Suddenly he got a caged look on his face, like corporate executives get in a 60 Minutes interview. “Why?” he asked. “What have you heard?”

“Nothing specific,” Lexie said, trying not to tip him off about the real reason for our visit. If he knew we were actually performing an investigation, he’d probably tell us to talk to their lawyers, and that would be the kiss of death. “Has the store had any robberies?”

He laughed. “Yeah, like every second Tuesday. That’s not news.”

“How about murders?” I asked.

“Not since I’ve been here.”

“What about kidnappings?” Lexie said.

“Or unexplained disappearances?” I added.

“No,” he said, then thought for a minute. “A kid got abandoned here once, though.”

Bingo. “Abandoned?” I said, trying to stay calm. “What happened?”

“I was working produce then. From my recollection, the mother just left him in the shopping cart. Jeez—I haven’t thought about that in years.”

“Did they ever find the mother?” Lexie asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Eventually the father showed up for him.”

“How about the security video?” I asked. “Did it show her leaving the store?”

“Half the cameras in the store were broken, including the one at the front door.” According to the manager, the camera in the meat section worked, but it was permanently stuck in the wrong position, monitoring a sign that detailed the proper handling of pork instead of the meat counter. The only thing the police were ever able to determine was that the pork sign had not been stolen.

“Come to think of it, they fired the manager over the broken video cameras. That’s when I got bumped up to assistant manager, and then manager a couple of years later.” He smiled, reliving the memory.

“So, theoretically,” I said, “she may never have left the store.”

He laughed. “Yeah, who knows? Maybe she ended up as hamburger.” Then his eyes got all darty and nervous again. “You’re not gonna quote me on that, are you?”

Even though it was hard to keep the Schwa in my mind, our investigations kept me thinking about his parents a lot. What was it that made a mother disappear between the lines of her shopping list? And what made a father remove every trace of her from the house? I would look at my own father and wonder if there were moments when he forgot I existed, too. I would look at my mom and wonder about her trips to the market.