Smith's Monthly #16

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  She nodded.

  “How many pictures would you say you have of him?” Jesse asked after a moment.

  “Over fifty at least,” she said, frowning. “Maybe more. From a couple dozen different photographers and sources from all over the west. Duster Kendal was a major figure in the Old West. Why?”

  Jesse just sat there, staring at his food.

  “Give me a minute to try to explain,” he said. “Although I have no explanation for that picture. None.”

  Then he dug into his chicken fried steak and the color came back to his face.

  She went back to eating and they sat there in silence, not at all the way she had hoped this would end up.

  CHAPTER SIX

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  JESSE HAD NO idea what to do. None of this could be real, of course, but who could be playing that kind of scam on Kelli? And such an extensive scam.

  And including him and Duster and Madison in the picture? He had heard Bonnie call Duster “Marshal” numbers of times when they were together.

  But Duster had never met Kelli. Jesse knew that. And Jesse had only met Madison once since he had done all the investigating on him.

  So this just flat made no sense in any way.

  No one could tie the four people in that picture together in any way.

  He took another bite of the wonderful steak, then got off the stool.

  “Don’t let her take that,” he said to Kelli, pointing to his half-finished plate.

  “I think I heard that somewhere before,” she said, smiling.

  He laughed. “I’m going to make a phone call that might get us both an explanation of that picture.”

  Kelli looked stunned. “How could you do that? Who are you?”

  Damn, he was going to have to explain himself, tell her what he had really been doing. He had never had this happen in all his years of being an investigator.

  “I’ll explain when I get back in a second,” Jesse said and strode out the door without his hat and coat, the phone in his hand already dialing Duster’s number.

  He stood by his Jeep, looking out over the rough ocean, trying to calm himself. The cool ocean breeze helped a lot to clear his mind.

  After a moment, Duster answered.

  “Jesse,” Duster said. “How’s it going with Kelli Rae?”

  “Up until a few moments ago,” Jesse said, “just perfectly. She’s as clean as they come and as dedicated a historical researcher as I have ever seen.”

  “Great,” Duster said. “Thought so. So what happened?”

  “We’re on the Oregon Coast,” Jesse said. “I have no idea what’s she’s researching, but she’s been on the coast for a few days. I went into the same restaurant she was having dinner in a few minutes ago and she instantly recognized me.”

  “Slipping up there, old friend?” Duster asked, laughing.

  “No,” Jesse said. “She recognized me from a photo she had. The photo is of you and me and Madison standing on a sidewalk in Roosevelt, Idaho, in 1908. She was also in the photo, but she didn’t recognize herself until I pointed it out.”

  Silence.

  Duster Kendal said nothing.

  “You still there?” Jesse asked.

  “I am,” Duster said.

  “So who could pull this kind of scam on her,” Jesse asked, “with all of us included and why? Anyone but you and Bonnie know I’ve been investigating her?”

  “No,” Duster said.

  “Got any idea what is going on?” Jesse asked. “How Madison got into a picture like that?”

  “I do,” Duster said. “But I need to talk with Bonnie first. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”

  “It’s going to be hard to hold her off that long,” Jesse said.

  “Take your laptop in with you,” Duster said, “and set it up for a video conference call. We will want to talk with her. You have my permission to tell her what you have been doing.”

  “So we are going to blow my cover,” Jesse said.

  “Yes,” Duster said. “But your job is clearly far from done.”

  With that Duster hung up.

  Jesse now was more confused than he had been when he came out of the diner. He grabbed his laptop from the back seat of his Jeep and went back into the wonderful-smelling diner.

  Kelli Rae glanced back at him and smiled. “Mystery solved?”

  “I think I just made it worse,” Jesse said, getting back on his stool and putting his laptop beside hers on the counter.

  “Worse?” she asked, looking puzzled.

  He nodded. “Yeah, a lot, lot worse. And honestly, this entire thing is making me angry. Take a look at the third man in that picture.”

  Kelli frowned and opened up her laptop, going easily back to the picture.

  “Do you know the name under the third man?”

  “Not from the past,” she said. “He shows up in numbers of pictures, but usually not credited.”

  “Think of that name today and put the word doctor in front of it,” Jesse said, taking another bite of the wonderful steak, then pulling off a piece of the soft roll. He needed the wonderful food to keep him calm here.

  “Sure,” Kelli said, shrugging. “There’s a famous historian by the name of Madison Rogers. He writes mostly about the mine wars in Montana.”

  “And he’s married to…?” Jesse asked.

  “Historian Dawn Edwards,” Kelli said, glancing at the picture again. “Her most famous book is about this town in the picture.”

  “I know both of them,” Jesse said.

  “You do?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

  “You are not going to like this part,” he said.

  “Fire away,” she said.

  “I’m a private investigator who has a firm in McCall, Idaho, and I sometimes have done background checks on mathematicians and historians for a certain client. I did one on Dawn Edwards and on Madison, the same Madison in that fake picture.”

  “Oh,” was all Kelli said.

  That was more than Jesse could think to say at the moment.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  “THIS IS JUST flat weird,” Kelli said. Then what he had said suddenly dawned on her. “You are investigating me?”

  Jesse pushed his plate forward and turned to face her. He was more handsome than she had realized before. And he didn’t look happy. She didn’t blame him and she was a long way from happy. A long damn ways. She never expected to run into a nut case tracking her out here. Especially such a good-looking one.

  He nodded. “I am.”

  He then opened his laptop and got it going. “The couple who hired me to look into you would like to talk with you.”

  He pointed to the screen.

  “And why would I want to talk with them?” she asked, feeling just about as angry as she had felt in a damn long time. She didn’t often get really angry, but when she did, and lost control, it was never a pretty sight.

  “Because that picture, when I told my client about it, rocked him. And honestly, I want to find out what the hell is exactly going on as well. That picture is not possible.”

  “It’s a fake,” she said, disgusted. “What’s the big damn deal?”

  “No doubt it’s a fake,” he said. “But how?”

  “Some discrediting stunt as you said. Did you set it up?”

  “You were the one that showed it to me, remember?” Jesse said. “I had no intention of doing anything but having lunch here, saying hello, and then heading back to Idaho with my job done.”

  “So did I come clean?” she asked, her words biting.

  “I don’t make judgments, I just investigate,” he said. “But here is the key with that picture. Only the couple who hired me know I was doing a background check on you. For what reason, I have no idea. They did not tell me, but I would trust both of them with my life.”

  “So,” she said, wishing the woman from the kitchen
would come out of the back so she could pay and just get the hell out of here. At least the state cop was still sitting in the booth behind her if there was a problem.

  “When did you get that picture?” he asked.

  “About a year ago,” she said, suddenly realizing how impossible that was as well.

  Jesse went on. “I had never heard of your name a year ago. They did not create that picture and you didn’t and I didn’t create it, yet you found it a year ago and recognized me in it and showed it to me. Something is going on we both need to know about, don’t you think?”

  She just shook her head. As he said, not a bit of this was making sense, and that scared her.

  “As I said, I have done this for five different historians in the past for the same couple who hired me. I have also investigated an architect, an interior designer, and two mathematicians. Both the mathematicians were higher-level theorists and they both work for the couple who hired me now.”

  “And what do your clients do?” she asked.

  “I have told you more than I should,” Jesse said. “They gave me permission to blow my cover and tell you what I was doing, but beyond that let them tell you. And honestly, other than their names, I have no idea why they hired me to do a background report on you.”

  At that moment his computer dinged and he started up the conference call.

  “Is she there?” a man’s voice on the screen asked.

  “She is,” Jesse said. “Angry as she has a right to be, and wanting answers, as do I.”

  At least he acknowledged she had a right to be upset about being investigated.

  “Let us talk with her,” the man’s voice said.

  Jesse turned the computer around so that it faced Kelli.

  On the screen were two people. One was a dead replica for Duster Kendal, the other a dead replica for a woman known in the San Francisco area around the turn of the century as Bonnie Kendal.

  Kelli jerked back. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Doctor Rae,” the man said. “I would like to introduce myself. I am Duster Kendal. This is my wife, Bonnie.”

  “So you two have been planting the fake pictures,” Kelli said.

  Both of them shook their heads.

  “We planted no fake pictures,” Bonnie said. “And I am sorry you had to discover we were having a background check done on you before we had a chance to meet. You have a right to be angry and we apologize. We have an offer for you and it is sensitive and we needed to know who you really are before making the offer. Nothing more than that.”

  Kelli shook her head. “I have no idea who you are, I don’t need a job, and I sure don’t need some private detective following me around.”

  She glanced at Jesse when she said that, but he was looking down at his almost empty coffee cup just shaking his head.

  “We don’t expect you to trust us,” Duster said. “And we were never going to offer you a job. We were going to offer you a way to help in your book research. Nothing more. We are sending you our history, our CVs, and so on. And we also have six others sending their backgrounds, as well as our character references to you.”

  “All we ask,” Bonnie said, “Is that you meet us in Portland to talk with us, give us a chance to make an offer we think you might be interested in.”

  “Can you explain the picture?” Kelli said.

  “We can, yes,” Bonnie said. “We can explain them all. There is an explanation.”

  “I would love to hear that as well,” Jesse muttered, more to himself.

  Kelli sat back slightly on the stool. The idea that they weren’t offering her a job and wanted to help in her research was interesting. It calmed her some.

  And it calmed her that the investigator they had hired was as upset about all this as she was. If what they had to offer was something special, of course they would have had her investigated. It was not the first time someone had looked over her life. She had nothing to hide.

  So they had been following standard procedure and the picture had just knocked everything off the rails.

  No one said a word as she stared at the two people facing her on the screen. They had been in so many pictures from so many collections that were authenticated, she had to know how they had done that, and why.

  “Send me your information and your references,” Kelli said. “Then I’ll decide if I want to talk or not.”

  “It’s in your e-mail as we speak,” Bonnie said. “Have Jesse call us back after you have looked it over.”

  “Understood,” she said.

  She pushed the laptop back toward Jesse.

  He turned it around. “I’m going to need an explanation for those pictures as well. And exactly why I’ve been doing all this. I think it’s beyond time I know the reason why.”

  “Only fair,” Kelli heard Duster say. “If Doctor Rae decides to meet us, we’ll explain it to both of you in Portland. If she chooses not to, we’ll show you when you get back to Boise.”

  “Thank you,” Jesse said, closing the laptop.

  She could tell he was clearly not happy either. The fake photo she had shown him had clearly stepped over some line for him as well.

  And for some reason that made her feel a lot better about him.

  Plus, he was just so damn good-looking. And he got even more handsome when annoyed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  SHE CLICKED ON her e-mail and let the documents upload quickly. As they were coming up, the woman from the back room came out and cleared off their plates.

  “Banana cream pie ta die for,” the large woman said as she filled both their coffee cups again. “Fresh cherry pie and fresh strawberry pie as well.”

  “I’ll take a piece of the banana cream,” Jesse said.

  “Same,” Kelli said, “And thanks for the use of your Wi-Fi.”

  “Nothing like that out here on the edge of nothin’,” the woman said, turning to head back into the kitchen.

  Jesse pointed to his computer. “Hot spot Wi-Fi.”

  She nodded and said nothing, because honestly she wasn’t sure what she could say at this point. So she focused on the information that had come to her computer.

  It seemed Bonnie and Duster Kendal were two of the most acclaimed theoretical mathematicians working today. They both had more degrees than she did, but not in history, in high level mathematics.

  She did a quick search for their records in other places. They had done some papers and from what she could tell wanted no credit for discoveries. They were acclaimed as the two most brilliant working math brains on the planet and lived a mostly secluded life in Boise.

  However, they had buildings and entire wings of science and math departments named after them in numbers of universities. Clearly they had donated a ton of money.

  She went to the six historians who had sent her references. Holy shit, it was the who’s who of modern working historians. Five were focused in American history, one worked in World War One and pre-war Europe. All six had added notes to her simply saying in one way or another, “Trust Bonnie and Duster.”

  Two women who sent along letters and their backgrounds were historical designers, both working in areas of historical renovation. All of them had numbers of books out.

  Clearly Bonnie and Duster had wanted to make her an offer that brought her into this group. Not at all sure why. Or what they could even offer her that she didn’t already have.

  She put the list of names who had sent her letters on her screen and turned it for Jesse to see. “You know these people.”

  He glanced at the list and nodded. “I have met them all at one point or another.”

  “You do background checks on all of them?” she asked.

  He looked very pained at that question.

  “You think Bonnie and Duster are going to care if you tell me that at this point?” she asked. She indicated the computer. “They are clearly doing their best to repair the damage from that p
icture at this point.”

  “I did,” Jesse nodded, looking back at his coffee. “And they were all told I had done that after the fact, as you would have been.”

  “Look,” she said, turning back to her computer. “I am sorry to have compromised your investigative ethics here. But to be honest with you, that picture is bothering me more than I want to think about right now. If I can’t trust what I find in major historical records, what can I trust for my books?”

  He looked at her, his green eyes intense. “It’s bothering me as well because a year ago no one knew I would be investigating you. Hell, I didn’t even know it. That picture took time to plant. I want to know how and why someone would do that.”

  “So we both have the same goal here,” she said. “Get some answers.”

  He nodded.

  At that point the woman brought huge slices of pie, a couple of fresh forks, and some extra napkins. She slid the pies in front of both of them.

  The slice of pie had to be a good six inches high and looked to be more like a quarter of a pie than a slice.

  “Wow,” Kelli said, moving her computer to the side a little. “Does this place serve anything small?”

  “When ya live on the edge of da planet,” the large woman said, “no point wastin’ time on da small stuff.”

  “Amen to that,” Jesse said, digging into the pie.

  Kelli laughed.

  And then went back to looking over the information she had been sent, looking for anything that seemed at all out of place.

  CHAPTER NINE

  July 14th, 2016

  Oregon Coast

  THEY HAD BOTH finished their huge slices of wonderful banana cream pie when Kelli finally surfaced from reading all the stuff Duster and Bonnie had sent her.

  Jesse had so overstepped his bounds on this meeting, he was disgusted with himself. There were no laws governing client confidentiality with investigators, but he had his own rules. And even though Bonnie and Duster had introduced themselves, he was still angry for being put in this position.