Nowhere to Hide (16 page)

“What are you scowling at, Westerly?” Carl Weisz asked him. He had the corner office and though his business was probably less lucrative than Jake’s, he liked all the accouterments, the special bells and whistles, that represented SUCCESS in the business world. He would poach on Jake’s clients as well, if he could. He was just
that
guy.

Jake couldn’t give a rat’s ass . . . which, he realized as the words crossed his mind, was what he thought about a lot of things these days. Not good.

“I’m thinking of going decaf,” Jake said as a means to deflect.

“No fucking way.”

“Sure, why not? Could be good for me.”

“Wuss,” Carl said with a doleful shake of his head.

Jake half-smiled and filled his cup with the high-powered coffee made by anyone who was willing to brew a pot, which usually fell to Andrea, one of the too-eager interns who fluttered through the offices. Her fluttering had slowed down after two months of service with no clear track to the big time and the coffee had become strong enough to chew.

Carl commented, “That ain’t no decaf, brother.”

Jake lifted a hand in good-bye and headed back toward his office, but as soon as he’d closed the door, even before he took his seat, his thoughts revolved like a gun barrel back to the first slot: Nine.

She hadn’t changed a bit.

She’d changed completely.

He couldn’t get the memory of that long ago lovemaking out of his head. Was this a case of being too long away from a woman? He and Loni had broken up in January but he honestly couldn’t remember the last time they’d had sex. Musta been the year before . . . December? God, he hoped so, but he wasn’t entirely sure. . . .

And there’d been no one since.
Almost
, with Sheila, but that was as close as he’d gotten.

He leaned his head back in his office chair and rotated to look out the window. He had a view of the Fremont Bridge in the distance, a suspension bridge like the Golden Gate only white. Today it stood bright and distinct in the sun above the dark green Willamette River.

Call her
, a voice inside his head said.
Talk to her. Ask her to lunch.

“She thinks I’m a serial killer,” he said aloud.

She thinks you know more than you’re telling.

His cell phone rang and he recognized the ringtone he’d chosen for his brother, Colin. Sweeping the phone off his desk, he answered, “’Bout time you got back to me.”

“Phone works both ways, brother,” Colin said. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, really.” Jake wasn’t sure how to tell his brother, who seemed completely satisfied with his life, that he didn’t feel the same. He wasn’t even really sure Colin was the one to talk to about it. Instead, he moved into a general discussion about the winery and B&B, and finally Colin said, “I thought there was some big message. If that’s it, I got stuff to do.”

“Go to it,” Jake said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Hanging up, he was fully aware that he was going to have to figure out what he wanted to do with his life or drive himself, and everyone who knew him, crazy. He picked up a squeeze ball from his desk, designed to exercise the hand, and thought back to Nine Rafferty again. Did he know more than he was telling? More about Sheila? Was there something that had been said, something he’d heard or seen or sensed that might have stopped her from being killed?

No. He’d been down this road. There was nothing there.

But Nine had riled up all his nebulous fears. The ones that had been rolling around inside his head ever since he’d learned Sheila had been murdered. He knew a few of Sheila’s friends, not well, but he’d met some of them. He could tell Nine more about Phil, Carolyn, and Drea. Conversations they’d had, as much as he could remember.

Or . . . he could make some calls himself, he thought, his mind moving in another direction.

Face it, Westerly. You’re just searching for a way to be with her.

With a growl of impatience directly solely at himself, he pulled out her card, debated, then forewent the cell phone to call the Laurelton Police Department directly. She wanted it by the book, he’d give it to her by the book.

Sort of.

September and Gretchen were in the principal’s office at Twin Oaks when the bell rang for first period class. The principal herself, Amy Lazenby, was short, busty, and about sixty with steel gray hair, clipped short, and a pair of readers perched on her nose. She looked over the readers at both of them, her eyes narrowed, as if she thought they were truants rather than police investigators.

“I wasn’t here when Ms. Dempsey was a student,” she said after Gretchen informed her why they’d come and said she’d check her files. “She left at the end of her sixth grade year. Mr. Abernathy has been teaching sixth grade for over twenty years. He’s still here and may remember her.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “Such a shame about Ms. Tripp. She’d applied for a full-time position, but we didn’t have the funding to hire someone extra, so she was only going to be here for the summer.”

September nodded. Outside the office, students were shuffling down the halls to their homerooms. She could hear their movement, a dull wave of noise punctuated by a few yells. After they entered their classrooms, the quiet was surprising. Ms. Lazenby looked satisfied, her eyes on the overhead clock.

“Abernathy is in room . . . ?” Gretchen asked.

“I’ve asked him to come to the office. It will take about twenty minutes for him to get his students settled.”

“Twenty minutes,” Gretchen agreed.

It took more like thirty before Abernathy made an appearance. Some problem with a question of thievery between two students in Abernathy’s room, which held him up, he said, when he appeared in Ms. Lazenby’s office. He was somewhere in his early fifties with a receding hairline and was thin and precise in his dress. His mouth was pinched and his ginger mustache bristled, as he said, “No respect for others. None at all. You wonder how the world will survive in the next generation.”

Ms. Lazenby excused herself and they were left with Abernathy, who looked from Gretchen to September and back again. From the expression on his face, it didn’t appear that he appreciated being interviewed by the police. “How can I help you?” he asked stiffly.

September said, “We’re investigating the homicides of Sheila Schenk Dempsey, who was a student here when she was in the sixth grade, and—”

“Yes, yes, I remember Sheila,” he interrupted.

“—Glenda Tripp, who was teaching summer school here this past summer until she was killed.”

He blinked, clearly surprised by the last part. “I didn’t even know Ms. Tripp! I wasn’t on staff this summer.”

“We’re not accusing you of anything,” Gretchen soothed though the edge in her voice could have cut glass. “What do you remember about Sheila?”

But Abernathy was on his own path. “I wasn’t here this past summer. Ask Amy if you need to know anything about Ms. Tripp.” He paused, then added, “I thought the police would have already checked all this.”

“We’re following up,” Gretchen told him tightly. “About Sheila Dempsey . . . ?”

“She was very popular,” he said after a moment’s thought. “She could have been a much better student if she’d applied herself.”

“Do you remember any of her friends? Who she hung out with?” September asked.

“Well, she was always with the Schmidt boy . . . Ben . . . Benny. I remember because their last names were similar: she was Schenk and he was Schmidt.”

September wrote that down. “Anything else?”

“He played soccer and went on to be a star in high school.”

“At Rutherford High?” September asked, though she knew that’s where he meant. “Ben Schmidt . . . I think I remember the name.”

Gretchen gave September a look. “You went to Valley Sunset.”

She nodded. “Rutherford was our crosstown rival. I never met Ben, but I knew the name.”

“Sheila’s family moved at the end of that school year,” Abernathy said.

Gretchen eyed the man cautiously. “Do you remember all your students as well as Sheila?”

He bristled. “Not necessarily.”

“Who should we talk to who might know Glenda Tripp?” Gretchen asked.

“Ask Amy,” he said again, and his tone suggested the interview was over.

He left a few minutes later and when Amy Lazenby returned she gave them a list of teachers who were part of the summer school staff. “Maybe one of them can help you more with Ms. Tripp,” she said, and they thanked her and headed out.

As Gretchen drove them back to the station, she said, “We’ll put George on this list.”

September, who’d been squinting out the window against the bright sun reflecting light off oncoming traffic, said, “I told you Jake Westerly’s father worked for mine for a while. What I didn’t go into was that he was a classmate of mine at Valley Sunset.”

Gretchen shot her a look. “Okay . . .”

“He also went to Sunset Elementary and junior high with me. We were friends, sort of.”

Gretchen digested that, and said, “Anything else you’re keeping from me?”

“We were in second grade together. I’ve been thinking it through. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions just because I’ve known him so long.”

“You mean you don’t want it to be Jake,” she corrected her.

“I don’t want it to be Jake, and I don’t think it is,” she agreed. “I talked this all over with Auggie yesterday and he knows Jake, too, and he said he didn’t believe Jake was a sociopath, either.”

“Sociopath . . .” she repeated as if trying out the word. “They’re the guys who almost make sense when you’re talking to them, but then it goes awry. You know something’s off, but you just can’t put your finger on it.”

“That’s not Jake.”

“You’re a little quick to defend him,” she pointed out.

“It’s just that Jake’s the guy every girl wanted. When I saw him the other day, I still got that hit,” September admitted. “Sheila invited him to The Barn Door because he’s . . .”

“Mr. Perfect,” Gretchen filled in.

“Yeah. If we’re going to concentrate on Sheila, it’s more likely it’s the guy this Ray saw hassling her.”

“I’ll go with that,” she allowed after a moment and September relaxed a bit as she went on, “He picks them up at bars. He carves Do Unto Others As She Did To Me into Emmy Decatur, and probably would’ve done the same for Glenda Tripp if he’d had time. He sends you the same message on your second grade artwork.”

“So, you do believe the killer sent that to me?”

Her gaze narrowed through the windshield. “I’m leaning that way. But the words ‘As She Did To Me’ . . . he’s mad at a woman.”

“He feels he’s been abused by her and he’s getting revenge.”

“Something like that.”

“Auggie suggested that maybe he knew them. That it wasn’t just a physical type that drew him to Sheila, and Emmy and Glenda.” A bit hesitantly, she told Gretchen her theory about the killer beginning his spree after reading the newspaper article about her, finishing, with, “. . . you’ve been saying it all along. It started when I joined the Laurelton PD.”

“So, he
knows
you, as well as the three victims.”

“Well . . . yeah, maybe.” September’s thoughts flew right back to Jake and she suspected Gretchen was thinking the same thing.

They’d reached the station and now they climbed out of the car and walked through the front doors. Guy Urlacher looked up as they entered and Gretchen growled, “Ask me for my ID, I swear to God I’ll turn you over to medical, have them check you for OCD and get you put on permanent leave.”

“It’s protocol,” Guy squeaked, alarmed.

“Don’t ask me again. Don’t do it,” she warned.

They made it past him though his Adam’s apple was jumping up and down as if pulled by a string and his eyes were wide. In the back hallway, September said, “Everyone says you’re a bitch, no offense.”

“I am. None taken.”

There was a note with a phone number on September’s desk from the front desk:
Jake Westerly called.

Gretchen saw September freeze and glanced over her shoulder to view the message. “Just how good a friend is he?”

“Was he,” September corrected her.

“Okay, how good a friend
was he?
”

“Good,” September answered, after a telling moment.

“Don’t meet him alone,” she advised and then headed to her own desk.

Don’t meet him at all
, her conscience told her, even while she dug out her cell phone.

Chapter 9

September glanced across the squad room to where George was following up on the list of names and numbers of the instructors from the summer school program. Her gaze moved to the board that held the three victims’ photos and bullet points on where they’d been located and whatever else was found at the scene. The women had similar appearances and they all lived in the Laurelton area. Emmy and Sheila were about the same age and had both attended school in the Laurelton School District, and though Glenda Tripp, who was also in the same age range, hadn’t gone to school in Laurelton, she’d worked, briefly, for the school district.

Were they on the right track? she wondered as she slipped her cell into her pocket and headed down the hall to the break room with its his-and-hers locker rooms on either side. Gretchen had decided to check on Emmy Decatur’s school record as long as they were on that track with Sheila and Glenda. Maybe she would find another connection.

September pulled out her cell and punched in the number Jake had given her on her cell but after a few rings it went to his voice mail. She left her name and hung up, kind of deflated. She didn’t care what Gretchen or her conscience decreed, she was going to see him again to satisfy her own need for answers. Maybe he could provide those answers, maybe he couldn’t. But she was going to meet with him, and she did not for one second believe he was the sociopath or psychopath or whatever type of deviant the killer was.

He returned her call as she was walking back to the squad room, so she slowed her steps and answered briskly: “Rafferty.”

“It’s Jake. Sorry, I was down the hall and didn’t hear the phone ring.”