Nowhere to Hide (19 page)

“I’m just doing some follow-up on Sheila Dempsey’s homicide,” September said to put him at ease. “Background work.”

“I’ve barely seen Sheila. She got married,” Benny said. “I’m engaged. I don’t know anything about her.”

“What about when you were in school?”

“We were friends. We were kind of together in sixth grade. I mean, does that even count? I’m really sorry about Sheila. I was just shocked, y’know? But this can’t have anything to do with me . . . or school . . . can it?” he asked, sounding like he was preparing himself for a firing squad.

Yeah, it could, she thought, thinking about the message she’d received from her elementary school days, but she kept that to herself. “Do you remember any of her friends?”

“Sure. There was Caitlyn Carroway. She was really popular and Sheila hung out with her some. And Andrew, but he moved away.”

“Andrew?”

“Andrew Welke. But y’know. We all just grew up.”

“I know.” September was writing the names down. “Anything about any of your classmates and Sheila that stands out? Some person . . . some incident?”

“Ah, nah . . . just the usual stuff.” He was relaxing now that he knew September wasn’t targeting him. “Well, she didn’t like this guy who’d come from another school that she called Wart. A real psycho, she said, but then she called me a psycho sometimes, too. Just how she talked.”

“So, psycho could be a meaningless term?”

“We were in sixth grade.”

“You know him, though. He went to your school.”

“I never talked to the guy. He kinda just stood around.”

“With friends? By himself?”

“By himself. I never paid attention to him. He was like in his own world. I don’t even remember what he looked like, much. He had brown hair, I think. He wasn’t there long.”

“But Sheila called him Wart?” September pressed.

“She mighta just meant it as a mean thing, y’know. I heard he died though . . . so maybe not . . . or maybe that was that other kid?”

“What other kid?”

“Just another one like him. No friends. Hanging around. There’s always some like that, y’know?”

September nodded on her end of the phone. There were always some like that. “You said he came from another school. Do you remember which one?”

“Umm . . . I always thought it was Sunset Elementary.”

Her school.

September asked him a few more questions, but got nothing further. After she hung up she looked down at her notes. Maybe there was something there. Maybe not. Sheila had known a number of kids from Sunset Elementary . . . maybe this Wart was one of them. Maybe he’d even attended school with September?

She looked up the background on Andrew Welke and found one who lived in the Seattle area. She called the number and he answered right away. Turned out it was his cell phone and he thought her number was from someone he was trying to contact from the Portland area. When she told him who she was and she was looking for background on Sheila Dempsey, he was blown away.

“Wow. Sick what happened to her. Sick, man.”

She could hear a television in the background and some other voices. As if reading her mind, he said, “Got a few of my posse here. Monday night football, y’know?”

“Do you remember anyone called Wart, that might have known Sheila?”

“Wart? Yeah . . . huh . . . maybe. That weird dude who wore the brown pants? I think he dropped out, or something. Probably got put away.”

“Put away?”

“Locked up, man. In-car-cer-ated. He was . . . kinda into knives and stuff. Wait. Let me ask Caitlyn.”

“Caitlyn Carroway?”

“No, man. Caitlyn Welke. She’s my better half.” Then he yelled, “Hey, babe? You remember that Wart-dude? Whatever happened to him?”

“Could I talk to Caitlyn?” September asked.

“Yeah, sure . . . here . . .” There was a shuffling sound and she could hear a woman hiss, “I don’t wanna talk. You talk!”, and then Andrew whispered something about the police, and a careful female voice said, “Hello?”

“Ms. Welke?” September asked. “Caitlyn Carroway Welke?”

“ Yee . . . ess.”

“Do you remember someone named Wart that Andrew said transferred in to Twin Oaks? Sheila Schenk Dempsey may have known him? He could possibly have attended Sunset Elementary first.”

“Yee . . . ess. I kinda do. He came fourth or fifth grade, or sixth, maybe? Sheila talked about him a couple of times. Sheila said he was a freak.”

“A psycho?”

“Well, yeah. I guess he kinda stood and stared and was weird, but there were guys like that, y’know? Sheila moved away in sixth grade, and I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“He didn’t go to high school with you.”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t really remember.”

“Anything else you can recall?”

“Maybe I should put Andrew back on the phone?”

“Yes, thank you,” September agreed, pretty sure she’d tapped Caitlyn out.

“Yeah?” Andrew said when he’d taken the phone from her. He sounded distracted and someone was yelling and then Andrew yelled back, “You lose, dirtbag! Go get the beer. Your turn to pay, cheap-ass.” As if coming to himself, he said to September, “Uh . . . what was it you wanted?”

“Anything more on Wart,” she said patiently.

“Man, I wish I could help you. Hey, try Benny Schmidt. He used to go with Sheila. Like they were the sixth grade power couple before she left.” He laughed. “Geez, where’s the time gone, huh?”

“Thank you,” September said, hanging up.

How old was this “Wart”? she wondered. Did it matter? Could he really be someone who’d followed after Sheila since grade school?

“Anything’s possible,” she said aloud.

Lieutenant D’Annibal came out of his office and caught September’s eye. She got up from her desk and followed him inside his glassed-in office, watching as he leaned against his desk, plucking at the crease in his pant leg as he half-sat on the corner.

“Pauline Kirby has been calling for you.”

“I’ve purposely been trying to duck the press,” September said, watching him. D’Annibal had told her he wanted to make her the face of the department, but since the debacle of the last interview, there was an order to keep your head down and say as little as possible.

“That still goes,” he said. “But she’s aggressive and if we don’t give her something, chances are she’ll make something up.”

“You want me to call her?” September asked with a sinking heart.

“No, I’ll do it. Just wanted you to be alerted, as she seems hell-bent on getting you back in front of her cameras.”

Peachy.

At six o’clock, September told the squad room as a whole, “I’m heading out. See you all mañana.” She walked down the hall to the locker room, picked up her messenger bag purse and her jacket, then walked past Urlacher into a baking September evening.

By the time Jake knocked on her apartment door, September had taken a shower, curled her hair, as much as it would allow itself to be curled, and changed twice. She was in gray capris, a light blue sleeveless top, and low black heels. The Barn Door wasn’t the dressiest place to go. All afternoon, she’d tried to tell herself none of it mattered anyway, that she didn’t care, but she did, and that was just the way of it.

She looped the strap of her messenger bag over her neck, aware that she’d brought her unloaded Glock and ammo, and threw open the door. Jake was standing beneath her small awning in a pair of pressed jeans and a black shirt, coupled with the ubiquitous cowboy boots. She didn’t know why the way he looked appealed to her so much, it just did.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For The Barn Door and a trip to my family home’s attic? Yes.”

He smiled as they headed down the stairs to his waiting black Tahoe. “I asked my mother about my own grade school artwork,” he said. “She says she’s got a big box with all that stuff. And the class picture. And my brother Colin’s work is there, too. He did a lot of the same projects a few years ahead of us.”

September climbed into the passenger seat and absently put on her seatbelt. “I don’t even know if finding my grade school work is important.”

“I’m kinda intrigued to go through the Rafferty castle,” Jake admitted. “I always wanted to as a kid.”

“It’s not a castle, though God knows my father sure wanted it to look that way,” September muttered.

“It’s got that turret.”

“Yeah. Well.” September had always been a little embarrassed by the place. It was just so ostentatious and odd amongst the regular suburban homes of around three thousand square feet.

At The Barn Door, September climbed from the Tahoe, and fell in step beside Jake as they walked inside. She almost said, “This is getting to be a habit,” but thought better of it.

Egan, the bartender she and Gretchen had interviewed earlier, was wiping down the bar as they squeezed inside together, looking for an empty table. Glancing up, Egan noticed September. “Hey,” he said excitedly. “He’s here. Ray. I was gonna call you!”

“Ray?” Jake asked.

September said, “Where? Which one?”

Egan pointed down the bar to the end where a lone middle-aged man was eyeing a group of women in tight tank tops and sundresses, showing a lot of boob and skin. This was Sheila’s would-be knight in shining armor?

She turned back to Egan and saw he was staring at Jake. Mr. Perfect. Figuring an explanation would take too long, she put her hand to the side of her face to shoulder past a heavyset guy wearing a cowboy hat that could take her eye out.

“Who’s Ray?” Jake asked in her ear, moving with her.

“Another name.” She stopped for a moment, turning slightly so she could see him. “By the way I got hold of Phil Merit.”

“Was he helpful?”

“You go through a lot of people before you get any kind of information you can use,” she said, thinking hard. She didn’t want him with her while she interviewed Ray.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

She inclined her head toward Ray. “I need to talk to this guy.”

“I’m right behind you,” Jake said.

“Not a good idea. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“If you think I’m letting you talk with Leisure Suit Larry, your detecting skills need work. I won’t get in your way.”

“Too late for that,” September muttered, but she turned back and wove her way through the bar crowd in Ray’s direction. She wasn’t sure what to do about Jake, but if she truly analyzed her feelings, she was kind of glad to have a partner with her, even if he wasn’t strictly official.

As they approached Ray he ran a look over September’s body, but his gaze slid to the well-rounded and buxom redhead with the Hello Kitty tattoo. Probably a copyright infringement there, she thought as she zeroed in on Ray, who, upon realizing September was approaching him, stood up straighter from the bar, as if he knew she was “the law.”

“Hello, Ray?” September said with a smile. “It’s Ray, isn’t it?”

“Yeah . . .” he responded suspiciously, shooting a look past September to Jake. “Ray Dexheimer.”

“I’m Detective Rafferty with the Laurelton Police Department. Is it all right if I ask you a couple of questions?”

“I guess.”

Egan eased his way down the bar, eager to overhear. September told Ray that she was investigating Sheila Dempsey’s homicide, and she’d heard that Ray had stepped in when it appeared some guy was hassling her. Did he know who that guy was?

“Oh, him,” Ray said, relieved to learn what September’s agenda was. “Nah. I don’t know him. He was watching her and she caught him at it, and she told him to get a life, or something like that, and he just stepped up and glared at her real mean-like. Kinda scared her, I thought, so I asked if there was anything wrong, and he turned away and told me to fuck off.”

“You didn’t catch his name?”

“Nah. I asked Sheila but she just sorta shrugged and said not to worry about it, he was someone she knew.”

“From school.”

“Mebbe.” Ray frowned, as if giving that real thought.

“What did he look like?” September asked.

“I don’t know. Medium. Brown hair. Dark eyes, I think, he kinda turned away as I got close. Slim build, but sorta hard. I just got this hit of mean-tough, y’know?”

“How tall?”

“Five-ten or eleven, I’d say.”

“You said you thought he scared her?” September probed.

“Looked that way to me.”

“How about an age range . . . ?”

He thought a moment. “Yeah, I don’t know. Pretty young. Late twenties? Early thirties?”

“Did Sheila ever say ‘wart,’ like that could be his name?”

“I don’t think so.”

Jake put in, before September could ask another question, “Had you seen him around before?”

“Yeah, I think so. Like hanging around the bar, mebbe.”

September tried to come at Ray from a different angle, asking how well he knew Sheila, how many times he’d seen her, that sort of thing. He shook his head and shrugged through the questions, finishing with, “Look, I just saw this guy by her and she just looked . . . like she was trying to be nice, but he was coming on too strong. So, I said, ‘Hey.’ That was it. ‘Hey,’ like a warning. He ducks his head and leaves like he doesn’t want me looking at him. So I ask Sheila, ‘You okay?’ and she says yeah. And I make some comment about him not getting the message or something and she says, ‘Oh, I know him’ and leaves it at that.”

“Thanks,” September said, then started back toward the door, Jake behind her once again.

Egan yelled, “Hey,” over the noise of the other patrons and a couple of pissed off customers who were waiting to be served. He followed their progress on his side of the bar and September stopped and moved toward him. “Y’know, I’ve seen that guy Ray was talking about a few times. Kinda snuck in, watched a while, snuck out. I don’t think he ever bought a drink.”

“Have you seen him since?” she asked.

“Nuh-uh. After Ray stepped in, the guy never came back. And Sheila was dead pretty quick afterward.”

A roar of excitement was coming from around the bar toward the dining area, and then a chant began. September glanced at Jake who leaned in and said in her ear, “Someone’s close to the end of the seventy-two ouncer.”

The maître d’ was nowhere to be seen; or maybe there wasn’t one and it was fend for yourself. “Maybe we should order at the bar,” September yelled back to Jake in order to be heard when a big man with a stomach hanging over his belt came flying from the dining room, his hands covering his mouth, hawking and coughing, pushing through the bar patrons who were scurrying out of his way as he headed toward the back door.