“Leave it, old man.”
The cop laid a heavy hand on the white hair’s shoulder, pulling him out of the glass fridge doors that lined one wall of the convenience store.
“I need another minute. One more minute!” the man protested.
The cop ignored him.
Star Williams was having a bad fucking day. Seeing the cop appear here now, in the exact spot she’d chosen to cut class, was not doing shit all to make it better.
She hunched over, waiting for the scene in front of her to unfold so that she could find an opportunity to slip out without being noticed.
The cop, Sheriff Patrick Riley—a man Star knew well—spun the old man to face him.
“Come on now, Pill,” the sheriff said. “This is the third time this week Nancy’s called me to complain about you messing up her product.”
Nancy, the overweight woman behind the counter, emerged, wiping her greasy hands on her work apron.
“I told him, Sheriff. I told him that I wasn’t gonna stand for it anymore. He comes in here every day. Every goddamned day, and shuffles my milk around, pulling it out, looking at the dates. It’s all fresh, that’s what I said, but when he does that, pulls ’em out and leaves them, it don’t stay that way.”
“Now, Pill,” the sheriff said, “you know Nancy wouldn’t sell you any bad milk, don’t you?”
“I ain’t never sold anybody no bad milk,” Nancy said indignantly.
“Of course you haven’t,” the sheriff soothed.
Star eyed the door. If she could just make her way behind this shelf, keep her head low, she could get to the door without them seeing….
“You haven’t been selling any milk, have you, Nancy?” the old man asked. Star recognized him now. Pill Verrity, the old guy who lived a few miles down the country road from her own house. He was a widower, and she knew him more by reputation than sight. Pill had married Cavus’s sole survivor from the big fire of 1937, but Star had never seen him out and about before. Pill Verrity was practically a hermit.
“That ain’t none of your business,” Nancy said. Nancy Shaw was another woman Star knew. A fucking wastrel who lived in Cavus with her deadbeat boyfriend, Rick, and two kids. Rumor was that one of the boys was actually Rick’s brother’s kid.
“I think maybe a good solution for this, Pill, is that you just buy your milk elsewhere,” Sheriff Riley was saying.
Star had made it to the end of the aisle. She hesitated, a low grumble roiling in her belly. Fuck. She’d already passed all the chips and crackers down at the other end. The only thing here was the cheap candy, the off-brand packs that came in the clear plastic with the red cardboard at the top. Star grabbed a bag of orange circus peanuts and one of sour gummy worms, stuffing them into her backpack.
“It isn’t right!” Pill’s voice rose. “Check the dates on the containers. You’ll see. She hasn’t sold a one of them in weeks.”
“Let it be, Pill. Why don’t you let me give you a ride home.”
“And what about the rest of it? The frozen food? The pizzas, the bags of ice? You sold any of that lately, Nancy?”
“Are you criticizing the way I run my store?”
“Let me ask you something, Sheriff, why do you think that is? Why isn’t anybody buying anything?”
The door was just five feet to her right now. Star could see a family approaching outside, their car parked at the gas pumps, where they’d filled up. She’d just wait for them to open the door, and…
The bell announcing their entrance chimed, and Star was out like a shot.
“Hey!” The mom of the family, a blond woman with sparkly pink earrings, shouted as Star bumped past her.
Behind her, Star heard the sheriff, his attention caught by the commotion. “Star! Star Williams, is that you?”
She kept running, slinging the backpack onto her shoulders.
“Wait!” The chime above the door sounded again. The sheriff’s voice louder now, cupped in the echo of the outdoors. “Wait, Star! I need to talk to you about something!”
Sure he did. Star kept running, the pavement lengthening out in front of her, and then she was cutting across it and disappearing behind the store, into the adjoining field, an old junkyard with plenty of places to lose herself.
She knew exactly what the sheriff wanted to talk to her about, and there was no way in hell she was going to have that conversation.