“The other cashier at the market told me that Tami’s date was with one of the guys on the cleanup crew,” Bender said.

Irritation spiked inside, and Tess frowned. “The cleanup crew again? At the rate they’re going, they’re likely to have done more harm than good.”

“I hear you. No one got a name on the guy, but two of the other women who work at the market said the guy was older but hot. I’ve got a call in to the supervisor who was overseeing the cleanup. They’d be here by now if they were working today. Their work is almost finished. Pete’s talked about ending the detail early.”

Tess nodded. Pete had told her that the most devastated and at-risk properties were as good as they could make them. If a big storm hit, he didn’t foresee anything catastrophic happening. So the work detail was ending, and she’d have to get her mind back onto Tami and off things she had no power over at all.

“As I recall, she was divorced. Any bad blood with the ex?”

Bender shook his head. “Divorce was about three years ago. I know Frank, the ex; he lives in White City with his new wife. He’s happy as a clam, not the type to get physical. But to be thorough, I asked Jackson County Sheriff’s to run by his house and talk to him.”

“Okay, so it sounds as if we really need to look into the work crew. Did anyone see her leave with this ‘hot guy’?”

“No, all I got was that he might have been riding a motorcycle. You know the night crew at the market is light. Everyone was busy with their work when Tami left with her date. I’ll keep asking.”

Tess went back to her car. She pulled up the work crew roster on her car computer. She’d put the list into a file after the incident with the theft. When she’d run all the names for wants and warrants, she learned a couple men and one of the women had prior records—they were homeless, so they had the associated convictions: loitering, drug possession, littering, suspended license—but nothing violent or serious. Two had out-of-state licenses, one from California and one from Washington, bordering states, so that wasn’t a big deal.

“I’ve been impressed with their work,” Pete had said. “They got a lot of hard work done before the weather turned bad. I think the one you arrested was an aberration. He gave in to easy temptation.”

Tess had visited the crew once or twice, and she struggled to remember if any of them stood out as “hot.” She was chagrined that she hadn’t paid closer attention. But then, hot was a matter of taste. To her, Oliver was completely hot. Would Tami and her coworkers see him that way?