“It was in here a few days ago, but there would have been someone else driving it. A woman.” I took the Suburban clipping from my jacket pocket, unfolded it, and showed it to the man.

The man shrugged. “We get many people, mostly from around here, but some passing through too, so I don’t know. She is very pretty, though. This woman, she is your wife?”

“No, she’s not, but yes, she is pretty. Do you recognize her at all?”

He shook his head. “No. I am so sorry. I do not.”

“Or the car? I bet you don’t get that many cars like that one.”

“Oh, it is a nice car,” he said again. “You don’t see many like that around here. Most people, they drive pickups or four-times-four. That car, it is no good in snow, right?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never driven it in the winter. So did you see the car here last week?”

“What day was it?” I handed him the receipt I’d found in the car. He glanced at it. “This was Thursday. See?” He pointed to the numbers at the top of the receipt indicating the date. That would have been the day before Martin Benson was killed. It would have meant Trixie had driven up here probably just for the day, maybe driven back the morning of the day Benson had his throat slit.

“Thursday, I do not work, also Wednesday,” the attendant said. “That is my weekend, but then, on the real weekend, I work both of those days, the Saturday and the Sunday. I am here from eight in the morning until eight at night. It is a long day. At least I do not get robbed, not like my cousin, who runs a gas station in the city. He’s a surgeon.”

“Who would have been here on Thursday?”

“Well, Hector, he would have been here. He is here most days of the Monday to Friday. He is over there, in the car-wash bays, getting the change out of the machines. He might have noticed something. He is always looking for, you know, what he calls it, the snatch.”

“Yes, well,” I said. “If he’s always looking for that, then yes, he might have noticed this woman.”

The man beamed, glad to be helpful. “I have to stay here, but you go find him.”

Hector, a tall, fat, bearded man who looked like he’d be more at home on a pirate ship than maintaining a car-wash bay, had opened a locked panel on the self-serve car-wash controls and was dumping quarters into a plastic pail. Before he noticed I was there, I saw him grab a small handful of quarters and slip them into his pants pocket.

“Excuse me, Hector?”

I nearly gave him a heart attack. He whirled around, saw me, put his hand to his mouth and coughed nervously. “What?”

“Are you Hector?” I asked.