The women have now been away from home for five nights, out in the cold and the snow.
At Smith’s General Store on Sunday, the lottery machine displayed a silver alert notification, telling customers of the ongoing search.
Sherry Glidden, who works at the store, spoke to Pushard there on Wednesday morning.
Glidden said she helped Pushard use her debit card, and Pushard made an impression. She said all kinds of people come into the store, but when someone is as kind as Pushard was, you notice.
“She was very sweet, very nice,” said Glidden.
Since she learned the women are missing, out in the cold weather, and in danger, she’s been thinking about their encounter.
Topsham Police Chief Marc Hagan said two Maine Warden Service planes were in the air again on Sunday searching, “and more wardens on the ground.”
Pushard’s car was last spotted outside a Marden’s store in Lincoln on Wednesday morning. Police believe the Jeep was headed south on Route 155 in Enfield. Hagan said the search on Sunday was focused east of I-95, “but they have wardens spread out in the area.”
Emily McCabe, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said Sunday that the Maine Warden Service’s search area is “the size of Rhode Island.”
Glidden, of Smith’s General Store, said that when Pushard showed up there, “she seemed normal” and had come inside to pay for gas. “I looked out and saw she was parked at the diesel pump,” Glidden said, so she told Pushard to back her car up to a regular gasoline pump. She said she saw a passenger, presumably Bussell, in the passenger seat.
Pushard went outside to the car but then came back, asking if she had left her keys on the counter. She had. Glidden gave her the keys and helped Pushard use a debit card to buy $25 of gas.
Pushard then asked Glidden which way to head to go south. “I told her to take this road 20 miles to Lincoln,” Glidden said.
Kimberly Pushard, 51, and Angela Bussell, 50, who had planned a short visit to Maine Mall on Tuesday, were last seen in Penobscot County on Wednesday.
www.pressherald.com