him his drinks, and Alex took them to the table.

  “So, I think this is all one big group here,” he said.

  “Yeah. I heard them saying something about Amy,” Molly added. “Maybe a prayer group or something?”

  “...or a search party,” Alex said.

  “For what? They found the body.”

  “Not for her…” Alex looked at Molly. The reminder of an unknown suspect roaming the town unsettled her. Suddenly it felt colder inside than out in the snow. “I’m just saying. We know how people are here in Pecos. They want to take matters into their own hands. They don’t like waiting for someone to fix things. They’ll do it themselves. There’s already been all kinds of scrutiny toward the cops this past week.”

  “Well, yeah. How does it take five days to find a girl in Pecos? There aren't many places to hide.”

  “The best place to hide is in plain sight,” Alex said, rehearsing a line from some mystery novel he’d read years ago. “Sometimes it takes longer because you look past them. How else could it have taken her five days to be found? How is that even possible? Especially when she was found in the most public place in town.”

  Molly looked down at her coffee.

  “Curfew starts in at nine o’ clock. I say we split up and head out!” one in the crowd said too loudly. Others cheered and rumbled. Molly and Alex looked at each other. Within just a matter of moments, there was a mass exodus as they got up and started to head for the exit. Angry grunts and cheers followed. Side conversations about the police department and suspect theories. And then just like that, the café became almost empty. The few remaining customers and baristas started to clap as order and peace had been r
egained in the room.

  Molly laughed. “Let’s make a deal. No more talk about Amy the rest of the night. Let’s just have a normal conversation about normal things. What do you think?”

  “That’s a great idea. I’d like that.”

  The weather outside started to warm up a little and the gentle snow slowly turned into a vicious rain storm. Alex and Molly couldn’t help but laugh as they thought about the search mob running around town in the thunder. They both sipped their coffee in the dry indoor café and talked a little bit about their plans for Christmas break.

  “I honestly can’t wait for this senior year to be over so my family will stop pressuring me with everything,” Molly said. “It’s like I’m never doing enough. I just have to keep pushing. That’s why I haven’t even brought up any of the other stuff to them. They’ll think I’m just getting too distracted.” She looked into her coffee cup. “They drive me crazy sometimes.”

  “Well, at least your dad’s still around. I’ll take that over…” Alex stopped himself similar to Christine’s abrupt halt earlier. “Sorry. That was…I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

  “No.” Molly extended her hand over his. “No. You’re right.” Alex looked into her eyes, feeling permission.

  “Christmas has been a lot different since my dad died.” Alex rarely talked about it, so even his tone was rusty. “I just...I don’t know. It feels empty or something. I can tell it affects my mom more than she says it does. All of the traditions stopped. That’s what I miss. The little things we used to do. We didn’t just lose him. We lost those things, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like...my dad always used to come down in a Santa hat and whoever he put it on that year became Santa. My sister was always the worst one.” Alex laughed as he reminisced. Molly smiled. “But we haven’t done that. In five years. Those are the things you miss. The things that made you feel like a family.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” Alex smiled at her. “My friends don’t know how to talk about it with me. So they just don’t. Which means I don’t.”

  “That’s probably the hardest part.”

  Alex nodded. “Yeah…”

  “It’s okay, Alex.”

  Alex wiped away a rare tear. “Maybe that’s why I love movies so much. They are my escape. Maybe that’s why I like mysteries so much.” He paused. “Because we never really learned what happened to his heart. Why it failed.” He stared out the window at the rain. “It’s the greatest unsolved mystery…”

  He took a sip of coffee and a deep breath. Long exhale. “We always used to watch old Hitchcock movies whenever it rained like this. I still do. Probably will tonight. Speaking of which, have you seen Psycho yet?”

  Molly gave a guilty smile. Alex shook his head.

  Molly defended herself. “I’m not exactly in the mood for a movie with murder in it…”

  “That is a great point. This might be the worst week to…”

  Alex’s phone started to ring. Ken was calling. He showed it to Molly, who nodded.

  “Hey, Ken. How are you doing, man?”

  No answer.

  “Ken. Did you mean to c-”

  “She’s the worst.”

  “Christine?”

  Ken continued. “No, Monica Lewinsky. Yes! Christine. Seven years, man. Seven.” Alex could hear a beer bottle shatter over the phone. “Score! She…did she tell you what she told me? What she actually...like…said to me?”

  “No.”

  “She said she’d been looking for a reason.”

  “A reason for what?”

  “To fire me. Isn’t that messed up, bro?”

  “Yeah. Listen, Ken. Are you...are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m great!” He yelled. Alex could hear the alcohol in his voice. “Me and myself and...I...and me!” Ken laughed. “So I figured...if one of us is going to get in trouble with Christie, it might as well be me. She’s already out to get me!”

  “I’m really sorry, Ken.”

  “No. Best thing to...I needed…” Ken stopped. “I’m actually looking to join the army. Going to slim up. Like Peter. Rail thin. Or Molly. Man, she’s cute, isn’t she?”

  Molly looked up at Alex to see how he responded. He shifted away. “I’m actually with Molly right now.”

  Molly looked up at him, intrigued.

  “Ohhhhh. Nice. Like a date?”

  “Listen, Ken. I should go. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m good. I’m gonna go...work out! See ya!”

  And with that, Ken hung up.

  “Wow,” Alex said.

  “Is he okay?” Molly was concerned. She always saw Ken as an older brother. Hard to take seriously, but always there when she needed him.

  “I think so. He’s definitely not…sober.”

  Molly nodded. “I hate how that all went down.”

  “It’s driving me crazy. I feel so bad. It was my fault.”

  “No. It was Christine’s fault. She can be the worst sometimes. I don’t know why. It would be such a better place if Peter was the manager. Or you.”

  The next two hours raced by. Alex and Molly chatted all sorts of things, mainly related to their future. For both of them, it felt refreshing to have someone to talk through it with that wasn’t a parent. When they ran out of things to say, they grabbed a dusty Racko game off the bookshelf and played a few rounds together. Molly won every time. Of course.

  But then, the TV interrupted that breather. A breaking news graphic came up to interrupt the college basketball game that had been subtly playing in the background. The last time Molly had seen this graphic was the night before when the town curfew was announced. What could it be now?

  “Good evening, Pecos. We have a new development in the unsolved case of Amy Powers.”

  The barista raced from around the counter and turned it up. All conversations in the coffee shop had seized as attention shot up to the TV. Alex and Molly stood up to get closer, along with a few other locals that crowded next to them under the TV. They anxiously waited for hopeful news, like a hungry crowd outside of a food pantry.

  “As of minutes ago, the Pecos police department have released a statement confirming a suspect in their custody that they that they have tied to the murder of Amy Powers…”

  The place erupted in applause. Strangers high-fived. Alex and Molly hugged. Molly looked at Alex, letting out a strong sigh. They both laughed. Detective Bolin spoke on the TV in front of a small group of reporters. At the bottom of the TV was a small caption that said Recorded Minutes Ago.

  “We are eager to let the people of Pecos know that we have a suspect in our custody. And we are very confident that he is responsible for the unfortunate murder of Amy Powers. We will not be releasing a name at this time until everything is officially confirmed. The investigation is still under way and we are learning new things. But the town has the right to know that our suspect has been captured and you can now enjoy a much more peaceful Saturday night.” He looked down at his notes then back up. “We are also still enforcing our mandatory town-wide curfew of 9 p.m. until further notice. But that is simply to take every precaution. For now, that is all.”

  “Wow.” Alex looked at Molly again, beaming. “This is...wow.” They hugged again. “How do you feel?” Alex said, holding Molly’s hands in his.

  “I can’t even explain it,” she said, using her sleeve to wipe her eyes. “It is literally the first time I’ve felt safe all week. I’m just, I’m just thankful.”

  “I guess the Movie Madness evidence proved to be irrelevant.” Alex shrugged.

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Sorry you didn’t get to solve the case, Alex.” She laughed, mainly out of relief. He smiled back.

  “It’s okay. Now you don’t have an excuse to avoid watching Psycho with me, so we can solve that mystery together instead.” They laughed again. A real laugh. A laugh with six days of built-up tension behind it.

  It’s over. Molly thought to hers
elf, still holding Alex’s hand. I’m safe. Right here with Alex. I’m safe.

  14

  Christine

  Saturday, December 18 – 9:15 P.M.

  3…2…1…beep.

  Christine opened the microwave. Fresh lasagna, straight out of the freezer. Her Saturday night tradition. With the curfew, she got to eat two hours earlier than normal. Usually, she wasn’t enjoying her dinner until after 11. But tonight, her dinner came at the early clock tick of 9:15.

  She fired up Netflix and tried to forget her job for a while. Rough day. On the surface, her staff wouldn’t have guessed how much she hated arguing with Ken. She really did. But she needed to preserve power over her team. Ken had been stepping all over her for years, and she was tired of it. She thought promoting Peter would help, but you can only do so much with a guy like Ken.

  The lasagna never cooked right for her. Some bites were scalding hot. Others felt like ice. Just like her day. Her phone buzzed with a rare text message.

  It was from Peter. “Ended up going with that conspiracy theory documentary. You?”

  Christine smiled, something she did more often at home than at work. “I’m watching that music bio show we talked about. It’s fascinating.” Christine clutched her phone, waiting for Peter’s text. He was the staff member she talked to outside of work.

  “Glad you made it home safely. Have a good night.”

  As she sat back on her sofa, Christine downed her last bite. Ever since the divorce, she always felt a little weary about the lack of protection she felt in her new apartment. She wasn’t used to living alone. The silence made every dark hall and every footstep outside a little more frightening. It took her months after the divorce to be able to fall asleep on her own. Something as simple as a text from Peter helped her feel like she wasn’t actually sitting on the couch by herself.

  She’d heard the news about the suspect being in custody while they were closing up the store. More than anything, she was just glad all the other people were finally going to stop talking about it. They were losing their minds. It was over the top, at least that’s how she felt.