Nowhere to Hide by Nancy Bush Page B

good God, Sandler could be a downright bully sometimes.
    “Fine, you take Dalton. After you talk to him, let’s go to The Barn Door, see if anybody knows this Westerly. Dempsey said Sheila liked cowboys and The Barn Door’s got that going in spades.”
    Uncomfortable, September nevertheless kept her mouth shut. She would call Dalton and see if he had anything else to add to the investigation.
    The Schenks lived in Portland on the east side of the Willamette River, and when Gretchen and September had explained what they wanted, Sheila’s parents were more than happy to talk to them—maybe anyone—about their daughter. They waxed nostalgic on her days playing elementary and high school soccer. “She always wanted to be a cowgirl, though,” her mother had said. “You just don’t know how hard she tried to get us to buy her a horse. I always said, ‘We live in the city, honey,’ but she didn’t care.”
    “We moved from Laurelton to Portland when she was a sixth grader,” Mr. Schenk explained.
    From the file, September knew that Sheila was about her same age. “What grade school?” she asked, her thoughts on Jake.
    “Twin Oaks.”
    September exchanged a look with Gretchen. Glenda Tripp had worked at Twin Oaks and Sheila had attended elementary school there. Gretchen then asked the Schenks about Sheila’s relationship with her estranged husband, and that was when the Schenks shut down as if someone had hit the GAME OVER button. It was clear they didn’t much like Greg Dempsey, but when questioned about it, they kept trying to shift the conversation to happier days with Sheila. They finally admitted that Sheila and Greg just didn’t get along, but that’s all they would say.
    An hour later, September and Sandler were heading back to the station when Gretchen took a detour into Taco Bell. “I can’t face the vending machine today,” she said, “and I don’t have time for lunch.”
    “Tacos are fine with me,” September said as they walked inside.
    “That mighta been a huge waste of time with the parents,” Gretchen said after they’d ordered, received their tray, and walked back to a table.
    “Except for the part about Twin Oaks.”
    “Yeah . . .” Gretchen frowned. “I wonder how Glenda Tripp got her job there,” she said as she bit into her taco.
    “She didn’t go to elementary school at Twin Oaks,” September said, dragging from her memory information from Glenda’s file. “She went somewhere in Portland.”
    “I remember that, too. . . .” She shook her head. “Could be coincidence.”
    “Could it?”
    “We gotta be careful about making connections when there aren’t any. Sheila Dempsey attended school at Twin Oaks until sixth grade, but she doesn’t appear to have had anything to do with the school since. Glenda Tripp was looking for a job, and found one at Twin Oaks.”
    “Or . . . there’s something the two women share that’s centered around Twin Oaks,” September said.
    Sandler grimaced. “Okay. We should check the current staff. See if any of them were there when Sheila attended and knew Glenda.”
    “Okay.” September’s mind was already traveling back to the Jake Westerly angle, trying to figure out the best way to handle it. She didn’t believe he had anything to do with Sheila Dempsey’s death, but he did know Sheila, and he knew September, and well . . . she wanted to talk to him before Sandler or anyone else did.
    They finished eating, tossed their trash into a bin, slipped the tray in its slot on the counter atop the garbage receptacle and headed back to the Jeep.
    “I’ll check on the staff at Twin Oaks,” Gretchen said as they wheeled into the department lot. “And I’m gonna do some more background checking on that prick Dempsey.”
    “I’ll call Deputy Dalton, and then see what I can find on Jake Westerly,” September said casually.
    “Have George look into it. All he ever does is sit like a stone in front of his computer. Give him something to