“Sherry Elmore,” they read in unison. “She’s Hank’s half sister.”
Yes, that was a connection all right. But did it mean anything?
Ethan shifted the search back to police background database, and he pulled up what they had on Sherry. She had a record for DUI, arrested eleven years earlier, and while she hadn’t served any time, it was enough to provide them with plenty of info collected while she was in custody. Including her place of employment at the time of the arrest.
New Hope, where she’d been employed as a housekeeper for nearly thirty years.
A position she’d kept until six weeks ago.
“It doesn’t prove anything,” Ethan admitted. “But we can show Hank’s picture to Chloe and Franklin and see how they react.”
True, and while it might come to nothing, it felt likesomethingto Livvy. Perhaps hitting Chloe and Franklin with this info would rattle them.
“Let’s go to New Hope,” she said, standing. “You can maybe continue to dig on Sherry while I drive.”
Ethan was quick to agree. “I’ll message Grace first to bring her up to speed, and then I’ll try to call Sherry and speak to her.”
He fired off the text to Grace as soon as they were in the cruiser, and she sent a reply within seconds. “She gave the okay for me to contact Sherry. Oh, and Grace said to let you know that you have an appointment with the sketch artist at noon today.”
Noon. Still hours away. But she’d need to do some steeling up for that. Still, Livvy was glad it had been arranged.
She kept watch around them as she drove, but from the corner of her eye, she saw Ethan accessing Sherry’s phone number from the background. Considering it’d been so many years since her arrest, Livvy knew it was possible that the woman’s contact information had changed, so it was a nice surprise when someone answered on the second ring.
“Sherry Elmore?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah,” she verified in a snap. “What do you want? If this is about my good-for-nothing half brother, then I got nothing to say to you.”
She definitely didn’t sound very friendly, but at least she knew about Hank’s death. That meant this wouldn’t turn into a notification.
“I’m Deputy Ethan Oakley, and I’m with my partner, Deputy Livvy Walsh, from the Renegade Canyon Sheriff’s Office. I understand you used to work at New Hope,” he said, obviously steering clear of mentioning Hank for now.
“Yeah, so what?” she barked out.
“We’re just doing some backgrounds on New Hope and the staff, and I wondered about your experience working there.”
Sherry huffed a humorous laugh. “Well, it wasn’t a picnic, that’s for sure.”
“Could you share any details about that?” Ethan pressed.
“Chloe and Franklin treat their employees like crap. Asking us to do overtime but not paying us for it. Searching us to make sure we weren’t taking pictures of clients or recording their conversation.”
Livvy glanced at Ethan to see his reaction. Like her, he was no doubt wondering why Chloe and Franklin had insisted on such tight security measures.
“Still you worked at New Hope a long time,” Ethan pointed out.
“Yeah, I did. The money was good, and I didn’t exactly have a lot of people offering me jobs. And I woulda stayed on had Chloe not fired me.”
“Why did she fire you?” he asked.
Sherry cursed. “It started with Chloe yelling at me because I walked in on her having an argument with Zadie. God rest her soul,” she added in a murmur. “Chloe said if I repeated a word ofanything I’d heard, she’d fire me on the spot and give me bad job references.”
“Did you hear what they said?” Ethan asked.
“Nope. But apparently Chloe didn’t believe that because she ended up firing me anyway. We have to sign this nondisclosure agreement to get hired there, and Chloe reminded me if I told anyone anything about the goings on at New Hope, then she’d sue me.”
That was something they would definitely ask Chloe about, but they’d have to do it in a way that protected Sherry, to make sure Chloe wouldn’t be able to sue the woman.
“Did Hank ever visit you at New Hope?” Ethan continued a moment later.
