“He picked it up,” he said. “He said he would go to another shop, one that had more business. Things here weren’t all that busy at the time, so he wasn’t getting as many hours as he needed.”
“Which is a good reason for moving on,” Rodney said. “Times are tough in some places.”
“They’ve been tough in a lot of places,” he said, with a frown. “You do your best, but you can’t force people to come to you just because you need them to.”
“No, of course not,” he said.
“So, let me go on in and take a look. I’ll be back in a minute.”
They followed him to the edge of the office, where they could stop and look around. One of the guys was standing off to the side, looking at them. She walked over and asked, “Hey, remember Tex who used to work here? Have you got any idea where he is now?”
“Probably at home,” he said. “That kid is freaking lazy.”
“No, he’s not at home,” the other guy said. “He got in trouble a while back. I thought he left.”
“What trouble?” Kate asked.
“I think he nicked something from somebody, but I could be wrong.”
“Interesting,” she murmured. “Something,” she said, “as in car parts?”
He looked over at the boss and nodded. “He was let go from here because of that. So, I’m not sure if he ended up getting a reference and going on to another place or not.”
“Yet, the boss didn’t mention that,” she said quietly.
“He didn’t want to ruin the kid’s life.”
“Maybe not, but it reflects on his character. We’re looking into the theft of an old truck from around the corner here.”
Both of the guys snorted at that. “That was like three or four years ago, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it was. Maybe he was generally a pretty good kid, but maybe he had big plans. He may have had ambitions, and he probably wanted to do things. And the money just wasn’t there to do them, I suppose.”
“Hey, the hours were all over the place,” he said. “We were lucky to get through that time. Things have improved a lot.”
“Could it be because you’re splitting the hours with one less guy?”
He nodded. “Can’t argue with that.”
She frowned, as she looked around. “Any idea where he lives?”
“Nope,” he said, “I’m not even sure he’s still around here.”
“Good enough,” she said, with a nod. “Thanks.” With that, she walked back over just as the boss man came out.
He said, “This is all I have for a forwarding address.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that you had trouble here with Tex over stolen parts?”
He flushed. “I didn’t have any proof,” he said, “and we couldn’t square it off when everybody here has access to everything, and I just got the wrong vibe off it. I wouldn’t go ruin the kid’s life when I didn’t know for sure.”
“I get it,” she said, “but it would have been nice if you’d at least given us a bit of a heads-up on that.”
“Again, I don’t know anything for certain,” he said, “and what if you went after this kid, but he hadn’t really taken anything?”
“And what if he did steal that truck?” she snapped.
“So, it’s an old truck, whatever,” he said. “It’s hardly like it’s a major deal.”