by Matt Coyle
I hit my hot chocolate. Still hot, rich, and creamy and had crept into my top five all time hot chocolate list.
“Is that for my benefit or your own?” I smiled. “I think you’re starting to come over to my side. Something’s not right about Keenan Powell. Why did Keenan ‘Billy’ Powell from Smokey Mountain Ranch and nephew to ole Colt Benson, making him and Shay cousins, meet with Shay multiple times in La Jolla after not seeing her for twenty-five years? A long way—in many ways—from Bellevue, Idaho.”
“We don’t know if their meetings in La Jolla were the first in twenty-five years. They could have been talking all along. Maybe they were close.”
“Between the two of us, you’re the only one who saw them together. Did they look like they were close to you?”
“Not particularly. I’ll concede that and I agree there are some things that need to be checked out.” Moira’s head seemed to be angled between me and the door of the coffee shop. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I bet they were on the door. “This is where you need to rein in your gut and follow the facts that we know and not your hunches. I know you too well. You’re about to jump blindly into this Idaho conspiracy and close your eyes to all other facts. Pun intended.”
“Maybe, but my gut is telling me something else, too.” I said.
“Oh, no. Another conspiracy?”
“Nope, just something I can see with my own two eyes. That ole cowboy outside has taken a shining to you.”
“Wrong again.” Light tone to her voice. “And he’s not that old.”
A cold breeze sliced through the coffee shop and the clank of a shut door came behind it. Return of the not-so-old cowboy. Jimmy Hunter sat back down at the table.
“Took a little back-and-forth, but I got a name, phone number, and address for you. Sonny Hester. His office is in Twin Falls, about an hour down the road.” Arm movement and something clanked down on the table in front of Moira. “Jake texted me his number. It’s on the screen with his address.”
Movement from Moira and she pulled something out of her purse and pointed it at the table. Her phone to take a photo of the information.
“Got it. Thanks, Jimmy.” A slight lilt in her voice.
“My pleasure, ma’am.” I had the feeling he would have tipped his hat if he hadn’t already taken it off. “When are you folks flying back to San Diego?”
“Tomorrow.” Moira. Couldn’t tell if she batted her eyelashes. “We fly out of Boise.”
“Anybody in California still eat meat? There’s a steakhouse down the road that serves Smokey Mountain Ranch beef. The best you’ll ever eat. They treat me like a big shot when I go in for dinner. It would be my honor to host you two.”
He meant one.
“We prefer faux meat.” I jumped in before Moira could answer. “Any tofu burger joints around here?”
“Shut up, Rick.” A little giggle in her voice. “We’d love to take you up on that, but we’re driving back to Boise tonight. We fly out early tomorrow morning. Rain check?”
“Of course.”
“And if you ever make it to San Diego, dinner’s on me.”
“Us,” I said.
“Shut up, Rick.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
WE GOT TO Sonny Hester’s office in Twin Falls by 5:30 p.m. I called ahead and he agreed to keep his office open until we arrived. Normal closing time, 4:30 p.m. By the sound of his voice, that might be the exact time he took advantage of nearby restaurants’ senior citizens early bird specials.
We lost the ranch and pine smells from Bellevue when we got out of the car in Twin Falls. From the look of the horseshoe of rectangle shapes attached to each other, I guessed we landed in a strip mall. I tapped alongside Moira until we reached what looked like a glass door. Moira opened it and we went inside. To a cigar shop. At least that’s what it smelled like. With a fresh one lit.
“Mr. Hester?” Moira asked.
The room was dark and I could only make out a desk-like structure in the back with a dark human shape slumped behind it.
“You sound surprised.” The gravelly voice I heard on the phone. “Is that because you didn’t expect to see a black man in Idaho or a private dick so old?”
“The second one;” Moira said. “And smoking a cigar.”
“Well, your friend here, the blind one, told me on the phone that you two are private detectives from California.” A barbed cough with a lot of phlegm. “Maybe out there, you’re all private dicks to the stars, but the rest of us don’t get rich running skip traces, and spying on adulterers and workers comp fraudsters. I’m seventy-four years old and I don’t have a comfy retirement waiting for me, so I still work five days a week and smoke in my own damn office. Is that a problem for your Hollywood sensibilities?”
I told Hester on the phone who we were and that we wanted to talk to him about June Sommers. I was surprised when he invited us down immediately. He didn’t have to try to remember who June Sommers was or ask what we wanted to know. It had already been a long day for both Moira and me after getting up at 4:30 a.m. for the flight with a layover in Vegas and then the two-hour drive from Boise to Bellevue. We both would have preferred to talk to Hester over the phone, but agreed we couldn’t afford not to take advantage of a face-to-face.
Now I was concerned that we’d just wasted another hour on the road. Hester seemed prickly enough to prefer to argue rather than be forthcoming with information.
“Not a problem,” I said and took a step closer to the desk. “And we’re from San Diego, not Hollywood.”
“Same difference.” Hester put a hand to his face. A drag off the cigar.
“Not to San Diegans.” I found the back of a chair in front of the desk and tapped with my cane to the left to make sure there were two. Moira pulled the second chair away from the desk and sat down right after my cane clanked off it. I followed her lead. The chair was wooden and uncomfortable. Perfect.
“You all comfy now? Can I get you an espresso or a Perrier?” A snort from behind the desk.
“We’re here to talk about June Sommers.” I leaned forward and set my forearms on the desk. “You still have her file?”
There were a couple upright rectangles against the wall to the left of Hester’s desk. File cabinets. Hester may have had a personal computer way back in the early ’90s, but I guessed his file on June Sommers, if he still had it, was in one of those file cabinets.
“I got it right here on my desk, Longstreet.” Hester raised something over his head.
“Longstreet?” I said.
“Forget it.” He brought his hand back down to his desk. “You’re too damn young. No sense of history.”
“We understand that Ms. Sommers hired you back in 1994 or ’95 to find Colt Benson who’d stolen a lot of money from her, the proceeds from the sale of her family ranch.” Moira.
“By Ms. Sommers, if you mean June, then yes, that is correct. And the actual amount was eight hundred sixty-one thousand dollars. He didn’t just steal the ranch from June, he stole almost her entire life savings.” Cigar back to his face. “But you’re really here on account of the murder of Shay, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I answered for both of us. “I didn’t know that you’d heard about her death.”
“Why? You don’t think we have cable TV out here? Satellite? The internet?”
Prickly.
“The Hunters hadn’t heard about it.” Time to give in. “Faulty assumption on my part.”
“Faulty assumption is right. Making an ass out of you and not me.”
“Is there a good steakhouse near here?” Moira, a step ahead of me as always. “We haven’t eaten anything since an Egg McMuffin in the Las Vegas airport this morning. Why don’t you grab that file and we can discuss it over dinner?”
“You’re buying?”
“Of course.” Moira.
Sonny Hester’s mass shot up from behind the desk and he was past us in three long strides.
“Idaho Joes is just down the street.” H
e tucked something against the broad frame of his body. The file. “They have fine steaks, but I go there for the chicken pot pie.”
I went with the chicken pot pie. Brought back memories of Friday nights as a kid when my parents went out to dinner and left frozen pot pies in the oven for my sister and me. Idaho Joe’s were better. Moira went with a ten-ounce ribeye.
Hester got down to business halfway through dinner.
“I know you’re not here on behalf of the police.” He blew on a forkful of pot pie, shoved it in his mouth and continued. “So, you must be working for the defense.”
“Neither.” Moira. “I’m here to tie up a few loose ends.”
“What about you, Longstreet?”
“My friend was arrested for the murder. I don’t think he did it. I think a man named Keenan William Powell had something to do with it or knows something about it.”
“The nephew.”
“You know Powell?” Moira and me in unison.
“Not personally, but I know a little bit about him and his uncle.” More pot pie.
“And?” I said.
“I’ve been waiting for this day for twenty-five years.”
“What do you mean?” I leaned forward. “For Shay to be murdered?”
“Lord, no. That sweet little girl.” His head went back and forth. “So sorry it came to that. I mean someone contacting me about Colton Riley Benson. A snake of a man. And I mean that in the biblical sense. Evil.”
“We’re here about Keenan Powel, not Colt Benson.”
“One leads to the other.”
“Please explain.” I pushed aside the remnants of my pot pie. Eating didn’t sit well with discussing evil.
“I consulted this file after you called.” Hester patted the folder on the table. “But I didn’t really have to. I remember the case like it was yesterday. I kept it open and investigated on the side when I had time over the years for free. I finally stopped when June died.”
I appreciated Hester’s feelings for June Sommers, but we didn’t have time for nostalgia and he wasn’t making much sense.
“I’m confused. Do you mean you stopped working the case after Benson died?”
“Did I say that?” He turned toward Moira. “Did I say that, young lady?”
“No.”
“Correct. I am not a doddering old fool or a dummy.” More pot pie. He continued with the sound of food in his mouth. “It took me almost three years. Thirty-four months to be exact, but I finally found Benson. I tracked him to a little town in Northern California called Laytonville living under an assumed name. The town’s about three hours north of Sacramento.” He appeared to take something out of his pocket and the smell of burnt stogie filled our booth.
“I don’t think you can smoke that in here.” Moira.
“Who says I’m going to smoke it?” He put his hand up to his face and his profile had a long thin beak. “Anyway, I used a fax machine and a telephone to track that sonofabitch. He liked to gamble and I got close in Reno, but I finally tracked him to Red Fox Casino in Laytonville. Named after the Indian tribe, not the comedian. The director of security showed the photo I faxed over to all the employees. Dealers, pit bosses, chambermaids, cocktail waitresses, maintenance crew and he got a hit on Colt. He as going by the alias Clint Banks by this time. I contacted the Bellevue Marshall’s Office and the Mendocino Sheriff’s Department, which handles Laytonville, and gave them the rundown. Well, you guessed it—by the time a sheriff’s deputy rolled up to the casino, Benson was in the wind.”
I was ready to pack it up and drive to Boise so we could get some rest before our flight tomorrow. Smokey Mountain Ranch and Jimmy Hunter had been a hit. Sonny Hester was a miss. A cranky old fart who, despite being antisocial, was lonely and took the opportunity to tell us the story about the one that got away.
“All due respect, Mr. Hester, I don’t see how that changes the narrative. Is there anything else you can tell us about Colt Benson and Keenan Powell?”
“Change the narrative? Is that how they talk in California? Some stupid phrase instead of being direct?”
“The story you just told us doesn’t explain why you kept the Colt Benson file open long after he was dead.” The frustrations of the last two weeks leaked out into my voice. “Is that direct enough for you, Sonny?”
“Rick!” Moira.
“That’s okay, young lady.” Hester’s arm went up. “I’m not some frail old man who needs protecting. Let’s see what kind of private dick Mr. Longstreet here is. Now, may I continue with my narrative?”
“Sure.” I couldn’t wait until we were done with Hester so I could look up Longstreet online.
“I didn’t hear anything about Benson for another year.” Hester grabbed his stogie and rasped out a cough, then put the cigar back in the hangar. “I kept sending out faxes and talking to law enforcement from all over the West, Mexico, and Canada, seeking information on Benson or Clint Banks, the alias he used in Laytonville. Nothing. Radio silence for another year. Then I get a hit in Mexico, under his own name, Colt Benson. I alerted the Bellevue marshall and they contacted the Federales and two days later Benson died in a car crash in Tijuana. Anything strike a nerve for you there, Sherlock?”
His cigar was pointed at me. Sherlock. That one I knew.
“Yeah. Presumably he’d been using aliases while he was on the run, then all of a sudden you find him under his own name, and he dies shortly thereafter. Pretty convenient. But it’s not like he went missing on a sailboat out at sea. This was a car accident. There had to be a body. Right?”
“Yup. But don’t lose the thread, Columbo.”
“Who identified the body?”
“You’re not as dumb as you look.” A cigar-bobbing chuckle. “All due respect, of course.”
“Of course. Are you going to tell us who identified the body?”
“Yup and now you’ll understand why I kept the case open.” His hand went to his mouth and his beak disappeared. “Keenan ‘Billy’ Powell.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“YOU THINK COLT Benson faked his death and Keenan Powell was in on it?” Moira asked.
Our waitress showed up at that moment to clear our plates and tempt us with dessert. Hester ordered a piece of apple pie and a coffee. Chocolate cream pie for me. Coffee for Moira.
“That’s certainly a possibility, young lady, but’s there’s more to it, isn’t there?”
I doubted Moira liked being called young lady, but she held her tongue. Gathering information came first and Sonny Hester suddenly proved to be a fount of it.
“If Colt Benson faked his death, that meant someone else’s body was in his place.” Moira.
“Bingo, Jessica Fletcher.”
I’d heard of her and Columbo. Longstreet was still a blank.
“Wouldn’t they at least check dental records?” I asked.
“This was Mexico twenty-five years ago.” Sonny. “All things were possible. After stealing eight hundred sixty-one thousand dollars from June Sommers, Benson had enough money to make it happen.”
“Even get away with murder?” Moira.
“May not have been murder. Maybe he paid someone at the morgue or a mortuary. Pull a body out of the cremation chamber before they light the fuse and give the grieving family the leftover remains of somebody else. No one’s the wiser. Could have done it any number of ways, but, you’re right, murder is a possibility. Wouldn’t put anything past Colt Benson.”
“What about Keenan Billy Powell? Is he a chip off his uncle’s old block?” I asked.
“Decide for yourself.” Hester shifted backwards and the booth back groaned like he’d settled in. “June told me Billy visited her every couple of weeks after Benson ran off with her money. Said she’d only met him a couple times before Benson left and all of a sudden, he’s June’s best friend and constantly apologizing for what his uncle did. June moved down here to Twin Falls the summer before the kid was supposed to go off to Boise State for his freshman year of college.
He went to the College of Southern Idaho instead. A JC right here in Twin Falls. June and Shay Sommers’ new home.”
“And all of this started after June hired you to find Benson?” Moira.
“Yup.”
“Powell befriended June Sommers to check up on her. Find out if you were making progress in finding him.”
“I can tell she’s the smart one in your partnership.” Hester pointed his cigar at me again. “I guess that makes you the muscle? Although, judging by that swollen nose of yours, maybe you better try something else.”
“I’m the pretty one.” I could take his insults for a while longer. Besides, the cigar-smelling old guy was starting to grow on me. My grandfather smoked a cigar. “Did June figure out Powell was a spy on her own?”
“No. Once she told me Powell started showing up, I did some snooping around. That’s how I found out he had been accepted to Boise State as a freshman. His family could afford the tuition. I knew he was up to no good when he opted out of Boise State and went to the JC here.”
“Did you tell June about your concerns?” Moira.
“Yes. She didn’t believe me at first. So I had her tell Billy that she couldn’t afford me anymore and that I stopped working for her. Part of which was true. She’d stopped paying me months before, but I continued to investigate pro bono. Anyway, sure enough, Billy transferred to Boise State the next year.”
“And you kept looking for Benson for the next two decades pro bono?” Moira.
“On and off. When I could.” The hacking cough. “I’m not about charity cases. Life is hard and I had seven children to feed. But my daddy ran out on my momma and her five kids when I was four. About the same age it happened to little Shay. He didn’t rob my momma dry like Benson did to June Sommers because she didn’t have anything worth stealing, but he stole her youth and the life she deserved. And he left a hole where a father should have been. No child and no woman deserve that. Not my mamma and me and not June and Shay Sommers.”
