Chapter 13

As Martin drove to work the next morning, he tried to pull together a strategy for asking Shirley about her connection to Frank Talbot. Why hadn’t she said anything to him? Martin asked himself that over and over, and finally came to the conclusion that she either didn’t want anyone to know she was his ex-sister-in-law or she was using Martin’s need for help to sabotage his efforts. Either way, Martin knew he had to approach the issue carefully so as not to blow his cover story for looking into Talbot’s past and/or lose Shirley’s valuable help.
He thought momentarily about stopping at the Chattering Squirrel again for piping hot caramel rolls, but thought better of it. Shirley saw through that yesterday, and his bank account couldn’t stand two days of morning generosity.
Martin remembered that he and Shirley had made plans to have dinner at Risky Dick’s that evening to review everything they've found so far. He decided to broach the topic over burgers and beer. In the meantime, he'd make the most of the day and Shirley’s help.

Martin walked into the Sentinel building at 7:15 a.m., and was surprised to see Shirley sitting at her desk with two tall piles of old Sentinels on either corner. “Good morning, Martin,” she said wryly without looking up from the issue she was studying. “If this is your story, why am I here doing research while you’re still rubbing sleep out of your eyes?”
Before he could answer, Shirley looked up and smirked at him. “Just kidding, Lundeen. If we’re going to work on this together, you’re going to have to get a sense of humor.”
Martin let out a sigh of relief. “Wow, Shirley, you’re really in here early. Find anything good?”
She motioned for him to pull up a chair next to her desk. “I’ll just hit the highlights. Maybe it’s because I know what I’m looking for, but I’m seeing red flags all over the place.” She pulled out a file folder with about 10 pages of Xerox copies of articles. “Here’s the story of his being hired. It says he came from Aberdeen High School in South Dakota where he spent 1-1/2 years teaching science. What teacher leaves a job in the middle of a school year?”
Martin scoured the page and read the areas where Shirley had flagged the copy with yellow highlighter. “You’re right, Shirley, that doesn’t make sense at all.”
“And look at this. Here is an announcement that Talbot would serve as Girls Track Coach his second year of teaching at Siren High,” she went on, excitedly showing Martin another story. “Three months later, there’s another announcement that Talbot was replaced as coach because of ‘scheduling conflicts’. What the hell does that mean?”
“Then there is this story about the alarming number of Indian students, particularly girls, who drop out of high school in Burnett County,” she said as she pulled out another piece of paper. “It says the school board and tribal leaders were charged with looking into it and reporting back at a future school board meeting. But I don’t see anything about a report.” She shook her head and added, “The one thing I do know is the guy who wrote this story was fired from the Sentinel soon after this story was published. I was here - I saw it happen.”
Martin barely heard the implied threat to his job security. He was astounded at the amount of information Shirley had already collected and said, “Shirley, this is amazing. How many papers have you gone through?”
“Martin,” she replied, “I’m barely into the 80s.”